Game difficulty

[NeV3rKilL]

I spent the half of my healing spells just healing my tank when fighting against 3 or 4 beeltes, and my tank was near to die (really low life). While I could keep the stamina up with spells the life was something alarming after a couple of fights against those beetles, and they are just trash mobs giving 0 exp.

 

I think the better is entering into hide mode and evade them.

[Bazy]

Right now the "difficulty" in POE seems to come from mobs hitting really hard or there being a lot of them to handle at once. This is ok at times. But overall Difficulty should come from enemies that work in different ways and challenge you to think about the choices you have and the tools to use. 

 

Why are the beetles hard? they do a lot of damage 

Why are the lions hard? they do a lot of damage 

Why are the spiders hard? There are a lot of them

 

At the same time these enemies all act very similar. Attack first enemy it sees. This results in almost every single encounter being essentially the same. Have your tank absorb the damage and CC if there are a lot. You never really are force to think/do anything else. 

 

This in turn, means melee toons are a liability because they are not good in this "meta," Ranged characters dominate. So currently yes the game is hard, if you have bunch of melee or position poorly. It's kind of a joke if you have a bunch of ranged and position decently. Either way, it gets repetitive.

 

The difficulty levels don't really change this. They make things "harder," but don't really challenge you to make choices.

Edited August 20, 2014 by Bazy

[Billy O]

Right now the "difficulty" in POE seems to come from mobs hitting really hard or there being a lot of them to handle at once. This is ok at times. But overall Difficulty should come from enemies that work in different ways and challenge you to think about the choices you have and the tools to use. 

 

Why are the beetles hard? they do a lot of damage 

Why are the lions hard? they do a lot of damage 

Why are the spiders hard? There are a lot of them

 

At the same time these enemies all act very similar. Attack first enemy it sees. This results in almost every single encounter being essentially the same. Have your tank absorb the damage and CC if there are a lot. You never really are force to think/do anything else. 

 

This in turn, means melee toons are a liability because they are not good in this "meta," Ranged characters dominate. So currently yes the game is hard, if you have bunch of melee or position poorly. It's kind of a joke if you have a bunch of ranged and position decently. Either way, it gets repetitive.

 

The difficulty levels don't really change this. They make things "harder," but don't really challenge you to make choices.

 

We have seen such a limited number of enemies that I think it's too early to draw this conclusion. For the beta it makes sense to balance the classes against these fairly basic enemies before giving us more complex encounters.

[Bazy]

 

 

We have seen such a limited number of enemies that I think it's too early to draw this conclusion. For the beta it makes sense to balance the classes against these fairly basic enemies before giving us more complex encounters.

 

We can hope. But we can only give feedback on what's available. 

Edited August 20, 2014 by Bazy

[Kollblade]

Those lions are something else. I went to fight them for a lark, and everything was fine until they critted my main character twice in a row.

 

There was some... Oddness with the monk's wound system, or something; I got taken down to 25% health from the first takedown.

 

Oh High and Mighty Devs,

 

I've been having the same experience as Grand_Commander13 and probably a good percentage of the beta players. Sometimes a little strategy goes a long way and makes a pull easy. Other times I attack as normal, Monk and Fighter up front and we die with in a few seconds. I don't really understand the reasons.

 

I have probably died twenty times in the spider cave. I am convinced it must be a bug. My party attacks, My monks stamina runs out in a second, He dies within a half a second, instantly I get the "Your party has died" message.

 

Right now I'm really having trouble with combat. Either I face roll a mob without grasping why. Or, I die with in seconds of the initial pull, without knowing why.

 

If I had to encourage you guys to really focus on "fixing" one thing, its the combat. Right now its a total coin flip, 50/50. I find myself just as likely to die to a beetle as an ogre. I also have no idea what is happening. I've tried incorporating more pauses and it just feels clunky like the pacing is wrong. I've tried slow mode and it feels laborious. I support you guys and believe you're going to make a great game. Its just that right now the beta isn't very fun because I cant really play it.

