The General Level Scaling / Difficulty Thread (not POTD)

[Yenkaz]

 

If you liked Hard on the first game, I recommend going to PotD on this one. They are roughly comparable -- which is to say, PotD is much easier than it was in the first game.

 

That's been the only downside of the best RPG (so far) I've played since Baldur's Gate 2. It reminds me so much of BG2, really feels the same. Which is the highest compliment I can pay a video game.

 

I know it's just your opinion (I've actually seen some others claiming similar), but for this to actually feel more like BG2, the characters would need to have been better written, stealth needs to not be so terrible (playing a backstabber is way different in this than in the BG games), but most of all, the offensive spell casting in this game is just awful. It's no fun at all. You either exploit it via Empower > Rest shennanigans, or you may as well be shooting spitwads for the first ten levels. It doesn't help either at the glacial pace that is required to actually reach the "fun" spells either. CC spells are about as bad too. Half of them either take an eternity to cast, or they simply get resisted. All that's left are defensive spells, and none of those actually buff the player to be more offensive and seem to ONLY exist for some random Battlemage "tank" that isn't really meant to do damage other than the occasional fan of flames or damage shield (oh boy!).

 

This game is all or nothing. You have to wear no armor, or go ultra heavy, so you're either fast and made of tissue, or tough, but slow as molassas. Spells are super weak unless exploiting, then super powerful mid to mid-late game. Most of the encounters are exactly the same too, which isn't really much like the BG games either. The only way it reminds me of those games would be the layout of the big cities, and the way they look at times, but that's about it.

Did we play the same BG2? As I recall, THAC0 went so insanely low and saves too that either you went all in on AC or there was no reason to bother in the late game. CC spells were often also resisted most of the time and only buffing ever really mattered. Casting times were long too, one just didn't notice if using the robes of vecna or another item I've forgotten.

 

Better written? Other than Irenicus being a brilliant villain, most NPCs had even less to say and were far more caricatures.

Edited May 13, 2018 by Yenkaz

[Sanctuary]

 

 

If you liked Hard on the first game, I recommend going to PotD on this one. They are roughly comparable -- which is to say, PotD is much easier than it was in the first game.

 

That's been the only downside of the best RPG (so far) I've played since Baldur's Gate 2. It reminds me so much of BG2, really feels the same. Which is the highest compliment I can pay a video game.

I know it's just your opinion (I've actually seen some others claiming similar), but for this to actually feel more like BG2, the characters would need to have been better written, stealth needs to not be so terrible (playing a backstabber is way different in this than in the BG games), but most of all, the offensive spell casting in this game is just awful. It's no fun at all. You either exploit it via Empower > Rest shennanigans, or you may as well be shooting spitwads for the first ten levels. It doesn't help either at the glacial pace that is required to actually reach the "fun" spells either. CC spells are about as bad too. Half of them either take an eternity to cast, or they simply get resisted. All that's left are defensive spells, and none of those actually buff the player to be more offensive and seem to ONLY exist for some random Battlemage "tank" that isn't really meant to do damage other than the occasional fan of flames or damage shield (oh boy!).

 

This game is all or nothing. You have to wear no armor, or go ultra heavy, so you're either fast and made of tissue, or tough, but slow as molassas. Spells are super weak unless exploiting, then super powerful mid to mid-late game. Most of the encounters are exactly the same too, which isn't really much like the BG games either. The only way it reminds me of those games would be the layout of the big cities, and the way they look at times, but that's about it.

Did we play the same BG2? As I recall, THAC0 went so insanely low and saves too that either you went all in on AC or there was no reason to bother in the late game. CC spells were often also resisted most of the time and only buffing ever really mattered. Casting times were long too, one just didn't notice if using the robes of vecna or another item I've forgotten.

 

Better written? Other than Irenicus being a brilliant villain, most NPCs had even less to say and were far more caricatures.

 

 

Yeah, we must have played a different game, because "end game" isn't "most of the game".  Charicatures or not, there's a reason why the characters from the BG games are some of the most memorable of any CRPGs too.  Also, the casting times in general were nowhere near as long as they are in this game.  They also had contingencies and sequencers.

