Hard vs PotD

[Sethanon]

I always play on Hard difficulty, however, to be honest, in full party, it is still pretty easy. I dont use food, potions, or sleeping bonuses. Just going through.

 

So I would like to try PotD.

Is there huge difference between those two?

About number of enemies - it should be the same amount, right? Just their stats are modified.

[Boeroer]

Yes. But those changes make a difference. It's like playing with a party which is a few levels lower than before. You feel it especially at the beginning. However - during Act II it also becomes pretty easy when your party composition is not totally messed up (like 6 rogues or stuff like that).

[Climhazzard]

PoTD is pretty hard at the start, on hard I usually do Caed Nua at level 3 so I can start getting stronghold adventures sooner, I can do it on PotD but it's a lot more dicey...  like I went through 5 fan of flames in the throne room on my last playthrough without killing a single phantasm.  It was on Trial of Iron and I only barely pulled through the fight.

 

Later on it sort of depends, most of Defiance bay isn't really hard on either difficulty, but some encounters can be a lot tougher on PotD.  If you're finding the game to easy on hard, definitely try PoTD.  Once you figure out the right combination of buffs, debuffs, and crowd control, hard is no longer a challenge, but PotD can still be one.

[demeisen]

I always play on Hard difficulty, however, to be honest, in full party, it is still pretty easy.

 

Yeah, true.  I feel the difficulties are mis-named, and don't go high enough.

 

 

Is there huge difference between those two?

 

Sure.  PotD is way more fun .

 

I think you get harder "subspecies" of enemies in a lot of fights, such as the same basic family of creature, but higher end ones.  I believe you also get more enemies in a fight sometimes, such as 3 trolls instead of 1 or 2, but I'm not totally sure.  It's been a long time since I played on hard; memory's fuzzy.

 

Whatever they did to get the PotD mode, it doesn't feel as "cheap" as some other games' approaches.  (*cough*oblivion*cough*).  It's not perfect, but it's way better than I've seen in other games.

 

The difficulty of PotD is still hugely variable, mind you.  You get some "barely survived that!" skin-of-the-teeth fights, especially in WM if you start it as soon as you can and use level scaling.  There are also still a lot of very easy fights, especially later in the game after WM Is over.

 

All told, it's more fun than Hard, for sure.  Have a go, and see what you think.  I bet you'll like it more.

 

 

[Boeroer]

If your knowledge of the contents is not too good (which encounter comes next, what damage types are blights most vulnerable to, what damage type do trolls use and so on) it is pretty hard. When you have good meta gaming knowledge it becomes a lot easier.

[anameforobsidian]

I would hesitate to call PotD easy, I beat it with story characters and it had quite a few challenges.  In act II the game opens up, but everything basically has the same challenge levels (except Endless Paths) so it's likely you outlevel the game.  I think the solution to this would just be to make sidequests vary by expected level, so you come back and do them later or push through with some more challenge.