Question about aking the game challenging

[gsrs1277]

I'd love it if the design team could address this question at some point. I'm not in the habit of using message boards, so apologies if I'm missing some of the etiquette or if this is addressed elsewhere (But I don't think it has been).

 

If a veteran of RPGs plays PoE 1 with all the latest updates and expansions on the highest difficulty level, its entirely possible for them to advance levels very quickly relative to the core game content, particularly if they seek out and pursue lots of challenging side content. This is paradoxically offset by the frustration of *not getting XP* for kills, either because they hit the XP cap for monsters very quickly (as there are so many enemies on Path of the Damned) or because they out-level hostile NPCs.

 

The main drawback of this is that it means a large handful of encounters become unchallenging for experienced players. Is this going to be addressed in PoE 2? Obviously its a relatively complex design issue; but, for example, probably the simplest solution would be to add an option that makes you level up more slowly (i.e. by requiring more XP).

 

I'd love to ask this question directly of someone on the design team; I understand it's only relevant to a small group of veteran players but I just wanted to get this out there publicly.

 

So excited for PoE 2!

 

Edit: The title of this post should be: "Question about Making the Game Challenging" but I forgot the "M" and don't know how to fix it!

Edited October 7, 2017 by gsrs1277

[JerekKruger]

This is something that Obsidian have acknowledged wasn't great about Pillars so hopefully it'll be less of a problem in Deadfire.

[gsrs1277]

If anyone could post links to where Obsidian has addressed this it would be greatly appreciated, too.

[Lamppost in Winter]

IIRC optional level scaling is a thing in Deadfire

[Wormerine]

If i understand correctly what you talk about is an issue of overleveling game content - doing sidequests make you higher level making some of the core content to easy as it was designed so you can beat it while skipping content.

The game will have two modes - unscaled and scaled. In unscaled all the areas have set lvl to them, if they are higher level, or are underlevel you might wreck the enemies or get wrecked. 

The scaled run will scale enemies so they pose challange to your level. I am not sure if they scale them down if you wonder to harder area but it will scale them up.

[draego]

If i understand correctly what you talk about is an issue of overleveling game content - doing sidequests make you higher level making some of the core content to easy as it was designed so you can beat it while skipping content.

The game will have two modes - unscaled and scaled. In unscaled all the areas have set lvl to them, if they are higher level, or are underlevel you might wreck the enemies or get wrecked. 

 

The scaled run will scale enemies so they pose challange to your level. I am not sure if they scale them down if you wonder to harder area but it will scale them up.

 

Also the scaling will be in a range. This isnt a oblivion situation where all enemies will always scale to your level. its more like this dungeon is a level 5-8 scalable dungeon. 

[AndreaColombo]

IIRC optional level scaling is a thing in Deadfire

 

Yup. Going by memory, both Josh and Adam confirmed (either in interviews or in Q&A sessions on Twitch) that you'll be able to choose whether you want scaling for everything, only for the critical path, or only for side content (I'm not 100% on the latter, but I am on the former two.)

[TheisEjsing]

I think the main solution to the lack of challenge for invested players is the new game + feature. It will allow you to set a number of different challenges for yourself on top of the inherent game difficulty. 

Edited October 8, 2017 by TheisEjsing

[Wormerine]

I think the main solution to the lack of challenge for invested players is the new game + feature. It will allow you to set a number of different challenges for yourself on top of the inherent game difficulty. 

Oh right. Berath's Blessing thing. Completely forgot about that.