At 5.4, and giving up. Anyone else just not having fun anymore?

[macksting]

I'm not trying to be a butt or a downer; if the topic makes you angry, best move on.

 

I could spin my wheels and wait for fixes, but even if all the bugs were fixed, 5.4 is simply too difficult for me to be fun. I'm making this post as I'm uninstalling the game.

[Longshot11]

It would help if you gave a little more details what party you're playing, what difficulties you're experiencing, etc..

 

Yes, 5.4 is nasty by default, very luck-dependent for a solo character (nigh impossible for some) due to the "play only 1 card per check" location, and if you're playing it on Heroic/Legendary.... well, you have only yourself to blame. (Or, OK, you could blame Obsidian, who haven't thought through the possibility to play the scenario on these difficulties solo/with sub-optimal parties...)

[macksting]

Normal. I tried backing up and playing through earlier chapters with new party members to level them up, but the realization that I would then have to drag the present members through with some other party, plus the gold cost it's taking to get the remaining characters, plus the additional frustration of grinding redundantly to bring these n00bs to par, plus the errors turning successful rolls into failures, plus Jordigundam not consistently staying to fight, plus the fact that the Vault Of Greed can eat irreplaceable unique loot available only from grinding through the earlier chapters on a successful roll...

 

Even once they fix the errors, it still won't be fun.

[macksting]

Though Lini getting a monster and a boss in her deck because they say "animal" on them was pretty funny.

[imaenoon]

The card game has ways to adapt to difficulties for solo play which aren't really an option for the app. I disagree with the idea of tailoring a game for extreme play, but I think the card game is actually pretty good about allowing experimentation. You're playing against a system and there's not death penalty for forfeiting, so if things get too tough you can always forfeit and come back at it. With good luck, you can win the scenarios without too much trouble. I don't like solo play because I like having at least a couple of characters for variety, but 5.4 isn't that bad after you get used to it.

[macksting]

Two weeks and I'm not used to it. How many more were you thinking? And why would you find it fun to try one quest for that long, sometimes quitting just so the Greed room didn't permanently damage your deck?

[imaenoon]

I can only speak for myself, but I played with a party of six and it didn't take a couple of weeks to win. ...and I lost a really good card off ezren in the 'Greed room.' Cudos for the name, though. That's a pretty good one. Not being facetious.

 

As for 5.4, I trust that it irritates you, but it just wasn't that bad for me. I did have a problem with a bug in it, though, and that made me restart a couple of times. I was not keen on that. There are a bunch of little bugs in the game I find irritating, but I've played the app literally like 90%+ of the days since its release and I still enjoy it. When 5 released, I deleted all my parties and started a six man and a four man from scratch. I think I'll recreate the Val and Lem show again also for the hell of it.

[macksting]

I was on board shortly before episode 4 released, and found the difficulty a little too high, but I've given up and uninstalled. 5.4 isn't fun for me.

[zarrick13]

I can say...nope. I am still very much having fun poking my 4 person parties through things up to and beyond 5.4.

 

For that matter I am happy to see the difficulty go up like this. Things up to deck 4 were pretty easy. Deck 5 was the first time my parties struggled to beat scenarios in less than 5 tries.

 

Its a matter of prep, planning, and manipulation. Like the greed room. Don't like the condition? Plan for it. Use someone who has expendable or very few items and don't let them carry things you will miss. That sort of thing will help the enjoyment of the game.

[cheungie]

I am of the view that 5.4 on legendary is imbalanced. I am able to clear all other scenarios on legendary apart from this. 

 

Let's see if my opinion on this would change after the horrible bug is fixed.

[Nym]

Aside from the bugs—which are awful and need fixing—I loved it. Especially on heroic/legendary, since the extra scenario condition requires some careful planning to play around.

[Ripe]

Well, Pathfinder is not designed so every character and every party combination can be successful... there are some characters (Ezren) and some party combinations (no spellcasters) that will find it next to impossible to complete the Adventure Path.

 

But without knowing what party you're playing it's hard to give useful hints as to how to defeat the scenario. I did beat 5.4 with my party of six characters on first try even with a major mistake made (sending Lini to fight Ordikon in "no spells" location... which lead to a full hand wipe since, naturally, he rolled a 1!).

 

I will admit that I don't play on Heroic/Legendary since I find it way to much luck based... and therefore not fun to play. On the other hand, Rise of the Runelords is easiest Adventure Path released by Paizo so far.

[Acroyear16]

Well, much like the definition of insanity - how were you going about it?

Meaning, did you try different approaches?