Edited May 13, 2018 by Sanctuary

[gloomseeker]

Speaking about BG2, it's funny that so many gamers used to play this game with difficulty mods like Tactics that required the player to (ab)use cheap tricks and foreknowledge to get through most fights. Kiting and pulling a Benny Hill to pepper a boss with arrows and magic missiles, casting Death Cloud on unalerted foes by abusing the line of sight, etc. There is nothing hardcore about cheesing your way through a game by using some overpowered items, cheating and abusing the AI to break the game. 

 

Deadfire features many quality of life improvements (including the smaller party and getting rid of the per rest nonsense or the endurance/health system) and to me it feels that I don't spend most of my time fighting with pathfinding issues when playing the game. 

 

Does that make the game easier? Maybe it does but frankly the major difference is that it makes fights much less annoying/more fun. 

 

Last but not least despite all the complaints by a very vocal group of people it's common knowledge that the game's PotD mode hasn't been properly balanced yet so it's probably wise to wait until it's fixed to give it a go. 

[InsaneCommander]

Even with level 20, I doubt they will be able to do much. All they get are some stats and they never really use the higher tier skills. Notice how most of the moves AI do use are Foe Only outside a few mages spell. The only one you really see spamming that much Team AoE have a team with immunity to that skill.

 

And look at it this way, a level 7 with legendary gears (crookspur) can probably beat a level 20 enemy using Fine/Exceptional gears. With the new damage formula, the level 7 with legendary only need to land a few hits to kill while the level 20 needs to consistently crit to even deal some damage. Throw in a few broken combination like double Unbending for 100-150% health recovery per hit and we can already see what needs to be nerfed.

 

I don't know how they will fix it, but with multiclass Deadfire has more replay value and it needs a good PotD to satisfy us on multiple playthroughs.

[TheMetaphysician]

 

If you liked Hard on the first game, I recommend going to PotD on this one. They are roughly comparable -- which is to say, PotD is much easier than it was in the first game.

 

That's been the only downside of the best RPG (so far) I've played since Baldur's Gate 2. It reminds me so much of BG2, really feels the same. Which is the highest compliment I can pay a video game.

 

I know it's just your opinion (I've actually seen some others claiming similar), but for this to actually feel more like BG2, the characters would need to have been better written, stealth needs to not be so terrible (playing a backstabber is way different in this than in the BG games), but most of all, the offensive spell casting in this game is just awful.  It's no fun at all.  You either exploit it via Empower > Rest shennanigans, or you may as well be shooting spitwads for the first ten levels.  It doesn't help either at the glacial pace that is required to actually reach the "fun" spells either.  CC spells are about as bad too.  Half of them either take an eternity to cast, or they simply get resisted.  All that's left are defensive spells, and none of those actually buff the player to be more offensive and seem to ONLY exist for some random Battlemage "tank" that isn't really meant to do damage other than the occasional fan of flames or damage shield (oh boy!).

 

This game is all or nothing.  You have to wear no armor, or go ultra heavy, so you're either fast and made of tissue, or tough, but slow as molassas.  Spells are super weak unless exploiting, then super powerful mid to mid-late game.  Most of the encounters are exactly the same too, which isn't really much like the BG games either.  The only way it reminds me of those games would be the layout of the big cities, and the way they look at times, but that's about it.

 

 

That's interesting. When I say that it "feels" more like BG2 than any other game I've ever played, it is hard to put my finger on exactly why it feels that way. Most of the things you mentioned just aren't relevant for how a game "feels" to me -- which, of course, means that the "feel" of a game is person-relative. What made BG2 "feel" as it did to me might be very different than what made it "feel" the way it did to you.

 

But I am really interested in trying to figure out why this game "feels" more like BG2 to me, when PoE 1 didn't really feel that way to me. (I wanted to like the first game more than I ended up actually liking it. I think there wasn't enough humor, and I didn't know the world well enough yet just from playing one game in it, while I had read lots of Forgotten Realms books before playing the BG series.) I think the biggest thing is the world: the scope feels huge, the cities (as you mentioned) feel like updated versions of Athkatla, with the encounters when you travel from place to place and lots of other stuff. The more exotic setting, with the (in my opinion, really fun) accents and different cultures, also makes it feel more like BG2.

