Path of the Damned at its core seems at its core useless to me. If i was a lets player id be more useful but in truth why would you ever use it? to make the game super ultra hurt for no reason? I found in Temple of elemtel evil and Icewind dale that making your game ultra tough really diddet make it more fun it just made you half to do more of the same stuff over and over.  And some times just flat out unfair and brokenly hard.   If their was some reward to beat the game on POTD id be worth wile but as is i just flat out don't see any REAL reason to Ever use it.   How many of you ever played icewind dale on heart of fury?

Simply put, the reason you'd ever use it is:

 

"Because you happen to be a different person who wishes to use it, and not yourself who doesn't."

 

If you're not colorblind, there's no "reason" to use colorblind mode. Doesn't mean there's no reason for it to ever be used. Want to be able to distinguish selection circles and such from one another? Colorbind mode. Want a ridiculous challenge? Path of the Damned. Don't want those things? Then you're not who they're for.

Lephys pretty much summed up what I think.

 

I am going to play in Path of the Damned mode because I see an increased challenge as a reason to replay a game I’ve already beaten, and for me it is its own reward. Adding in-game bonuses for this game mode (extra XP, loot, whatever) would waste the fun by decreasing the challenge.

 

If you don’t see an increased challenge as its own reward, then PotD is just not your cup of tea. It is not a problem for me, neither should it be for you

 

Hey, it’s pretty much like achievements: to some it adds fun to the game, some sort of accomplishment feeling. To me, it doesn’t trigger anything. Achievements are not for me, but having them included won’t hurt my pleasure as long as I can play without them. And you can play without enabling PotD mode

 

Having PotD as an option won’t hurt your fun because you won’t be using it, and it will add fun to my experience because I like the new challenge it will provide. So it is a good idea to include it, don’t you agree?

Edited December 23, 201411 yr by vv221

Both Lephys and VV21 speak for me.   Different options make the game fun for different people.  To me complaining about options included is like going to a buffet and complaining because there is food laid out that you don't like as well as food you do like.

Because it's kinda fun having to work out how to play in such a mode.

Prob the same reason 'HARD' is there aside from Normal and Easy in most games... and neither Normal or Hard need to compensate you with extra stuff to make 'hard' worth it... :?

^ Maybe the thread author believes it's... hardly worth it? 6_u

I typically loathe super hard difficulties, but when I play the Mass Effect games (don't hate) I'll eventually do a playthrough on Insane. I don't get anything special from it, other than a meaningless achievement, but I do it because I love those games so much and have spent so much time mastering every aspect of the game that I want the game to give me all it's got so I can rub it's face in it and so everyone knows that I, in fact, am it's daddy. Then when I beat it I can stand up and scream, "WHO IS YOUR GOD NOW?!" and my neighbors quietly whisper to each other outside my house wondering if they should call the police.

Icewind Dale 2 did it the best. Hearth of Fury mode had all weapons upgraded with some addendum to their names. Eg. Cera Sumat on the easy to hard difficulties and Light of Cera Sumat in Hear of Fury mode.

 

Icewind Dale 2 did it the best. Hearth of Fury mode had all weapons upgraded with some addendum to their names. Eg. Cera Sumat on the easy to hard difficulties and Light of Cera Sumat in Hear of Fury mode.

 

I agree that Heart of Fury was a great feature of IWDs. But it's not a difficulty option, it's New Game+. PotD is a difficulty option, like Insane in the IE games. Playing on Insane didn't have any additional reward in the IE games.

 

Icewind Dale 2 did it the best. Hearth of Fury mode had all weapons upgraded with some addendum to their names. Eg. Cera Sumat on the easy to hard difficulties and Light of Cera Sumat in Hear of Fury mode.

 

I agree that Heart of Fury was a great feature of IWDs. But it's not a difficulty option, it's New Game+. PotD is a difficulty option, like Insane in the IE games. Playing on Insane didn't have any additional reward in the IE games.

 

Yea now that i think of it 90% of games dont have rewards - lol duke nukem 3d Dawm im good was a nighmare and all you got at the end was a crappy ending hahah

 

Icewind Dale 2 did it the best. Hearth of Fury mode had all weapons upgraded with some addendum to their names. Eg. Cera Sumat on the easy to hard difficulties and Light of Cera Sumat in Hear of Fury mode.

 

I agree that Heart of Fury was a great feature of IWDs. But it's not a difficulty option, it's New Game+. PotD is a difficulty option, like Insane in the IE games. Playing on Insane didn't have any additional reward in the IE games.

 

 

Actually playing on hard or insane did have rewards in the IWD series in the form of higher experience rewards which in turn actually made things easier to some degree as you leveled faster... I liked this myself as it gave me a gameplay reason to choose those higher difficulties - 

Easy/normal/hard is more about fun for the player as some people get bored if a game is too easy.  For example in the recent Dragon Age Inquisition I played it on the highest difficulty and trust me most of the complaints it's combat had came from people playing it on normal or lower.  If you are just in it for the story and the characters though and don't find challenge to be more fun for you then don't play on the higher difficulties because they don't work for you are a person.

 

Personally I plan to play on Normal with Expert mode on.  I will do hard eventually, but path of the damned?  No thanks, that is there purely for the grognard players who want to "beat" a game and care more about the mechanics than they do the actual game.

