[Level Scaling] [Difficulty] [POTD]Compilation Thread

anathanielh · May 10, 2018

I'm not playing on expert mode and the difficulty indicators are not showing even though I have them set to be enabled. Is there a fix for this?

Mercbeast · May 17, 2018

Also I like the change that you guys have been suggesting, but how about dropping "AccuracyPerLevel" and "DefensePerLevel" from 3 to 2 instead of 1?

I think that would bring a modest increase in difficulty without being as extreme as dropping it to 1.

Also do I understand this right, with this change accuracy bonuses from weapons and armor become much more important because +4 (fine weapon) to a smaller number is proportionally a larger increase than if the base number was bigger correct? This would also make gear more important which is a change I support.

Yes, deflection/accuracy gains will be more important, especially if you want to try and take on stuff that over levels you.

I'd actually like to see someone power way through a play through on +1 gains vs +3. I think it would be significantly more difficult, and maintain difficulty much longer.

Mercbeast · May 17, 2018

Guys you are wasting your time talking about ways to implement your own balancing changes with the game in its current form.

On the Twitch stream Q and A sawyer said thhat both Veteran and POTD are in FOR A HUGE OVERHAUL.

Like a really big overhaul. Both of these difficulties are currently broken and they have not tuned them yet.

Im hoping will be fixed by end of next week.

Why is it wasting our time? Who is to say that people decide that they like a MORE challenging game, that is achieved via mods, like increasing the range of scaling, and decreasing the level bonuses? Not to mention, this could be very useful information for Obsidian to look at how to balance the games difficulty going forward. If they get enough user input, they might use some of this data in working out how they want to re-tune the difficulty of vet and potd.

master guardian · May 17, 2018

well if they didnt know this (that the game is about to get a huge overhaul on veteran and POTD) then they are clearly wasting there time because when the patch comes out the work they did will be for nothing,

dats why

Mercbeast · May 17, 2018

well if they didnt know this (that the game is about to get a huge overhaul on veteran and POTD) then they are clearly wasting there time because when the patch comes out the work they did will be for nothing,

dats why

It took me about 6s of looking, and 2s to change the two numbers. It took a bit longer to realize another mod was overwriting it all.

So yea, less than 10s of mod work is going to be wiped away, likewise with changing the scaling. It's probably less than a minute to do what Tanred did. Ctrl-F replace all with whatever number you want. Repeat 3 times. Voila, you've just increased the scaling in 3 easy steps that take less than a minute.

CarrO · May 17, 2018

Also I like the change that you guys have been suggesting, but how about dropping "AccuracyPerLevel" and "DefensePerLevel" from 3 to 2 instead of 1?

I think that would bring a modest increase in difficulty without being as extreme as dropping it to 1.

Also do I understand this right, with this change accuracy bonuses from weapons and armor become much more important because +4 (fine weapon) to a smaller number is proportionally a larger increase than if the base number was bigger correct? This would also make gear more important which is a change I support.

Yes, deflection/accuracy gains will be more important, especially if you want to try and take on stuff that over levels you.

I'd actually like to see someone power way through a play through on +1 gains vs +3. I think it would be significantly more difficult, and maintain difficulty much longer.

That's amazing. I want to try this change out on my game but only going down to +2 per level. I don't want a ridiculous change in difficulty, just slightly harder fights.

What file do I need to edit, and what are the values I need to change? I'm usually good at modding by editing game files, just point me in the right direction please.

EDIT: oh but wait. Sure this makes the game harder against under-leveled enemies, but doesn't this make the game easier against enemies oh higher level? The difference between stats would be smaller than what it currently is, therefore, giving the player an advantage am I right?

Edited May 17, 2018 by CarrO

Mercbeast · May 17, 2018

Also I like the change that you guys have been suggesting, but how about dropping "AccuracyPerLevel" and "DefensePerLevel" from 3 to 2 instead of 1?

I think that would bring a modest increase in difficulty without being as extreme as dropping it to 1.

Also do I understand this right, with this change accuracy bonuses from weapons and armor become much more important because +4 (fine weapon) to a smaller number is proportionally a larger increase than if the base number was bigger correct? This would also make gear more important which is a change I support.

Yes, deflection/accuracy gains will be more important, especially if you want to try and take on stuff that over levels you.

I'd actually like to see someone power way through a play through on +1 gains vs +3. I think it would be significantly more difficult, and maintain difficulty much longer.

That's amazing. I want to try this change out on my game but only going down to +2 per level. I don't want a ridiculous change in difficulty, just slightly harder fights.

