At what difficulty level are you playing?

[Hogfather]

Playing on Hard, played a bunch of Baldur's Gate. Have bought that stupid game 4 times now; original CDs, the EE, GoG and for some reason on the iPad too.

 

Found the game a lot harder to start with, especially before I rounded out my party and completed more side quests before advancing the main line too much. Got smashed pretty hard a couple of times going too hard on the main quest

 

We're level 5 now and doing well now.

[Liahim]

Playing on Hard...

[Hexo]

Hard for my first character.

 

Later on I'll try the Damned diff., and then turning on Expert and Iron, it can only go wrong

[Ashlane]

Playing on hard with a great sword using gib machine of a melee cypher.  I just entered Dryford at level 7, so far the only fight I've had to retreat from was a certain boss in Searing Falls.

[Earthshocker]

My first playthrough is on hard. Have beaten all of the previous IE games and solo'ed the BG games, didn't play the backer beta. So far (just started act II, did most sidequest and made it to level 6 of the optional dungeon) the difficulty feels just about right. My PC is a druid and I'm using the fighter/chanter/wizard/priest companions as well as a custom rogue. Especially early on I had to be careful in picking my fights, taking care to scout before initiating a fight, luring enemies to bottlenecks and sometimes even avoiding encounters only to return at a later time. After hitting level 5 and filling up my party things are getting easier. Especially the larger number of aoe spells and guns make a big difference.

[Hexo]

Damn, I just restarted on Hard with Expert mode turned on - game is a lot more immersive this way, it's awesome!

[Lephys]

I must apologize. I was under the impression that Expert Mode was supposed to do away with the combat tooltips showing you enemies' defense and DR values, etc. It does not do that.

 

So, yeah, it's barely an effect on actual difficulty at all. You can't see AoE circles when targeting, and a few other things. Other than that, it's more just "immersive" stuff than difficulty stuff. Not seeing flags for which dialogue responses earn you Dispositions, or which ones are affiliated with which stat values, etc.

 

So, my mistake. Sorry about that.

[Cronstintein]

for expert, doesn't it make it so your characters die if their health hits 0 instead of maiming?  That was the main reason I didn't use it.

[Katarack21]

Still on normal. I've been playing for 42 hours; I've yet to do anything at all in Defiance Bay. Yeah, I know, I'm slow--I've pretty much done everything I could side-quest wise, including 5 levels of the Endless Paths, outside of the first major city.

So now I have a bunch of stuff to do over that aways, I think.

Edited March 30, 2015 by Katarack21

[Emerwyn]

I must apologize. I was under the impression that Expert Mode was supposed to do away with the combat tooltips showing you enemies' defense and DR values, etc. It does not do that.

 

So, yeah, it's barely an effect on actual difficulty at all. You can't see AoE circles when targeting, and a few other things. Other than that, it's more just "immersive" stuff than difficulty stuff. Not seeing flags for which dialogue responses earn you Dispositions, or which ones are affiliated with which stat values, etc.

 

So, my mistake. Sorry about that.

 

Yeah, I had the impression that it didn't affect the way the game handled the information you have about your foes. That information actually you gain over time as you defeat more foes of the same kind.

 

I think the biggest difficulty factor added by Expert mode is not being able to see area of effect projections on your spells. That definitely adds difficulty to combat, but in the other hand I think it also takes a away a lot of the tactical factor that combat has when you are able to see those projections. I mean, a lot of the time you can't even tell who is just behind the door frame, or truly exposed to your cone attack, and things like that.

[Messier-31]

Started playing on easy. As for now I wait for a patch.

 

Maybe I'll start over on normal (but unlikely). The reason is that I haven't got a lot of time for games these days.

[Wulfburk]

Been playing on normal. Got to the state that where i am i kinda am forced to set up camp and get all my spells back or i'll probably die for whatever next group appears in the area i am in... But i didnt need to spam stealth and doorways that much either, so i think it is pretty balanced!