 

As much as I care about combat (you can see some of my posts over in the builds forum), I mainly care about it to the extent that it helps me feel immersed into the world and care about what is happening in the story. And so far, the encounters have well-told stories associated with them, so the combat does what I want it to. (And I think that is compatible with everything you said about combat, so I'm not really disagreeing with you.) I love -- love love -- the scripted interactions. And I like the companions so far. I think we sometimes forget that the BG companions, as memorable as they were (Minsc is my man) were not as developed as we remember them. The "more banters" mods for BG2 are mandatory for playing it again, in my opinion.

 

What made BG2 so good to me is the integration of the combat system with well-told stories and quests I cared about, in a world I felt excited to explore. This game does that.

 

(All that said, I do really wish PotD was much harder. It would make me even more immersed, for the reasons others have said: it makes you have to care about all the mechanics and all your gear, which is just to say it immerses you into the game more fully.)

[Sanctuary]

Another thing that really irks me about this game is the buffing system in general.  Some are instant, so at the start of a fight they aren't any big deal, but why do long lasting buffs instantly vanish as soon as combat ends?  There's also no prebuffing at all.  It makes for a very bumpy transition from encounter to encounter, and it's especially bad if you have the AI set to automatically buff and enemies are spaced just enough apart so that after you finish one group, the next is just around the corner.

 

I guess this is off topic, since it doesn't really affect "difficulty" all that much, but it does seem like a quality of life problem that pretty much no other (or none that I've played at least) CRPGs have.

Edited May 13, 2018 by Sanctuary

[Starwars]

Something I also kinda hope for down the line is either flat out making the ship management tougher, or having a sort of "hardcore ship experience" option to toggle. I love the idea of buying supplies and all of that but it's been a complete non-issue in my game.

 

Not sure how to do it in a "believable" way though. Maybe reduce the number of ship supplies you get from those little "loot bags" on the world map or something.

 

I'll agree with one of the above posts that given Deadfire's overall design philosophy, having a really good difficulty experience would be fantastic for replayability. I want to feel the struggle!

[mrscojangles]

Good news is Deadfire will likely have a lot more mods than the first game, and if we're lucky we'll have some folks making SCS/Ascension/Tactics style mods to really beef up the difficulty. Granted, I know nothing about modding so I don't know to what extent things can be adjusted, but my understanding is this game is much more mod friendly than the first. And hopefully the potd tuning that they'll do in a future patch is significant as well. All we can do at this point is wait though. As much as I'd love for them to do the tuning immediately and for some people to put out mods today, I know the devs have higher priorities in terms of bugs and gamebreaking issues, and its much too early to realistically expect anyone to be putting out well made, large scale difficulty mods this early on. Have patience, as difficult as it may be.

[Tigranes]

As far as I know, Deadfire isn't really any more mod-friendly than POE1, which is a big pity.

 

 

Speaking about BG2, it's funny that so many gamers used to play this game with difficulty mods like Tactics that required the player to (ab)use cheap tricks and foreknowledge to get through most fights. Kiting and pulling a Benny Hill to pepper a boss with arrows and magic missiles, casting Death Cloud on unalerted foes by abusing the line of sight, etc. There is nothing hardcore about cheesing your way through a game by using some overpowered items, cheating and abusing the AI to break the game. 

 

Deadfire features many quality of life improvements (including the smaller party and getting rid of the per rest nonsense or the endurance/health system) and to me it feels that I don't spend most of my time fighting with pathfinding issues when playing the game. 

 

Does that make the game easier? Maybe it does but frankly the major difference is that it makes fights much less annoying/more fun. 

 

Last but not least despite all the complaints by a very vocal group of people it's common knowledge that the game's PotD mode hasn't been properly balanced yet so it's probably wise to wait until it's fixed to give it a go. 

 

I also dislike laborious cheesing, but that's a very narrow view of looking at things that only caters to your own sense of what is fun and reasonable.

 

RPGs, especially with a degree of nonlinear exploration, are so, so difficult to balance for different kinds of players.

 

So all I ask is that a game has robust enough systems and options that I can engineer it to provide the kind of challenge I want. E.g. I do not like regenerating health because it impacts my ability to have a meaningful attrition element. I have nothing against people who want to cheat heal or run back to rest 800 times or whatever else, but I want the gameplay systems / console / game options / etc to support a variety of styles.

