chanter dragon thrashed: wow...

[demeisen]

My chanter just got this song (I'm on the 1.03 patch if that matters)

 

I dunno... I think I won't use it, which feels bad to me.  I don't like playing with one hand tied behind my back.  My story-NPC-only party was already absurdly overpowered, even before I got Dragon Thrashed - no challenge to 99% of fights, no risk, no need to use spells, items, or healing.  Now suddenly I've got this enchanter AOE damage that (1) doesn't hit friendlies, (2) has a large radius, (3) repeats as long as the battle is going on, (4) doesn't stop the chanter from fighting with weapons at the same time, and (5) can be used each and every fight, rather than a few times per rest.  That destroys anything my per-rest-spell wizard PC can dish out.  And I wasn't even using my wizard (or priest for that matter) because I don't need him.  I probably haven't cast a wizard or priest spell in the last 2 or 3 character levels.  I haul the priest along for story reasons and because I like the voice actor's work, and my wizard since he's my main, but neither is needed for fights.  Ever.

 

I love this game: the art, the music, the voice acting, the story, the atmosphere, the return to a real RPG system, the obvious craftsmanship and love they've put into it, and many of the design choices such as the endurance vs health dynamic.  I wished I'd backed it at a higher KS level than I did, because there's that much goodness here.  But sadly, the one facet I can't say I'm enjoying is the combat :-/.  I've tried to like it, I really have... but I'm just not.  Enemy AI needs improvement, balance feels wrong, invulnerable tanks take the fun and danger away, and no matter which difficulty level you pick, the first few char levels are nice but by mid levels it's gotten stupid-easy.  (Can't speak to the end-game yet).  I think there's a good underlying combat system, and with some refinement, it could rock.  But when 3 of my party just tag along for the ride, my tank is indestructible, and I'm purposefully avoiding abilities on the characters I do use, something just feels off.

[Hebruixe]

Try PotD

[demeisen]

Try PotD

 

Well, yeah, thing is I'm pretty far along and don't want to restart.  If I could drag the slider up there I would.

 

Honestly though, I'm not sure that'd even really fix it.  I've actually started a parallel PoD game, though it's not too far along since I want to finish my main one first.   But I suspect if I get as far as I am now in that play, it'd still be too easy except for the boss fights maybe. I think the things that are bothering me aren't fixed just by PoD.

 

I so very much want combat to be awesome.  And to be fair,I've had a few awesome fights in this play through.  They were all much earlier though.  It's been several levels since I had one of those, and even then they were rare.  But at its' best?  It's great!  Just needs to be like that.... more of the time.

[Parsong]

  That destroys anything my per-rest-spell wizard PC can dish out.  And I wasn't even using my wizard (or priest for that matter) because I don't need him.

 

Druids and Ciphers have already been doing that for months now.

 

Sawyer + Wizard = Where fun goes to die.

Edited April 8, 2015 by Parsong

[Hebruixe]

I hear you. My party is about level 8 in PotD and things are starting to get easier. But it's been a real challenge up to this point (and very entertaining).

 

Hopefully the upcoming expansions will add serious new challenges to tackle.

 

Personally I don't want to see any of the classes nerfed. I want to see bigger, badder, scarier battles. For example in Jagged Alliance 2 (v1.13) you can create a party of insanely OP soldiers, but the game throws you into such big and dangerous battles that you can't win... like, your 6-10 man party versus 80-100 enemy soldiers with the same level and gear. You have to decide how long you dare to stay and fight before retreating. It's a system that lets you choose your own difficulty (in a way).

[Aron Times]

Games aren't what they used to. Back in the day, developers could get away with really hard games because 1. There were fewer games. 2. Games were more expensive proportionally back then (when you account for inflation and income over the years) and 3. Technological limitations prevented more elegant means of challenging players and extending content, so games had to be stupidly hard to keep players occupied. Today, games are much cheaper and more common thanks to Our Lord and Master, Gaben, so you have to get the difficulty level right. Too easy and players drop it too quickly, and too hard and people won't bother playing it.

 

The last part is why Starcraft 2 is pretty much dead (by Blizzard standards) while DotA and League of Legends reign supreme. Starcraft 2 is very hard for most people, and even those who enjoy its difficulty (like myself) can't bring themselves to play it because their less hardcore friends have switched to DotA or LoL. Compared to SC2, DotA and LoL can be played by a wide range of players, and both games are much less punishing of mistakes.

 

If you rank players on a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 is casual while 5 is hardcore, Starcraft 2 only really caters to 4 and 5 while DotA caters to the whole spectrum.

