[POTD Difficulty] Launch NOT tuned discussion thread

[pmchem]

I'm sure they have a good system for prioritizing fixes, but they've already said they're looking at POTD, so I think we'll be fine waiting?  I am happy to replay the game on various difficulties.  POTD probably won't be run #1.

[Hazmy]

It's going to be fixed in time. Come on be patient.

There are way bigger problems than PotD right now in the game that needs fixing. It's more disappointing to me how impatient some people seem here on the forums.

[Raygne]

They need to focus on bugs first.  The game actually running is more important than worrying about balance right now.  Instead of taking a more self serving approach in an all caps rant, look at the overall picture.  Once the important things are fixed they can move on to these issues.  I usually give all games a little time after launch to iron things out.  In the meantime I play something else.

[angryusaman]

I hope that they do make it harder when  they can get around to it and include Classic difficulty in their tuning as well.  I started PIllars 1 on Normal difficulty for my first playthrough since I figured playing Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 properly prepared me for that.  However, I found it was too challenging for me since I wasn't familiar with any of the game mechanics and had to do my first playthrough on easy until I got the hang of things.  The difficulty of normal actually made me like the game more since there was clearly tons of room for growth and improvement on my part.  Once I did get the basics learned I was able to play on normal without problems and a lot of it was easier than the first time I tried it.  

 

Now, in Pillars 2, I started out on Classic expecting the challenge level to be similar to the first game's normal, but instead it feels like less of a challenge than my completely blind playthrough of PoE1 on Easy.  I hope they tweak the difficulties to provide more challenge in general, and maybe, eventually, I will learn the game well enough to play a properly tuned, extremely difficult, game on PotD.

[Sotnik]

Bugs are preventing from playing ToI. Making PotD viable is the second priority.

[virgi26]

+1

[InsaneCommander]

I hope they include lots of enemies in some areas, in PotD. Some battles in The White March had many enemies and were very satisfying.

[master guardian]

Screw this im waiting untill POTD is fixed. Im really not enjoying stomping over everything in less then two minutes.

 

Im quitting untill its fixed.

 

Anyone now when its happening?????

 

 

SO PISSED OFFF!!!!!!

 

 

GAME IS WAY TO EASY NO CHALLENGE

Edited May 13, 2018 by master guardian

[rheingold]

I'd hardly call the game unplayable at the moment, that'd be rather silly. Also while I played the first game mainly on PoTD, it does kinda become frustrating listening to all the "hardcore, super awesome" gamers out there who always complain about games being way to easy, as if that actually proves anything. Spoiler alert: it's just a game, contrary to popular belief, playing games on higher difficulties is not a superhuman feat. Nor is complaining that games are too easy...

[Zagadka]

Maybe try role playing and gimp a character/party? I do that all the time.

[Hebruixe]

1. Reduce your party size

 

2. Make sure "scale all" is enabled

 

3. Have fun

[Slotharingia]

Uh, well I don't think it's too easy. For a start, the clicks are extremely unresponsive for me, meaning I have to click a lot of things up to 4 times, which makes it actually pretty hard as in battles, lots of stuff just doesn't activate. Other than that, I like to bumble cluelessly through games and that alone makes the first playthrough challenging.

[nemesis205bw]

Its so stupidly easy that I intentionally go to red skulls locations for some challenge and wipe the floor with enemies without any problem. I play 3 man team and there is no challenge for me.

 

things that make this game too easy:

 

- chanter summons. You shouldnt be able to summon 4 ogres at the start of every battle

 

- ascendent cipher especially when combined with ranger for accuracy buffs. You can generate full focus with 2 shots from dual wield pistols that always hit thanks to +40 free accuracy from ranger and then when ascendent spam everything for perma cc and huge dmg (amplified wave) or insta delete 1 strong target (disintegrate ticking for 80 raw dmg). Even tier 2 skill mind blades jump 10-12 times for 30dmg per jump and it has 0.5sec casting time. If you start by marking enemy, engaging him with pet for acc buff and use borrowed instinct on him for almost guaranteed hit you will end up with +60 accuracy bonus that will allow you to land and crit everything you unleash during ascendent.

 

- paladin. This guy has so much armor that its impossible to hurt him. Everyone deals 12.5% dmg to him because of that stacking armor buffs and large shield modal. Oh and thats if they somehow manage to hit him because he also has free 21 deflection from 1 passive. Lay on hands heals for crazy amount and you can use it up to 12 times in combat or 18 if you use empower or even more if you take zeal generating passives. It also makes you unkillable (literally, thanks to subclass) for 10 sec per cast which means 180 sec of immortality. Use him in multiclass with chanter for +100% healing chant for even more immortality as well as OP summons that hit like a truck. He also has aura that regens more than fighter and is permament, with +100% healing chant and that aura you cant die. Chanter multiclass allows you to cast invocation at the start of each combat that gives you genius effect that generates 1 zeal per 3 sec which allows you to be immortal FOREVER.

