Not a bug but definitely needs to be reported. XP.

[Hatred]

 Ok so I just got to Medreth and the 'backer beta' content. I am level 10. It is very hard to find anything which is even remotely challenging. I feel like the XP in this game is broken. The forums seem largely silent on this for some reason though.

[Mazisky]

which difficulty?

[Hatred]

 'hard' It wouldn't even matter at this point. I could face 3 x the enemies of hard and still just kill them all with a couple of spells while my invincible tank laughs at their attempts to hit him.

[Mazisky]

Hard mode in this game is Normal mode so it's quite easy. I have the same issue and i decided to do a fresh start on PoD as soon patch will be released. Will see if it'll be more challenging

[Hatred]

 When you crit half your attacks because your accuracy is through the roof in compared to the people you attack ... I don't think it will get more challenging. From when you hit defiance bay until who knows when its all just easy peasy sailing.

[sffrrrom]

Could I ask how often you rest? Just curious because I am planning on restarting post patch and am trying to decide between hard and PotD, and I found hard to be somewhat challenging in places when I tried not to abuse resting, i.e. would try to clear 1-2 floors of Od Nua or R Keep, etc. But I did notice as the game went on and my characters got stronger the challenge was dropping (no stat bugs).

[trashmyego]

Well, you're extremely over leveled for the content you're referring to. That's part of it.

[Gorgon]

It started out hard, now around lv9 I don't bother saving anymore. I just use the autosave. I can still get killed but only if I get sloppy. I don't think the baseline difficulty is very well optimised either. Gonna finish the game but with permadeath on and maybe reduce the party size. We'll see. 

 

Part of it is where you are 'supposed' to be. I think a lot of people when faced with an open world sandbox just naturally ignore the main story quest, old habit from TES games perhaps ?. Anyway when you do get back to it it's laughably easy.  The same goes for a lot of the optional city stuff. 

[MasterPrudent]

Hatred, and maybe Gorgon too, I would take a good look at your characters' stats because your tank being invincible and your accuracy being through the roof in comparison to those you attack sounds suspiciously like you may have the bug that causes your characters' temporary buffs from abilities and buffs from items to become permanent and stack on save/load.

[Kefky]

You may have extremely high stats on your companions due to a bug if you saved a lot in the area where you get them. That would make the game too easy. I played on PoD and I felt the game was challenging, so you might want to try that mode.

[Hatred]

Could I ask how often you rest? Just curious because I am planning on restarting post patch and am trying to decide between hard and PotD, and I found hard to be somewhat challenging in places when I tried not to abuse resting, i.e. would try to clear 1-2 floors of Od Nua or R Keep, etc. But I did notice as the game went on and my characters got stronger the challenge was dropping (no stat bugs).

 None of my characters have stat bugs. I dont rest. At the moment I am not even casting. I rest when people are fatigued (and everyone has athletics so it really isnt often)

[Hatred]

You may have extremely high stats on your companions due to a bug if you saved a lot in the area where you get them. That would make the game too easy. I played on PoD and I felt the game was challenging, so you might want to try that mode.

 PotD wouldn't fix my issue at this point. It doesnt change their levels and greatly increase their deflection and accuracy.

[Emerwyn]

Can't speak of Hard difficulty, but in PotD encounters keep relevant all throughout the game. I did the same as OP, being an exhaustive completionist I had my keep fully upgraded and Endless Paths of Od Nua fully explored, along with all available areas, with all side quests and bounties completed by the time I got to the Backer Beta part, and my party was level 10 by then, Thing is, even then the Adra Dragon was oneshotting all of my party at that point and pretty much two-shotting the main tank with his 120 deflection rating and 25~ DR. And honestly, those 120-140 values in all defenses will never get trivial to hit, no matter how much you level up (especially since the cap is level 12). 

 

I expect you will feel difficulty is too easy for a while since you're now in the crit path (which by default is pretty easy), but there should be more challenges ahead intended for higher level parties, especially optional ones off the crit path. I hope so at least, since I've not gone beyond the point where you are myself.

 

If you still feel it's too easy, you can always switch to PotD difficulty where you will never beat even-level encounters by idly autoattacking, I assure you. 

 

Of course, you can cheese a lot of encounters to beat them even in PotD difficuty (the Adra dragon included), but it would be a huge incongruity to cheese encounters to be able to beat them and then complain about them being too easy. Right?

Edited April 3, 2015 by Emerwyn

[El Zoido]

I switched from normal to hard after I had some experience with the systems and don't find hard extremely challenging either, most of the time.

Of course there's the stat bug (I'm mildly affected, Edér has 10 points od deflection that are unaccounted for) that might play a role for some people, too.

But ultimately it's hard to balance a game like this properly, I think. You are pretty free to go where you want and there's a lot of side content to earn XP from.

Making it equally challenging for people that mostly focus on the MQ and those that do a completionist run will be almost impossible.

OTOH still better than full level scaling, imo.

[Hatred]

Can't speak of Hard difficulty, but in PotD encounters keep relevant all throughout the game. I did the same as OP, being an exhaustive completionist I had my keep fully upgraded and Endless Paths of Od Nua fully explored, along with all available areas, with all side quests and bounties completed by the time I got to the Backer Beta part, and my party was level 10 by then, Thing is, even then the Adra Dragon was oneshotting all of my party at that point and pretty much two-shotting the main tank with his 120 deflection rating and 25~ DR. And honestly, those 120-140 values in all defenses will never get trivial to hit, no matter how much you level up (especially since the cap is level 12). 