 

I don't think leveling up other party members has been much of an issue b/c dragging an inexperienced character or two alongside a couple maxed out ones is a breeze.

 

I personally enjoy a good challenge, though bugs making things unwinnable isn't cool at all...

(I started a topic on soloing 5.4 and 5.5 with Meri - try making an Intelligence roll of 17 with her d4!)

 

But again - your approach -

A) check your hand before hitting the 'Greed room' - if you don't have an item in hand, you can't banish one.

B) check your OPTIONS, don't just immediately roll the dice - checks usually have multiple options for stats or skills to acquire an item, so select something you AREN'T skilled at and use that (d4) for your check.

For instance, if you have Seoni or Ezren, and have an item in hand that you don't want to lose, and you pull an Orb of Frost, the check is Arcane OR Divine.

Switch it to Divine and you now roll a d4 since neither character has the Divine skill.

C) send in Seelah, she doesn't get any items in her deck.

[aznxknight]

Before you heckle me, my point of view is only from playing on legendary mode and 6 characters. Perhaps maybe it's my characters that are well geared, but i find all scenarios that are not legendary mode to be pretty easy. It's the restrictive movement on legendary mode that causes me to waste all my cards on exploring. Also a few new wildcards and their combination for the scenario are just impossible to complete 5.4.

 

I said it in my other post but the game bugged out on me on 5.4 legendary mode after killing all villains. I was forced to close all locations before the game could end but all my characters were too far away from the last location for closing. And i would've been able to close it too had it not been the restrictive movement and bug.

 

But let's just say for the moment that the bug didn't occur and i successfully won that scenario. Playing with 6 characters, I actually had an extremely difficult time trying to defeat the villains. If you meet one too early it is an automatic +5 difficulty check to defeat other villains. If you fail the combat, well you shouldn't, you lose a bunch of turns and i can guarantee you won't complete the scenario. With that said, yeah i guess it all comes down to luck, closing as many locations as soon as possible to prevent more use of blessings from a temporary location close. 

 

I finally settled with 2 characters and i did a half-assed job at trying to complete it. I restarted like a dozen few times because i wanted to change the wildcards and also because i lost miserably to the villains at the festering maze. After an hour of failure I started playing like a wreck, like i just didn't care anymore once i failed to close a location and the villain defeat-escaped at least twice, increasing the difficulty to nearly 40+. At this point there almost would be no way of me winning this if the final villain had a 50+ check. Somehow i won... but let me tell you, i am NEVER playing this scenario EVER AGAIN.

Edited December 1, 2016 by aznxknight

[imaenoon]

It would be asinine for heckling you anyway. I enjoy the scenarios on normal level because my interest really isn't challenge. I play this game a lot like some people play solitaire. It's a fun diversion that has cool characters and gear and doesn't require a lot of thought. I restarted my parties and haven't played them on heroic or legendary yet, but I'm a completenik so I'll do what I did with my old parties before I decided to restart for the hell of it, which is go through all the difficulties.

 

Other than bug, up through before I decided the reboot, none of the scenarios were too tough to beat on legendary. Even on legendary, even if you're not the sharpest cat in the cat box, which I'm not, you'll eventually get a lucky break and win. I haven't played deck 5 on legendary yet, but I didn't think any of the scenarios were too tough to beat although some were tough enough that you couldn't beat them in the way you best liked. That I do enjoy, however. Forcing the player to address different tactical or strategic situations makes the game fun. Deck 5 Scenario 4 is clearly meant to throw the player off kilter. The only thing other than bugs I'd really protest is that I *have* to roll for boons instead of just banishing them straight out.

[cheungie]

I finally managed to defeat all 3 villains in 5.4 legendary, but was not rewarded with a victory due to the bug. Just to imagine I have to go through this pain again........

 

 

Obsidian is taking too long to fix this bug in my opinion.  

Edited December 2, 2016 by cheungie

[Darkren]

The game gets MUCH easier after you get the staff of hunger and shadow.  Seriously.

You know what it does, right? 

it can take 20 points off the check to defeat monsters/villains.

THAT's why it's so hard, to balance how strong some of those unique treasures are.

Plus, earlier levels, Seelah would just own everything.  Now her small hand size kills her.

 

IF you hack and slash, yes, you WILL lose. 

 

But if you look at the set up and plan ahead a little bit, you can manage.  

[Strategy Builder]

I beat it three times in a row with my "sub-optimal" party of Kyra, Merisel, Seoni, and Valeros. It was annoying to have to beat the scenario extra times due to the bug. However, this claim that it is somehow horribly difficult seems to be absurd. My third try, I beat it with nine cards in the blessing deck.

