Path of the damned should be the default, and only difficulty setting

[Odd Hermit]

Personally I feel like Obsidian really dropped the ball with difficulty and of course the XP issue. In an interview I remember hearing J.E.S. say that Pillars of Eternity was a 'niche' game. It feels a lot more like a game which was designed so that anyone who owned a mouse and keyboard could win and feel powerful instead.

 

It's harder than any of the IE games were.

 

It has some pacing issues though. Some encounters early on are abnormally difficult due to accuracy/deflection/defense disparities, while the mid-late game starts to get much easier as that disparity lessens.

 

Same could be said for IE games with a few exceptions though - Mind Flayers for example were very difficult for people to deal with unless they knew how to counter them. Which is a great example of how IE games was also way more tedious and preparation based with more encounter pre-knowledge requisite. Having all the right buffs stacked before a fight was very important. Using the right sequence of save/resist lowering spells could make a difficult fight trivial.

 

They tried to avoid that, and I think that was wise and a success. There are some new issues as a result but overall I think many players are just seeing through rose tinted glasses when comparing PoE to BGII/IWD at least.

[WebShaman]

I believe that a new level of difficulty should be introduced : Impossible

 

The m0bs are invincible.

 

You have no gear.

 

And no magic, talents, or abilities can be used.

 

Go!

 

 

Personally I feel like Obsidian really dropped the ball with difficulty and of course the XP issue. In an interview I remember hearing J.E.S. say that Pillars of Eternity was a 'niche' game. It feels a lot more like a game which was designed so that anyone who owned a mouse and keyboard could win and feel powerful instead.

 

It's harder than any of the IE games were.

 

It has some pacing issues though. Some encounters early on are abnormally difficult due to accuracy/deflection/defense disparities, while the mid-late game starts to get much easier as that disparity lessens.

 

Same could be said for IE games with a few exceptions though - Mind Flayers for example were very difficult for people to deal with unless they knew how to counter them. Which is a great example of how IE games was also way more tedious and preparation based with more encounter pre-knowledge requisite. Having all the right buffs stacked before a fight was very important. Using the right sequence of save/resist lowering spells could make a difficult fight trivial.

 

They tried to avoid that, and I think that was wise and a success. There are some new issues as a result but overall I think many players are just seeing through rose tinted glasses when comparing PoE to BGII/IWD at least.

 

 

I disagree with "It's harder than..."

 

I play BG:EE and BG2:EE all the time - and the Black Pits are definitely harder (especially BP2).  One wrong click and it normally means death, defeat, reload.

 

And there are some optional encounters that are off the wall - Kozah, The Hidden, Twisted Rune, etc.  I personally have not run into anything like this in PoE.

[Hatred]

 

Personally I feel like Obsidian really dropped the ball with difficulty and of course the XP issue. In an interview I remember hearing J.E.S. say that Pillars of Eternity was a 'niche' game. It feels a lot more like a game which was designed so that anyone who owned a mouse and keyboard could win and feel powerful instead.

 

It's harder than any of the IE games were.

 

It has some pacing issues though. Some encounters early on are abnormally difficult due to accuracy/deflection/defense disparities, while the mid-late game starts to get much easier as that disparity lessens.

 

Same could be said for IE games with a few exceptions though - Mind Flayers for example were very difficult for people to deal with unless they knew how to counter them. Which is a great example of how IE games was also way more tedious and preparation based with more encounter pre-knowledge requisite. Having all the right buffs stacked before a fight was very important. Using the right sequence of save/resist lowering spells could make a difficult fight trivial.

 

They tried to avoid that, and I think that was wise and a success. There are some new issues as a result but overall I think many players are just seeing through rose tinted glasses when comparing PoE to BGII/IWD at least.

 

How is it harder than the IE games ? I will admit I only played through IWD2 and BG2 once each. I don't remember steam rolling those games. Maybe when I was younger  I was somehow slow in the head in a way in which I have miraculously improved now but I actually think I was a bit more mentally agile back then. My very first playthrough of PoE and I just have gotten sick of it because it is so very boring. Started off having some fun and got very bored very quickly. 

