Do most people really play the hardest difficulty level?

[Messier-31]

 

P.S. Another question would be how many players use Expert... Personally I'm fine with ToI or occasional boss solo'ing for fun, but don't use Expert as don't like information being hidden from me.

 

Never even considered turing expert mode on. I don't feel like it adds any interesting chalenge it just hides important information, which you could write down manually. 

 

I concur. It's more like a "chore mode".

 

Playing all difficulties from story/easy to classic/normal.

[Tigranes]

It's no surprise: if you've played many CRPGs in your life, then the hardest difficulty is usually "normal", including POTD. After all, if you've spent thousands of hours playing similar kinds of games, you're going to have some accumulated competency, however useful/useless. And if you haven't, that's obviously no cause for shame. 

 

Most people ignore a vast majority of the features in any given game, just as most of us ignore most of the functions on excel or photoshop. 

[DexGames]

I play veteran. I enjoy a good challenge but I don't want to be in a situation where I have to min/max or cheese my way through something.

 

I like it when I hit a tough fight and have to fight it several times to figure it out, but I want it to be fought in a reasonably heroic way. Not where I have to come up with some sort of game-y method to stun lock the big bad while taking advantage of fog of war to break up the enemy horde or kite or whatever.

 

You really don't have to, I played PoTD + Expert with regular Companions [so not Min-Maxed], & a regular Cipher that felt right to me [No Min-Max either], had no attributes under 10.

Never used Exploits like Fog of War. Simply planned good Strategy, [& got ****ed many times lol], but it's definietly possible.

Tough, but feasible. [All the Dragons, Bounties, Etc]

 

You can do it, if you set yourself to do it "the right way".

[Gotta put things in context though : No Games like these for 10+ years, hyped as F**k, & f**cking up for a Challenge !]

 

 

P.S. Another question would be how many players use Expert... Personally I'm fine with ToI or occasional boss solo'ing for fun, but don't use Expert as don't like information being hidden from me.

Never even considered turing expert mode on. I don't feel like it adds any interesting chalenge it just hides important information, which you could write down manually. 

 

 

Didn't played Expert on second & subsequent runs, & I remember I was shocked to see that the game actually shows us Spell's AOEs.

Because I didn't even knew they exist ! In fact, I was dead set to play on PoTD, but I chose "Expert" aswell because of the Description lol : 

• "Players who want to rely on their own faculties & intuition while playing the Game should play Expert Mode."
• "Well... I think that's me, right ?!"

But it doesn't tell you what the "helpers" are, like AOEs & Stuff. Learned it the Hard way. 

 

Also, you can't really write down a Fireball Area of Effect... Haha.

Killed myself so many times because of this. 

Hidden AOEs was the thing about Expert Mode that added an "Extra Hard" Layer, [Which felt good to me]. even though I didn't really know what it was doing at the time, I really enjoyed it.

Edited March 23, 2018 by DexGames

[algroth]

I am between classic and veteran myself. I might try starting off with veteran and seeing how that looks, considering my most recent Pillars and Tyranny games in the same have been pretty easy. I'll look into a Path of the Damned on a second playthrough, if I do one.

Edited March 23, 2018 by algroth

[hilfazer]

Players like to say they play on PotD to show the world how pro they are.

[DexGames]

Players like to say they play on PotD to show the world how pro they are.

 

 Are you so fragile that you felt offended ?  

We share here "why" we choose to play on PoTD, or whatever the Difficulty, which is... The Question of this Thread.

It's not a c*ck size contest. I would win... xD    [/sarcasm]

 

Have you seen anyone here yelling "Noooob !", to those who play on Story Mode or Easy ?

There's room for everyone here, it's a simple discussion, grow up dude.

 

Either way, you're welcome to share "why" you didn't play on harder difficulties, instead of bitching out.

Edited March 23, 2018 by DexGames

[injurai]

Started with classic, I only play hard once I've understood the system. It's more fun to challenge myself once I know the rules than the make it simply hard to get a grip.

