HARD Difficulty Discussion

[Sensuki]

According to Josh Sawyer on Something Awful, there are not many Obsidian devs that can test on Hard.

 

I can personally test things on Hard, as can Bobby and a few other folks, but most of the other devs cannot. Or rather, they wouldn't really get anywhere. If I listened to them for tuning advice, Hard wouldn't be hard at all.

 

Therefore I think it might be a good idea to create a thread here for discussion relevant to Hard difficulty only, so the designers have a place to find specific feedback about encounters and class/ability balance relative to this difficulty.

 

I have only ever tested on Hard, and will not test for any other difficulty.

 

Currently I think Hard difficulty has been alright up until v392, where ...

 

The areas in the Backer Beta are now being tuned for the final game, so the content across the areas is targeted at different levels.

 

They've done a first pass balance pass across the beta areas for the final game and increased the number of creatures in many of the areas, most specifically the Dyrford Crossing.

 

Currently my overall thoughts on Hard difficulty is that specific creatures: Lions, Elder Lions, Elder Bears, Stone Beetles, Forest Lurkers and some of the spider mobs deal too much damage due to a number of factors:

• High per-hit damage is too high (or party endurance/health is too low)
• Not being balanced against the removal or percentile armor reduction
• Increased numbers in mobs
• DoT effects are still OP
• No comparison to how combat in the Infinity Engine games played
• Creatures are balanced for normal difficulty (which have less numbers in mobs, and tougher creatures are usually alone)

   

Individual creatures are tuned for Normal difficulty since only PotD modifies their stats. The encounter sizes/compositions are tuned for the individual difficulty levels. I do not believe that the Hard encounters have a substantive enough increase in a) population and b) positioning. It's one of the things I've been focusing on over break.

 

They will also be increasing creature numbers and giving them better starting positioning even further.

 

Currently I'm finding that playing on Hard is not fun, it encourages specific character builds and playing a specific way. You eat through daily spells very quickly and end up having a very short adventuring day due to running out of Health.

 

Personally I think creatures should be tuned for Hard instead, and then encounters can be designed down for other difficulties, but that may not happen since they've already made that decision and probably done a lot of the tuning for it.

Edited January 4, 2015 by Sensuki

[Sensuki]

Here is some other relevant information

 

Individual creatures are tuned around the idea that their level is "worth" an equivalent PC level for a challenging Normal encounter. E.g., a party of five 5th level characters should be reasonably challenged (but ultimately win out) against a party of five 5th level monsters. That's one of the most straightforward ways we can establish a baseline of equivalency for what a creature's level means. On Hard difficulty, the party should be facing superior numbers in terms of overall levels in one of three ways a) more creatures of the same level b) the same number of creatures but some are higher level or c) fewer creatures who are mostly/all higher level. Whether a) b) or c) are used depends a great deal on the individual level and creatures that make sense there. We can't flood a map with creatures if it's cramped. We can't use a higher level companion creature if the jump in levels is too severe (e.g. Wood, Stone, and Adra Beetles all span several levels).

Might be just me, but based on this information, it seems like a lot of the changes to encounters on Hard are not tested/tested very thoroughly either other than just making sure that the ECL of a mob is higher than the party's or something.

 

In contrast - humanoid encounters are a walk in the park compared to creature encounters.

Edited January 4, 2015 by Sensuki

[PIP-Clownboy]

I did not find Hard very difficult much at all so I have no idea where you're coming from. In fact, I found it quite a bit too easy and not having to rest enough. And this coming from last playthrough as a poorly built Gish. 

 

The fact that BB characters come undergeared, with generic builds, if anything, Hard needs to be actually Hard in my opinion. I'm finding Path more my speed.

Edited January 4, 2015 by PIP-Clownboy

[Sensuki]

Are you referring to v392?

 

Hard hasn't been very difficult at all in most of the previous versions. I actually get terrible performance and stuttering, so that probably contributes a lot more to the frustration I have with the game at the moment than the actual difficulty of encounters. In v392 characters now start at 4th level instead of 5th, the stock BB character builds have been changed. Weapon and ability damage has been nerfed. Arbalests and Arquebuses have been nerfed (again) and there has been a change made to armor so that there is no longer percentile damage reduction.