 

- monk/druid. Transform into bear for tankiness and then spam aoe stun torments reach forever because of shatter pillar wounds generation on dmg. You can also become permanently immortal on this guy while dealing even more dmg. All you need is high int and keep casting blade tuning and dance of the death. It reflects ALL dmg back to the attacker with 100% accuracy (unlike fire godlike) while not stopping dance of the death. That makes you immortal in melee.

 

 

I didnt want to make this game easy, I know there are some stronger combinations. I just wanted tank, ranged dps and melee tanky dps. So dissapointed. 

Edited May 13, 2018 by nemesis205bw

[Isometric Chicken]

I'd hardly call the game unplayable at the moment, that'd be rather silly. Also while I played the first game mainly on PoTD, it does kinda become frustrating listening to all the "hardcore, super awesome" gamers out there who always complain about games being way to easy, as if that actually proves anything. Spoiler alert: it's just a game, contrary to popular belief, playing games on higher difficulties is not a superhuman feat. Nor is complaining that games are too easy...

 

This reminds me a lot about a dicussion I had with some guy on a forum about Fire Emblem Awakening. It was my first Fire Emblem ever, and I was having problems. People gave me some great tips and how to get better at it, explained some mechanics better, and so on. Very helpful people, and I learned a lot from them. Then some random douchebag showed up, and clearly had no idea what I was talking about. The game was super easy, bordering unplayable? He had played and beaten every single game in the series (including the Japan only ones, even if he doesn't speak Japanese?), and he always power-leveled two or three characters and steamrolled everyone. Surely everyone else did the same?

 

That's not for me, though. I know PoE2 might be too easy for some people, but rather than sit all day on forums complaining about it, why not try to make your own challenges? You don't "need" a hardcore mode to have only one life. You can rather tell yourself that if a character dies, he or she is dead for good. If a companion dies, let them stay dead. Go to a tavern to get a new one if you want, but the old one is dead. Ir your MC dies, it's game over. Got injured? Live with it. Don't treat it until you see a doctor in the next tavern (aka get some rest in a tavern). Don't rest in the wild. Don't use potions. Don't use magic. Pick a weapon specialization for each character, and stick to that weapon no matter what. Rogue has two daggers? Found a better sword? Too bad, you're still using daggers only. The game let you have five people in the party, but it never forces you to. So why not have only one or two?

 

Point is, there are tons of ways to make the game a lot more challenging for yourself if you want to. The question is if you would rather sit on the forum all day complaining, or get creative and be responsible for making your own fun.

Edited May 13, 2018 by Isometric Chicken

[Katalmach]

I'm also finding it ridiculously easy, but, this is the first version of the game. As I recall, POE1 got significantly harder over time as the Obsidian team tweaked it. I remember watching the dudes who had originally beat it on triple crown solo talking about how it was nearly impossible with most builds in the game's final form 

 

Right now I'm playing on Veteran with everything upscalled and seriously regretting not going back and starting over on POTD. I beat the original on POTD with the storyline companions as an added challenge, but decided I would just play the storyline this time. The lack of challenge actually got me less interested in the story and more interested in trying to find something worthy of my time to kill 

 

I'm running myself as a Devoted (War bow)/Rogue (no subclass). I don't even need the modal because almost every single shot over penetrates and nearly every single one of them is a critical hit, most of which are sneak attack because I can spam the bleeding wound thing (can't remember the name). With 3 projectiles from Frost Seeker all over penetrating, critting, and causing sneak attack, I drop most enemies to half health with a single shot, and then the damage over time alone finishes them off. 

 

Eder is a Swashbuckler. With the defensive fighter stance, a ton of items for deflection, reposte and persistant distraction, he locks down half the enemy combatants and then just sneak attacks them in the face. If they try to run, they get auto proned and finished off by my arrows 

 

The other companions hardly even do anything, honestly. They're there to block bodies while I annihilate everything with my bow

 

I don't know how far you got, but I reached a point in the story where I encountered a dragon. I was super hyped because I thought it might be like the Adra dragon. I didn't have a single companion or myself get down to even half health, and the battle was over in about 5 minutes...

 

...it took me two dozen tries and hours of my time to defeat the Adra dragon. I yearn for that experience again 

 

I guess I'll beat the game solo while it's still easy, if only for the achievement

[Amentep]

I have merged several threads regarding POTD challenge, or lack thereof, into a single thread. It is a known issue, please continue your discussion here.

