[POTD Difficulty] Launch NOT tuned discussion thread

[JFutral]

Don't understand why you spoke about Diablo.

 

I have 300 hours on Pillars 1 and now 110 hours on Deadfire ... I do the quests that correspond to the choice of my character etc ... it has nothing to do with the problems mentioned above.

 

The game is too easy, it's a fact that everyone agrees to recognize (and developers too since they work on a fix).

 

Apparently not everyone.

 

The only reason I mentioned Diablo is if you want hack and slash, you want Diablo, not Pillars. I actually like that both PoE 1 and 2 you can complete the main story line with a minimum of killing. You don't have to fight your way through everything. If you want a challenge, try that play through.

 

Joe

Edited May 26, 2018 by JFutral

[ilsendoodle]

Reaching max level when the game is over makes no sense. Max level is when the real fun starts. If there’s no content left to enjoy the power I’ve worked on building up, then I worked for nothing.

 

But yes, PotD is too easy as already openly admitted by the devs.

 

There doesn't need to be a "max" level.  RPGs in general are rooted in progression.  Progression is lost when there is nothing left to improve your character and all you have left to do is go through the final quests which because you are so overpowered are simply an afterthought.  This is the case here because 1) 66% of the way through you have nothing left to buy 2) no fights are challenges and 3) you have no levels or skills left to obtain.  This shouldn't be that controversial of a topic.  

[ilsendoodle]

I think that being able to finish main story, without doing every quest, every bounty, every faction, tresure hunting and maping is asset.

You may judge total amount/quality of content, but comparing to other titles it is not that bad.

 

On the maximum difficulty you should have to min/max a little bit.  You may not want that challenge, but then you don't need to play on the maximum difficulty.  

[ilsendoodle]

I'm just level 9 and most fights seems tough for me. Not sure why everyone say the game is too easy? Was it because my main character is caster? I'm not sure why most of my spells still miss or the accuracy of my spells still couldn't penetrate most of the enemies.

 

As I said, everything is good for a while.  In the opening levels, it was just right.  I think by level 9 it was still okay, and I still couldn't afford lots of stuff.  It's around level 12-13 when everything became faceroll for me and every time I went back to the shop I made 30-40k.  Also, I was playing a well-balanced group.  But yes, at level 9 you haven't peaked yet.

[Tigranes]

With POE1, the issue was that you didn't even have to be completionist to reach max level far too early.

 

Roleplay, skip 20% of quests, get max level 5 hours before endgame? Fine. But is that where it is now?

[KDubya]

More mooks would help.

 

1.) Terrain - There are lots of slog zones, poison gas and what not. Getting rid of chokepoint doorway battles is good as it was way too easy for the player to abuse.

 

2.) Grimoires - if you want different spells carry multiple grimoires and actually switch in combat. A grimoire gets you two free spells per level which is like 14 - 18 free abilities as you'd need to spend a valuable ability to get a spell. 

 

I use offensive spells frequently with Aloth and do not find them terrible on PotD. I also hardly ever use empower, mainly just as a recharge in case I run out of spells in a long fight.

 

3.) Rest/Injury - I preferred the dual health/endurance system as I liked the attrition style but that it now gone and won't be coming back

 

 

Balance changes I'd like to see:

1.) Re-tool which attacks are Full and which are Primary.

 

I think Rogue abilities should all be Full attacks as a dual wielding Rogue is iconic. Make this for backstab as well.

 

Paladin attacks like FoD should be Primary not Full. Paladins are two handed weapon users and sword and board not dual wielders.

 

Fighters should have Charge changed to Primary, not sure of the others as I only use Charge. Cleave needs to be re-tooled as nothing should be able to proc itself.

 

Monks actually have mostly Primary attacks - Force of Anguish, Skyward Kick, Torment's Reach so no change needed. Swift Flurry needs to not be able to proc itself

 

2.) Add some malus to dual wielding like a reduced penetration or reduced damage in the off hand or something

 

3.) Have shield mastery reduce the accuracy malus from shields or something in order to make shield use a better option. At least give it to Unbroken Fighter subclass.

 

4.) Have enemies see farther. Its entirely too easy to sneak up with no stealth. Heck you can enter visual range and then stealth and move up and ambush the enemy.

[ilsendoodle]

With POE1, the issue was that you didn't even have to be completionist to reach max level far too early.

 

Roleplay, skip 20% of quests, get max level 5 hours before endgame? Fine. But is that where it is now?

 

I was max level and had nothing to buy with 2/3rds of the map unexplored and only halfway through the main quest line.  And that is after the first half or so of the game is reasonably challenging and I was constantly broke.  It's a shockingly flawed progression.

