Question about difficulty level

[pelias117]

If I tweak the difficulty levels to start with additional enemies with lowered stats (difficulty settings,) might I end up being a little bit MORE powerful (at least in the early game,) because I'll level up more? Is this approach a bad idea for me?

*My style- I HATE "optimizing" characters for maximum efficiency, and try hard to stick with a thematic role-playing character. (My paladin has 14 Strength, because I envision him having strong Willpower/Wisdom- which is a 16.)

Thanks for responses, I'm a bit worried I'm going to get slaughtered at the tail end of this adventure based on (some of) what I'm reading.

[belangf]

From what I read, setting additional enemies will get you more XP so you would level up slightly faster. If you play on Normal you don't need to have max stats. Worst case you can just decrease the difficulty a bit more.

[pelias117]

Originally posted by belangf:

From what I read, setting additional enemies will get you more XP so you would level up slightly faster. If you play on Normal you don't need to have max stats. Worst case you can just decrease the difficulty a bit more.

Ok-based on that, would I be correct an assuming that some people might be...overly zealous in critiquing the difficulty levels, when they are actually cranking it to the maximum level?

[belangf]

Originally posted by pelias117:

Originally posted by belangf:

From what I read, setting additional enemies will get you more XP so you would level up slightly faster. If you play on Normal you don't need to have max stats. Worst case you can just decrease the difficulty a bit more.

Ok-based on that, would I be correct an assuming that some people might be...overly zealous in critiquing the difficulty levels, when they are actually cranking it to the maximum level?

Even on Normal some battles can be pretty difficult on your first try. Combat are often a bit like a puzzle and you have to figure out the enemies weakness. On Normal your stats don't have to be perfect, but using the right spells, buffs and equipment can make a huge difference. Having 14 Str on a paladin is fine on Normal, but you have to level up carefully and choose good Feats and get buffs from spells or potions for tough fights.

[pelias117]

Originally posted by belangf:

Originally posted by pelias117:

Ok-based on that, would I be correct an assuming that some people might be...overly zealous in critiquing the difficulty levels, when they are actually cranking it to the maximum level?

Even on Normal some battles can be pretty difficult on your first try. Combat are often a bit like a puzzle and you have to figure out the enemies weakness. On Normal your stats don't have to be perfect, but using the right spells, buffs and equipment can make a huge difference. Having 14 Str on a paladin is fine on Normal, but you have to level up carefully and choose good Feats and get buffs from spells or potions for tough fights.

Fair. There's a recent *thing* I feel like with games, where (I feel) some programmers design the baseline around the idea that everyone is going with an optimum build.

Would you say that my idea of a toned down monsters, but more of them would provide a fun playstyle for my deeply flawed band, or do the extra monsters eventually become pretty punishing?

[Red Phantom]

Originally posted by pelias117:

Fair. There's a recent *thing* I feel like with games, where (I feel) some programmers design the baseline around the idea that everyone is going with an optimum build.

Would you say that my idea of a toned down monsters, but more of them would provide a fun playstyle for my deeply flawed band, or do the extra monsters eventually become pretty punishing?

In this game, if you're able to take on one of something you're usually able to take on multiple. I am playing with additional enemies on and I have no idea how big of a difference it makes, but I would imagine that as long as you can handle the fights as they are you can handle the additional enemies as well.

[Iconoclast]

Originally posted by pelias117:

Originally posted by belangf:

From what I read, setting additional enemies will get you more XP so you would level up slightly faster. If you play on Normal you don't need to have max stats. Worst case you can just decrease the difficulty a bit more.

Ok-based on that, would I be correct an assuming that some people might be...overly zealous in critiquing the difficulty levels, when they are actually cranking it to the maximum level?

Anyone who says there's no problem with difficulty is actually playing a minmax build and using minmaxed mercs / retrained NPCs to deal with it by midgame or they're turning down difficulty to finish the game. If you don't have death's door turned on you need to carry raise dead scrolls because deaths are so regular due to the enemy stats, RNG and ambushes when you don't have prebuffs.