Edited January 26, 201511 yr by Karkarov

Actually playing on hard or insane did have rewards in the IWD series in the form of higher experience rewards which in turn actually made things easier to some degree as you leveled faster... I liked this myself as it gave me a gameplay reason to choose those higher difficulties - 

 

To my knowledge, in all IE games, and even including the NWN games, Insane/Hardcore difficulty increased the damage output of enemies by 100%, to 200% (I played Baldur's Gate 1 and IWD2 last year on Insane ). It did not affect anything else: HD/level, XP reward, saving throws, abilities, everything stayed the same.

 

The way difficulty is handled in PoE, i.e. changing the enemy composition, is already a lot more effort than a simple multiplier to damage. Damage boosting produces very uneven results, since not all enemies rely on big damage to defeat you.

 

This is my reward for playing on higher difficulty in PoE, a game that demands more attention. I like it.

Edited January 27, 201511 yr by Endrosz

Playing on a hard difficulty setting is its own reward, if hard is what you like.

I hope AI uses more skills as the diffuculty rises. If thats only give them HP then there wont be that much fun. The reason I'm saying this because I saw the forums about enemy mages are not skillfull enough  which is not good. 

I hope AI uses more skills as the diffuculty rises. If thats only give them HP then there wont be that much fun. The reason I'm saying this because I saw the forums about enemy mages are not skillfull enough  which is not good. 

 

The primary difference between the difficulties is how many opponents you face - their stats are supposed to be the same, so I would expect the AI to behave identically on the different difficulties too, sadly.

 

The Path of the Damned is supposed to be the only difficulty where the enemies gets an actual boost, as well as throwing the highest amount of opponents against you. I would be incredibly surprised if the AI used more skills at this level, too.

 

Actually playing on hard or insane did have rewards in the IWD series in the form of higher experience rewards which in turn actually made things easier to some degree as you leveled faster... I liked this myself as it gave me a gameplay reason to choose those higher difficulties - 

 

To my knowledge, in all IE games, and even including the NWN games, Insane/Hardcore difficulty increased the damage output of enemies by 100%, to 200% (I played Baldur's Gate 1 and IWD2 last year on Insane ). It did not affect anything else: HD/level, XP reward, saving throws, abilities, everything stayed the same.

 

The way difficulty is handled in PoE, i.e. changing the enemy composition, is already a lot more effort than a simple multiplier to damage. Damage boosting produces very uneven results, since not all enemies rely on big damage to defeat you.

 

This is my reward for playing on higher difficulty in PoE, a game that demands more attention. I like it.

 

 

True for all except IWD 1 and it's expansions where hard difficulty and insane difficulty both increased experience over normal. IIRC hard was 1.5x and insane was double - pretty sure this included only monster exp not quest exp.

 

I hope AI uses more skills as the diffuculty rises. If thats only give them HP then there wont be that much fun. The reason I'm saying this because I saw the forums about enemy mages are not skillfull enough  which is not good. 

 

The primary difference between the difficulties is how many opponents you face - their stats are supposed to be the same, so I would expect the AI to behave identically on the different difficulties too, sadly.

 

The Path of the Damned is supposed to be the only difficulty where the enemies gets an actual boost, as well as throwing the highest amount of opponents against you. I would be incredibly surprised if the AI used more skills at this level, too.

 

Wont classes like the Ranger be terribly under powered on high difficulties?

 

 

I hope AI uses more skills as the diffuculty rises. If thats only give them HP then there wont be that much fun. The reason I'm saying this because I saw the forums about enemy mages are not skillfull enough  which is not good. 

 

The primary difference between the difficulties is how many opponents you face - their stats are supposed to be the same, so I would expect the AI to behave identically on the different difficulties too, sadly.

 

The Path of the Damned is supposed to be the only difficulty where the enemies gets an actual boost, as well as throwing the highest amount of opponents against you. I would be incredibly surprised if the AI used more skills at this level, too.

 

Wont classes like the Ranger be terribly under powered on high difficulties?

 

 

Depends on how the classes are balanced in the final game - I'm pretty sure the current BB is not the final edition of the ranger altho it does play better than previous ones IMO. Playstyle and party composition will also have a lot to do with how things shake out in the final game as well.

 

 

I hope AI uses more skills as the diffuculty rises. If thats only give them HP then there wont be that much fun. The reason I'm saying this because I saw the forums about enemy mages are not skillfull enough  which is not good. 

 

The primary difference between the difficulties is how many opponents you face - their stats are supposed to be the same, so I would expect the AI to behave identically on the different difficulties too, sadly.

 

The Path of the Damned is supposed to be the only difficulty where the enemies gets an actual boost, as well as throwing the highest amount of opponents against you. I would be incredibly surprised if the AI used more skills at this level, too.

 

 

Wont classes like the Ranger be terribly under powered on high difficulties?

 

As in most games, balance won't be perfect by any means, so it really depends on what you mean by "terribly underpowered". Strictly speaking, the ranger or any other class won't be more underpowered on Hard than it is at Easy.

 

It'll be more important to optimize at higher difficulties, most likely, that's a given, but that doesn't mean that something is more or less overpowered or underpowered because of the difficulty level.