I challenge you. You only get one chance...

[TigrisW]

Yes, I try this iron man also now my first game but only hard difficult.. I save PoD little bit later and that time I try my plan the Five Godlike -party.
That will be amazing I believe but without iron man mod I think..

[Nukenin]

Well, my attempt (Path of the Damned, Trial of Iron, Expert) was short-lived (har!).  I rolled my dwarf monk Rude E. Kegbiscuit knowing relatively nothing about the mechanics.  I breezed through what I assumed were "tutorial"-class fights, then got myself in a pickle.  I thought I was doing fine then BAM!  Game over.

 

The game really should have a post-mortem and/or graveyard (roster of deceased characters) to fully support an ironman style.  It'd be nice to review what done you in (the last X lines of the combat log could help here).

 

Now I'll just go back to my normal, iron-free, non-expert gameplay experience.  

[Burnheart]

Just thought I'd stop in to say that i tried this for my first character and got wiped out by the final group of spiders in the ruins by the exit, guess its been too many years since i last played these kind of games

[Macrae]

Ok guys now I'm going to give a little bit of feedback on my runthrough in ironman hard mode.

 

So, first game, I was super pumped, here in my time zone (China) I could start playing 1 hour after release (download etc) and it was 1 o'clock in the morning and I had to work that morning at 8.. xD but **** it. PoE was here, so I had to start my adventure.

So, first game I create my proud fighter. A lone human dissident ousted from the old vailian kingdom, seeking to start a new life in these parts of the world. He's heavy on Resolve and Intelligence and decent in the rest, with an average constitution. I plan on having him smart his way out of tricky situations during the game and play quite defensive, with a lot of active abilities that have effects over time.

So I start the game, and...well the first thing you notice is the game is gorgeous. So I play the first parts, manage to keep Calisca and Haedur in my party, almost playing a "perfect" run with good micro management switching back and forth between ranged and melee attacks to keep my people safe. Then get out of there, arrive to the next area Vyrwood. At that point, it's the first time in my life I am playing an ironman on first playthrough and I am indeed quite proud of having even survived these first encounters successfully, my excitement level and concentration are over the roof and I'm completely immersed inside the story. I play quite cautiously and try to evade the bandit camp as I'm alone but still take on the sole bandit and the wolves just behind. The fight with the 3 wolves is quite tough and that reminds me that my focus should be on finding party members, so I go to the town, save and exit and go to work without sleeping.. xD

So, after work I start playing again. In town, I do some conversations and questing and get Aloth in the party. So I patch my wounds, sleep a little and return to Vyrwood to clear the bandits and the rest of the map. At that point I'm quite confident but still cautious, playing with a sword and a board for more deflection, I still start to learn how to play with my mage Aloth. Anyway, I clear the bandits and the little Xurip or whatever it's called and finally arrive to the cave, and I have been warned by the NPC on the road that there is a bear inside. At that point I say to myself, well I took 3 wolves by myself, I can surely take a bear with 2 party members. So, I enter the cave, draw the bears with my bow, get him inside my mage's range, stun the papa bear with my main char fighter, work on him to bring his life down, well....after having been stunned 3 times he then rises up and hits me in me foken face for 50+ damage crit, my fighter's down and my mage's all alone against two bears, in his last effort Aloth tries to burn both of them with a spell but one of the two stays up "near death" and that's the end of the story for me...that was it!! xD

Indeed, I died in a sublime blaze of glory...lol.. xD

Anyway, I start a new game, say this time I'll play more cautiously. Almost the same but this time I play even more cautiously. First, I wait to get Eder in my party before venturing in the bear cave, and second, I hire a level 1 custom Aumaue hulking Paladin tank as soon as I can afford it in order to hold the line so my fighters can put some dps. This turns out to be very effective and I clear the bear cave without any problem. I quest some more and then head for the temple in the middle of Gilded Vale. So, here also I manage to kill almost everyone without problems until I come to a group of Skayn (or whatever these cretures are called) of 4 including a Skayn King (just below the three bells) and, well, I "almost" beat them...end of second runthrough..

 

-------------

So, at this point I have to look at things realistically. There is definitely potential to beat this game in Ironman and definitely I don't grasp yet all the mechanics to be able to fully take advantage of them in the game (I went almost blind into it). Therefore I have to admit I couldn't do it, I failed my challenge. It was fun trying but I will have to play non-ironman now. If I was a student and not working I would definitely go for another try but right now I simply don't have enough time for playing games already so if I wan't to play through the whole game I will have to play with saves.

But I have to say, the excitement during my first playthrough was through the roof, it's a shame I died to the bear. But I definitely don't blame the game, I think the scaling was logical, a bear in real life would be something quite different than a wolf and I should have expected that. In hindsight I think I should have played much safer, for example by hiring 2 or 3 custom chars as soon as I could afford into the party and studying the party composition a little more.