 

EDIT: also knock off the personal attacks. I've edited those posts out.

[Camonge]

Pillars 1 has a 0,6% POTD completion rate on steam (overall rate is 10,7%, which is the expected number in this genre). Even then, top level play is very important to ANY game. The average gamer enjoys engaging in a community, a larger fanbase supportive of high level play. It happens in sports, esports, MMOs, minecraft-likes, even in tabletop RPGs (e.g. critical role). High level play is meaningful because it shows high level design. Obsidian is well aware of this fact, so we can safely assume they are being honest about tuning POTD in the next few weeks.

 

As a fellow POTD'er, of course I'm anxious, and a little disappointed because i wanted some Raedric-level challenge (not ondrites monks, please!) right after launch. So I ask for people facerolling POTD right now: give constructive feedback, so you can have great second playtroughs. Which areas would benefit for terrain changes, which ones need more enemies, what mobs are asking for buffs etc.

[Zelse]

Hi there,

 

first of all id like to say i had a jolly good time matey (yarrr) with the game. Great writing in particular and a few really good voice actors as well (VA probably my favourite improvement over PoE1).

 

That said...

 

The difficulty on POTD is a bit of a joke.

I played both with and without level scaling and in both cases i became basically unkillable shortly after leaving Maje (The first 1 or 2 quests after Maje are the only difficult parts in the game rn. But you can pretty much just choose to do some that only involve talking to people sooo..)

 

I would appreciate if the difficulty could be a adjusted. A simple kneejerk solution could be that difficulty scaling always scales enemies to "1skull" level. Although i would appreciate it if the difficulty could be looked at in a more complex way. Either way right now its pretty much a joke. The big fight when you land on the last island was one of the few exceptions that didnt make me fall asleep.

 

On one of my (finished!) runs i had a total of 4 times where my characters got an injury during combat (1 of which i was just too lazy to heal). No party wipes.

 

Deflection values in particular seem too low. Especially when compared the fortitude/reflex defenses that some enemies have.

 

 

 

One of the reasons why difficulty is a joke is the priest spell "Devotions of the faithful". This spell is:

 

1. completely broken and insane

2. makes a priest mandatory for every good party

3. No other class has ANYTHING that gets even REMOTELY close to how op this thing is (paladin has a 5!accuracy aura! 5!!! 5!!!! 5!). Instead you can just spend time for 1 cast that is uninterruptable with the concentration perk right at the start of combat to have 20 accuracy for basically the rest of the fight. (Or a 40 Accuracy swing if you fight mostly melees)

 

I have no idea how it made it from PoE1 without getting nerfed. It really is the best spell in the game by miles. Its not even close. There is nothing as broken as this thing in the game. Its nuts. 

I really enjoyed Tyranny for the fact that most abilities actually interacted with the enemies rather than the game being a buff/debuff fest. And while buffs/debuffs being the main focus of the game was kinda expected from a PoE sequel i really wish it wasnt as good overvalued as it is rn.

 

Suggestions: significantly! reduce range (2 targets max and it would still be really really good), make it give 10 accuracy, accuracy and perception buffs shouldnt stack ((dire) blessing + devotions = gg)

 

 

 

I know there is going to be that one guy who will say "herpderp" dont use the spell if you think its op. Well damn mate, i could just play the game on normal with nothing but clubs. Its not enjoyable to create arbitrary challenge by using fewer of the things the game offers.

[Zoso der Goldene]

Uh, well I don't think it's too easy. For a start, the clicks are extremely unresponsive for me, meaning I have to click a lot of things up to 4 times, which makes it actually pretty hard as in battles, lots of stuff just doesn't activate. Other than that, I like to bumble cluelessly through games and that alone makes the first playthrough challenging.

You're on Steam, aren't you?

Turn of Steam Overlay In-Game (in the Steam Preferences). That should fix it.

[Slotharingia]

 

Uh, well I don't think it's too easy. For a start, the clicks are extremely unresponsive for me, meaning I have to click a lot of things up to 4 times, which makes it actually pretty hard as in battles, lots of stuff just doesn't activate. Other than that, I like to bumble cluelessly through games and that alone makes the first playthrough challenging.

You're on Steam, aren't you?

Turn of Steam Overlay In-Game (in the Steam Preferences). That should fix it.

 

Yeah I'd already done that and it solved the issue that the game just froze and didn't respond to clicks at all. Someone else suggested to turn the game onto full screen, which I did, and it's a lot better now but still does it some of the time.

[Zelse]

I have merged several threads regarding POTD challenge, or lack thereof, into a single thread. It is a known issue, please continue your discussion here.