 

Ps.(Portraits during conversations would be sweet too)

 

Thanks Devs,

[Dragoon-]

I think if the player just want walk along a path without much concern and micro then he should play on easy. But on normal I would expect at least standard behavior from a player during an encounter. Means fighters at front and not to expose your supporters.

[Doppelschwert]

I think one of the main problems is how DT controls the flow of battle too much on both sides. The weapon and armor types are basically not an incentive but rather rock paper scissor. Instead of having say, the damage being ~ 0 / 20 / 40 by using an ineffective / neutral / effective weapon, it should be more like ~ 15 / 20 / 25. At the same time, enemy damage should be toned down so that both sides die more slowly. That would give more time to react and is not as demanding.

 

I think proper weapon balancing like this and getting rid of the bugs would already go a long way to fix the difficulty. At the moment, most part of the damage reduction on your party comes from deflection, not from armor, which again makes every blow either hitting hard or not hard at all. I think the solution would be to tone the variance down, e.g. making graces hit harder and giving enemies higher accuracy instead of higher base damage.

Edited August 20, 2014 by Doppelschwert

[GrinningReaper659]

If you're not playing on easy, and normal is too difficult for you, I'd suggest giving easy a try... I found it to be a breeze on easy, I explained my experience in more detail on the "first impressions" thread. If easy mode is too difficult for a large group of people then I would definitely support adding another, easier option for those people, but if you haven't tried easy and are simply trying to get the "normal" setting to adhere to your desired level of difficulty, I don't see the point. The developers create the standard difficulty as a baseline for how much challenge they think most people should experience throughout their story, and the other difficulties allow players with a higher or lower challenge requirement to be accommodated.

 

Combat seemed a bit hectic at first but this feeling was diminished as I played more. Some people have mentioned that the combat is mentally draining to them because their warriors have too many activated abilities that must be used frequently. I see some merit there, and would highly recommend adding plenty of passive bonus options throughout level progression for those that prefer not to micromanage their warriors.

[Namutree]

If you're not playing on easy, and normal is too difficult for you, I'd suggest giving easy a try... 

I want to make this clear for all. The trash mobs are too strong compared to the special encounters. As I described earlier that the trash mobs were a greater challenge than the Ogre. That is just stupid. The biggest issue isn't that the game is too hard. It's that the difficulty curve is out of balance. Putting the game on easy will not solve this. As Doppelshwert said the rock-paper-scissors aspect of the game needs to be toned down. 

 

As well as a 10% hp reduction from the trash mobs.

[Dragoon-]

 

Combat seemed a bit hectic at first but this feeling was diminished as I played more. Some people have mentioned that the combat is mentally draining to them because their warriors have too many activated abilities that must be used frequently. I see some merit there, and would highly recommend adding plenty of passive bonus options throughout level progression for those that prefer not to micromanage their warriors.

 

 

I'm not sure, but won't we get some combat behavior scripting and even an editor later, like we had in Baldur's Gate?

 

I made extensive use of the combat behavior settings and later created my own scripts. This was very helpful to reduce micro management, especially during difficult fights at higher levels and in the expansion. Like against the demon prince Demogorgon with a >lvl20 party. In general it paid off and was fun to customize scripts to adapt to my play style. Almost like strategy planing how to use ability in the right way, and when to trigger certain effects depending on status conditions. Great fan of this. I even had to fix a bug in BG2 when I did my bard script, because activating his confusion song (TOB ability) via script caused it to apply the confusion effect to friendlies too.

Edited August 21, 2014 by Dragoon-

[Tartantyco]

I'd say the Stone Beetles are pretty strong(And maybe those big Crystal Eater spiders). I haven't had any issues with anything else.

 

Wood Beetles can dish out damage with their poison, but they can also be focused down pretty quick. The Lion pride was a walk in the park for me, as were the Spiders, Wolves, and Ogre. Haven't had issues with any of the humanoid enemies, either.