[Zwiebelchen]

Games aren't what they used to. Back in the day, developers could get away with really hard games because 1. There were fewer games. 2. Games were more expensive proportionally back then (when you account for inflation and income over the years) and 3. Technological limitations prevented more elegant means of challenging players and extending content, so games had to be stupidly hard to keep players occupied. Today, games are much cheaper and more common thanks to Our Lord and Master, Gaben, so you have to get the difficulty level right. Too easy and players drop it too quickly, and too hard and people won't bother playing it.

 

The last part is why Starcraft 2 is pretty much dead (by Blizzard standards) while DotA and League of Legends reign supreme. Starcraft 2 is very hard for most people, and even those who enjoy its difficulty (like myself) can't bring themselves to play it because their less hardcore friends have switched to DotA or LoL. Compared to SC2, DotA and LoL can be played by a wide range of players, and both games are much less punishing of mistakes.

 

If you rank players on a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 is casual while 5 is hardcore, Starcraft 2 only really caters to 4 and 5 while DotA caters to the whole spectrum.

 

1. Games nowadays are more expensive to make, not cheaper

2. SC2 failed because Blizzard only cared for e-sports, neglecting the casual gamer scene entirely by supporting modding. What was the most played map in Broodwar? Ladder maps? No. It was Big Game Hunters, a map designed for casual gamers. E-sport is the cherry on top, not the goal of game design.

3. Players love hard games. Gamers ****ing loved Dark Souls, a game clearly designed for masochists. Games nowadays are on the easy side of the difficulty spectrum, simply because it's easier to balance games that are supposed to be easy.

 

Just to point out some of the common misconceptions.

 

 

Back to topic:

I think PoE got the direction right in Act 1. It just requires some rebalancing of later content to correct the difficulty curve. Add Accuracy all across the board from Act 2 to Act 3 and double the XP needed to reach level cap and everything should work out fine. And fix those few OP outlier spells.

Edited April 8, 2015 by Zwiebelchen

[Aron Times]

1. I'm not talking about development costs, but rather the retail prices of video games. Basically, gamers back then had to pay more (proportionally) compared to gamers nowadays, despite increased development costs. This is mainly due to the rise and proliferation of digital distribution.

 

2. You're not disagreeing with me. E-sports is hardcore by definition, that is the 4s and 5s I was referring to.

 

3. Dark Souls is a niche game, and was specifically marketed as a hardcore game. Its popularity on the Internet (game forums, Twitch, etc.) doesn't reflect its lesser popularity offline. The difference between SC2 and DS is that people expected the fun social environment of Brood War Battle.net 1.0 but as you already know, we got treated to the very asocial Battle.net 0.2, while with DS, people got exactly what was advertised.

[Zwiebelchen]

I don't see any correlation between E-sports and difficulty, honestly. SC2 is not a difficult game to learn. It's hard to master, but easy to learn. In that regard, SC2 is a perfectly designed game. League of Legends is exactly the same: easy to learn, hard to master. There is nothing wrong with that principle.

 

And you didn't get my point here:

Blizzard didn't fail because SC2 was hard. It's not. They failed because they regarded the E-Sport scene as the only content in the game, neglecting what made BroodWar and WC3 big: custom maps.

Edited April 8, 2015 by Zwiebelchen

[Emerwyn]

There is a problem, even in PotD. The game's highest challenges in the crit path are level 9, except for the end encounter which is level 10. Off the crit path, it doesn't get much better. There is one level 10 encounter and one level 12 encounter (and being fair, the level 12 encounter in PotD difficulty -IS- challenging).

 

With how much experience is thrown around and how easily you get level capped even early in Act 2 when half the crit path still lies ahead of you, the last half of the game becomes disappointingly easy to beat, and again, I'm speaking of PotD difficulty.

 

I'm not using a chanter myself and the last 10 hours of the game I barely cast any spell at all, it was mostly auto-attacking and seeing things get ripped apart by my Greatsword warrior 2-shotting everything. If anything, I'd cast a Chill Fog to speed things up and cut down some of the tedium. My party members all have Athletism 5+ (couple of them have Athletism 10) and all end heavy fatigued before I need to rest due to low health or lack of spells.

 

While originally I hadn't thought difficulty was an issue in PotD setting, now I can say that it is definitely a major problem in this game. Can't have the game's challenge end at level 9 and give your party level 12, especially so easily and so soon. Thing is, the difficulty worked great in early levels, but at some point (party level 7- things go to hell and it all becomes a steamroll. They have a lot of work to do with the expansions and sequel if they want them to work.

Edited April 8, 2015 by Emerwyn

[Aron Times]

I don't see any correlation between E-sports and difficulty, honestly. SC2 is not a difficult game to learn. It's hard to master, but easy to learn. In that regard, SC2 is a perfectly designed game. League of Legends is exactly the same: easy to learn, hard to master. There is nothing wrong with that principle.