 

I expect you will feel difficulty is too easy for a while since you're now in the crit path (which by default is pretty easy), but there should be more challenges ahead intended for higher level parties, especially optional ones off the crit path. I hope so at least, since I've not gone beyond the point where you are myself.

 

If you still feel it's too easy, you can always switch to PotD difficulty where you will never beat even-level encounters by idly autoattacking, I assure you. 

 

Of course, you can cheese a lot of encounters to beat them even in PotD difficuty (the Adra dragon included), but it would be a huge incongruity to cheese encounters to be able to beat them and then complain about them being too easy. Right?

 Yes I am not  fan of cheesing. I was under the impression that PotD was something you chose at the beginning. I am a bit of a mental though so I probably wouldn't play PotD without doing it start to finish. Thankyou for your input good sir.(or madaam)

[Mazisky]

Relax dude, cause of some people who find the game being too hard even on easy mode (and i wonder why they even play videogames instead of watching movies), this is what we get.

Edited April 3, 2015 by Mazisky

[Hatred]

Hatred, and maybe Gorgon too, I would take a good look at your characters' stats because your tank being invincible and your accuracy being through the roof in comparison to those you attack sounds suspiciously like you may have the bug that causes your characters' temporary buffs from abilities and buffs from items to become permanent and stack on save/load.

 

 

 For the last damn time NO. My stats are not out of line. Its more that having an exceptional weapon + being level 10 and having the corresponding talents to your weapons trivialises combat.

[Rawi]

Can I ask what 'backer beta' content is?

 

Do backers have any additional city/location?

If so, what's in there?

[Hatred]

Relax dude, cause of some people who find the game being too hard even on easy mode (and i wonder why they even play videogames instead of watching movies), this is what we get.

 Why should I be ok with this?  It wasnt a game that was supposed to be made for people who want to play movies.

[Hatred]

Can I ask what 'backer beta' content is?

 

Do backers have any additional city/location?

If so, what's in there?

 Dyrford village and the surrounding area was where the backer beta took place largely.

[shibby191]

It started out hard, now around lv9 I don't bother saving anymore. I just use the autosave. I can still get killed but only if I get sloppy. I don't think the baseline difficulty is very well optimised either. Gonna finish the game but with permadeath on and maybe reduce the party size. We'll see. 

 

Part of it is where you are 'supposed' to be. I think a lot of people when faced with an open world sandbox just naturally ignore the main story quest, old habit from TES games perhaps ?. Anyway when you do get back to it it's laughably easy.  The same goes for a lot of the optional city stuff. 

 

That would be me.  I put over 700 hours into Obvivion.  Only on my last playthru did I ever finish the main quest beyond the first couple.  On that playthru I still had about 120 hours into the game before I went back and did the main quest which was then very easy.  Same with Skyrim, hundreds of hours into it and never got more then 10 quests in to the main quest.

 

For PoE where the enemy and quest "levels" are static ( I believe) I'm sure that it'll be the same, once I get to the main quest it'll be a cakewalk.  But I'm ok with that if I'm challenged on all the side quests as I explore every square inch of every map.  

[Hatred]

 

It started out hard, now around lv9 I don't bother saving anymore. I just use the autosave. I can still get killed but only if I get sloppy. I don't think the baseline difficulty is very well optimised either. Gonna finish the game but with permadeath on and maybe reduce the party size. We'll see. 

 

Part of it is where you are 'supposed' to be. I think a lot of people when faced with an open world sandbox just naturally ignore the main story quest, old habit from TES games perhaps ?. Anyway when you do get back to it it's laughably easy.  The same goes for a lot of the optional city stuff. 

 

That would be me.  I put over 700 hours into Obvivion.  Only on my last playthru did I ever finish the main quest beyond the first couple.  On that playthru I still had about 120 hours into the game before I went back and did the main quest which was then very easy.  Same with Skyrim, hundreds of hours into it and never got more then 10 quests in to the main quest.

 

For PoE where the enemy and quest "levels" are static ( I believe) I'm sure that it'll be the same, once I get to the main quest it'll be a cakewalk.  But I'm ok with that if I'm challenged on all the side quests as I explore every square inch of every map.  

 

 In my experience thus far I would wager that you will not be challenged.

[sparklecat]

I agree with this; reaching Dyrford Village for the first time (which is where I am, at a lower level from skipping some things until they've got bugfixes) at level 10 feels like much too fast progression for a game where I'd been under the impression you were only supposed to hit the level cap if you did nearly all of the side content.  There's still over two acts to go, yeah?

[Hatred]

Just one I think. 99% sure its a 3 act game. I never noticed that I was in act 2 though so 

[El Zoido]

I agree with this; reaching Dyrford Village for the first time (which is where I am, at a lower level from skipping some things until they've got bugfixes) at level 10 feels like much too fast progression for a game where I'd been under the impression you were only supposed to hit the level cap if you did nearly all of the side content.  There's still over two acts to go, yeah?

 

I've yet to reach even chapter 2, so disregard anything I say if it's uninformed nonsense, but unless chapter 2 and 3 are significantly shorter the XP gain might need to be reduced to prevent hitting the level cap too soon. It should also keep the challenge for a longer time.

 

The first level up can be gained relatively fast (for motivation and stuff), and then the speed should slow down. This could also be done just by adjusting the XP thresholds needed for a level up, without having to alter any quest XP.

Edited April 3, 2015 by El Zoido

[Tanred]

The levelling balance is so off that it forces me to skip a large portion of side-content just to keep some challenge in the game, even on PotD.

 

Not bad for the replayability though.