What file do I need to edit, and what are the values I need to change? I'm usually good at modding by editing game files, just point me in the right direction please.

EDIT: oh but wait. Sure this makes the game harder against under-leveled enemies, but doesn't this make the game easier against enemies oh higher level? The difference between stats would be smaller than what it currently is, therefore, giving the player an advantage am I right?

It shouldn't make it easier against higher level enemies. The relative gain in accuracy/deflection stays the same, except the AI has a 15 level handicap, versus a 6 level handicap.

The difficulty against higher level enemies, SHOULD stay about the same, because say you're level 15, and you're fighting something level 15, you will have +14 accuracy/defenses vs the AI having +29, a 15 point gap. Right now, all that would change is, you'd have +42 and the AI would have +57, still a 15 point gap. The relative difference actually gets bigger. 14:29 vs 42:57.

You're just shrinking the power gap between you and lower level enemies, while preserving basically the same power gap between you and equal level and higher level enemies.

If you want to test it out, it's the global.gamedatabundle in Pillars of Eternity II Deadfire\PillarsOfEternityII_Data\exported\design\gamedata

Open it up with notepad++ and edit "AccuracyPerLevel":3,"DefensePerLevel":3, just change the numbers to the value you'd like.

At 1, low level enemies will be competitive with your bonuses right up to level 15, at 2, you will start to out strip the POTD bonus at level 8.

Depending on how long it takes for a balance patch to POTD, Tanreds scaling modification could juice things up even more.

Edited May 17, 2018 by Mercbeast

CodeTalker · May 17, 2018

Honestly if it's only adjusting mobs down 1 level, or up to a maximum of 2 levels, that would be a little disappointing.

According to my testing and tweaks I made to progressiontables gamedatabundle, it is indeed the case - AdjustedLevelAmount 1 increases character level by 1 etc.

I was able to raise the AdjustedLevelAmount values to +4 levels max in the progressiontables game bundle. Then it appears there is a hard cap which is set for every character individually in the character gamedatabundle. For example, let's look at Naga Sea Shaman entry:

"$type": "Game.GameData.CharacterStatsGameData, Assembly-CSharp",
   "DebugName": "CHA_CRE_Naga_Sea_Shaman",

   "ID": "89f87aef-c391-490e-8f6e-894a05e0a9a2",

   "Components": [{

     "$type": "Game.GameData.CharacterStatsComponent, Assembly-CSharp",

     "DisplayName": 258,

     "Gender": "Neuter",

     "RaceID": "834dbc64-f9d9-4f6c-a905-521715a4fbb9",

     "SubraceID": "00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000",

     "CultureID": "00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000",

     "CharacterProgressionTableID": "83f597d5-6ca1-4ad0-a9fd-681b7848e679",

     "BaseClassLevel": 9,

     "SpeakerID": "88e449f3-ca6d-41d3-b687-c16d0871bcc4",

     "NakedArmorMaterial": "Flesh",

     "CreatureTypeGDID": "aece4934-43fc-4dc7-966a-76c53f884538",

     "BestiaryEntryID": "67205c73-6cb5-4215-9008-a0f54d3234c5",

     "BackgroundID": "05594ae8-9d20-4592-97b5-62a1d69c1ddb",

     "KeywordsIDs": [],

     "BaseMight": 9,

     "BaseConstitution": 12,

     "BaseDexterity": 11,

     "BasePerception": 15,

     "BaseIntellect": 18,

     "BaseResolve": 12,

     "SkillsList": [],

     "ImmuneToEngagement": "false",

     "ImmuneToAttacks": "false",

     "PerceptionType": "Normal",

     "StealthDetectionID": "4b59d454-61f3-472f-906f-ff36afd861c0",

     "StealingAdjustmentID": "00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000",

     "StartingMaxEngageableEnemyCount": 0,

     "StartingAttackSpeedMultiplier": 1,

     "StartingRateOfFireMultiplier": 1,

     "StartingReloadTimeMultiplier": 1,

     "PersonalityID": "00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000",

     "AnimationAudioEventListID": "3d34733f-ec17-4462-b1b0-037f66eb6d5e",

     "MinLevelAdjustment": -2,

     "MaxLevelAdjustment": 4,

     "IsNamedCharacter": "false"

According to this , every enemy has a baselevel and max / min level adjustment amount.

Here is my thoughts on code of levelscaling. I have not tested it yet.