 

In contrast - there are now more creatures in many of the encounters and everything you have is now less effective against them. So Hard difficulty is definitely harder than it was before (not very hard in most cases).

 

As PrimeJunta has mentioned, if you are constantly spamming AoE disable spells and nukes, you can bypass most encounters with relative ease. If you don't do that, you can be overwhelmed pretty easily by the increased numbers in some of the encounters.

 

If you think you're doing so well, would you care to post some screenies of your character / vids of combat or at least give some more information ?

Edited January 4, 2015 by Sensuki

[Cubiq]

I'm pretty sure the reason why the difference in experience varies is probably due to bugs.

I read, maybe 2 days ago, someone saying they were hitting 400 dmg with his rogue.

also yeah...

http://i.imgur.com/5rqNETB.jpg?1

[TheisEjsing]

It makes sense that duo to production limits that obsidian spends most time on the normal setting imo. I also believe that some of your frustrations Sensuki, might be related to that. You didn't get it, when I reviewed 392 after a normal run and found the combat fun and EI'sh. Well, you inspired me to go on hard for the first time in the BB.

 

So I have done 2 runs on hard now, and I feel you. In advance it'll be fair to say that unlike normally, I tried to maximize my team with help from all the good feedback in here. I normally just play, cuz I find that kind of play breaking my immersion and general roleplaying experience. First I did one with 5 members (my normal team size), and it was HARD. So much reloading, not even trial and error, just getting that perfect initiation, so you could survive an encounter. 

I found myself better off with 6 members, including an insane dps'ing rouge. 

I found a few things I want to share about my reflections on the runs. 

• Too high damage. 

When the priest healing spells are less effective than the time consumtion of the spell (you take more damage in one turn than a spell heals you and the priest can't perform any other action) it removes their value and for me distances the gameplay from the IE games. 

 

• Gear

It has been pointed out before, but I'll still emphasize that it's hard to get a solid understanding of the true challenge, when your gear is generic. If your bb fighter had an "ankheg" amor, he might have surivability. It is impossible to know by now, if you find strong items in game, which will significantly improve your odds on harder difficulties. 

 

• Companions

In the BG series, I really enjoyed the special abilities of your companions. Jan's gear, Viconia magic res, Mazzy's paladin theme etc. I hope PoE continues this, and that might also factor into the overall challenge on higher difficulties.

 

I don't read something awful, so when I read just now, that OE got few testers on harder difficulties, things started to make more sense. And hopefully this thread will help the devs to better the gaming experience for selfpunishing hard players.

Edited January 4, 2015 by TheisEjsing

[Luckmann]

I.. I realize that Josh Sawyer is his own person and can post wherever the hell he please, but am I the only one somewhat annoyed by the fact that he seems to give more and better feedback and have a bigger (or continous) presence on SomethingAwful instead of here or other "official" channels (Dev blogs, whatever)? Especially SomethingAwful is.. something awful.

 

I've got limited access to a friend's Backer Beta and I will only be playing on Hard, so hopefully I can throw some feedback on that at some point. I find it odd that so many of the devs themselves would have issues playing on Hard in order to test it. Them knowing the inns and outs of the system, I always assumed that devs were masters of their own games.

Edited January 4, 2015 by Luckmann

[Sensuki]

I'm making a full custom party, because I believe that's what PIP-Clownboy does based on his previous posts, and I'll try and suffer through the performance and microstutter and see how I go.

 

I'll also create some extra adventurers (since you can have 8 total) and drop in, drop out party members and see how that changes things around.

[IndiraLightfoot]

If anything, it's a bit too easy. I just had three wizards basically cruising through beetles, spiders and the ogre, more or less just rotating spells I felt like casting. The priest and the fighter was pretty much inactive, while BB rogue cleaned up a few baddies when needed.

[Sensuki]

After how many encounters are you resting? Wizards are kind of bursty in that they can only do big plays when they can actually cast daily spells. In any version you can blow sh1t up the easiest by stacking AoE disables and AoE damage spells on top of each other.

