Difficulty level

[kabaliero]

played all infinity games on "core rules"

 

higher difficulty should be rewarding

through xp and loot bonuses in the least

and plot-wise at best

secret bosses, quests, lore, characters!

with awesome unique philosophy and cracking punchlines

maybe even romance

 

ahhh

 

yes, in that case i'd pick the hardest

[J.E. Sawyer]

Does this depend on difficulty level?

 

No.

[Sensuki]

does Path of the Damned have any level scaling or is it just "all monsters"?

[J.E. Sawyer]

It's all enemies from all levels of difficulty and they have increased stats (don't remember the specifics off the top of my head).

[Stun]

PoE's traps tend to be extremely damaging.

Finally: We're back to having a game where traps are a threat, instead of just a token annoyance.

 

I approve.

Edited July 23, 2014 by Stun

[Silent Winter]

 

Sure you can - it would just be harder to get the balance right

(e.g. stealthing - larger detection circles for enemies / more enemies / larger 'presence' circles for allies (I forget what they're called).  Higher thresholds for lockpicking / higher requirements for scripted interactions) (though that may just mean your options for avoiding combat become more limited).

We're still not sure how much of the combat can be avoided - might be a moot point with Path of the Damned having more enemies than you can avoid perhaps.

 

But that is not really harder, the numbers are just higher. Also you can only increase the numbers up to a certain point.

 

Yeah, the higher thresholds aren't really harder - the stealthing circles is harder as you have to navigate your team more carefully around the enemy. (Having not played the game yet, I'm not 100% on how this works so this is based on how I imagine stealth working.)  (The numbers are only increased to a ertain point in any area before the game becomes unplayable)

So overall, I imagine this just makes avoiding combat harder - therefore just the harder combat will make up the actual difficulty.

Sounds like Path of the Damned is designed for those who like challenging combat anyway so probably won't be an issue for anyone trying it.

 

The only other ways I can think of (before playing the game) are also more expensive to implement (longer, more complex dialogue chains requiring you to scout out and know something about the person before you enter negotiations.  Longer, more complex missions to increase faction reputation.  Etc)

[Stun]

If players want special rewards for their achievements on expert difficulty settings,

I'd say the players really just want achievement badges but can't bring themselves

to admit it because achievements are so silly and steam evil bad immature.

I wouldn't go that far. Achievement badges have no in-game use. They're just silly online ego-boosters. But people who want increased/special rewards for increased challenges aren't looking to have their egos boosted. They just want to be "paid" accordingly for their hard work. If my party kills a huge ancient Dragon, I expect more rewards for completing such a task than if I had just killed a young dragonling.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

PoE's traps tend to be extremely damaging.

Are there any traps that inflict status conditions in addition to or instead of damage?

[bstrothe]

Unless the AI is really cheating, I usually go for hard mode. In games where my party are brain-dead, and the monsters are supraintellegent I grudgingly slide the difficultly down to normal. If even that ends in total party wipes, if it is a good story, I will go easy mode, otherwise I just rage-quit (I'm looking at you Blood Omen 2).

[Lephys]

I think that if Path of the Damned is the most difficult setting, it should just turn all the enemies into Diamond Golems. Then they could say with certainty "these are the hardest enemies you'll face."

 

6_u

[Sarex]

Are there any traps that inflict status conditions in addition to or instead of damage?

 

 

You mean this kind of trap?

Edited July 23, 2014 by Sarex

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

 

Are there any traps that inflict status conditions in addition to or instead of damage?

 

You mean this kind of trap?

Sanity loss is no laughing matter.

 

More seriously, traps whose main function is to debilitate rather than kill outright. In a PnP group(Pathfinder) I've been gming, I used traps that would stun the party and allow crossbowmen to fire bolts into them. I've found these types of traps to be more effective towards any class that isn't a Monk or Paladin.

[Sarex]

Yeah, that would be interesting, especially if enemies were coded to work with the traps, ie. ambush or something similar.

[Lysen]

It's all enemies from all levels of difficulty and they have increased stats (don't remember the specifics off the top of my head).

 

It seems that I have to play PoE with Path of the Damned enabled to experience the game fully.

[Lephys]

I'm gonna be a Ranger with an animal companion who's trained to detect traps. His name shall be Admiral Ackbar.