 

And you didn't get my point here:

Blizzard didn't fail because SC2 was hard. It's not. They failed because they regarded the E-Sport scene as the only content in the game, neglecting what made BroodWar and WC3 big: custom maps.

Starcraft, DotA, and LoL have very high skill ceilings, but the skill floor of Starcraft is much higher than the other two. You need to work harder to maintain a baseline skill level with Starcraft 2 compared to Dota 2 and LoL. Playing an hour of Starcraft 2 is much more mentally exhausting than playing an hour of DotA or LoL.

 

Skill floor is the amount of skill needed to play "properly" (not floating money or getting supply blocked in SC2, getting last hits and chaining spells in DotA). Skill ceiling refers to the theoretical skill limit and the potential for skill differentiation between players of different skill levels.

 

But the point I'm trying to make is that you can't make PoE harder if you don't find it challenging. Just because you find it easy doesn't mean that others do. Some people struggle on easy mode, as evidenced by a few posts in the spoiler forums. If you don't find it challenging enough, don't ruin it for others who do find it too challenging. That way lies the lonely road trod by games that are overly competitive (SC2).

Edited April 8, 2015 by Aron Times

[Zwiebelchen]

 

I don't see any correlation between E-sports and difficulty, honestly. SC2 is not a difficult game to learn. It's hard to master, but easy to learn. In that regard, SC2 is a perfectly designed game. League of Legends is exactly the same: easy to learn, hard to master. There is nothing wrong with that principle.

 

And you didn't get my point here:

Blizzard didn't fail because SC2 was hard. It's not. They failed because they regarded the E-Sport scene as the only content in the game, neglecting what made BroodWar and WC3 big: custom maps.

Starcraft, DotA, and LoL have very high skill ceilings, but the skill floor of Starcraft is much higher than the other two. You need to work harder to maintain a baseline skill level with Starcraft 2 compared to Dota 2 and LoL. Playing an hour of Starcraft 2 is much more mentally exhausting than playing an hour of DotA or LoL.

 

Skill floor is the amount of skill needed to play "properly" (not floating money or getting supply blocked in SC2, getting last hits and chaining spells in DotA). Skill ceiling refers to the theoretical skill limit and the potential for skill differentiation between players of different skill levels.

 

But the point I'm trying to make is that you can't make PoE harder if you don't find it challenging. Just because you find it easy doesn't mean that others do. Some people struggle on easy mode, as evidenced by a few posts in the spoiler forums. If you don't find it challenging enough, don't ruin it for others who do find it too challenging. That way lies the lonely road trod by games that are overly competitive (SC2).

 

 

I disagree. The skill floor of SC2 is not really high. As they removed the selection limit and made almost all of the unit abilities autocast, SC2 is more of a macro-heavy game than micro-heavy. And there's leagues for all kinds of skill levels. It doesn't take much skill to perform some of the popular strategies and win with them (6-pool, 4-gate all-in, Marine/Marauder/Medivac, Roach-all-in).

The reason why playing an hour of SC2 feels more exhausting than LoL is that the game is just not as much fun as the other games. The perfect e-sports balancing of SC2 destroyed viability of all kinds of fun cheesy tactics that make lowlevel-gaming so entertaining.

Spamming nukes, massing carriers, overrunning your enemy with Ultralisks... all these strategies are extremely fun ... but they don't work, not even in the lower leagues. Add the hardcore ladder system to this that punishes the player for losing and trying out funny new tactics...

Notice how LoL rewards you even if you lose a game? SC2 doesn't have that. It slaps you with the "you failed, noob!" and a massive punishment to your MMR.

Competitive games only work when casual players have an incentive to compete. SC2 doesn't offer that. What's the point in having competitive gameplay if it's no fun? The reason why MOBA games are so successfull is not because of the low skill floor or high skill ceiling, it's because they are fun to play.

 

 

Comparing PoE and SC2 in terms of difficulty is moot. PoE has difficulty levels. Adjusting the game balance won't hurt the casual crowd at all, as we always have the option apply those balance tweaks to hard and PotD setting only. In fact, this is quite easy to do, as the lower difficulty levels have different kinds of monsters placed than the higher difficulties. So adjusting the hard mode foes only wouldn't even require any real gameplay changes.

There is no excuse for front-loaded difficulty in RPGs. It just isn't right that a PoE game on Hard or PotD starts out punishingly hard and then gets progressively easier as you move on. It should be the opposite. Period.

Edited April 8, 2015 by Zwiebelchen

[WebShaman]

*blinks*

 

I really can't see anyone saying that Easy is not exactly that - easy.

