The General Level Scaling / Difficulty Thread (not POTD)

[try2handing]

Another thing that makes combat very forgiving in general is the fact that many abilities are encounter-based, and you recover all of your HP completely after every fight, unless an injury lowers your max HP. Others have pointed this out. So basically, you can fight 10 encounters back to back, as long as you don't burn any rest-based ability, consumables, and no one gets knocked out once, it means you lose *nothing* from your resources.

 

I've been playing on Veteran, rather casually, tbh, and I pretty much never need to burn any kind of consumables during any fight just to get some extra edge. My party are level 10 atm. The only time I got knocked out (my main char) was around level 2 when I was still rather clueless about the game, and didn't bother to retry the fight. Just standard class abilities have been enough for combat, in my case.

[flyingsaucers]

...  It's especially inconvenient since, unlike the PotD, there was no warning that you can't turn the level scaling on after the start of the game...

 

There actually is a warning on the tooltip for level scaling when you're going through the options of starting a new game. It says this option cannot be enabled in-game or something like that. BUT I wholeheartedly agree that it should be an option to turn it on mid-game. I mean, what is the point of this restriction? All it does is force players who are finding the game too easy to finish the game on easy-mode before having to restart an entirely new game to get something of a challenge. Seems like a bad design choice to me.

 

I'm currently playing on Veteren and wishing I'd started on PoTD with level scaling upwards, because the combat is really not challenging if you're actually a veteran of IW cRPGS.

[Yosharian]

I'd much rather have difficult enemies that do not rely on being HP sponges.

[Zeratul]

 

There actually is a warning on the tooltip for level scaling when you're going through the options of starting a new game. 

Not as far as I can tell... https://imgur.com/owW5zjg

[gloomseeker]

Another thing that makes combat very forgiving in general is the fact that many abilities are encounter-based, and you recover all of your HP completely after every fight, unless an injury lowers your max HP. Others have pointed this out. So basically, you can fight 10 encounters back to back, as long as you don't burn any rest-based ability, consumables, and no one gets knocked out once, it means you lose *nothing* from your resources.

 

Having to rest every two minutes doesn't make the game any better/harder, it just makes it more of a chore. 

[Climhazzard]

There are some decent encounters scattered around the world map, but there are a lot of lame ones too, some enemies just do very little damage. 

 

In this game I once decided to kill my main character to try to reset her bugged aura, accidentally soloed all but one dude, then had to reload the game because he was doing 7 damage per swing and couldn't overcome rapid recovery.  In PoE even the boars and wolves in the 2nd or 3rd zones did more damage than this.

[Clerith]

PoE PotD wolves in the second area are scarier than anything in PoE2 except random high level gun squads at low level.

[Biberon]

I would like Obsi does PotD hard enough to make you need Berath Blessings, consumables and abilities to win.

 

I have restart with the update and BB, still "too" easy. The only hard thing is exploring out of your level

[gkathellar]

 

Another thing that makes combat very forgiving in general is the fact that many abilities are encounter-based, and you recover all of your HP completely after every fight, unless an injury lowers your max HP. Others have pointed this out. So basically, you can fight 10 encounters back to back, as long as you don't burn any rest-based ability, consumables, and no one gets knocked out once, it means you lose *nothing* from your resources.

Having to rest every two minutes doesn't make the game any better/harder, it just makes it more of a chore.

Hell, White March had most of the toughest fights in the game, and it had so many sets of camping supplies laying around that you could've covered the whole place in tents. Attrition was only really a thing in PoE1 until about level 6.

[Katarack21]

In Deadfire, I didn't start encountering any hard CC until around level 10, but by level 13 it's getting pretty common. I'm getting paralyzed, terrified, dominated. Not every fight, but often enough to be a notable increase, especially with special named enemies.

[Alhoon]

I'd much rather have difficult enemies that do not rely on being HP sponges.

While that sounds good in principle, how do you make enemies difficult if they die before they can do literally anything?

[Yosharian]

 

I'd much rather have difficult enemies that do not rely on being HP sponges.

While that sounds good in principle, how do you make enemies difficult if they die before they can do literally anything?

BG2 mages can be almost impossible to take down if you don't get to them before they get a stoneskin up, or if you don't have access to breach, disjunction, etc.

 

An umber hulk's confuse spell can really mess up a party, but they aren't that tough.

 

If a low level party isn't equipped with bludgeoning weapons, even skeletons can be tough.

[flyingsaucers]

 

 

There actually is a warning on the tooltip for level scaling when you're going through the options of starting a new game. 

Not as far as I can tell... https://imgur.com/owW5zjg

 

Well isn't that odd now. I could have sworn I saw it there when I first started playing...