 I'd have to play through BG/IWD again (in fact I am done with PoE atm and I intend to play those games again since I really want me some rtwp that isnt quite so boring) to give you a fair assessment I guess. I didn't stroll through the IE games with ease first playthrough. When I stopped playing Pillars I got to the point where I just started a fight then started reading my book while I wait for combat to end. Don't need to move my characters or use abilities or anything.

 Maybe bg and iwd really were so easy that you could afk in combat and I was somehow just so damaged as a young adult that I didn't notice. I'm doubting it though. Admittedly if they fixed the XP issues I would take back most of what I have said. As it stands I think PoE is easier than Dragon Age on easy right now. I was playing on hard btw and once the GoG has the hotfix to go with the patch I intend to use that helpful little IE mod and see if I cant squeeze a little bit of fun out of it.

 

edit:the ie mod will let me switch to potd but I am still expecting it to be too easy going off what people have been saying about how xp borks the game

Edited April 5, 2015 by Hatred

[Volourn]

"Really? Most the reviews I have read have said the game is challenging. One even said "normal" is like BG2 "hard" iirc."

 

They are dumb.

 

 

"It's harder than any of the IE games were."

 

L0L but no.

[Osvir]

Because I think so.

This comment is lol.

 

But there is a rather intellectual sentiment in all of this still, regardless if it was intentional or unintentional. If (hypothetically, singularly) a game only has one difficulty, it means the game becomes much more balanced accordingly to it. Developers won't have to worry much about "Easy" or "Hard" or "Path of the Damned" and so on and so forth. This might be more of a discussion in "Computer & Console" but, isn't Dark Souls and Bloodborne "One Difficulty" games? And aren't they really good for it too?

 

Everyone is under the same premise. Here, there's tons of discussions about "Hard is too easy!" or "Path of the Damned is too easy!" and in many ways... Difficulty Settings become Troll Settings. Because they naturally "Divide" the fanbase and community into different labels and Player-types "Casual player" or "Hardcore player" and so on and forth. Whilst in Dark Souls and similar, you are a "Dark Souls" player.

 

Something to think about, I guess.

 

Same rules for everyone.

[Mungri]

Really? Most the reviews I have read have said the game is challenging. One even said "normal" is like BG2 "hard" iirc.

You actually believe what the reviews say? How naive.

 

Reviews are written by noobs who think that dying once = hard.

[Odd Hermit]

How is it harder than the IE games ? I will admit I only played through IWD2 and BG2 once each. I don't remember steam rolling those games. Maybe when I was younger  I was somehow slow in the head in a way in which I have miraculously improved now but I actually think I was a bit more mentally agile back then. My very first playthrough of PoE and I just have gotten sick of it because it is so very boring. Started off having some fun and got very bored very quickly. 

 I'd have to play through BG/IWD again (in fact I am done with PoE atm and I intend to play those games again since I really want me some rtwp that isnt quite so boring) to give you a fair assessment I guess. I didn't stroll through the IE games with ease first playthrough. When I stopped playing Pillars I got to the point where I just started a fight then started reading my book while I wait for combat to end. Don't need to move my characters or use abilities or anything.

 Maybe bg and iwd really were so easy that you could afk in combat and I was somehow just so damaged as a young adult that I didn't notice. I'm doubting it though. Admittedly if they fixed the XP issues I would take back most of what I have said. As it stands I think PoE is easier than Dragon Age on easy right now. I was playing on hard btw and once the GoG has the hotfix to go with the patch I intend to use that helpful little IE mod and see if I cant squeeze a little bit of fun out of it.

 

edit:the ie mod will let me switch to potd but I am still expecting it to be too easy going off what people have been saying about how xp borks the game

 

 

 

The IE games were more heavily dependent on a few things. Some classes were just far and away the best for the PC to be. I played a Kensai Mage and Sorcerer in BGII and I steamrolled it.