{
        "$type": "Game.GameData.CharacterLevelScalingTableGameData, Assembly-CSharp",
        "DebugName": "CL-DefaultScalingRules",                            /* default rule for normal enemies */
        "ID": "311137d5-67c2-40ec-b21a-cf8dbd64ae1f",
        "Components": [{
            "$type": "Game.GameData.CharacterLevelScalingTableComponent, Assembly-CSharp",
            "ExpectedCharacterLevelAdjustments": [{
                "ExpectedDifferenceMin": -50,
                "ExpectedDifferenceMax": -2,                             /* if  -50 <= characterlevel - enemybaselevel <= -2
                "AdjustedLevelAmount": -1                                         enemyscalinglevel = enemybaselevel - 1 */
            },
            {
                "ExpectedDifferenceMin": -1,                             /* if -1 <= characterlevel - enemybaselevel <= 1
                "ExpectedDifferenceMax": 1,                                       enemyscalinglevel = enemybaselevel */
                "AdjustedLevelAmount": 0
            },
            {
                "ExpectedDifferenceMin": 2,                              /* if characterlevel - enemybaselevel = 2
                "ExpectedDifferenceMax": 2,                                   enemyscalinglevel = enemybaselevel + 1 */
                "AdjustedLevelAmount": 1
            },
            {
                "ExpectedDifferenceMin": 3,                              /* if 3 <= characterlevel - enemybaselevel <= 50
                "ExpectedDifferenceMax": 50,                                  enemyscalinglevel = enemybaselevel + 2 */
                "AdjustedLevelAmount": 2
            }]
        }]
    },
    {
        "$type": "Game.GameData.CharacterLevelScalingTableGameData, Assembly-CSharp",
        "DebugName": "CL-DefaultScalingRules_NamedCharacters",          /* scaling rule for the enemies who have specific names */
        "ID": "f2af3656-2352-483e-8dac-511ec8061734",
        "Components": [{
            "$type": "Game.GameData.CharacterLevelScalingTableComponent, Assembly-CSharp",
            "ExpectedCharacterLevelAdjustments": [{
                "ExpectedDifferenceMin": -50,
                "ExpectedDifferenceMax": -2,
                "AdjustedLevelAmount": -1
            },
            {
                "ExpectedDifferenceMin": -1,
                "ExpectedDifferenceMax": 1,
                "AdjustedLevelAmount": 0
            },
            {
                "ExpectedDifferenceMin": 2,
                "ExpectedDifferenceMax": 2,
                "AdjustedLevelAmount": 1
            },
            {
                "ExpectedDifferenceMin": 3,
                "ExpectedDifferenceMax": 3,
                "AdjustedLevelAmount": 2
            },
            {
                "ExpectedDifferenceMin": 4,
                "ExpectedDifferenceMax": 4,
                "AdjustedLevelAmount": 3
            },
            {
                "ExpectedDifferenceMin": 5,
                "ExpectedDifferenceMax": 50,
                "AdjustedLevelAmount": 4
            }]
        }]
    },
    {
        "$type": "Game.GameData.CharacterLevelScalingTableGameData, Assembly-CSharp",
        "DebugName": "CL-DefaultScalingRules_SideQuest",                      /* scaling rule for the enemies in sidequest */
        "ID": "29276145-43e8-400c-b9c1-9ea63a0298ce",
        "Components": [{
            "$type": "Game.GameData.CharacterLevelScalingTableComponent, Assembly-CSharp",
            "ExpectedCharacterLevelAdjustments": [{
                "ExpectedDifferenceMin": -50,
                "ExpectedDifferenceMax": -3,
                "AdjustedLevelAmount": -2
            },
            {
                "ExpectedDifferenceMin": -2,
                "ExpectedDifferenceMax": -2,
                "AdjustedLevelAmount": -1
            },
            {
                "ExpectedDifferenceMin": -1,
                "ExpectedDifferenceMax": 1,
                "AdjustedLevelAmount": 0
            },
            {
                "ExpectedDifferenceMin": 2,
                "ExpectedDifferenceMax": 2,
                "AdjustedLevelAmount": 1
            },
            {
                "ExpectedDifferenceMin": 3,
                "ExpectedDifferenceMax": 3,
                "AdjustedLevelAmount": 2
            },
            {
                "ExpectedDifferenceMin": 4,
                "ExpectedDifferenceMax": 50,
                "AdjustedLevelAmount": 3
            }]
        }]
    }

Edited May 17, 2018 by CodeTalker

CarrO · May 17, 2018

Also I like the change that you guys have been suggesting, but how about dropping "AccuracyPerLevel" and "DefensePerLevel" from 3 to 2 instead of 1?

I think that would bring a modest increase in difficulty without being as extreme as dropping it to 1.