 

What you consider annoyances are important elements of fun for other people. One of the reasons BG2 & IE games were so great is that they gave you many ways to cheese, powergame, house-rule, attrition, sadistically gimp yourself, etc., as you chose - especially once mods like Tactics or SCS came around (the latter day SCS, when you pick and choose its modules, do not 'require' laborious cheesing at all, if you are familiar with the systems).

Edited May 13, 2018 by Tigranes

[mrscojangles]

To add on the above post, the definitions of "cheesing" vary so much from person to person too. Yes, there are some people playing with SCS/Tactics/Ascension who  are kiting every single fight while they have 5 ranged/casters chewing up the mobs. Some people are lobbing cloudkills and webs into fog of war every fight. But there are also people who are playing with those mods and refuse to use robes of vecna or certain other pieces of gear or certain specs/skills/spells/etc. And then there is everything in between. The great thing about BG2 specifically is that there is a huge range of mods and there is huge range of options within those mods. As Tigranes said, once you're familiar with SCS, theres so many different ways you can set it up. Do you like the playstyle where you have to figure out how to dispel 15 different things from the enemy casters every fight? You can play that way. You like some of the AI improvements but don't want the enemy casters to all fully prebuff and use HLAs long before you have them? You can turn those options off. Don't like beholders? You can adjust them. The flexibility of the difficulty is what makes it so great. If you want to beat your head into a wall because its so damn tough, you can make it that way, and I think for a lot of players that capability to set up a game to be insanely difficult is a really important thing, especially for replayability and powergaming.

 

However, I know thats the minority but at the same time, you'd still like some options to adjust to at least get it reasonably difficult in the meantime until people (hopefully) make some mods.

[Omega01]

Today I fought a dragon (which I guess is supposed to be somewhat challenging) with a lvl 12 party on veteran; scaling upwards was enabled.

 

I think I paused two or three times to retarget or cast lay on hands, ai handled the rest.

Way to easy, I didnt even really do anything, not how it is supposed to be...

[PangaeaACDC]

As far as I know, Deadfire isn't really any more mod-friendly than POE1, which is a big pity.

 

POE2 is definitely more mod-friendly. There was an informative post about this a few months back by a developer, but I can't find it right now. Here is one post that touches the surface, though: https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/97998-info-how-to-structure-mods/

 

Remains to be seen if the modding takes off, and perhaps actual models and quests and such will prove too difficult. But it should at least be easier to mod the game than in the first one, where it was very limited.

 

Edit: It's in this thread: https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/94795-obsidian-will-you-provide-xml-documentation-or-other-editing-tools-on-release/

Edited May 14, 2018 by PangaeaACDC

[Infiltrator_SF]

Played on PotD since the start. The only fight that I had to restart was one where I get attacked by a pirate ship early that has like 15+ enemies with me barely having anything.

 

Penetration does have a LOT of influence and it is something I initially disregarded as the numbers didn't seem important (most talents offered 1 penetration and it looked like a joke).

[gloomseeker]

As far as I know, Deadfire isn't really any more mod-friendly than POE1, which is a big pity.

 

 

Speaking about BG2, it's funny that so many gamers used to play this game with difficulty mods like Tactics that required the player to (ab)use cheap tricks and foreknowledge to get through most fights. Kiting and pulling a Benny Hill to pepper a boss with arrows and magic missiles, casting Death Cloud on unalerted foes by abusing the line of sight, etc. There is nothing hardcore about cheesing your way through a game by using some overpowered items, cheating and abusing the AI to break the game. 

 

Deadfire features many quality of life improvements (including the smaller party and getting rid of the per rest nonsense or the endurance/health system) and to me it feels that I don't spend most of my time fighting with pathfinding issues when playing the game. 

 

Does that make the game easier? Maybe it does but frankly the major difference is that it makes fights much less annoying/more fun. 

 

Last but not least despite all the complaints by a very vocal group of people it's common knowledge that the game's PotD mode hasn't been properly balanced yet so it's probably wise to wait until it's fixed to give it a go. 

 

I also dislike laborious cheesing, but that's a very narrow view of looking at things that only caters to your own sense of what is fun and reasonable.

 

RPGs, especially with a degree of nonlinear exploration, are so, so difficult to balance for different kinds of players.