 

There's also a ton of cheesy spells and tactics.

 

But it boiled down most of the time to knowledge more than it ever did tactics. In PoE you need both, but it leans heavier toward tactics. You can't cast a bunch of spells to totally counter a particular enemies' gimmicks. I beat the Demilich by Polymorphing into a mustard jelly. It was funny, but it wasn't particularly tactical it was just one piece of cheese against another.

 

[scrotiemcb]

PotD is the only difficulty setting I have ever played on.

 

This is good enough for me. Why wouldn't it be good enough for you?

[Hatred]

 

How is it harder than the IE games ? I will admit I only played through IWD2 and BG2 once each. I don't remember steam rolling those games. Maybe when I was younger  I was somehow slow in the head in a way in which I have miraculously improved now but I actually think I was a bit more mentally agile back then. My very first playthrough of PoE and I just have gotten sick of it because it is so very boring. Started off having some fun and got very bored very quickly. 

 I'd have to play through BG/IWD again (in fact I am done with PoE atm and I intend to play those games again since I really want me some rtwp that isnt quite so boring) to give you a fair assessment I guess. I didn't stroll through the IE games with ease first playthrough. When I stopped playing Pillars I got to the point where I just started a fight then started reading my book while I wait for combat to end. Don't need to move my characters or use abilities or anything.

 Maybe bg and iwd really were so easy that you could afk in combat and I was somehow just so damaged as a young adult that I didn't notice. I'm doubting it though. Admittedly if they fixed the XP issues I would take back most of what I have said. As it stands I think PoE is easier than Dragon Age on easy right now. I was playing on hard btw and once the GoG has the hotfix to go with the patch I intend to use that helpful little IE mod and see if I cant squeeze a little bit of fun out of it.

 

edit:the ie mod will let me switch to potd but I am still expecting it to be too easy going off what people have been saying about how xp borks the game

 

 

 

The IE games were more heavily dependent on a few things. Some classes were just far and away the best for the PC to be. I played a Kensai Mage and Sorcerer in BGII and I steamrolled it.

 

There's also a ton of cheesy spells and tactics.

 

But it boiled down most of the time to knowledge more than it ever did tactics. In PoE you need both, but it leans heavier toward tactics. You can't cast a bunch of spells to totally counter a particular enemies' gimmicks. I beat the Demilich by Polymorphing into a mustard jelly. It was funny, but it wasn't particularly tactical it was just one piece of cheese against another.

 

 

 Ok so you played  a Kensai mage on your first playthrough of BG2 ? Seriously? . I wont disagree that you could cheese a fair amount of bg2. The easy response to that though is to not cheese in my opinion. I played bg2 as a fighter first time round and I didnt cheese. Didnt use summons spells because they felt cheap. That kind of thing. I restrict myself the same way in PoE.

 As I have said before in PoE it devolves into only auto attacking. BG didn't do this. How can not having to be at your computer during combat be described as harder than having to be there cheesing it ? It certainly isnt harder for people who instinctively shy away from anything which gives them what they feel to be an unfair and unrequired edge. If you avoid or do not know about how to cheese bg it is leagues harder than poe. There is no way to make poe harder without either failing to level up or just skipping a heap of content.

 

Edit : I dont even have a good team for auto attacking. Im using a hunting bow on sagani and have 3 casters auto attacking without weapon focus at all. In BG you had to at least get someone to a reasonable thaco if you wanted to auto attack everything down.

 Also you did mention casting spells. So that does kind of imply more effort than PoE ends up taking.

Edited April 6, 2015 by Hatred

[Cronstintein]

Anyone saying this is harder than BG2 is crazy.  I never felt I needed to 'make the game harder' when I played BG2.  Just played it normally (no internet cheese builds or tricks) and it was an amazing experience.  Half way through this game and the combat has taken a complete digger.  It feels like the whole middle of this game was designed to be defeated by a lv5 part, too bad I'm lv9

 

By the time I got to the first big city, every encounter was a walk in the park.  I do tend to play fairly thoroughly, but still...  It's too bad because the first few levels felt perfect.