Also do I understand this right, with this change accuracy bonuses from weapons and armor become much more important because +4 (fine weapon) to a smaller number is proportionally a larger increase than if the base number was bigger correct? This would also make gear more important which is a change I support.

Yes, deflection/accuracy gains will be more important, especially if you want to try and take on stuff that over levels you.

I'd actually like to see someone power way through a play through on +1 gains vs +3. I think it would be significantly more difficult, and maintain difficulty much longer.

That's amazing. I want to try this change out on my game but only going down to +2 per level. I don't want a ridiculous change in difficulty, just slightly harder fights.

What file do I need to edit, and what are the values I need to change? I'm usually good at modding by editing game files, just point me in the right direction please.

EDIT: oh but wait. Sure this makes the game harder against under-leveled enemies, but doesn't this make the game easier against enemies oh higher level? The difference between stats would be smaller than what it currently is, therefore, giving the player an advantage am I right?

It shouldn't make it easier against higher level enemies. The relative gain in accuracy/deflection stays the same, except the AI has a 15 level handicap, versus a 6 level handicap.

The difficulty against higher level enemies, SHOULD stay about the same, because say you're level 15, and you're fighting something level 15, you will have +14 accuracy/defenses vs the AI having +29, a 15 point gap. Right now, all that would change is, you'd have +42 and the AI would have +57, still a 15 point gap. The relative difference actually gets bigger. 14:29 vs 42:57.

You're just shrinking the power gap between you and lower level enemies, while preserving basically the same power gap between you and equal level and higher level enemies.

If you want to test it out, it's the global.gamedatabundle in Pillars of Eternity II Deadfire\PillarsOfEternityII_Data\exported\design\gamedata

Open it up with notepad++ and edit "AccuracyPerLevel":3,"DefensePerLevel":3, just change the numbers to the value you'd like.

At 1, low level enemies will be competitive with your bonuses right up to level 15, at 2, you will start to out strip the POTD bonus at level 8.

Depending on how long it takes for a balance patch to POTD, Tanreds scaling modification could juice things up even more.

What I meant was against enemies that have a higher level compared to yours.

If now you are level 10 and fight a level 13 enemy, you have +27 (9*3) acc/def and they have +51 (12*3)+15), for a gap of 24 points.

If I were to change the scaling from +3 per level to just +1 per level, a level 10 character versus a level 13 enemy would have +9 (9*1) acc/def against +27 (12*1)+15), for a gap of 18 points. Thus making the fight easier.

Mercbeast · May 17, 2018

Also I like the change that you guys have been suggesting, but how about dropping "AccuracyPerLevel" and "DefensePerLevel" from 3 to 2 instead of 1?

I think that would bring a modest increase in difficulty without being as extreme as dropping it to 1.

Also do I understand this right, with this change accuracy bonuses from weapons and armor become much more important because +4 (fine weapon) to a smaller number is proportionally a larger increase than if the base number was bigger correct? This would also make gear more important which is a change I support.

Yes, deflection/accuracy gains will be more important, especially if you want to try and take on stuff that over levels you.

I'd actually like to see someone power way through a play through on +1 gains vs +3. I think it would be significantly more difficult, and maintain difficulty much longer.

That's amazing. I want to try this change out on my game but only going down to +2 per level. I don't want a ridiculous change in difficulty, just slightly harder fights.

What file do I need to edit, and what are the values I need to change? I'm usually good at modding by editing game files, just point me in the right direction please.

EDIT: oh but wait. Sure this makes the game harder against under-leveled enemies, but doesn't this make the game easier against enemies oh higher level? The difference between stats would be smaller than what it currently is, therefore, giving the player an advantage am I right?

It shouldn't make it easier against higher level enemies. The relative gain in accuracy/deflection stays the same, except the AI has a 15 level handicap, versus a 6 level handicap.

The difficulty against higher level enemies, SHOULD stay about the same, because say you're level 15, and you're fighting something level 15, you will have +14 accuracy/defenses vs the AI having +29, a 15 point gap. Right now, all that would change is, you'd have +42 and the AI would have +57, still a 15 point gap. The relative difference actually gets bigger. 14:29 vs 42:57.

You're just shrinking the power gap between you and lower level enemies, while preserving basically the same power gap between you and equal level and higher level enemies.

If you want to test it out, it's the global.gamedatabundle in Pillars of Eternity II Deadfire\PillarsOfEternityII_Data\exported\design\gamedata

Open it up with notepad++ and edit "AccuracyPerLevel":3,"DefensePerLevel":3, just change the numbers to the value you'd like.

