When combat becomes a chore

[omgFIREBALLS]

The battles are... trivial, provided you make a little effort. Tell everyone to use a few certain per encounter abilities, micro them a little... rinse repeat too many damn times. If you were to let the AI solve it, you'd risk someone taking too much damage or outright getting knocked out and suffer an injury, forcing you to rest so that you're in shape for a not-so-trivial battle.

 

Recognize it? I'm sure many do. It's PotD, I'm telling the game to adjust difficulty to my party level, but invariably I might spend an entire hour with only one real combat challenge. In SOME places, not all - I'm not saying the whole game is too easy. Anyway, everything else I'm still killing because the monsters are, possibly or definitely:

 

Carrying something of value

Guarding something of value

Obstructing the path to an objective

 

Granted, there are a few dungeons I'm intimately familiar with, where I know which trash packs I can ignore. But for many of the others, I really really really really (Carly Rae Jepsen level of really here) just want to stand at the entrance, grab a mägâpwn (that's megaphone renamed using PoE logic) and declare a challenge to the entire place. EVERYONE AT ONCE, COME AT ME. I'd get my combat challenge, and I could blithely pillage the dungeon afterwards. Even more blithely if a reward for such a feat might be that every trap and secret compartment - for which I have the mechanics skill to detect - would deign to appear right away so I'd never have to enter search mode.

 

I haven't had much success sending someone to gather more than a few packs at once. They get run down pretty fast. But I can't be alone having this problem, so do share your family recipe for solving this. I am open enough to suggestions to consider a spell that makes a goldfish of me so that each encounter is a brand new experience.

[Tigranes]

Most RPGs in the last 15 years have been ridiculously easy for veteran players on their second (or more) playthroughs. Usually my solution is house rules. Less party members. Resting rules (e.g. rest once per level). Lessen XP gain (use IE mod or do it manually with console). Do not use certain 'cheesy' tactics like abusing LOS to attract a few enemies then running away. Do not pick up non-magical weapons and armour, which cuts down on boring labour and also lessens gold gain. Do not minmax attributes beyond a threshold (e.g. 6). And so on.

[Boeroer]

I also encounter this. I'm canceling mire and more of my playthroughs because after some point it just gets so trivial and it's all routine. As you said: cast my per encounter stuff like Inspiring Radiance and Aspirant's Mark an whatnot, then just storm the field. Select the whole party and target one enemy. When he explodes target the next. No tactics needed - just be quick and don't waste time with micro. Then, after a lot of such fights, and after killing the bosses except Thaos (who is a wussy) I quit because there's no point. I proofed my builds are viable. Everything else I saw many times before.

I don't think it's the games fault. I just played it more often then intended I guess.

I would so love to see an arena where you could put builds into. Not even multiplayer duels - just put in your build and have a smart scripting API that would allow you to tell the character how to behave (more complex than now). Then let them fight. Like dog fights or robot fights. You train them, but you don't control them during fights. Would be so much fun to see my builds fighting against the LoP or the Juggernaut.

Edited April 2, 2016 by Boeroer

[adikKt]

I feel you, I completely agree with above posts. The way the game is written you cant expect it to keep up the challenge every time you replay it if you dont make it harder by yourself. Only thing that keeps me playing some game even after years are those that offer challenge through multiplayer, which is for different understandable reasons not part of PoE. I guess it is like reading a good book over and over, you find some new meanings, but the excitement from the first reading (playthrough) is not repeatable.

[Blunderboss]

It has something to do with : 

every single fight (PoTD) is trash fest , what makes a fight hard in PoE ? Enemy outnumbering u 4 to 1 . Only way to loose a fight is if enemy trash mobs did one of the following things : there were too many of them so they swarmed your party because tanks can only tank 10 of them , there is not enough space for your party to move so terrible pathfinding kicks in and ur team eats random disengagement attacks because they cant move one step to the left , or your party dies because they cant even reach the enemy because other party members are blocking them , or worst is you cant reach biggest enemy threat because enemy is already blocking each other in 4 lines and not even teleports get trough .

Fake Difficulty all over the place . 