[luzarius]

I'm playing trial of iron and I'm barely hanging in there on normal difficulty. I've had many close calls. Then again I'm new to this type of game. You have to remember there are new players like me out there who are new to this genre.

Edited April 6, 2015 by luzarius

[Hatred]

I'm playing trial of iron and I'm barely hanging in there on normal difficulty. I've had many close calls. Then again I'm new to this type of game. You have to remember there are new players like me out there who are new to this genre.

 Hello there. We don't want the game to be too hard for you. It is the hard difficulties we are complaining about. Its also the later part of the game we are complaining about. I'm totally fine with there being a difficulty for everyone. The OP is clearly being facetious. Heck if they changed the game on hard/potd and it made normal too hard for anyone who liked playing on normal I would fully support your complaint that normal needed tweaking.

. 

Edited April 6, 2015 by Hatred

[Cronstintein]

Also Trial of Iron is a whole different story.  In that mode you can't lose even once.  I prefer to play a difficulty where I lose often and need to retry hard battles.

[luzarius]

 

I'm playing trial of iron and I'm barely hanging in there on normal difficulty. I've had many close calls. Then again I'm new to this type of game. You have to remember there are new players like me out there who are new to this genre.

 Hello there. We don't want the game to be too hard for you. It is the hard difficulties we are complaining about. Its also the later part of the game we are complaining about. I'm totally fine with there being a difficulty for everyone. The OP is clearly being facetious. Heck if they changed the game on hard/potd and it made normal too hard for anyone who liked playing on normal I would fully support your complaint that normal needed tweaking.

. 

 

 

So the game gets easier? Hmm, I see.

[Jasta11]

The difficulty curve is weird in this game. Early on it can be a veritable nightmare, especially in the second level of Eothas's temple and trying to beat Raedric without cheesing. Then it takes a nosedive, and the only hard encounter in Defiance Bay and its surroundings is the lighthouse. Then it becomes a bit harder towards the end game, with the final boss and a few bonus bosses (Raedric 2.0, Nalrend the Wise, that fcking Adra Dragon) being pretty damn hard.

[Cronstintein]

I agree.  Defiance bay -> act 3 needs a serious bump in difficulty, at least on hard/potd.  Right now it feels balanced for lvs 4-6 but you can easily hit lv9 before starting act 3. I did it and have 10+ quests I haven't finished/turned in yet.

[Atheosis]

Personally I feel like Obsidian really dropped the ball with difficulty and of course the XP issue. In an interview I remember hearing J.E.S. say that Pillars of Eternity was a 'niche' game. It feels a lot more like a game which was designed so that anyone who owned a mouse and keyboard could win and feel powerful instead.

 

It's the same difficulty as the old IE games more or less.  Actually at the highest difficulty settings it's probably harder relative to the highest difficulty of those games.  The old IE games did not have an ironman mode.

Edited April 6, 2015 by Atheosis

[Hatred]

 

Personally I feel like Obsidian really dropped the ball with difficulty and of course the XP issue. In an interview I remember hearing J.E.S. say that Pillars of Eternity was a 'niche' game. It feels a lot more like a game which was designed so that anyone who owned a mouse and keyboard could win and feel powerful instead.

 

It's the same difficulty as the old IE games more or less.  Actually at the highest difficulty settings it's probably harder relative to the highest difficulty of those games.  The old IE games did not have an ironman mode.

 

 The difficulty isn't even remotely comparable to the old IE games. This game has gotten so easy I haven't actually finished it. I'm having more 'fun' reading forum posts and staring at my wall. In the old IE games you had to sometimes cast spells. Your party would take damage from time to time. Certain enemies did things which you had to do something about. This game devolves into auto attacking. How is that comparable? 