At 1, low level enemies will be competitive with your bonuses right up to level 15, at 2, you will start to out strip the POTD bonus at level 8.

Depending on how long it takes for a balance patch to POTD, Tanreds scaling modification could juice things up even more.

What I meant was against enemies that have a higher level compared to yours.

If now you are level 10 and fight a level 13 enemy, you have +27 (9*3) acc/def and they have +51 (12*3)+15), for a gap of 24 points.

If I were to change the scaling from +3 per level to just +1 per level, a level 10 character versus a level 13 enemy would have +9 (9*1) acc/def against +27 (12*1)+15), for a gap of 18 points. Thus making the fight easier.

Yes marginally easier, fighting way overleveled encounters will be slightly easier, while equal level and lower will be more difficult. You also have to consider the effect of their base level. They are getting higher base stats, so the gap is often going to be even wider than that. I'm also not a math whiz, so I don't know if it actually would be easier. Since the difference in the absolute values is still in favor of the +1. With 9 being 33% of 27, and 27 being 53% of 51. I'm not sure how that would work out in terms of dice rolling. The gap is bigger, but proportionately it's significantly smaller.

I just looked at combat mechanics again, and the proportion doesn't matter, just the gap. So yea, the +3 has a bigger advantage the higher the level goes above your own. I still think that the tradeoff is worth it, since just with a 3 level difference, the AI is pushing auto graze land. Of course that's just the bonus, and each level difference adds another point to it. It will be interesting to get into some higher level fights and see if the AI still stomps me. I'll prob hit an area with level 10's when I am level 7, just for science, to see if it feels noticeably easier than the last time I did it.

Edited May 17, 2018 by Mercbeast

aralbald · May 17, 2018

The problem as I have seen it, is not that higher level fights are too easy, it's that the majority of the game falls behind you, so everything is underleveled, and a face roll.

A problem with most rpgs i've played. Modified XP multipliers could be a possible solution, but i haven't played enough to give feedback. See: https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/98907-modtweak-xp-gain-modifier/

ekoes · May 17, 2018

I stopped playing because the difficulty is non-existent, I started without the scale of the levels arrived neketaka seemed too easy, I started the game to difficult with leveling difficulties only upward, now I'm at level 14 if I'm not mistaken and really I have to advance only with my pg (I also removed all the equipment that gave me bonuses) otherwise every fight is a trifle. I do not understand anything about numbers and codes what should I do to have a good challenge? I would like every fight to be a challenge, is there any way to increase the meetings so that they are always higher than my level? Someone who made the changes could put the file in sharing so you can test? Thank you!

you can also put it as mod on nexusmod I have idea that many like me would appreciate.

Edited May 17, 2018 by ekoes

Tanred · May 17, 2018

well if they didnt know this (that the game is about to get a huge overhaul on veteran and POTD) then they are clearly wasting there time because when the patch comes out the work they did will be for nothing,

dats why

It took me about 6s of looking, and 2s to change the two numbers. It took a bit longer to realize another mod was overwriting it all.

So yea, less than 10s of mod work is going to be wiped away, likewise with changing the scaling. It's probably less than a minute to do what Tanred did. Ctrl-F replace all with whatever number you want. Repeat 3 times. Voila, you've just increased the scaling in 3 easy steps that take less than a minute.

Yeah, modding the gamedatabundle objects seems to be pretty quick and easy. Balancing and testing not so much.

When I get time I'll try to mod the level scaling to scale all the way up to or close to player level. I haven't been successful so far though, can't break the hard cap of 4 levels above the base class level (even with tweaks to MaxLevelAdjustments found in characters gamedatabundle).

Edited May 17, 2018 by Tanred

andreher · May 17, 2018

Unfortunately It happened what I feared

After I saw how tyranny had a dumbed down gameplay and dificulty, I though it would influence on PE2. Asked on forums and everyone said that it would not influence, but here it is...

1 less party member because 6 is too hard to manage
Infinite rests.... I can rest after every encounter. I miss having to plan my rests due to the 4 limit
Empower to reset again all abilities, infinite rest is not enough. We need to "rest" mid fight
Super easy bosses. I killed 2 dragons and 1 huge sea creature with few hits on veteran. PE1 dragons you had to go to youtube to see tatics to kill them because the beasts were hard as hell, just like dragons should be...
Short dungeons, no more than 3 or 4 small levels

I don't know. Many times I feel this game is looking a lot more like tyranny than PE1.

ekoes · May 17, 2018

exactly, for this I am desperately looking for some mods that increase the difficulty even if now I think I'm more than half the game

Faustus2 · May 17, 2018

Unfortunately It happened what I feared

After I saw how tyranny had a dumbed down gameplay and dificulty, I though it would influence on PE2. Asked on forums and everyone said that it would not influence, but here it is...