[GrinningReaper659]

 

If you're not playing on easy, and normal is too difficult for you, I'd suggest giving easy a try... 

I want to make this clear for all. The trash mobs are too strong compared to the special encounters. As I described earlier that the trash mobs were a greater challenge than the Ogre. That is just stupid. The biggest issue isn't that the game is too hard. It's that the difficulty curve is out of balance. Putting the game on easy will not solve this. As Doppelshwert said the rock-paper-scissors aspect of the game needs to be toned down. 

 

As well as a 10% hp reduction from the trash mobs.

 

Okay, well then I guess I just disagree. I haven't yet fought the ogre, but the non "trash mobs" I fought (group of four at drake egg; lead cultist encounter) seemed to be appropriately more difficult than the "trash mobs," many of which on easy could be defeated with minimal ill effects with simply selecting all party members and left clicking on the enemies. Bigger enemies required tactics, trash mobs didn't.

 

I suppose I wouldn't protest to a slightly (~10%) greater disparity in difficulty between these types of encounters, either by making the bosses 10% more difficult or the trash mobs 10% less.

[Leferd]

I'm reading a lot about trash mobs. But what would qualify as a trash mob? Are they masses of sprites to be dispatched via an instant win button?

 

So far I haven't really come across as anything that would be classified as a trash mob. The giant beetles? They can be very deadly but can be quickly dispatched if you target the wood beetles before the stone beetles. Giant spiders? Take out the widow makers first.

 

All it takes is a little know how and knowing who or what you're going up against.

 

Thankfully there aren't any xvart villages to massacre to fulfill my psychopathic urges.

[Billy O]

If something is so easy you kill it without a thought for strategy what is the point? I like that every encounter could kill you if mismanaged.

[Namutree]

If something is so easy you kill it without a thought for strategy what is the point? I like that every encounter could kill you if mismanaged.

I don't, and here's why:

 

A) Trash mobs bring a refreshing break to exploration without stealing the show. Think of exploration as a slice of pizza and trash mobs as seasoning; now think of strong trash mobs as super strong seasoning. So strong is the seasoning you can't even taste the pizza anymore.

 

B) Weak trash mobs also make the bosses feel more special. When you are fighting a boss you won't be used to being pushed so hard by the game, and this battle will be very memorable. With strong trash mobs the bosses won't stand out, and what would be epic moments in the story will feel very anti-climactic.

 

C) This isn't a big deal for everyone, but weak trash mobs make the player feel like a boss. 

 

Not to mention all the problems that come with strong trash mobs.

[PIP-Clownboy]

 

If something is so easy you kill it without a thought for strategy what is the point? I like that every encounter could kill you if mismanaged.

I don't, and here's why:

 

A) Trash mobs bring a refreshing break to exploration without stealing the show. Think of exploration as a slice of pizza and trash mobs as seasoning; now think of strong trash mobs as super strong seasoning. So strong is the seasoning you can't even taste the pizza anymore.

 

B) Weak trash mobs also make the bosses feel more special. When you are fighting a boss you won't be used to being pushed so hard by the game, and this battle will be very memorable. With strong trash mobs the bosses won't stand out, and what would be epic moments in the story will feel very anti-climactic.

 

C) This isn't a big deal for everyone, but weak trash mobs make the player feel like a boss. 

 

Not to mention all the problems that come with strong trash mobs.

 

 

The MOBA generation in a nutshell ladies and gentlemen. 

[bob54386]

What I don't want is to feel like any progression at all is a chore -- I want the interesting fights to be tough, I don't want every trash encounter to take a few mins spamming all my skills.  There have certainly been times I quit playing games because progression just seems to take inordinately long.