[AndreaColombo]

There doesn't need to be a "max" level. RPGs in general are rooted in progression. Progression is lost when there is nothing left to improve your character and all you have left to do is go through the final quests which because you are so overpowered are simply an afterthought. This is the case here because 1) 66% of the way through you have nothing left to buy 2) no fights are challenges and 3) you have no levels or skills left to obtain. This shouldn't be that controversial of a topic.

Why, what’s controversial about it?

 

I agree there’s no challenge in the game in its current state. Even the devs agree. I don’t have a problem maxing out earlier than the end of the game because I enjoy the apex of my power more than I enjoy the process of acquiring it. But when I reach the apex, of course I want appropriately high-level content to go through that can challenge me.

 

EDIT: I’ve run a completionist game on PotD and I certainly had less than 2/3 of the map unexplored when I maxed out. Game stopped being a challenge after I reached level 12-13 but that’s a general issue with PotD, rather than with my leveling.

Edited May 26, 2018 by AndreaColombo

[morhilane]

I'm just level 9 and most fights seems tough for me. Not sure why everyone say the game is too easy? Was it because my main character is caster? I'm not sure why most of my spells still miss or the accuracy of my spells still couldn't penetrate most of the enemies.

 

The few gifs and videos I saw of it gives me the impression there is less enemies in POTD in certain encounters than on Classic. But then I saw someone comment on a POTD encounter video on another forum saying his version of that encounter on POTD had more enemies, so now I think there might be a bug and some people are getting Relaxed setting encounter size instead of the right one. I also saw one person comment that his second playthrough on POTD seemed harder after patch 1.2.

 

And that's not even talking about the people min/maxing the hell out of their characters to get like +20 power level and then use stealth to stack enemies via sparkcrackers to one-shot them with an empowered aoe spell. That's "cloud kill out of sight" level of exploiting to me.

 

Or the dude that says ship fight are too easy, because you just have to take the junk and load it with double bonzers. That's the most expensive ship with the most expensive cannons...you aren't going to  afford that out of tutorial island.

 

Also, level scaling isn't full level scaling, it's like -2/+2 and the game content is split into two brackets level 5-10 and level 10-15 with a lot more 5-10 than 10-15.

Edited May 26, 2018 by morhilane

[zendingo]

You ask for greater difficulty, then make a bunch of suggestions to make the game easier instead.

 

1) Lack of Terrain Interactivity and the AI's Capability of Using it: You say this will allow some of the bounties to be "completely doable at much lower levels than "intended" if you could utilize rocks and bushes and trees to break line of sight with spellcasters...." How is allowing bounties to be doable at much lower level making the game harder rather than easier? Sheesh.

 

2) Spellcaster Spellbook Limitations: You say you want to not be "completely screwed if you run into an encounter your blaster mage is ill-suited for" and you advocate for increased spell selection so that "all players will have the same tools available to them at all times!" Again, how does this make the game harder rather than easier?

 

The Rest/Injury Mechanic is Designed for Attrition-based Gameplay in a Game That's Largely Done Away with Attrition-based Gameplay: You say that Empower should be made permanently available via on/off toggle and eliminate the need to rest to refresh its uses. How does this make the game harder instead if easier?

 

It's fine to want an easier game, but your title and intro were misleading.

[JFutral]

With POE1, the issue was that you didn't even have to be completionist to reach max level far too early.

 

Roleplay, skip 20% of quests, get max level 5 hours before endgame? Fine. But is that where it is now?

 

I suppose. I stopped playing full party style fairly early in the my playing, so I didn't mind hitting max level so early. It is kind of necessary for survival for solo/small party. Then you have to figure out best strategies as you progress through the story, even if you are max level.

 

There are so many ways to make the game challenging without needing harder baddies. Trial of Iron (PoE1), for instance. Expert mode. Solo the game. Everyone here seems to hates rangers. Play a ranger. Solo a ranger.

 

Meh. Just some thoughts. The developers will do what the developers will do. People gonna gripe. It is what we do, I guess.

 

Since the game is so non-linear (which doesn't help the complainers) I do wish I could set Scale Up in Veteran mode. I ran the Tikara (sp) quests way late in the game. I was burned out on it from the beta.

 

Joe

[BillyCorgan]

 

Don't understand why you spoke about Diablo.

 

I have 300 hours on Pillars 1 and now 110 hours on Deadfire ... I do the quests that correspond to the choice of my character etc ... it has nothing to do with the problems mentioned above.

 

The game is too easy, it's a fact that everyone agrees to recognize (and developers too since they work on a fix).

 

Apparently not everyone.