But anyway, it was fun, I tried and gave it my best shot, now I will still immensely enjoy the game playing non-ironman hard mode..

Of course, me having failed doesn't mean it's impossible.. (anyone still not dead in their first playthrough on hard IM? please share!)

[Darth Trethon]

Well then that's settled. I have to say I did not expect to end up being in the clear definitive majority when I cast my vote and I am pleasantly surprised with the maturity of the people on this forum.....I was expecting to be in a meager 5% with a whole lot of people trying to compare their digital d***s by going to great lengths to emphasize how hardcore they are. But no, this is a forum full of decent individuals that can appreciate the writing in a game like this.....well done people, well done indeed.

[oldgreg]

Path of the Damned, Trial of Iron, Expert.

 

Third playthrough and I got revenge on the damn bear cave.

 

I'm not even gonna sell their pelts, they took out my first character after I thought hey only three bears...

[sirchet]

My first playthroughs will be on cheesy, I mean easy. After I've gotten used to the game and the rule set I may up the difficulty.

 

I've still gots a lot to learn about some of the classes and I'll be figuring out my best builds.

 

So yeah, cheesy for my first attempt.

Edited March 27, 2015 by sirchet

[damage991]

Welp...made it to raderics hold on my first ironman+hard playthrough.  Got wasted in the keep proper. Not being able to run from a fight is a problem for this especially when you have no prior experience with the encounters.

 

Starting over on hard but not ironman!

[ComplyOrDie]

Going to start doing PotD trial of iron alongside my main PoTD playthroughs. Guess that's cheating though for this thread! first death was the bear incidentally on my main run.

[philkingz]

"No. I'm no hardcore player, I enjoy the story and rpg aspects more." - this sentence is so contradictory.  Playing because of the rps-ascpect would strictly force you to play without reloading and stuff. It's about telling a story on your head, boosted by what you do in the game. Reloading makes bad decisions not count for you, it is like ignoring a whole side of your character so that there is only a  LOTROlike-happy-ending is possible. Boring and incoherent, both things that shoudl abstain in every roleplay.

 

Just because you are too lazy for this mode is no legitimate reason for stating that it would be the most rpg-conform mode. That said it would be a grave loss if this mode is not included in future games. Just try it and be concentrated and reasonable - you will never want to miss this again.

[luzarius]

Gives me great pleasure to see 22 people who attempt POTD/Hard/TOI/IM on their first attempt.   It's hard to do a 100% blind play through.  I usually die a few times and then experience the last 50% of the game completely blind and beat end boss on the first try. This of course is not that hard since most RPG's let you be ultra powerful by end game, but still.

[the streaker]

I tried my first run on POTD/TOI and died at the bear cave...

 

So then I tuned it down to Hard/TOI. Still the best decision I could have made in this game. Playing an RPG blind with no margin for error is great, and only doable once.

 

edit: and the only reason I thought of doing it was because of this thread, so thank you very much OP!

Edited May 16, 2015 by the streaker

[sirchet]

I wish I would have went with the iron man mode the first play through but I didn't.

 

I'm playing through now on the hardest setting and with ironman, but like you guys said, I pretty much know what to expect.

 

Thank God my short term memory isn't what it used to be, or the whole thing would be pointless.

 

Btw, luzarius I read your post of DA:I linked in your sig. Man, you so hit the nail right on the head and thanks for sharing your insight.

Edited May 17, 2015 by sirchet

[Drath]

I like my challenges in "hour packages". Permadeath in 1-10h games are perfectly fine if they are designed around that. A permadeath in a game you played 70h in, not so much.

Especially if you might face bugs or unfair game design.

 

I played Xenonauts on hardest difficulty + ironman. And the more the game progessed the buggier it got until the final level was a buggy mess. That's an iron-man challenge nobody should need to face.

 

So instead I will chose Path of The Damned (maybe with Expert mode, dependent on the options included, though I don't like hiding the AOE interface). In addition I will not create additional player characters which should make it harder as well.

 

Pretty much my thoughts as well. Went with PotD but no Ironman on first play. Also not using mercenaries as I would like to explore the companions well and try to do their questlines. Pathfinding is a big issue in combat. Ranged combatants are generally fine but micromanaging a rogue to the right position can be a hassle at times. Would be unfair to be penalized because of this. Have had bugs as well, from enemies getting stuck in walls, unhittable and unable to exit combat, sanitarium turning aggressive after Uscgrim (corrected in 1.05) to unexplained saved files disappearing.

Don't get me wrong, I've enjoyed the game certainly. Loved the multiple quest choices/endings and combat/mechanics but to attempt a game on Ironman for me requires that the game is stable, no longer has any major bugs and that I have a decent knowledge of the underlying mechanics to decide what is best.

[sirchet]

I guess I've just been rather fortunate because I haven't experienced any bugs yet.

 

I'm playing on an eight core i7 Win7 rig with two nVidia graphics processors.