[injurai]

PotD voters are liars.

[Hybridsalmon]

Classic. I rarely play on harder difficulties(unless those harder difficulties are still easy). I don't want to spend too much time learning the spells and mechanics to learn how to play the game properly.  I don't get much enjoyment out of finishing a very difficult fight. Only reason I would do those is just to complete quests. Much more of the questing/story type. 

[JerekKruger]

When I've stumbled upon PoE1, started the first playthrough on Hard, and switched to PotD around level 9, once I've got a first grip on mechanics. Subsequent runs where PotD only.

 

Similar. I Started on normal, found it became trivially easy very quickly. I Switched to hard and, despite it hardly being harder than normal, stuck with it to level 9/10 because of a dislike for difficulties that scale enemies stats directly, but eventually I realised that I hardly used any of my higher level abilities/spells because I simply didn't need to. Then I switched to PotD and enjoyed it a lot more (even though the later game remains relatively easy for a full party playthrough).

[Starwars]

For PoE1, I've done Hard and PotD. It was a bit surprising to me, I didn't expect to enjoy the systems as much as I did that I would actually do PotD runs. My current replay is on Hard though.

 

Tyranny was the opposite for me. I started out on Hard but ended up turning it down to easy because I found the combat to be such a boring slog. I just wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible.

 

I will start with Veteran on Deadfire and see how it feels. I'm not a fan of the direction the combat has taken overall but I'll give it a go and hope it surprises me.

[Gfted1]

Only 10.3% of Steam players finished the game.

 

PoTD comes in at a whopping 0.6%

[Tigranes]

Players like to say they play on PotD to show the world how pro they are.

 

Or they say they eat strwaberry jam because they eat strawberry jam. Why would you even care?

[fgalkin]

I'll start with classic, then switch to veteran as soon as I feel comfortable with the new mechanics, same as with PoE1. I'm not a big PotD fan, as I'm more interested in the story and the dialogues than in the combat mechanics, so I usually end up building characters that can do both sub-optimally . Hard is forgiving enough to make, say, a talky cipher viable. PotD isn't without becoming something only a masochist like Zahua can enjoy. 

Edited March 23, 2018 by fgalkin

[Yosharian]

Expert mode is a massive ball sack hitting you in the face repeatedly

[Elkor_Alish]

I always kick things off at normal. Usually because I need at least one run just to get a feel for the mechanics of a game and know what I am doing. . .But I love going in blind. You only get one chance to experience a story for the first time, and story -along with choice and consequence- is really why I play video games.

 

My first playthrough of PoE on normal was aborted. The builds I had made were just untenable. My second was infinitely smoother, and even my Ultimate run wasn't as difficult as my first, fatally flawed attempt. To be honest, the only reason I played PoTD was to unlock achievements because I heard doing so would unlock content/options in the sequel. Otherwise, truth be told, I would never have bothered or wanted to.

 

But I am also the guy that will reload fifty times to solo kill a bear in a cave at level 3 simply because it is there and I feel compelled not to leave anything alive behind me (and I also grew up on games like the first Fallout where time was a resource, and until I know the game is static and not going to move on without me, I make no such assumption).

[Yosharian]

 

First playthrough?  No, Veteran.

 

After that, I'll definitely play POTD.

 

POTD isn't that hard if you know what you're doing.

 

My most epic memory from Pillars 1 is trying to defeat a certain dragon on POTD mode the first time I tried it, with scaling turned on.  I had no priest on this particular playthrough.  It was painful, but very satisfying when I finally downed him.

The experience reminded me of the first time I attempted to down the Shadow Dragon in BG2.  I was utterly hopeless at the game at the time, having little-to-no game knowledge.  I also remember coming up against werewolves and being absolutely dumbfounded at how strong they were: I literally couldn't kill them even with my full party wailing on them (now I know to kill them easily).

 

There was a bug with werewolfs in BG2: Every time you loaded the game their recovery stacked. (Like the infinite stat stacking bug for PoE at release).