 

I really had hops that in Whitemarch they add more encounter where u have to face 3-7 Very strong enemies , instead they did the same mistake and made u fight against 20 trash mobs every time , i wonder if developers ever tested POTD fights ( i assume that they never even touched this mode because if you look closely how battle on Path of The Damned resolves its pathetic tbh  ) . Use of any tactics is so limited simply because there are more trash mobs than game fit to your screen so only viable tactic is Buff myself to oblivion , launch all aoe attacks my party has , struggle finishing left overs with your autos because even after u killed 20 priests , last priest of something will become avatar of Chuck Noris , wont die and kill atleast 2 of your teammates ,hell i had last enemy who was engaged by 5 party members in melee dish out disengagement attacks on my priest and rogue while those pathetic bastard were fighting uphill battle against pathfinding , funny thing even when 5 guys stand around that last enemy he still wont get flanked

 

There is no room for tactics and coordination in pillars due to immense number of trash enemies who blocks the battlefield for you and for themselves 

Edited April 2, 2016 by Blunderboss

[Psychevore]

Do a full party where everyone has 3 con and  3 perception.

[Esajin]

Someone suggested house rules, I personally exclude strategy (character building and min maxing) and use additional RP constraints, de facto limiting some of my characters options and potentials.

 

I then work on every fight with what I have. It's like playing solo, but less extreme and without the kiting. Every fight becomes a boss fight as you slowly grind your way to 100% completion. You still need to upscale everything (starting with WM1) even on POTD though, otherwise all challenge will be gone anyway as soon as you enter Defiance Bay.

[Jojobobo]

I think playing solo adds some variety. Compared to a whole party, you only have so many quick item slots so you manage your use of figurines a lot more making combat a little more varied (though sure you're using the same set of figurines, you're not using the same ones every encounter, and so it adds a little something IMO to the gameplay). Further, as you're just the one guy, you need to be managing defense boosting at times of need and also your use of scrolls.

 

In any case, I guess one guy in Boots of Speed would be good at grouping mobs while the rest of your party is strategically positioned to handle the hoard - though I'm sure you've tried that already. It does seem quite easy to split mobs in this game when the members of that mob are at different speeds, which I guess is a pain with what you're trying to accomplish.

[Boeroer]

I will publish a "Season 2" of my build series. One build for every class. This time the basic theme is "Twisted Builds". Basically I try to take a class and let it do things that it#s normally not supposed to do. For example I have a rogue who plays like a wizard, a barb who plays like a monk and so on. Those builds are not especially powerful (well in some cases they are), but totally viable for PotD. I hope that this brings back some excitement in battle. Because I will have to change my usual tactics a lot. We'll see what I will come up with.

Edited April 2, 2016 by Boeroer

[Raven Darkholme]

You guys need to solo.

I even enjoy the trivialties of some battles, now that I'm playing with a trio.

Soloing three times in a row on PotD does that to you.^^

Edited April 2, 2016 by Raven Darkholme

[Odd Hermit]

IMO the biggest issue is how pulling works. You either pull enemies away in manageable numbers, pull them back to a chokepoint, or if you want a "challenge" abandon tactics and let them mob you but pop CDs/spells per rest/etc. far more often. Some fights are more fun that way though.

 

Generally if an enemy can't outrun you, they almost auto-lose. Some of the more tedious mobs in the game are the lumbering high HP/DR trolls and lurker types in the early game - you can't really get killed by them alone but it's boring kiting and whittling them down.

[Esajin]

I will publish a "Season 2" of my build series. One build for every class. This time the basic theme is "Twisted Builds". Basically I try to take a class and let it do things that it#s normally not supposed to do. For example I have a rogue who plays like a wizard, a barb who plays like a monk and so on. Those builds are not especially powerful (well in some cases they are), but totally viable for PotD. I hope that this brings back some excitement in battle. Because I will have to change my usual tactics a lot. We'll see what I will come up with.

 

My party currently runs without any sort of caster (three fighters, one monk, one ranger, one rogue). One of the fighters thinks she's a wizard, she usually stands in the back, uses the wizard soulbound wand and does all the spellcasting in the team. I can write a thing or two about her, if anyone's interested.

[omgFIREBALLS]

Thanks for the replies. I'm fairly power-gamerish so I don't really fancy the idea of creating challenge by gimping myself with a smaller party, worse stats etc. My approach is more like, I'm so badass I could take you all on at once, so let me do that. It's not everywhere, but yesterday I was in the Skaen temple with a level... 13? party, and you can imagine how much I wanted it there. But when I go up against a dragon, I expect my F8 key to get some exercise, so it's not like I consider myself a master of all PoE combat.

[Esajin]

What you can try maybe is split your party in two in the next outdoor zone that you overlevel, three go north, three go south, see who can reach the other side first