 

I think that people make bad decisions about how to build their deck, not maximizing the number of blessings and allies they can carry for exploration. I have not worked my way up to legendary in scenario five, but I almost never lose on any setting in story mode. This "you'll beat it in five or less tries" statement seems silly to me, because I beat it the first try almost every time.

 

I've never played any similar game on table top, nor on iOS obviously. I'm just saying this to illustrate that the game is not really very difficult. The only things I have not done are max my characters in quest mode, and play scenario five up to legendary. I'll get there, but my time is limited. If I can consistently dominate this campaign, then I bet you can too. It is a shame that we can only build character sheets by grinding through the campaign again, though.

[Strategy Builder]

Also, when I see people complain about the gold needed to acquire new characters, I realized that they have not given any money to the developers, and yet they are here complaining loudly that the game is too difficult and they cannot acquire everything easily.

 

Go purchase the game. You have already spent dozens of hours on it, yet you're here whining and moaning about the difficulty and not giving money to the developers. I didn't pay enough attention to notice which post were from which user, but there was at least one that fits the description above. You have no right to a voice in how the game is developed if you do not contribute to it financially.

[elcoderdude]

The digital game on normal mode is a pretty faithful port of the card game, and for the card game Paizo played the entire Adventure Path successfully with each character solo, so it can be done.  There are some difficult points for certain characters, but it's doable.  Same goes for larger parties -- any party should be able to succeed at the Adventure Path, regardless of composition.
 
That said -- heroic/legendary is a whole new ball of wax (which doesn't exist in the card game). Not sure how the balance works out on  this -- some character combinations may be nearly unworkable. And I shudder to think what legendary deck 6 is going to look like (knowing the card game).

[Longshot11]

... for the card game Paizo played the entire Adventure Path successfully with each character solo, so it can be done. ....

Huh, really? I never knew that. D you have a source where they sad that? (Not that I doubt you, I just want to read the whole discussion)

[elcoderdude]

 

... for the card game Paizo played the entire Adventure Path successfully with each character solo, so it can be done. ....

Huh, really? I never knew that. D you have a source where they sad that? (Not that I doubt you, I just want to read the whole discussion)

 

 

It was mentioned long ago on the Paizo forum.  I'm looking...... Hawksignal activated! (But he's pretty busy these days),

 

EDIT:  This is a relevant thread from August 2014..

EDIT:  Ripe accurately points out I'm not good at reading the threads I post.

Edited December 12, 2016 by elcoderdude

[Ripe]

Actually, Mike did said in that thread that "It's not one person! We collect playtest reports on every session, and what we mean is that for every scenario/character combination, at least one of our playtesters succeeded in soloing that scenario with that character."

[Adamhedg]

I've done 5.4 3x now. First one I lost which is fine cause i need to make better plays sometimes. Second one I had to forfeit because of the bug. Had one villain left and was going to beat the scenario and then couldn't continue onto the next characters turn to do encounter. Third time was also a forfeit because when I used healing spells with Kyra no healing was being done. I try two different spells and her hero power and none worked. Please fix this scenario because I am enjoying the game and want to continue supporting the development but it is hard to continue giving money to something that is broken and is super frustrating.

[Edannan]

I admit, I've never actually encountered either of the bugs, and have gone through 5.4 multiple times, beating it at least 5 times on normal, and once each on Heroic and Legendary. I saw someone theorize that part of the problem had to do with Shimmering Veils of Pride, which makes sense as all of my successful runs involved closing that location before killing the three bosses. It might also help to kill them at different locations (IE, not send them all to the same location). All my wins took place when I had the boss cornered and temporarily closed the other locations.

 

As for the Halls of Greed... I hate to say it, but you kinda have to play around it. In the runs with my 4 person team, I just sent Seelah the Paladin, and laughed at how easy it was, since she didn't care about the banishing. In my six person party that didn't contain Seelah, I stripped one PC (Amiri, I wanna say) of any items I cared about losing before starting the scenario, and sent her in there. *shrug* It's all about strategy.

 

With people complaining about Legendary... guess what? It's supposed to be hard. Took me almost a day straight of playing, losing over and over as I refined the strategy (And yes, sometimes just forfeiting a game immediately, because it's damn near impossible with '-2 hand size' AND another power)... and it was some of the most frustrating fun I've had with the game. It was an actual challenge. I really hope we get more in Deck 6 that are this hard in Legendary.