I played BGT ( BG1+2+ToB together as one game) and when I was on the werewolf island in Bg1 it was impossible for me to kill the boss. I failed several times, loaded and tried again. After some tries I looked at him and found out that even after hitting him with max possible damage (crit with the best weapon and max strengh) he was completely healed less than half a second later. I gave up and killed him with console command, the only time I have ever cheated in an RPG. The smaller werewolfs are a piece of cake.

 

 

Huh. Maybe that was it.

[CottonWolf]

I'm going Veteran with crit path scaling (upwards only, just so it doesn't become trivial as I do all the side content first). I've tried PotD multiple times in Pillars and never enjoyed it, but normal will probably be too easy judging by the difficulty curve of the first game.

Edited March 23, 2018 by CottonWolf

[Bionick]

I started off PoE on the hardest difficulty setting but found each fight to be too much of a chore so I bumped it down. I only recently tried normal difficulty for the first time and I found that I actually enjoy it more, so I’ll stick to classic difficulty.

[InsaneCommander]

My first PoE playthrough was on normal and it was no challenge. Even the last battle and the Endless Path boss were easy. Then I played on hard on my second go and it was much more satisfying. For my third playthrough I had to try PotD and it was quite challenging, specially because I didn't have a fighter to distract the enemies. I had to reload many battles, but eventually I learned how to proceed. I played the WM with my first character last month and I had to change to hard. But then even that seemed too easy.

 

No, I'm not trying to show how pro I am. The difficult of a battle can drastically change depending on your actions. For example, using certain traps and figurines make a huge difference. You have time buff your party, you can cast stuck and paralysing spells on the enemy, and so on. As someone already said in this thread, PotD is not that hard once you learn what to do.

 

One my favorite strategies is to cast lightning bolt, rolling flame and overwhelming wave before the battle even begins.   Then they will come after my party, safely waiting behind a turn. But they won't all come together, since some will be stunned by the wave or petrified/hobbled by traps. Toss some figurines, Confuse and other spells like expose vulnerabilities and you might even forget your are in PotD.

 

For Deadfire I'll start on hard to have a proper challenge. But later I will probably only play on PotD.

[Torm51]

Expert mode is a massive ball sack hitting you in the face repeatedly

It’s all I’ve played since my second play through. You get use to it. Triple Crown FTW!

[SonicMage117]

Generally, people do not play games on the hardest difficulty - especially on the first time around. It's usually very time consuming so for those, like myself who have jobs, spouses and kids, this is a big No. Of course there are some games which Hard Mode isn't really that hard and they are an exception but for the most part, the short answer is a simple "No."

 

I, personally, play games usually on the normal difficulty, beat the game and just uninstall it and move on. I have alot to choose from so I shouldn't get bored of switching off.

[bonarbill]

Generally, people do not play games on the hardest difficulty - especially on the first time around. It's usually very time consuming so for those, like myself who have jobs, spouses and kids, this is a big No. Of course there are some games which Hard Mode isn't really that hard and they are an exception but for the most part, the short answer is a simple "No."

 

Agreed.  You have people on here and certain other forums bragging about how easy POTD is.  Howver, for the majority of us, it's pretty hard, even for a CRPG veteran like myself.

Edited March 24, 2018 by bonarbill

[MountainTiger]

On PoE, I played on Normal the first time and cranked it up each subsequent playthrough. For Deadfire I'll probably start on PotD and drop to Veteran if that seems too hard for a first time around.

[KDubya]

My first run on PoE was on hard. After that it was all PotD and sometimes Expert.

 

On the Beta after the first run I went with PotD.

 

I'm planning on going PotD to start DeadFire but not Expert.

 

With Tyranny I did Act One at hard then restarted on PotD or whatever it was called. Only did the one play through and that was in the first month or two of release. Not sure how expansions and patches have changed things as the original combat equation was easily solved with Magic imbued weapons + illusion buffs + a single defense stat + light armor = win.