[Atheosis]

 

 

Personally I feel like Obsidian really dropped the ball with difficulty and of course the XP issue. In an interview I remember hearing J.E.S. say that Pillars of Eternity was a 'niche' game. It feels a lot more like a game which was designed so that anyone who owned a mouse and keyboard could win and feel powerful instead.

 

It's the same difficulty as the old IE games more or less.  Actually at the highest difficulty settings it's probably harder relative to the highest difficulty of those games.  The old IE games did not have an ironman mode.

 

 The difficulty isn't even remotely comparable to the old IE games. This game has gotten so easy I haven't actually finished it. I'm having more 'fun' reading forum posts and staring at my wall. In the old IE games you had to sometimes cast spells. Your party would take damage from time to time. Certain enemies did things which you had to do something about. This game devolves into auto attacking. How is that comparable? 

 

 

The old games weren't very hard once you knew what you were doing.  So I don't know what to tell you.

[Hatred]

 

 

 

Personally I feel like Obsidian really dropped the ball with difficulty and of course the XP issue. In an interview I remember hearing J.E.S. say that Pillars of Eternity was a 'niche' game. It feels a lot more like a game which was designed so that anyone who owned a mouse and keyboard could win and feel powerful instead.

 

It's the same difficulty as the old IE games more or less.  Actually at the highest difficulty settings it's probably harder relative to the highest difficulty of those games.  The old IE games did not have an ironman mode.

 

 The difficulty isn't even remotely comparable to the old IE games. This game has gotten so easy I haven't actually finished it. I'm having more 'fun' reading forum posts and staring at my wall. In the old IE games you had to sometimes cast spells. Your party would take damage from time to time. Certain enemies did things which you had to do something about. This game devolves into auto attacking. How is that comparable? 

 

 

The old games weren't very hard once you knew what you were doing.  So I don't know what to tell you.

 

 Tell me how that doesnt make the old games harder. This game doesn't require you to know what you are doing. Surely needing to work out some things is harder than not needing to work out anything at all ?

[Tigranes]

If you don't know what you're doing and you auto-attack on the highest difficulty, you die. In a fire. The same is true in BG1/2. 

 

If you spam attacks with a halfway decent party in Easy or Normal, you can mostly steamroll. The same is true in BG1/2. 

 

It's sad that that has been the norm for most RPGs in the last 20 years, yes. 

[Hatred]

It was a lot less true in bg2. A lot less. If I have gotten so much better at this kind of game that I remember BG2 actually requiring me to try then why have I become so much less capable at chess?  I'm pretty certain that I was better at strategy/tactics when I was around 18 than I am now. You are wrong about the damn auto attack not working too. Its just not bloody true. I feel like I am going to have to work out how to record game footage and risk destroying my computer to make a 30 minute video of me wipinig the floor using itamuuk as a tank and having a party full of people wielding hunting bows that dont ever move in order to convince some people.

 

Edit: either that or drinking and doing other brain injuring passtimes has somehow made me better at this kind of game. 

Edited April 6, 2015 by Hatred

[Tigranes]

I too would recommend that you engage in brain injuring pastimes (seems more purposeful than talking on and on about a game you clearly think is superterribad), but that's neither here nor there.

 

I suppose I may have an inflated idea of POE's difficulty, playing with 2,3,4 party members. 

 

BG1: Bows everybody. Wands everybody. 

[Hatred]

 Eh I think the game is fixable. If they just tune/tweak the xp and ai. If they do that the game goes from unplayable back to the 9/10 I thought it was before the xp bloat killed it. I'll stop going on and on about it when I get some kind of official answer as to whether or not the ridiculous xp gain is intended and will be kept (at which point I might make a thread saying I wish the game was never made and I feel robbed or I might just walk away) or they are going to do something to fix the games issues (at which point I will celebrate and stop playing forums and learn some patience and wait for said fixes and do a little happy dance and change my forum signature)

[PrimeJunta]

@Hatred Mature.