Does XP from white march break the game?

[Pelmaleon]

I think the devs may have shot themselves in the foot with their leveling system. In the infinity engine games the experience required for mid-late game levels would start to ramp up into extremely large figures, while in this game each subsequent level barely increases the amount of exp required to ding. This causes players who do every side quest and area to be way too overleveled for future encounters/quests because each quest completion gives a large portion of the exp required to level up - enough of these large portions by completing side quests and you become overleveled. They need to take a look at the way the infinity engine games were designed for Pillars 2 (or for part 2 of White March if they decide to revamp the exp system) to realize that they must ramp up the experience required for mid-late game level ups lest they run into a huge problem where completionists and even semi-completionists will suddenly hit an odd, fun-killing power curve in which their party is too powerful for subsequent encounters/quests and the challenge is completely gone (except for the toughest bosses: a couple Dragons and the last boss). And yes, they can potentially scale enemies with your level for the main game, but that is immersion-breaking bull****. I don't want a cadre of lowly bandits to be as powerful as a dragon I slew many levels ago.

 

I really hope Pillars 2 is twice as challenging as this game (maybe just alter how the difficulty levels work, with easy, normal, and hard all modulating stats (or damage taken, etc) while the new PotD alters them a tiny bit more and also throws in all the enemies from the other difficulties) and the power curve issue is fixed. My dream would be for Pillars 2's hard to be as tough as Pillars 1's PotD, and the new PotD to be insanely challenging.

Edited September 18, 2015 by Pelmaleon

[Pelmaleon]

There is no way you can do wm on level 5. Level 7-8 is when you want to get there and even then it is not a piece of cake...

 

On level 5 you might get through the first area if you will be smart and pick a fairly safe route to the boss and kill him but further than that you will get your ass handed to you by fishmen or constructs or even larger packs of ogres

 

I entered White March at level 5 with my PotD party and beat all of it except the (SPOILERS) Alpine Dragon and Cragholdt area. I went from level 5 to level 9, and am about to attempt Cragholdt. The evidence is in my vods at twitch.tv/Pelmaleon.

[Pelmaleon]

I suggest using IEmod with +50% exp requirement to level. But I agree on there being a serious problem with difficulty in general and exp in particular in PoE that should be addressed by the devs.

 

Given that PoTD is intended for 'hardcore gamers' (i.e. powergamers, completionists, old school IE fans etc), I personally think that increased exp requirements should be an integrated part of PoTD as a way to increase difficulty from previous settings without just bumping enemy hp/dmg.

Doesn't the IEMod break with every new patch? I haven't experimented with it yet, but I thought I remember reading that.

[Skie Nightfall]

A simple requirement for more xp per level could certainly help a bit with the balancing issue. Especially as it will probably get worse with the second expansion?

However, I'm certainly not installing a mod just for that, especially not one named IE

[sapientNode]

PoE's budget wasn't large by any definition of the term, though.

 

 

Hmmm...

They had about 4 times the budget of Divinity Original Sin as well as Dragonfall. For a Kickstarter close to 5 million is quite a sufficient budget.

Of course I know that loony cat card game hit 9 million

I think their internal teams were not communicating or they just agreed early on they would put everything and the kitchen sink in and it would round out well.

The story is still absolutely amazing and solid and the voice acting and atmosphere is excellent.

Experience and Itemization is a significant problem though and was not plotted out to keep a balance of difficulty throughout the game.

[sapientNode]

 

I suggest using IEmod with +50% exp requirement to level. But I agree on there being a serious problem with difficulty in general and exp in particular in PoE that should be addressed by the devs.

 

Given that PoTD is intended for 'hardcore gamers' (i.e. powergamers, completionists, old school IE fans etc), I personally think that increased exp requirements should be an integrated part of PoTD as a way to increase difficulty from previous settings without just bumping enemy hp/dmg.

Doesn't the IEMod break with every new patch? I haven't experimented with it yet, but I thought I remember reading that.

 

 

They do indeed have to update iemod with every patch.  However the mod itself is fairly essential in my opinion.  The experience nerf of 25/50 and square is literally exactly what is needed to not outlevel the content ridiculously fast.  And iemod has a ton of other amazing features.

As for experience I was not through half of beneath Caed Nua and only 3/4 of Twin Elms when I hit cap.  Then I quit to wait for the expansion.  I did not use the experience tweak with iemod that playthrough.  I lose all interest once I hit a cap.

[Zherot]

What did you expect was going to happen if you do content that you are supposed to do after beating the game genius?, obviously the content is for people that already beat the game they increased the level cap and added more skills, so you honestly believe they would not add new level cap and reward crap exp and loot so people could do the content at any level?, i bet you would be the first one crying in the forums because the expansion didnt added anything new for the people that already beated the game.

Edited September 18, 2015 by Zherot

[wanderon]

What did you expect was going to happen if you do content that you are supposed to do after beating the game genius?, obviously the content is for people that already beat the game they increased the level cap and added more skills, so you honestly believe they would not add new level cap and reward crap exp and loot so people could do the content at any level?, i bet you would be the first one crying in the forums because the expansion didnt added anything new for the people that already beated the game.