 

So all I ask is that a game has robust enough systems and options that I can engineer it to provide the kind of challenge I want. E.g. I do not like regenerating health because it impacts my ability to have a meaningful attrition element. I have nothing against people who want to cheat heal or run back to rest 800 times or whatever else, but I want the gameplay systems / console / game options / etc to support a variety of styles.

 

What you consider annoyances are important elements of fun for other people. One of the reasons BG2 & IE games were so great is that they gave you many ways to cheese, powergame, house-rule, attrition, sadistically gimp yourself, etc., as you chose - especially once mods like Tactics or SCS came around (the latter day SCS, when you pick and choose its modules, do not 'require' laborious cheesing at all, if you are familiar with the systems).

 

Pot calling kettle black. 

 

Saying I have a "very narrow view" just because I don't see eye to eye with you is a bit beside the point don't you think? 

 

All I said was that it would be wise to wait for PotD to be fixed before getting into it. 

 

As for cheese, some people like it runny and some people like it in games. 

 

I've played Tactics and frankly there is no way you can get out of Irenicus Dungeon without using foreknowledge, cheese and tricks so I stand by what I've posted above. 

 

For the record just so we're on the same page that doesn't mean that I don't want you to have fun powergaming the hell out of the game but please let's not pretend that abusing cheesy tricks, fog of war and AI exploits are worth bragging about because that would just be unseemly. 

[Wormerine]

Played PoE on both veteran and PotD. Playing Deadfire on veteran with critical path upscaled.

 

So far I find the game more consistent in challenge. Nothing as challenging as beginning of PotD, but also nothing as boring as PotD outside opening areas and dragons/archwizards. I don’t use any of the broken builds, and didn’t multiclass anyone, so I am far from minmaxing. Knowing how beta plays I can imagine how my monk/cipher would absolutely maw through everything.

 

I got couple tough fights, but I feel like I wondered to a high level bounty.

[VincentNZ]

Yeah, I am at a point as well, where I can mostly go around without using skills. The last challenging fight was a dragon at level 12 or so (I am now 19). I frankly still have no idea about game mechanics, or I just grasp the ideas of resistances, immunities etc., but what stands out is that right now my characters Especially Eder and my Barbarian, take little damage.

 

Now I will very likely switch to veteran, but that will likely only prolong the fights, instead of making them harder. I am generally really against level scaling, but here it would really help at times. And I can not change the scaling in-game, but I really need it, and 40 hours in the game, I am not inclined to start over again. The dragon for example was for a quest on my level (which is why I did it in the first place) and was two levels above me, which turned out to be fine. That one was really tough and I won with all empowers gone and only two people left alive. Fight lasted about 30 minutes with two reloads.

 

That fight also showed some flaws in the system, though. Eder and my PC are technically really tough, but got almost one-shotted with crazy hits. That was a little over the top, since you can not keep everyone at full health at all times. In PoE1, I could offset this a fair bit, with spells like blinding, status effects on enemies (knockdown), and buffing my own. Buffing still works, but debuffing against a target is often futile. I wanted to blind the dragon, so that I do not get hits that often, but since the dragon was a high level, the chances were basically too low.

So that leaves  only buffing, but with only two spells per level you have to choose carefully. Should you really improve your accuracy for 30 seconds or instead save it for the healing spell?

Power level and Armour Penetration are other things to mention. The damage is often inconsistent, either you hit everything and deal massive damage, or you do not hit a lot and deal little damage.

I have little understanding of the battles, but it appears clear to me that armour penetration is the thing to look for, since all high-end enemies have armour. So this is the most meaningful stat.

 

- Armour penetration and power levels need to be tweaked, so that every skill and spell can be effective

- Level scaling should be changeable in the options menu

- Certain enemies should always be potent, favourably by always scaling them (e.g. dragon should always be two levels above)

- Item enchanting should be limited to certain bonuses, not to increase the item's power level.

[Dummy]

After having spent some time (40+ h) in poe2 and having played it on veteran and potd, I feel comfortable posting my opinion as well.

 

If you are sensible on who you approach the games difficulty feels downgraded by 1, the encounters on potd in 2 feel like veteran encounters in 1.

This might be partially because of the new AI, partially because of new systems (grazes, crits, Armorating replacing DR) and partially because of easier encounters.