 

6_u

[Suspiria]

Most of the time i pick the fairest hardmode, ironman on second run or for an alt. I like the tension this creates. For me it has augmented my play experience in many games.

[Bazy]

pray the AI is good enough to be believable

This.

 

Ironman mode forever. Never understood reloading after dying. 

[AlluraHikaru]

Easy , i generally don't seek challenge in games i enjoy experience of a story and characters with gameplay being fun addition.

Edited August 23, 2014 by AlluraHikaru

[Trilby Norton]

I tend to leave the higher difficulty levels to subsequent playthroughs, at least in heavily narrative-driven games like PoE. I hate being locked off from story content just because I'm too incompetent to beat these monsters. If push comes to shove, I'll (reluctantly; I still have my pride) bump the difficulty down to easy so I can enjoy the story without all the frustration of being rubbish at games. After all, I play RPGs primarily for the story, characters and exploration; the combat is always a secondary concern for me.

 

All of that being said, I will give higher difficulties (or even Ironman mode if I'm feeling especially butch) a go once I've finished my initial playthrough.

[Bli1942]

I don't enjoy real time with pause combat at all so I just go easy in these games to get through the story and explore. I'd go hard if it was turn based or a first person game

[GrinningReaper659]

I usually start out with normal or one above normal and adjust according to how challenging the setting is to me. I've never done a true ironman playthrough of any game; however, when I started self-limiting rests and reloads to only be allowed at inns in BG1 it changed the game dramatically for the better in my opinion. It made resource management challenging in a fun way, and it also made the RP element more fulfilling for me as I only ever saved at inns and only reloaded on main character death. Never going back to change a slightly sub-optimal decision (or a party-altering tragedy such as losing a party member) makes a huge difference and really made me feel more involved in the story. When Viconia got chunked in our battle against Aec'Letec (Before heading into Baldur's Gate), that was something that had a real influence on the narrative of the playthrough as she was gone for good. So while I doubt I'll ever have the patience to attempt a true ironman run of a long RPG, I've received a lot of enjoyment mileage out of self-limiting reloads.

[sapientNode]

I started Pillars at a normal difficulty setting because I remember how Baldurs and similar games were back in the day.

I have now turned my difficulty to hard mode and will likely just turn on Path.

On hard I am still not even eating food or potions.  I am still only at Act 2 right now but I keep checking after each fight to see if somehow the difficulty changed back to easy because that is how the battles feel.

Of course with the abundance of magickal items and the crafting of food and enchants these also reduce the difficulty by a large margin.

 

I love all the additions and refinement to Pillars from the old school titles.

I miss the strategically placed items and the lack of rng and the feeling of wonder when we had just found a +1 blade that we would keep for the rest of the game likely.  Only nearing end game could we if we played right feel we were nearing god mode.

I already feel kind of godly and I am only on act 2

[Nakia]

I sometimes play on different difficulty levels in the same game.  I doubt I will ever play PotD  I will never ever play Trial of Iron!!!

[wanderon]

Read two pages of this wondering why it sounded like these people had never played the game before I determined I was reading posts from July 2014

 

I started on normal found it fairly challenging but after 1.06 have moved up to hard as it appeared normal had been nerfed (fewer enemies for specific battles was what I noticed first)

 

Now I am finding hard to be just a bit more challenging than normal was originally altho part of that is no doubt my familiarity with the first two chapters after restarting a dozen or more characters (and have only broken into chap 3 with one which I immediately set aside for now and made 3 more new ones  )

[Luckmann]

That's one hell of a necro.

 

Read two pages of this wondering why it sounded like these people had never played the game before I determined I was reading posts from July 2014

 

I started on normal found it fairly challenging but after 1.06 have moved up to hard as it appeared normal had been nerfed (fewer enemies for specific battles was what I noticed first)

 

Now I am finding hard to be just a bit more challenging than normal was originally altho part of that is no doubt my familiarity with the first two chapters after restarting a dozen or more characters (and have only broken into chap 3 with one which I immediately set aside for now and made 3 more new ones )

There's a long-standing bug relating to difficulty and the number of placed opponents. You probably ran into that one, because Normal should not have been nerfed in 1.06, afaik.

 

The bug has been hard to pin down and was still around as late as 1.05, and I'm not sure if they've managed to resolve it yet.

Edited July 15, 2015 by Luckmann