 

Actually I think they intended you to play the content around mid-game (It opens to you at mid-game) at least most of the content was intended for mid game - one (seperate) area was intended for higher level parties I believe.

[sapientNode]

So what I am getting from this thread is that the best time to do the content is either mid game for items or wait until the end and upscale it?

If I wait until the end will I have enough enemies to fight to fulfill the evolving weapons?

If I do White March mid game with 50% increase to exp will I be good to do the rest of the game and not feel like I am extremely powerful?

I am playing PoTD right now. Which feels more like Path of the somewhat difficult. The way that the difficulty modifier explains it is that PoTD will be a soul crushing extreme challenge.

Anyway so White March? when?

[Teioh_White]

Most definitely, if you do White March first, the rest of the game will provide zero challenge. Even before White March, a common complaint was how much easier the game got towards the end, as the team got full of shiny magic items and hit the level cap. The rest of the game will stay at the same level that was pretty low before, except now you'll have even more levels and even more pretty shineys. Until you get to level scale'd point of no return, you'll just steam roll things.

 

On the hand, you are right. It's pretty easy to shoot yourself in the foot on those Soul Bound weapons and not have enough stuff to kill, and if you like the new companions, you'll basically just get to use them for two areas only. Small grace is that outside the bow, the weapons aren't -that- good, and if you only care about the best stuff, it shouldn't be a big deal that you miss out on the Soulbound Weapons.

 

My personal take is to do everything up to the point of no return, then back out and hit up White March. You'll hit the new max fairly soon into it, but it's pretty combat heavy compared to the main area, so you get a lot of fights to see exactly what your guys can do at max strength.

[bonarbill]

So what I am getting from this thread is that the best time to do the content is either mid game for items or wait until the end and upscale it? If I wait until the end will I have enough enemies to fight to fulfill the evolving weapons? If I do White March mid game with 50% increase to exp will I be good to do the rest of the game and not feel like I am extremely powerful? I am playing PoTD right now. Which feels more like Path of the somewhat difficult. The way that the difficulty modifier explains it is that PoTD will be a soul crushing extreme challenge. Anyway so White March? when?

 

PoTD gets easy lategame regardless on whatever you tackle the WM early or not.  I personally think you should just do it as soon as you can to get access to newer companions early.

[danielkx]

 

PoE's budget wasn't large by any definition of the term, though.

 

Hmmm...

They had about 4 times the budget of Divinity Original Sin as well as Dragonfall. For a Kickstarter close to 5 million is quite a sufficient budget.

Of course I know that loony cat card game hit 9 million

I think their internal teams were not communicating or they just agreed early on they would put everything and the kitchen sink in and it would round out well.

The story is still absolutely amazing and solid and the voice acting and atmosphere is excellent.

Experience and Itemization is a significant problem though and was not plotted out to keep a balance of difficulty throughout the game.

Both those games you mentioned were only partially funded through Kickstarter, in fact the majority of Divinity was funded by the company itself and I believe the budget converted to USD was just over 5 million. I believe PoE had about 4 million after Kickstarter took their cut. Edited September 19, 2015 by danielkx

[Gs11]

 

So what I am getting from this thread is that the best time to do the content is either mid game for items or wait until the end and upscale it? If I wait until the end will I have enough enemies to fight to fulfill the evolving weapons? If I do White March mid game with 50% increase to exp will I be good to do the rest of the game and not feel like I am extremely powerful? I am playing PoTD right now. Which feels more like Path of the somewhat difficult. The way that the difficulty modifier explains it is that PoTD will be a soul crushing extreme challenge. Anyway so White March? when?

 

PoTD gets easy lategame regardless on whatever you tackle the WM early or not.  I personally think you should just do it as soon as you can to get access to newer companions early.

So only options what are left are  :

-not doing WM until main complement's finish, then scaled it up  which  give us possibility to  experience the high-level version of the game with new 12-14 lvl, skills, companions in Wihite March and Cragholdt's Bluff  

 

-go into and start  WM  mid game at  around 7lvl as designed  with 50% exp increase IE Mod PotD and back to the main plot. or maybe    even with 50% exp IE mod  after finishing WM    main plot still stays to easy?

 

even if it would work,(complete WM at 7 lvl with IE mod  50% exp nerf ) and give us reasonable/satisfying main plot game  we could experience   high-level content  with new lvl and skills only in Cragholdt's Bluf?

Edited September 23, 2015 by Gs11

[Alexander1]

 

It definitely screws up the main game in terms of difficulty.

 

Late-mid game was never difficult on POTD anyways. 

 

 

 

Is there anyway to have the White March content affect the main game?  Perhaps alter some encounters or events in the main story to make them harder but more worthwhile?

[Gs11]

Does anyone actually  try play with 50% exp nerf IE mod? If so, how looks game's difficulty? I mean especially doing White March mid game and backing to main story.Is the main plot  still too easy or better balanced with this mod?

Edited September 27, 2015 by Gs11