1 less party member because 6 is too hard to manage

Infinite rests.... I can rest after every encounter. I miss having to plan my rests due to the 4 limit

Empower to reset again all abilities, infinite rest is not enough. We need to "rest" mid fight

Super easy bosses. I killed 2 dragons and 1 huge sea creature with few hits on veteran. PE1 dragons you had to go to youtube to see tatics to kill them because the beasts were hard as hell, just like dragons should be...

Short dungeons, no more than 3 or 4 small levels

I don't know. Many times I feel this game is looking a lot more like tyranny than PE1.

Anyone else feel that gaming was better quality 15-25 years ago?

Insolentius · May 17, 2018

Unfortunately It happened what I feared

After I saw how tyranny had a dumbed down gameplay and dificulty, I though it would influence on PE2. Asked on forums and everyone said that it would not influence, but here it is...

1 less party member because 6 is too hard to manage

Infinite rests.... I can rest after every encounter. I miss having to plan my rests due to the 4 limit

Empower to reset again all abilities, infinite rest is not enough. We need to "rest" mid fight

Super easy bosses. I killed 2 dragons and 1 huge sea creature with few hits on veteran. PE1 dragons you had to go to youtube to see tatics to kill them because the beasts were hard as hell, just like dragons should be...

Short dungeons, no more than 3 or 4 small levels

I don't know. Many times I feel this game is looking a lot more like tyranny than PE1.

Empower is a per-rest mechanic that doesn't reset all casts/resources (only half). As far as resting in general goes, Deadfire doesn't encourage rest spamming (unlike PoE 1) because of the way food/drink system has changed. Having six characters in a party (i.e. complexity for the sake of complexity) doesn't lend itself automatically to more compelling gameplay. Veteran and PotD difficulty settings haven't been tweaked yet.

Mercbeast · May 17, 2018

Unfortunately It happened what I feared

After I saw how tyranny had a dumbed down gameplay and dificulty, I though it would influence on PE2. Asked on forums and everyone said that it would not influence, but here it is...

1 less party member because 6 is too hard to manage

Infinite rests.... I can rest after every encounter. I miss having to plan my rests due to the 4 limit

Empower to reset again all abilities, infinite rest is not enough. We need to "rest" mid fight

Super easy bosses. I killed 2 dragons and 1 huge sea creature with few hits on veteran. PE1 dragons you had to go to youtube to see tatics to kill them because the beasts were hard as hell, just like dragons should be...

Short dungeons, no more than 3 or 4 small levels

I don't know. Many times I feel this game is looking a lot more like tyranny than PE1.

Empower is a per-rest mechanic that doesn't reset all casts/resources (only half). As far as resting in general goes, Deadfire doesn't encourage rest spamming (unlike PoE 1) because of the way food/drink system has changed. Having six characters in a party (i.e. complexity for the sake of complexity) doesn't lend itself automatically to more compelling gameplay. Veteran and PotD difficulty settings haven't been tweaked yet.

Yea, about resting. Nothing prevented you from backing out of a dungeon and just going to rest if you needed to. There was really only one place in the entire game that I can think of where you could put yourself in a position where you had to fight out through a level or two. Everything else "Oh that was a hard fight, endurance is down, out of abilities, got a wound or two, let me just run my ass back to town for more supplies".

Rests being finite just added an unnecessary time sink imo. Unless they went whole hog with the mechanic, and made almost every dungeon a "Oh damn, the entrance collapsed behind us and now we have to fight our way out or game over" it didn't really impact the game in any measurable way, other than to make you spend X number of minutes running to an Inn and back.

Irori · May 17, 2018

A very slightly accuracy and defense buff to enemies is nice: but not to the point where it would be difficult to apply debuffs and other crowd control enemy, or a point where an enemy archer can just take away 1/2 of the HP off your priest with a crit.

End of the day, I think part of the issue lies in certain class and mechanics balancing. Full attacks for example, is a nice concept but is far too strong, a flat 25% reduction in damage (or buff two handed damage) would be more in-line with other abilities. The same goes to empowered spells giving you an ridiculously strong alphastrike.

What I really want to see though would be a significant hp buff across the board (+200%?). Fights would be a bit longer such that damage over time and crowd control matter.