 

Overall I am a bit sad to say, I enjoyed 1 more then 2 thus far, but there are still patches and dlc to come maybe they spice things up.

[Creative]

Today I fought a dragon (which I guess is supposed to be somewhat challenging) with a lvl 12 party on veteran; scaling upwards was enabled.

 

I think I paused two or three times to retarget or cast lay on hands, ai handled the rest.

Way to easy, I didnt even really do anything, not how it is supposed to be...

Yep, had the exact same thing happen. It was at that point that I realised just how broken this game is. It's a ****ing dragon. And I auto attacked it to death in about 30 seconds. What are the devs thinking. How is that an acceptable way to release a game like this. "We'll patch it in a few weeks". Great, accept a lot of people will be done with your game by then, or at least through the majority of it.

Edited May 14, 2018 by Creative

[master guardian]

I did every-single bounty and in under 1 minute, never had to reload any of the fights and none of my companions got killed 

 

PLEASE FIX THE GAME 

[tela2k]

So finished the game yesterday and I feel like Deadfire actually made me realise how much the combat mechanics really matter and I am honestly quite disappointed with the whole game because of this. I think I've always played RPGs on the hardest difficulty, because it makes the challenge in the story more real to actually experience the struggle for yourself so I feel like the lack of difficulty also works to water down the atmosphere of the game, making the stakes feel lower. It also makes rewards like levels and items feel worthless, because you don't need the upgrades. 

 

I gave my party combat scripts after reaching lvl 10 then proceeded to fast mode through the game on PotD and crit path scaling on. I think after that there was one fight in the southeast corner of the map where I actually had to give input because of domination. One fight in the whole game after leaving Neketaka where I personally engaged with the game mechanics on the hardest difficulty. For the player that means you could just as well remove fights from the game and nothing would change. I mean I literally did the dishes while watching my party destroy the final boss on their own without dropping anyone. Sure I could disable AI and fight manually, but if the fights are easy enough for the scripts to do the job, then I'm just going through the same motions as the AI would, and that really isn't very stimulating, not in the way PoE1 is. Altough it also gets very easy later on, but with scaling it still does hold up quite far into the game. Way further than Deadfire at least.

Now I don't know if full scaling would've made my experience any different, but I doubt giving mobs a little bit more stats would really change that much,
because I feel like the problem is really in the penetration mechanics. Heavy armor just feels completely OP. I mean I purposefully made my PC a helwalker/streetfighter,
cause I thought that it would make for some pretty fun micromanaging and tense glasscannon gameplay, which it did, for a time. Then I put him in heavy armor (Reckless Brigandine)
and suddenly he was impervious to damage but still hitting like a truck. For me the difference in attack time with all self buffs on between wearing a robe (3.5s) and wearing plate (4.1s)
just is nowhere near enough to make up for the difference in durability. By lvl 19 he was unkillable and hitting for 1000dmg (swift strikes + heartbeat drumming cascade) with basic attacks with 4.1s attack time.

Is my PC just an example of a fringe OP class? Yes.
But I think it highlights pretty clearly what is wrong with the game: he should do a ton of damage, but he shouldn't be able to tank, like at all. And honestly I tested fighting solo with Swashbuckler Eder and he could take on the world alone just as well as my PC, it just took him more time to kill everything. Same problem: legendary plate + legendary weapon = unkillable and enemies explode into red mist on touch.

In one of these threads I remember someone saying that healing is the problem with the game, but honestly I didn't seem to need it at all. I could just leave the rest of the party at the entrance and send either frontliner alone to clear anything, even the high level zones, because enemies just simply can't penetrate heavy armor, especially the legendary ones with +armor. No healing needed, everyone is dead way before you are.
Another thing people have said is that the difficulty markers make it feel easier because you don't end up in zones above your level.
Didn't have the markers on because of scaling and still didn't have any Firkraag/Alpine Dragon moments. Fast mode, flying body parts, loot.

Not really sure how I'd go about fixing it though, because as I understand it, everything in the game is universally applied, so if you lower the armor rating or penetration
from items for the party you also do so for the enemies and nothing changes. You could just give enemies better gear but then you end up with the TES: Oblivion glass armor bandits ridiculousness and consequently make money meaningless pretty fast. Although maybe you don't give it to trash mobs, and trash mobs just stay trash, but you add more challenging fights into the game, and those enemies are going to have superb or legendary gear?