 

The only reason I mentioned Diablo is if you want hack and slash, you want Diablo, not Pillars. I actually like that both PoE 1 and 2 you can complete the main story line with a minimum of killing. You don't have to fight your way through everything. If you want a challenge, try that play through.

 

Joe

 

I think there's a mistake, you mix everything here, sorry.

And where do you see someone asking for an HNS? Worse, it's actually that the game looks like that so the fights are simple in the end ...

 

I'm the first that play "RP" , read all i can, try to avoid conflicts etc... but this is not what we are talking here.

[Tigranes]

 

With POE1, the issue was that you didn't even have to be completionist to reach max level far too early.

 

Roleplay, skip 20% of quests, get max level 5 hours before endgame? Fine. But is that where it is now?

 

I suppose. I stopped playing full party style fairly early in the my playing, so I didn't mind hitting max level so early. It is kind of necessary for survival for solo/small party. Then you have to figure out best strategies as you progress through the story, even if you are max level.

 

There are so many ways to make the game challenging without needing harder baddies. Trial of Iron (PoE1), for instance. Expert mode. Solo the game. Everyone here seems to hates rangers. Play a ranger. Solo a ranger.

 

Meh. Just some thoughts. The developers will do what the developers will do. People gonna gripe. It is what we do, I guess.

 

Since the game is so non-linear (which doesn't help the complainers) I do wish I could set Scale Up in Veteran mode. I ran the Tikara (sp) quests way late in the game. I was burned out on it from the beta.

 

Joe

 

 

I don't play with full size parties either, and I disliked the increased XP gain you got in POE1 as a result. I had to keep using the console to cut away XP, or the party would level like no tomorrow before I had the time to enjoy some of the battles I was looking forward to.

 

'People do what people will', and yeah, the sky is blue, you could say that to dismiss any criticism or suggestion, good or bad.

 

I do sympathise with the devs on how hard it is to pace the game when it's nonlinear as in POE2.

[Wormerine]

Difficulty is a no brainier, but I am not sure of I agree about XP spread or money float.

 

Do have a lot of spare income by the end of the game, but I enjoyed it, after 40hours or so of agonising what I should buy. I remember Josh saying on stream that items of legendary quality shouldn’t be dropped and I got quite a few of those by the end game. And they sell for a lot.

 

I found XP to be just right. I reached level 20th while wrapping the very last sideareas with only final main story content to be finished. However, that might change with expansions unless they add new levels or stretch out xp.

[Sarakash]

I have to admit, I am not a big fan of hard level caps in games in general, especially if there is an opt-in level scaling option. They could have gone for diminishing returns for levels past 20 for instance, like giving only half acc/hp increase and half skill and/or ability points.

[whiskiz]

Apparently balancing difficulty isn't important (they actually said it was a low priority) because apparently only 10% of the population play PotD (Even though they acknowledged that Vet isn't balanced either, so...) and even though a poll was done and 29% (almost a third) said they do/would/will play PotD and the youtubers that got early access also starting on PotD.

 

So balance, especially PotD and Vet is being worked on post-release.

 

Sad days when devs prioritize only the interactive novel side of their games, instead of you know - the gameplay.

 

Guess that speaks more to supply and demand and the mainstream casual crowd, though it's devs' fault for chasing it so narrowly for the most $$$ possible.

 

They only want to prioritize the biggest crowd and that doesn't include me? That's fine, i won't prioritize purchasing their product for a couple months, until it's done properly and is on sale, if i pay for it at all.

Edited May 26, 2018 by whiskiz

[JFutral]

 

 

'People do what people will', and yeah, the sky is blue, you could say that to dismiss any criticism or suggestion, good or bad.

 

Certainly not an attempt to dismiss anything, except my own emotions. My apologies if you read it differently. Mostly just myself not wanting to get worked up about something that is just a game.

 

Joe

[ilsendoodle]

Apparently balancing difficulty isn't important (they actually said it was a low priority) because apparently only 10% of the population play PotD (Even though they acknowledged that Vet isn't balanced either, so...) and even though a poll was done and 29% (almost a third) said they do/would/will play PotD and the youtubers that got early access also starting on PotD.

 

So balance, especially PotD and Vet are being worked on post-release.

 

Sad days when devs prioritize only the interactive novel side of their games, instead of you know - the gameplay.

 

Guess that speaks more to supply and demand and the mainstream casual crowd, though it's devs' fault for chasing it so narrowly for the most $$$ possible.

 

They only want to prioritize the biggest crowd and that doesn't include me? That's fine, i won't prioritize purchasing their product for a couple months, until it's done properly and is on sale, if i pay for it at all.

