@ Ink Blot: I agree there should be varying levels of dificulty. The thing is we dont know what the easy or hard encounters are yet. We got a very small sampling here, so we can make asumptions with it. My personal hope is that normal encounters are like the beetles and cultists, easy encounters are like the Wolfs, whiping the floor encounters like the wurms ( maybe a bit harder) and hard encounters are like the Spider Queen and Ogre while optional really hard encounters are like...well, I dont know.

I share your hate for hate for scaled encounters. I also hope the trash mobs are rare and I feel more of a badass after taking on a difficult enemy than just mowing mooks, but thats just me

Ah, I see where you're coming from. I think we actually have the same outlook. From your listing of encounter difficulties I have to say that sounds about perfect to me. As to the wurms, this is, from what I can glean, a prime example of the Xvart village thing: you can pretty much take out all the mooks with a rusty spoon. The encounter with the 4 adventurers that are also looking for the egg will be fairly easy or average. But I believe after grabbing that egg, you may face something a little more difficult (I have a feeling you could be chased down by one very pissed off dragon). And that encounter should be hard. So yeah, a mix of things, with the majority being at least somewhat of a challenge.

@Sylvanpixie: what difficulty setting were you on?

Normal and Hard.

 

Normal was obliterated.

Hard required a bit of BB Fighter.

Both were easy.

 

Monk auto attack damage still OP as Funk.

 

Edited September 9, 201411 yr by Sylvanpyxie

As an aside, I especially enjoyed slogging through Lionheart trying not to get my ass handed to me by epic enemies named English Longswordsman or some such.

 

I agree with Fiebras that it's probably just getting the hang of a new system. I finished the first run and I'm going to start a new run on hard with Homer the Bard just to see how that plays. Maybe hire a barbarian instead of a pally this time.

There is nothing wrong with a lot of battles being hard and drawn out, but not all battles in the game should be this way.

Every battle shouldn't be some micromangement hell just to defeat some rabbits or something.

 

They will have to find a fine balance of battles that are very strategic and battles that are just fun .

If you have tons of creatures and enemies you are fighting you don't want every battle to be a long task to complete.

Who wants to constantly be fighting the same tedius battle using tons of skills and magics just to defeat some low level monster.

In Dyrford Crossing, I'd say that the beetles are the main challenge of the area (though I can't remember the shambler thingies at the moment, only fought them once). You need to kinda watch what you're doing there.

 

Wolves are really easy. The wurms are easy. The spiders outside are not really a problem. I don't think all the encounters in the beta are tough at all. 

 

Most of the challenges comes from inside the dungeons for me at least, which feels pretty fine. The Skaen temple kinda wears me down slowly more than having encounters that are downright dangerous. The spiders can really put a number on you in the cave.

I've only tried the ruin in the western area once since I don't want to spoil everything in the beta but the spectres there whooped me real fast.

 

Every battle shouldn't be some micromangement hell just to defeat some rabbits or something.

 

 

 

It depends on the rabbit...

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nvs5pqf-DMA

Edited September 9, 201411 yr by IndiraLightfoot

When my party was strong enough to just autoattack the skaen cultists to death I stopped caring about tactics and just charged into them with little injuries.

 

Part of it is due to HOW MANY cultists there are (a ton) and part of it is that the beta XP is set to "a lot" on purpose so theres no way to not be overleveled for the area (which is fine for the purpose of testing) and part of it is due to how having to unravel the combat becomes tedious when you are doing it every step you take (as combat is atm).

Thats something Id like to avoid happening in the final game.

Ps: im fine with mob density and variety in Dyford Crossing and other areas of the game, but Dyford ruins has not only a lot of enemies but they are all "the same" even though you have like 3-4 different types and all of them are very close together so the progress through that area ends up feeling like youre "stuttering"/constant disruption as oposed to the more flowing outdoor areas. Also the Adra weapon area is fine because you face only a few big diverse packs as oposed to many small packs (some even having only 1 mob).

There is nothing wrong with a lot of battles being hard and drawn out, but not all battles in the game should be this way.

Every battle shouldn't be some micromangement hell just to defeat some rabbits or something.

 

The thing is, the combat system of PoE make it so the same encounter can be something that end in a few seconds or get drawn out depending on your party composition, spell usages and weapons/armor.

 

If a battle is drawing out, check the combat log, I'm sure it's filled with "weapon ineffective" and craze damage messages.

Monk auto attack damage still OP as Funk.

 

Could it be that part of the reason for this power boost is that in Dyrford Crossing the majority of external enemies have relative vulnerability to crushing attacks? And are a Monk's fists crushing?

@Morhilain: I think they should announce weapons being ineffective with floating text and perhaps a voiceover ala the ie games. I'm sure others have already said as much an so this post is simply an affirmation of whoever said it first.

 

EDIT:  Damned phone makes posting hard.  ie games, not is games.

Edited September 9, 201411 yr by Cantousent

People that ask for easier combat usually ask for one of those three things:

 

1) I want more readability

 

2) I want better AI 

 

3) I want to win without reading ability descriptions / dont know what the monsters do

 

Monk auto attack damage still OP as Funk.

 

Could it be that part of the reason for this power boost is that in Dyrford Crossing the majority of external enemies have relative vulnerability to crushing attacks? And are a Monk's fists crushing?

 

 

Partly. However, considering the damage was also high on Lions, Wraiths and Cultists I would assume there is more going on.

 

Also taking into account the comparisons with other melee classes wielding crushing weapons - Primarily Barbarian and Paladin - an unarmed Monk is out putting far more damage per hit. I understand Monks have inherent bonuses to their unarmed damage, but when a Paladin is critting 40 damage with a two handed crushing weapon on a Beetle and a Monk is hitting for 40 damage, at a much faster rate I might add, I consider something to be a little wonky.

 

Of course, this is just me. Many others may have played Monk and not considered this to be an imbalance issue.

@Morhilain: I think they should announce weapons being ineffective with floating text and perhaps a voiceover ala the ie games. I'm sure others have already said as much an so this post is simply an affirmation of whoever said it first.

 

EDIT:  Damned phone makes posting hard.  ie games, not is games.

 

Yep.

 

That's part of what is lacking with the combat feedback. You need to check at the super fast combat log to know what is going on. The problem is that with the "overhead" tooltip it's already pretty crowded there.