Spoting · May 17, 2018

Can someone tell me how this work? When I have PotD activated with LvL scaling I get the PotD bonuses only, no scale at all.

So my question is, when you have both this options activated do the monster start scaling when you are above the base lvl of the monster PLUS the 5 levels or are the PotD extra levels are added AFTER the level scale?

For example: ( Lets assume I am lvl 6 )

Sporelings are base lvl of value 2 so we got +3 bonuses for stats.

With PotD only activated Sporelings become lvl 2+5=7 so we get bonuses (+3) + (+15) for stats.

( the +15 are labeled differently from the level so I can assume there are still only level 2 but with extra stats from PotD? or just lvl 7? )

Right now , if I have activated both options the Sporelings still get only (+3) + (+15) for stats. Even though I assumed they should be (+15) + (+15) , because my character is level 6. (Or at least something more than +3 because I read somewhere there is a Max Level Scale per monster type)

Is this intended ? Is this a bug ?

Edited May 17, 2018 by Spoting

May 17, 2018

Unfortunately It happened what I feared

After I saw how tyranny had a dumbed down gameplay and dificulty, I though it would influence on PE2. Asked on forums and everyone said that it would not influence, but here it is...

1 less party member because 6 is too hard to manage

Infinite rests.... I can rest after every encounter. I miss having to plan my rests due to the 4 limit

Empower to reset again all abilities, infinite rest is not enough. We need to "rest" mid fight

Super easy bosses. I killed 2 dragons and 1 huge sea creature with few hits on veteran. PE1 dragons you had to go to youtube to see tatics to kill them because the beasts were hard as hell, just like dragons should be...

Short dungeons, no more than 3 or 4 small levels

I don't know. Many times I feel this game is looking a lot more like tyranny than PE1.

I think party management generally and level up considerations particularly in fact became harder even though party size was reduced, because you generally have to consider all skill trees of all your characters when making some decision, which is between 5 and 10 skill trees and therefore bellow PoE 1 complexity only in case of 5 single class characters (or understaffed party). At the same time, smaller party makes multiclassing (=making hybrid characters) more desirable.

Also, I would not criticize Tyranny, except for power creep, which was indeed horrible.

Edited May 17, 2018 by Jamila

andreher · May 17, 2018

Unfortunately It happened what I feared

After I saw how tyranny had a dumbed down gameplay and dificulty, I though it would influence on PE2. Asked on forums and everyone said that it would not influence, but here it is...

1 less party member because 6 is too hard to manage

Infinite rests.... I can rest after every encounter. I miss having to plan my rests due to the 4 limit

Empower to reset again all abilities, infinite rest is not enough. We need to "rest" mid fight

Super easy bosses. I killed 2 dragons and 1 huge sea creature with few hits on veteran. PE1 dragons you had to go to youtube to see tatics to kill them because the beasts were hard as hell, just like dragons should be...

Short dungeons, no more than 3 or 4 small levels

I don't know. Many times I feel this game is looking a lot more like tyranny than PE1.

Empower is a per-rest mechanic that doesn't reset all casts/resources (only half). As far as resting in general goes, Deadfire doesn't encourage rest spamming (unlike PoE 1) because of the way food/drink system has changed. Having six characters in a party (i.e. complexity for the sake of complexity) doesn't lend itself automatically to more compelling gameplay. Veteran and PotD difficulty settings haven't been tweaked yet.

Yea, about resting. Nothing prevented you from backing out of a dungeon and just going to rest if you needed to. There was really only one place in the entire game that I can think of where you could put yourself in a position where you had to fight out through a level or two. Everything else "Oh that was a hard fight, endurance is down, out of abilities, got a wound or two, let me just run my ass back to town for more supplies".

Rests being finite just added an unnecessary time sink imo. Unless they went whole hog with the mechanic, and made almost every dungeon a "Oh damn, the entrance collapsed behind us and now we have to fight our way out or game over" it didn't really impact the game in any measurable way, other than to make you spend X number of minutes running to an Inn and back.

Yes, but sometimes the dungeons were very deep and far way and you didn't want to use all your resting supplies. The skills were most rest based too, so you depended a lot on rest to recover them.

So in the end of the day you would think a lot more in your actions to make every rest count. Use a fireball to destroy a simple imp? Better save the skill for something stronger.

In PE2 it's simpler... Just spam everything you have on every encounter, hit rest, hit esc, all characters fully supplied and rested in 2 seconds.

I don't even know why would someone pick that passive skill that increase the number of empowers per rest. It's pathetic lol

Tanred · May 17, 2018

According to this , every enemy has a baselevel and max / min level adjustment amount.