I guess one way to go about it is just raise the stats of all enemies in the game, so they end up critting more and thus penetrating armor. Although I feel like that would make a lot of abilities useless, because there wouldn't be any way to hit them anymore, and it would make accuracy king again. Maybe PotD should just flat out give enemies extra penetration and armor rating too? Altough extra armor would mean damage spells stop working and martial classes are still critting with +20 penetration and nothing changes. But extra pen would solve a lot of problems I think. You could of course just nerf heavy armor by increasing the recovery penalty, but that might quickly turn tanks into slugs tahat never get to use any of their abilities.

In the same vein I personally hope they go about balancing by buffing the mobs and not nerfing the player. I think this is what is so cool about a fully modded SCS BG, that it's OP vs OP. You get to feel powerful while being given a good reason to go for the broken builds and hunting for the best items, because the enemies are also ridiculously powerful. Out of the games I've put a lot of hours in, the same thing goes for XCOM and Dota2: intense, sometimes straight up unfair difficulty but the player is also given some pretty OP feeling tools to deal with the difficulty if they have the skill and the know-how. Those games can be frustrating sometimes, but when they feel good, the feel really good. Great rewards for good plays and harsh punishments for mistakes. Maybe they could just do it as a Berath's Blessing? Like Turbo Mode? Or just make PotD live up to it's name. Could also be they just nerf everything until the combat plays like a group of slugs fighting a gang of caterpillars and character building is as interesting as filing your tax return.


 

[CarrO]

So I started a new playthrough with level scaling activated only upwards because I found the previous one a little too easy after a certain point in the game, but I haven't noticed any difference at all in the difficulty of the fights...

 

Is the setting even working at all? Is there a way to tell?

 

I've found this post on reddit talking about the same issue as well: https://www.reddit.com/r/projecteternity/comments/8j6gw7

[master guardian]

You are right.

 

Yes it doesn’t work.

 

And you no what pisses me off dam obsidian won’t even let everyone know when they are fixing it and the POTD problems.

 

The game is currently broken and unplayable because it is way to easy.

[Melusina]

Easy doesn't make game unplayable.

Edited May 14, 2018 by Amentep

[Amentep]

Everyone is welcome to their opinion; one person's unplayable is another person's fun game.  Lets keep personal commentary out of it.

[Serenum]

I am surprised at many of the comments and vitriol in this thread. I enjoy playing a challenging game in any of my RPGs and have been doing so for decades, however, to say that a game is unplayable, crap, and many other over the top adjectives is just hyperbole and really reads like whining.

 

If you would like a harder game and challenge that's great, but don't force it on others or say the game is broken because you are not having your perceived ideal experience.

 

Josh Sawyer has been honest and commented that PotD can be improved and I expect them to do so when they get the time to review stats and balance the game further post launch. This game has a challenging option available for players who appreciate that, but this is by no means a masochist delight game only with insane challenge. It is catered to RPG enthusiasts and infinity engine aficionados who enjoyed those games.

 

As I mentioned above, I agree that having a challenging option is needed and I am looking forward to tweaks. Also, it does seem like scaling can be improved, although I haven't played enough to really have data to support that scaling is broken or not. So far it seems off in my playthrough in certain aspects but not broken. Share data with dev's and your experience in a positive, fair and balanced manner and we maximize our chances to improve the game and have a more reasonable dialogue.

 

Finally, if you are going to go through the critical path and maybe off a bit and happen to level up fast, you will likely outlevel some fights but definitely not all. For example, it is interesting to me that people say everything is so easy, when right after Port Maje I have been exploring islands in the lower part of the left of the map with PotD/All Scaling at level 5 and there are some encounters that are insane at that level/gear/skills available - i.e. 4 Eotens 1 shooting Eder and my Paladin then murdering the rest of my party, or the Pwgra with 5 other adds, or Leofwyn (can be done with creative pathing and lucky rolls as I did it), or fighting a Galleon... So yeah, want a challenge? Try those early on, otherwise, enjoy the game and story, and if combat is the only thing that truly excites you, then yeah, you might need to wait a bit more until the game is further balanced in PotD. I am looking forward to the balances as combat is a core experience for me in RPGs.

 

Cheers.