 

EDIT: also knock off the personal attacks. I've edited those posts out.

POTD too easy and Devotions of the faithful

 

Hi there,

 

first of all id like to say i had a jolly good time matey (yarrr) with the game. Great writing in particular and a few really good voice actors as well (VA probably my favourite improvement over PoE1).

 

That said...

 

The difficulty on POTD is a bit of a joke.

I played both with and without level scaling and in both cases i became basically unkillable shortly after leaving Maje (The first 1 or 2 quests after Maje are the only difficult parts in the game rn. But you can pretty much just choose to do some that only involve talking to people sooo..)

 

I would appreciate if the difficulty could be a adjusted. A simple kneejerk solution could be that difficulty scaling always scales enemies to "1skull" level. Although i would appreciate it if the difficulty could be looked at in a more complex way. Either way right now its pretty much a joke. The big fight when you land on the last island was one of the few exceptions that didnt make me fall asleep.

 

On one of my (finished!) runs i had a total of 4 times where my characters got an injury during combat (1 of which i was just too lazy to heal). No party wipes.

 

Deflection values in particular seem too low. Especially when compared the fortitude/reflex defenses that some enemies have.

 

 

 

One of the reasons why difficulty is a joke is the priest spell "Devotions of the faithful". This spell is:

 

1. completely broken and insane

2. makes a priest mandatory for every good party

3. No other class has ANYTHING that gets even REMOTELY close to how op this thing is (paladin has a 5!accuracy aura! 5!!! 5!!!! 5!). Instead you can just spend time for 1 cast that is uninterruptable with the concentration perk right at the start of combat to have 20 accuracy for basically the rest of the fight. (Or a 40 Accuracy swing if you fight mostly melees)

 

I have no idea how it made it from PoE1 without getting nerfed. It really is the best spell in the game by miles. Its not even close. There is nothing as broken as this thing in the game. Its nuts. 

I really enjoyed Tyranny for the fact that most abilities actually interacted with the enemies rather than the game being a buff/debuff fest. And while buffs/debuffs being the main focus of the game was kinda expected from a PoE sequel i really wish it wasnt as good overvalued as it is rn.

 

Suggestions: significantly! reduce range (2 targets max and it would still be really really good), make it give 10 accuracy, accuracy and perception buffs shouldnt stack ((dire) blessing + devotions = gg)

 

 

 

I know there is going to be that one guy who will say "herpderp" dont use the spell if you think its op. Well damn mate, i could just play the game on normal with nothing but clubs. Its not enjoyable to create arbitrary challenge by using fewer of the things the game offers.

[llh_f01]

Put in 40-50 hours into it so far.  Seems like if you don't buy items, don't use/know overpowered combo/skills,  the difficulty is probably around that of  POE1.   I wish I had read this thread before starting or actually read obsidian post on this issue since I don't mind waiting for a patch, but since I didn't know,  I kept expecting it to be harder as the game progressed.

 

All that being said.   Obsidian if you guys are reading this, should take a look at empowered spells,  they shouldn't be able to 1 shot entire groups on potd.  Empowered melee looks fine, but melee in general seems over tuned.  It is possible to kill most things with 1-2 full attack on most monk and rogue builds.   The monk/rogue build I used did 170 dmg-ish on a full attack non crit at lvl 10-12, but even Eder can do like 60-70.

 

Think it has to do with: 

1.  Armor working they way it does.  (Probably can't change that?)

2.  Enemy doesn't have enough defense and doesn't hit hard enough to punish glass cannon melee.

3.  Nature God-like empowers both unarmed and sneak attack dmg.  (Works on other combos as well.)

4.  Lightning strikes damage is multiplicative.  This seems over tuned for monk multi-class combos.  Quick napkin math here:  Say nature -godlike monk rogue at lvl 20 with sneak attack + deathblows.  Monkfist (70%)+ rogue passive (120%) + might and thundering blows (30-40%)  = 220-230% additional base damage.  30% of and attack that is 330% base damage is a lot. 

[Loog]

I agree that this spell is really really good.

 

However, if you nerf it I honestly don't know why you would bother to bring a priest :

- other class have better healing (life giver / paladin+chanter ...)

- other buff are not that impactful , at least no enough to justify 1 character slot

- they damage is subpart (if not multi classed)

[master guardian]

The problem is devotions of the faithfull  the problem is the actuall difficulty of the game itself,

 

It is completely broken unplayable at the moment because it is to easy.

 

Does anyone now when they are fixing this? Any word from OBS when the patch is coming out?

[fxluk]

Once again I was tricked to buy Obsidian game on launch... Had to wait a couple of months to fix POE1.

This time, I thought it will be different...