Here is my thoughts on code of levelscaling. I have not tested it yet.

I made a level scaling mod and while testing it I noticed same creatures would get different bonus levels when spawn at different locations. Thus it seems that ExpectedDifferenceMin/Max values are not tied to base enemy level but to location (area) level. With scaling turned on, enemy base level appears to be adjusted by the difference between the player level and the location level. Early game locations would give highest bonus levels.

Edited May 17, 2018 by Tanred

Insolentius · May 17, 2018

Unfortunately It happened what I feared

After I saw how tyranny had a dumbed down gameplay and dificulty, I though it would influence on PE2. Asked on forums and everyone said that it would not influence, but here it is...

1 less party member because 6 is too hard to manage

Infinite rests.... I can rest after every encounter. I miss having to plan my rests due to the 4 limit

Empower to reset again all abilities, infinite rest is not enough. We need to "rest" mid fight

Super easy bosses. I killed 2 dragons and 1 huge sea creature with few hits on veteran. PE1 dragons you had to go to youtube to see tatics to kill them because the beasts were hard as hell, just like dragons should be...

Short dungeons, no more than 3 or 4 small levels

I don't know. Many times I feel this game is looking a lot more like tyranny than PE1.

Empower is a per-rest mechanic that doesn't reset all casts/resources (only half). As far as resting in general goes, Deadfire doesn't encourage rest spamming (unlike PoE 1) because of the way food/drink system has changed. Having six characters in a party (i.e. complexity for the sake of complexity) doesn't lend itself automatically to more compelling gameplay. Veteran and PotD difficulty settings haven't been tweaked yet.

Yea, about resting. Nothing prevented you from backing out of a dungeon and just going to rest if you needed to. There was really only one place in the entire game that I can think of where you could put yourself in a position where you had to fight out through a level or two. Everything else "Oh that was a hard fight, endurance is down, out of abilities, got a wound or two, let me just run my ass back to town for more supplies".

Rests being finite just added an unnecessary time sink imo. Unless they went whole hog with the mechanic, and made almost every dungeon a "Oh damn, the entrance collapsed behind us and now we have to fight our way out or game over" it didn't really impact the game in any measurable way, other than to make you spend X number of minutes running to an Inn and back.

Yes, but sometimes the dungeons were very deep and far way and you didn't want to use all your resting supplies. The skills were most rest based too, so you depended a lot on rest to recover them.

So in the end of the day you would think a lot more in your actions to make every rest count. Use a fireball to destroy a simple imp? Better save the skill for something stronger.

In PE2 it's simpler... Just spam everything you have on every encounter, hit rest, hit esc, all characters fully supplied and rested in 2 seconds.

I don't even know why would someone pick that passive skill that increase the number of empowers per rest. It's pathetic lol

By doing that, you end up wasting powerful (and expensive) buffs from food/drinks (which will become even more useful once Veteran/PotD difficulty settings get adjusted), whereas the only thing required in PoE 1 is backtracking.

Simple facts. :cat:

Tanred · May 17, 2018

According to this , every enemy has a baselevel and max / min level adjustment amount.

Here is my thoughts on code of levelscaling. I have not tested it yet.

I made a level scaling mod and while testing it I noticed same creatures would get different bonus levels when spawn at different locations. Thus it seems that ExpectedDifferenceMin/Max values are not tied to base enemy level but to location (area) level. With scaling turned on, enemy base level appears to be adjusted by the difference between the player level and the location level. Early game locations would give highest bonus levels.

Anyway, here is a link to a work-in-progress level scaling mod for anyone willing to test it: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lkrSndOItGA5nB1eQyBXyL0IyVh04lRd/view?usp=sharing

Mod's intention is to make the game slightly more challenging. It does two things:

Enemy levels are increased.
It changes the levelscaling cap of max 4 bonus levels to 10 bonus levels.

As posted before, enemy base level appears to be adjusted by the difference between the player level and the level of the current location.

How to install:

Navigate to Pillars 2 folder (e.g. Pillars of Eternity II\PillarsOfEternityII_Data\)
Create "override" folder in Pillars of Eternity II\PillarsOfEternityII_Data\
Unzip the mod to the created /override folder.
Run the game.
Make sure scaling is turned on (all + only up).
Note that the mod might work only in locations you haven't visited yet (needs further testing).

Edited May 17, 2018 by Tanred

nstgc · May 17, 2018

Yet another person who doesn't understand the meaning of the word "unplayable".

[Level Scaling] [Difficulty] [POTD]Compilation Thread

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