 

Either way, you're right. It needs to be adjustable mid-game.

[Alhoon]

 

 

I'd much rather have difficult enemies that do not rely on being HP sponges.

While that sounds good in principle, how do you make enemies difficult if they die before they can do literally anything?

BG2 mages can be almost impossible to take down if you don't get to them before they get a stoneskin up, or if you don't have access to breach, disjunction, etc.

 

An umber hulk's confuse spell can really mess up a party, but they aren't that tough.

 

If a low level party isn't equipped with bludgeoning weapons, even skeletons can be tough.

 

Believe me, I know, I've played all of Infinity Engine games (and tabletop Forgotten Realms) far too much, as one can probably infer from my forum handle.

 

Then again, while comparable on some levels to Pillars, the combat in BG and IWD series is vastly different from the one we have here. Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. Often in Infinity Engine games it boiled down to hard counters -> hard counters, something which game devs these days avoid I feel. Something like using elemental damage weapons to interrupt Stoneskin mages from casting in case Breach or similar combat protection strips were unavailable, using specific hard counters to Umber Hulks (backstab, Barbarian Rage, Chaotic Commands etc.), having many different damage types available for Skeletons (I guess this is true for some enemies in Pillars as well).

 

While I agree that Mage fights for example would be far more interesting in Pillars if they employed tactics like Contingencies in BG2, and if things were made more difficult this way it'd be absolutely awesome, I fear it'd take far too much time and effort and we'd end up never getting them.

 

I feel PotD is so fundamentally broken at the moment and feels like Story Time.

[whiskiz]

Erm, you do realize the game hasn't been balanced yet, right? It's not easy because of the new combat system (per encounter) or whatever.

 

Especially PotD and Vet. This was announced before even release.

 

Apparently they had to choose either between bugfixing or harder difficulty balancing before release - guess which they went with.

 

Even though it released both imbalanced and with plenty of bugs.

 

They said balance will be done post-release and is being worked on as we speak, that's why im waitiing to get the game, wait until they actually finish it so i don't spoil it for myself by facerolling - or rather so they don't spoil it for me having released it half finished. It didn't help level scaling wasn't working on release, either.

 

Apparently balancing the game was a low priority because apparently not many people play harder difficulties, so if you are wanting more of a challenge you're going to have to wait. I can wait a couple months as long as they do it properly.

Edited May 21, 2018 by whiskiz

[Taurus]

In truth we all know the best version of this game will come after all expansions and patchs come... now I’m actually happy with what we have got so far.

Edited May 21, 2018 by Taurus

[whiskiz]

In truth we all know the best version of this game will come after all expansions and patchs come... now I’m actually happy with what we have got so far.

 

finished version*

[Irori]

if someone can make a mod which increases health values of enemies by say, x2, x3, x5, it would be great.

 

Can also test something where hp += hp*(lvl/5), so the HP value increases gradually.

[flamesium]

Enemy levels should generally be at least a couple higher than your own (with Scale Up selected).

 

Some fights with significantly more enemy numbers so they have a chance of overwhelming your front line.

 

More enemy mobility so they can bypass your front line entirely. Combat currently feels a bit too much like PoE OC; White March made combat feel a lot more mobile and it was better for it.

 

More enemies with Pen high enough that you need to use Pen modals sometimes.

 

More enemies who are virtually invincible in some defenses with only one or two weak defenses.

 

Enemy squishies more able to get away from you once you get to them.

 

Enemy front liners should be TOUGH, especially in deflection. Your front line shouldn’t have butchered their front line while the casters on both sides are still warming up their first spells. Actually the first spell cast for everyone should probably have a massively reduced cast time, like they had it ‘in the chamber’ and ready to go.

[Yosharian]

 

 

 

I'd much rather have difficult enemies that do not rely on being HP sponges.

While that sounds good in principle, how do you make enemies difficult if they die before they can do literally anything?

BG2 mages can be almost impossible to take down if you don't get to them before they get a stoneskin up, or if you don't have access to breach, disjunction, etc.

 

An umber hulk's confuse spell can really mess up a party, but they aren't that tough.

 

If a low level party isn't equipped with bludgeoning weapons, even skeletons can be tough.

 

Believe me, I know, I've played all of Infinity Engine games (and tabletop Forgotten Realms) far too much, as one can probably infer from my forum handle.