[Katarack21]

I do wish very, very badly that I could enchant my Cloak of the Obsidian Order. I understand that the Kickstarter item isn't supposed to effect game balance, but here's the thing: it does, negatively. I want to wear my Kickstarter item because I kind of feel like I paid money in order to be able to do so, but wearing it is detrimental because I lose out on the effects of amulets and magic cloaks--decent stat buffs and nice spell binds are things I would like to have!

[Ashen Rohk]

Normal w/Trial of Iron.

 

Check the playlist here:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyz9Ixsgwgf0t7AM-U4v34C_1X_e6aJjZ

[RevBlue]

I've started on Hard, and I loved the challenge and feeling of accomplishment when winning a hard fight, but I got tired of doing every fight 3-5 times, even against normal mobs :-/

So I've recently changed to normal, and I feel its too easy, I seem to be blasting away at enemies, maybe its just a perception issue after being used to Hard, but I wish I could find a balance....

[eastc]

Path of the Damned.

 

Brand spanking new! Didn't beta or follow it really until close to release. It's a lot easier than I expected. I'm still redoing fights from time to time but I was expecting it to just hand my ass to me like IWD's Heart of Winter mode. I like this system better.

[Albion72]

Hard + expert. When I finish the game I may try Path of the Damned + Expert + Trial of Iron. Trial of Iron scares me. I would hate to make it to the end of the game just to get wrecked by a chance spell. I'm not sure how one would even go about completing the game with these settings? You'd have to keep your main character back away from the fight as you send legions of fodder adventures picked up in taverns to break through the enemies. Or you could copy the save file, which defeats the purpose entirely. 

[SupidSeep]

I (insert self-derogatory expletive).

 

I am struggling on Normal

 

I think I should restart with a new char on Easy Difficulty since I love the story/exploration more.

[trulez]

Hard, Expert, Iron Man

[khadoran]

started on hard but died to some bears that i later read I shouldnt fight at lvl 2 but im happy with normal mode. Sure its starting to get easier the higher my characters get but boss fights are stil interesting and i dont like reloading 4 times to win a fight.

[Hexo]

for expert, doesn't it make it so your characters die if their health hits 0 instead of maiming?  That was the main reason I didn't use it.

 

It does, which is one of the reasons why I use it

 

I also like how it how it removes a lot of the ease-of-use information. No more timers above my characters head, no more highlighting for area of effect spells, and I like how the stash cannot be accessed while exploring.

 

It's great that Obsidian gave us the option of turning these settings on/off

[ProjectBG2Respawn]

Normal mode

[Voss]

I got bored with hard and switched to normal.  I got tired of the tedium of tank and spank for no reward, and just wanted to get on with the story.

 

Ironically I found the story important key fight in Cad Nua to be easier on hard, since there was only one, stronger additional monster in place of the two there in normal.  So it was easier just to run up to <redacted> and knock <redacted> to the floor.  In normal, the path was blocked and I couldn't get into melee.

Edited March 30, 2015 by Voss

[Rui]

Normal. That's how I feel like starting this out, limited time for playing currently so fits into driving the story forward while providing entertaining fights.

 

Rolled a Druid, and at this point I do think I could play on Hard, but I know I will replay the game time and again so I know I'll get to Path of the Damned in Iron Mode eventually.

[SuperNose]

Playing on Easy, because this is the first time I've seriously played a CRPG(I've got a couple hours into BG, maybe....). It's more or less still pretty easy for me, but when I screw up, man on man do I screw up.

 

I engaged a Forest Lurker, ended up being a Lurker with two more mobs(can't remember the name, started with an X), was having a hard enough time with those. Then out of nowhere another group of something pulled from somewhere. I say something cause I didn't look, I saw them run in from off screen and I just threw up my hands and covered my face. I knew defeat was about to happen.

 

And then I realized I was almost done clearing the zone, and hadn't saved. Poor, poor me. I quick save after EVERYTHING now.