 

Now, there are encounters that one should probably put off until one is appropriately levelled (Lighthouse rings a bell, so does Eothas Church in Gilded Vale).  But if one gets at least the first Companions, well...I can't see anyone having any problems.  Just level, get some items, and then come back.

 

I never had any problems with the Eothas Church - only had Eder, Aloth, and myself (Death Godlike Ranger).  I think we were at level 2 at the time.  The Bear was ridiculously easy with a 3 man party (4 with Animal Companion, really).

 

I got up to the top of the Lighthouse at level 3.  Took lots of consumables to do it - and positioning, etc.  Now that I know how it is, I would recommend at least level 5 before trying it again - when it is a push-over.

 

Now that I have witnessed the power of Kana at higher levels, and the Druid...bleh.  I don't even bring the Priest, Durance,  with me anymore - I wish Pelligrina was better (she tends to get damaged alot).  Sagani is in my Stronghold (almost totally useless around level 4-5 and above compared to the other heavy hitters).

 

So to have a winning Party and make things easy -

 

Main Character - (whatever here, it doesn't really matter - though my next run will be with a Rogue because Wizards suxx0rs in this game, which really, REALLY PISSES ME OFF!).

 

Eder - (he tanks.  And tanks.  Like an Energizer Battery commercial, he keeps going, and going and going...).

 

Kana - because Chanters are that good.  The summons are literally off. the. wall.

Grieving Mother - because Ciphers...are just OP

The Druid (I always forget his name *shrug*) - see above  

 

I suppose the Priest Durance - though I hate him.  He sits in my Stronghold.  I prefer Pelligrina (though she is kind of weak).

 

So basically, everyone has firearms (except my Ranger, he has a Warbow).  Eder and my Bear companion tank and fight up front, the rest rain death and destruction from behind.  Pelligrina sometimes puts her firearm away for one of the Greatswords and wades in - if anything is still alive after the Druid unleashes holy hell on things.

 

One the rare occassions (battles, encounters) where things are actually difficult (meaning I can't rely soley on auto-attack or a combo of that and Druid destruction), then the Chanter summons kicks in...mah gawd!  Then I throw in some spells from Aloth (yeah, I know...so bad, but...I am a sucker for Wizards *shrugs*).  Not that such is really necessary by then, but Aloth needs some love and attention once in awhile, right?

 

Ok, he suxx0rs.  I know.

 

So yeah...it is too easy.  I am level 5 at the moment, and I have cleared every map (most with auto-attack).  Stronghold is almost totally finished (still have Endless Paths to do), and I am working my way currently through the Bounties (fun stuff!) - trying to find this Elmshore place, having problems...bleh.

 

Rambling on...what was the topic?

[dusklight]

Games aren't what they used to. Back in the day, developers could get away with really hard games because 1. There were fewer games. 2. Games were more expensive proportionally back then (when you account for inflation and income over the years) and 3. Technological limitations prevented more elegant means of challenging players and extending content, so games had to be stupidly hard to keep players occupied. Today, games are much cheaper and more common thanks to Our Lord and Master, Gaben, so you have to get the difficulty level right. Too easy and players drop it too quickly, and too hard and people won't bother playing it.

 

The last part is why Starcraft 2 is pretty much dead (by Blizzard standards) while DotA and League of Legends reign supreme. Starcraft 2 is very hard for most people, and even those who enjoy its difficulty (like myself) can't bring themselves to play it because their less hardcore friends have switched to DotA or LoL. Compared to SC2, DotA and LoL can be played by a wide range of players, and both games are much less punishing of mistakes.

 

If you rank players on a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 is casual while 5 is hardcore, Starcraft 2 only really caters to 4 and 5 while DotA caters to the whole spectrum.

 

Uh you know Bloodborne just came out right. And people stopped playing sc2 not because it's hard but because it's boring. 

 

Dota and LoL are fun and unpredictable and SO MUCH BETTER BALANCED that Pillars of Eternity. 

[kat7ra]

Hmm, haven't used Kana much, though I don't really read much on new spells and abilities anymore either no need...

 

Common fight for me in the mid-later part of the game is something like this.

1. Walking from A to B while chatting on Steam

2. ATTACKED BY ASSASINS YOU SAY! Time to...

3. Right-click enemies -> continue chatting on steam

4. Loot the bodies to get even more filthy rich 20 secs later

 

And I rarely mind getting to this point of POWER! in games, it's just happening a bit too fast/easy here.

 

Waiting for a fight to be so hard I have to sit down and read all the new spells...

(This might all be my own fault though for not playing on PotD and doing AAAALL the side quests)