 

Then again, while comparable on some levels to Pillars, the combat in BG and IWD series is vastly different from the one we have here. Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. Often in Infinity Engine games it boiled down to hard counters -> hard counters, something which game devs these days avoid I feel. Something like using elemental damage weapons to interrupt Stoneskin mages from casting in case Breach or similar combat protection strips were unavailable, using specific hard counters to Umber Hulks (backstab, Barbarian Rage, Chaotic Commands etc.), having many different damage types available for Skeletons (I guess this is true for some enemies in Pillars as well).

 

While I agree that Mage fights for example would be far more interesting in Pillars if they employed tactics like Contingencies in BG2, and if things were made more difficult this way it'd be absolutely awesome, I fear it'd take far too much time and effort and we'd end up never getting them.

 

I feel PotD is so fundamentally broken at the moment and feels like Story Time.

 

 

I think there's a kind of joy that comes with finding items that make you immune to Hold Person, Charm Person, etc, and that joy comes from the sheer terror that can be inflicted by those abilities.

 

Seeing your favourite character get torn apart by undead while frozen still by a Hold Person spell makes you hate that spell with a passion.

 

Yes I get that these are solved by hard counters, but I actually don't think there's anything wrong with that.

 

Your immunity-to-Hold Person item doesn't protect you against a dragon's breath attack, for example.

 

This kind of encounter design may well revolve around simply using the right tools for the job, but even this is ultimately more enjoyable than hitting a block of flesh again and again for 3 mins.

 

That said I'm happy to hear alternatives.

[try2handing]

 

Another thing that makes combat very forgiving in general is the fact that many abilities are encounter-based, and you recover all of your HP completely after every fight, unless an injury lowers your max HP. Others have pointed this out. So basically, you can fight 10 encounters back to back, as long as you don't burn any rest-based ability, consumables, and no one gets knocked out once, it means you lose *nothing* from your resources.

 

Having to rest every two minutes doesn't make the game any better/harder, it just makes it more of a chore. 

 

The way it is right now, you don't have to rest. At all.

[Yosharian]

Enemy levels should generally be at least a couple higher than your own (with Scale Up selected).

 

Some fights with significantly more enemy numbers so they have a chance of overwhelming your front line.

 

More enemy mobility so they can bypass your front line entirely. Combat currently feels a bit too much like PoE OC; White March made combat feel a lot more mobile and it was better for it.

 

More enemies with Pen high enough that you need to use Pen modals sometimes.

 

More enemies who are virtually invincible in some defenses with only one or two weak defenses.

 

Enemy squishies more able to get away from you once you get to them.

 

Enemy front liners should be TOUGH, especially in deflection. Your front line shouldn’t have butchered their front line while the casters on both sides are still warming up their first spells. Actually the first spell cast for everyone should probably have a massively reduced cast time, like they had it ‘in the chamber’ and ready to go.

 

Agree with everything you said.  Anything but increasing HP, for the love of god.

[Crucis]

 

Another thing that makes combat very forgiving in general is the fact that many abilities are encounter-based, and you recover all of your HP completely after every fight, unless an injury lowers your max HP. Others have pointed this out. So basically, you can fight 10 encounters back to back, as long as you don't burn any rest-based ability, consumables, and no one gets knocked out once, it means you lose *nothing* from your resources.

 

Having to rest every two minutes doesn't make the game any better/harder, it just makes it more of a chore. 

 

 

You didn't HAVE to rest constantly.  If you did, it was because you wanted to spam per-rest spells rather than ration their use and depend more on characters of classes whose abilities weren't per-rest.    In short, you didn't want to play the way the game was designed to be played.

[Yosharian]

 

 

Another thing that makes combat very forgiving in general is the fact that many abilities are encounter-based, and you recover all of your HP completely after every fight, unless an injury lowers your max HP. Others have pointed this out. So basically, you can fight 10 encounters back to back, as long as you don't burn any rest-based ability, consumables, and no one gets knocked out once, it means you lose *nothing* from your resources.

 

Having to rest every two minutes doesn't make the game any better/harder, it just makes it more of a chore. 

 

 

You didn't HAVE to rest constantly.  If you did, it was because you wanted to spam per-rest spells rather than ration their use and depend more on characters of classes whose abilities weren't per-rest.    In short, you didn't want to play the way the game was designed to be played.

 

 

> The way the game was designed to be played

 

I.E. never using more than half the spells you ever had available, because you were always saving them for that big fight where you might need them, the big fight that either never comes, or doesn't come in time because you ran out of 'health' anyway despite playing conservatively

 

> The way the game was designed to be played

 

You need to realise that rest mechanics such as the ones in Pillars 1 do not improve gameplay.

[Katarack21]

Indeed, the simple fact that so many people refuse to play the "intended" manner and instead just rest-spam all the time says something about how players feel about rest mechanics.