 

It's a good game and I think it will be worthwhile with a few tweaks.  POTD/economy/progress are all acceptable until around level 10, so it's at least theoretically possible.

Edited May 26, 2018 by ilsendoodle

[wih]

I am curious, have anybody tried to reduce the quest experience they are getting. In the modding section it is explained how. You can reduce it with 50% for example, which will probably leave you under leveled for the entire game.

[baldurs_gate_2]

 

Reaching max level when the game is over makes no sense. Max level is when the real fun starts. If there’s no content left to enjoy the power I’ve worked on building up, then I worked for nothing.

 

But yes, PotD is too easy as already openly admitted by the devs.

 

There doesn't need to be a "max" level.  RPGs in general are rooted in progression.  Progression is lost when there is nothing left to improve your character and all you have left to do is go through the final quests which because you are so overpowered are simply an afterthought.  This is the case here because 1) 66% of the way through you have nothing left to buy 2) no fights are challenges and 3) you have no levels or skills left to obtain.  This shouldn't be that controversial of a topic.  

 

I feel you bro. In my 2nd and 3rd playthrough, i skipped some quests and many islands, because i was allready max level and had all the gear / money i wanted and in this game, there is no adra dragon oder alpine dragon challenge. The water / magma dragons are just jokes.

[kelticfury]

I'm just level 9 and most fights seems tough for me. Not sure why everyone say the game is too easy? Was it because my main character is caster? I'm not sure why most of my spells still miss or the accuracy of my spells still couldn't penetrate most of the enemies.

 

I don't have numbers, so I can't say "most of these people" are running power builds in a game mode that hasn't yet been tuned for difficulty, so of course it is too easy.

[Ganrich]

 

I'm just level 9 and most fights seems tough for me. Not sure why everyone say the game is too easy? Was it because my main character is caster? I'm not sure why most of my spells still miss or the accuracy of my spells still couldn't penetrate most of the enemies.

 

I don't have numbers, so I can't say "most of these people" are running power builds in a game mode that hasn't yet been tuned for difficulty, so of course it is too easy.

 

 

The curve for the difficulty drop seems to be around levels 10-13 in my experience.  Casters aren't immune to this.  when you get around PL 4-5 spells (maybe 6 in some cases) using certain spells with empower will start to wipe out large chunks of the battlefield by themselves.  A well placed Empowered Minoletta's Concussive Missile is one such example, and wizards get it at PL4.  Which is level 7 for single class wizards, or level 10 for MC.  This is a mild example in my experience.  Some of the late game stuff will do the same thing, but in a much bigger AoE.  You do not need a power build for this.  I will say that MCs tend to bloom in the level bracket I mentioned, and to some extent single classes a little earlier.

[ilsendoodle]

 

I'm just level 9 and most fights seems tough for me. Not sure why everyone say the game is too easy? Was it because my main character is caster? I'm not sure why most of my spells still miss or the accuracy of my spells still couldn't penetrate most of the enemies.

 

I don't have numbers, so I can't say "most of these people" are running power builds in a game mode that hasn't yet been tuned for difficulty, so of course it is too easy.

 

 

I feel like the negative comments in this thread are by people who are not playing on POTD or who are under level 15. 

 

If you are the former, then we aren't even talking about the same thing.  I'm not asking for a change to any of the other difficulty settings.  I have no problem if you want to afk click your way through the game.  Seriously.  Game on.

 

If you are the latter, then you may just not have encountered it yet.  I mean I did at around 11-12, but I can see how it may take longer with certain parties or something.

 

As for "power builds," that is simply incorrect.  Xoti, with standard stuff, can solo entire encounters on max difficulty.  I didn't even play a wizard and I hear they are even worse.  

 

As far as "hasn't been tuned for difficulty," that is a fairly weak excuse.  This isn't Beta, is it?

Edited May 26, 2018 by ilsendoodle

[Thibax]

Too easy? I just want to play game. I am not so worried about this. 

 

Fast max level? Well, I want to use my character at full power through the game too. Then no need to have new skills in the final level if you can't use them.

 

Fast to max gold? So many items to buy. Why to live on misery? Money, money, money, must be funny in the rich man's world. 

[PatrioticChief]

The developer explicitly stated the games high end difficulty was not balanced well enough because the development was focused on bug squashing. Thank God for that is all I can say. 

 

I agree the game is too easy right now and I say that as someone who has never had interest in playing "hard games" like DS. Still, I would like to have been challenged at least once before the final boss of the game. 

 

That being said they are clearly aware of it so I'm not sure what else needs to be said. They will fix it. No use bitching about it at this point.