 

Try it without a Wizard, or a Druid, or a Chanter

[Sensuki]

Lul, here we go - the winning combo of v392 for minimum effort seems to be Tanglefoot and ranged weapon spam. I will make a video.

[Sensuki]

 

edit: and in making that video, watch that spell get nerfed through the roof in the next patch, soz guys.

Edited January 4, 2015 by Sensuki

[PIP-Clownboy]

I'm making a full custom party, because I believe that's what PIP-Clownboy does based on his previous posts, and I'll try and suffer through the performance and microstutter and see how I go.

 

I'll also create some extra adventurers (since you can have 8 total) and drop in, drop out party members and see how that changes things around.

 

No, I just hire a 6th dude and usually kill the two adventuring groups for gear. 

[Sensuki]

Well as you can see, I can take no damage from encounters by using spells that Hobble enemies and using bows. That's not exactly fun though. 

 

BTW what were your thoughts on the Core Rules difficulty of BG2 and IWD2 ? While that may encompass a wide range of difficulty itself, I'd say the harder encounters of BG2 and the general attention level of IWD2 is the aim for Hard difficulty here. That's what they've stated they are aiming for anyway.

 

I still think that despite being able to topple the encounters easily with AoE disables, nukes and ranged weapons that several creatures deal too much per-hit damage. My 5th level characters there have between 70-90 Endurance and the Adra Beetle can one shot KO several of them if it crits on it's Shocking Blast attack, and two hit several of the characters with normal melee attacks.

 

That doesn't feel very Infinity Engine to me.

Edited January 4, 2015 by Sensuki

[Shevek]

Therez nothing wrong with snaring and killing from range. That should be a viable tactic - especially with overworld trash.

 

Honestly, Hard difficulty felt generally ok in the last patch (364). Humanoids needed to be tougher, some enemies needed to be nerfed (crystal eaters) and encounter design needed to be improved but the difficulty was generally ok.

 

Its this move away from percentile based armor thats fowling everything up. I just dont get why they would move to this inferior purely DT based system. Nearly nobody complained about it on these boards and DR/DT worked really well to mitigate crits and so on.

Edited January 4, 2015 by Shevek

[Sensuki]

The issue is that because it's the best way to deal with encounters and take the least damage that it trivializes combat in general. Why on ****ing earth would I send my units into melee to take massive damage when I can just sit back with ranged weapons and pepper them to death. 

In the Infinity Engine games I favored melee over ranged. Wade straight in with my high AC Warriors and wreck everything. Instead what happens here is that high Deflection Fighter (if you built for max defense) deals no damage, and still takes a lot of damage himself anyway because creatures deal a crap tonne of it per hit.

Edited January 4, 2015 by Sensuki

[Shevek]

I had no problem wading in in previous patches. Its this change to armor (and the related downgrading of weapon damage) that is screwing with the experience.

[Sensuki]

I don't think the armor change is as bad as you think it is, it's just that creatures need to be tuned for it. They were already dealing very high per-hit damage before the armor change anyway.

[Kjaamor]

I still think that [...] that several creatures deal too much per-hit damage. My 5th level characters there have between 70-90 Endurance and the Adra Beetle can one shot KO several of them if it crits on it's Shocking Blast attack, and two hit several of the characters with normal melee attacks.

 

That doesn't feel very Infinity Engine to me.

 

The issue is that because it's the best way to deal with encounters and take the least damage that it trivializes combat in general. Why on ****ing earth would I send my units into melee to take massive damage when I can just sit back with ranged weapons and pepper them to death.

 

o/

[anameforobsidian]

That strikes me as no different at all from the infinity engine games.  Especially BG1.  Throw down one web, let alone three, and you can seriously wreck some **** up.  It was one of the few ways to beat the SCS bandit camps in combat at low levels, especially once every single bandit aggroed.  Seriously, web was one of the most powerful spells in the game, eventually I stopped using it.

[Sensuki]

The only reason I am using War Bows and disables is because melee is not very viable in this build. Previously it wasn't too bad.

 

I didn't abuse web/entangle and fireball/cloudkill combos, or mass archers in the IE games. I usually rolled with 4 melee and 2 ranged.