 

I think my happy setting would be: trash mobs with 'easy' spawn sizes, but encounters with XP /Quest Objectives / interesting stuff, tied to 'normal' spawn sizes.  A similar setting in-between 'normal' and 'hard' would probably also be nice.  I think this helps to minimize unavoidable 'fluff' combat that's arguably useless (re: XP debate).  This cannot be achieved with the current slider difficulty since mob density is determined on zoning.  You can't change it in the middle of an encounter.

 

I did my first beta run on easy, and that felt like a reasonable pace to advance through the content.  I've yet to go through a second time on normal+ with the 'naked ranged characters' strategy.  I'd imagine with an effective strategy it is much quicker than my first couple of failed attempts.

[Lorfean]

 

The challenge of these encounters (lions, spiders) seemed on par with some of the more dangerous wildlife in BG1 -- Dread Wolves, Mountain Bears, Giant / Phase spiders -- which could really mess up low lvl characters if they weren't at least a bit careful.

 

Except that your party in poe isn't low level.

 

They are though. That's what I was trying to point out -- those wildlife examples from BG1 are encountered around the same level that your party is in the PoE beta. Depending on where you go of course, but if you don't stray too far from the route the story steers you in, you'll be encountering wolves, dogs and black and brown bears from lvl ~1-3 and more of the above examples at lvl ~4-6. And they provide appropriate challanges. In my opinion anyway.

 

Symantics aside though (low lvl or not) I simply disagree with your opinion that "trash" encounters should be easy to defeat and I like that the wildlife in PoE provides an appropriate challenge. I would like for them to beef up the Ogre and Spider Queen a bit, yes, but the normal creatures feel fine to me.

[Mayama]

I seriously dont get why people call the game hard?!?!

 

It feels like people that complain that the game is way to difficult didnt even bother to read skills. Basicaly they dont read the manual and complain that they fail.

 

Ok try this on normal difficulty:

1) Activate Constant recovery and defender on your BB Fighter. Your fighter is now a tank, nothing else you have to do. So much about people complaining that you need to press to many buttons when you play a warrior... you need to press 2 and than he is set forever, at least in the beta demo.

 

2) Put your party in a position so that the enemies attack only the BB Fighter, really simple just move him into the enemy group.

 

3) Let your BB Priest cast consecrated ground, a level 2 spell, over your BB Fighter.

 

4) Everyone in your party now attackes the most dangerous enemy like wood beetles or widowmakers.

 

5) If its a really durable enemy cast some single target spells with your BB Wizard

 

6) Collect loot

 

This works with EVERY group in the whole beta, you will never die if you dont do stupid things like attacking 6 lions at once. I think the game is actually way to easy right now even on hard mode. You can basicaly rush through all enemies you only need to read the f* manual.

Edited August 21, 2014 by Mayama

[Bazy]

This works with EVERY group in the whole beta, you will never die if you dont do stupid things like attacking 6 lions at once. I think the game is actually way to easy right now even on hard mode. 

This does seem to be the case. You can apply the same general strat to almost every fight. Which can get really boring.

 

I Sometimes just want to charge in and kill things. 

Edited August 21, 2014 by Bazy

[Mayama]

 

This works with EVERY group in the whole beta, you will never die if you dont do stupid things like attacking 6 lions at once. I think the game is actually way to easy right now even on hard mode. 

This does seem to be the case. You can apply the same general strat to almost every fight. Which can get really boring.

 

Sometimes I just want to charge in and kills things.

 

 

It would be alot more demanding if the AI would not only target the first hero it sees and their attack range would be more than 3 meters.

Edited August 21, 2014 by Mayama

[Bazy]

It would be alot more demanding if the AI would not only target the first hero it sees and their attack range would be more than 3 meters.

 

Yep. A couple times I just ran my tank in. Cast beetle shell on him. Then used my naked mage and druid to aoe on top of him. And they just sat in it. Pounding on the beetle shell.

 

I kind of wish mobs would target low armor targets, unless they engaged in melee by the tank. Right now the engagement limit is pointless because they all run to the tank anyway if he is in front. 

Edited August 21, 2014 by Bazy