Your initial impression was correct in that you'll start off overpowered and then things fall off rapidly in act 3 until it's unplayable without lowering difficulty unless you're optimized, especially in certain fights. Enlarged doesn't make a difference really, because the stat bloat is the problem. Even normal has massively inflated stats and saves, stacked feats and almost everything has spell and elemental resistances on top. Basically if you aren't 19 str/dex starting there's no point in trying to melee because you'll never hit anything, and if your frontline isn't a dodge tank with concealment buff they'll get killed in 1 or 2 rounds because heavy armor and shield can't really compete. It's why one of the popular Seelah builds is to just make her a bard instead of a paladin because she can't really tank.

These problems are plain as day, but any time you mention it an army of tryhards will come out to tell you how wrong you are, oblivious to the fact that they're just telling you to optimize, which only reinforces the point that a 'normal' build on normal is not enough. They're also speaking from hindsight which trivializes a lot of the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ that's complained about in the first place with zero regard to the actual experience. Sure, if you know you're going to be jumped by a dragon at some specific point and it's going to use a cone fire attack and you prepare by buffing fire resistance on everyone, then the fight is 'normal' i.e. difficult if not minmaxed. If you don't know exactly what's going to happen, half the party dies instantly and now you're fighting a hard encounter with templating i.e. stat bloat designed for 6 party members, but only 3 of them are functional because of the way the encounter is presented. So you reload and prepare the right solution, or if you can't you turn difficulty down.

The entire game feels like this eventually on any difficulty but story mode, so get used to it. Doesn't matter if it's Minagho or Blackwater or Playful Darkness or the axe throwing guy at Wintersun, something WILL eventually check you and make you lower difficulty if you're not minmaxed because tactics/buffs alone won't cut it, so you might as well just do it up front for a less obnoxious experience. If you're looking for enemy stats closest to tabletop it's actually something like second lowest, less than normal mode.

[pelias117]

Originally posted by Iconoclast:

Originally posted by pelias117:

Ok-based on that, would I be correct an assuming that some people might be...overly zealous in critiquing the difficulty levels, when they are actually cranking it to the maximum level?

Anyone who says there's no problem with difficulty is actually playing a minmax build and using minmaxed mercs / retrained NPCs to deal with it by midgame or they're turning down difficulty to finish the game. If you don't have death's door turned on you need to carry raise dead scrolls because deaths are so regular due to the enemy stats, RNG and ambushes when you don't have prebuffs.

Your initial impression was correct in that you'll start off overpowered and then things fall off rapidly in act 3 until it's unplayable without lowering difficulty unless you're optimized, especially in certain fights. Enlarged doesn't make a difference really, because the stat bloat is the problem. Even normal has massively inflated stats and saves, stacked feats and almost everything has spell and elemental resistances on top. Basically if you aren't 19 str/dex starting there's no point in trying to melee because you'll never hit anything, and if your frontline isn't a dodge tank with concealment buff they'll get killed in 1 or 2 rounds because heavy armor and shield can't really compete. It's why one of the popular Seelah builds is to just make her a bard instead of a paladin because she can't really tank.

These problems are plain as day, but any time you mention it an army of tryhards will come out to tell you how wrong you are, oblivious to the fact that they're just telling you to optimize, which only reinforces the point that a 'normal' build on normal is not enough. They're also speaking from hindsight which trivializes a lot of the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ that's complained about in the first place with zero regard to the actual experience. Sure, if you know you're going to be jumped by a dragon at some specific point and it's going to use a cone fire attack and you prepare by buffing fire resistance on everyone, then the fight is 'normal' i.e. difficult if not minmaxed. If you don't know exactly what's going to happen, half the party dies instantly and now you're fighting a hard encounter with templating i.e. stat bloat designed for 6 party members, but only 3 of them are functional because of the way the encounter is presented. So you reload and prepare the right solution, or if you can't you turn difficulty down.

The entire game feels like this eventually on any difficulty but story mode, so get used to it. Doesn't matter if it's Minagho or Blackwater or Playful Darkness or the axe throwing guy at Wintersun, something WILL eventually check you and make you lower difficulty if you're not minmaxed because tactics/buffs alone won't cut it, so you might as well just do it up front for a less obnoxious experience. If you're looking for enemy stats closest to tabletop it's actually something like second lowest, less than normal mode.

The detail about my group being fine until around ACT 3, is precisely what I've seen thus far. I appreciate the meticulous details. I'm still going to play through the game and love what I've seen, but I see a lot of games basing their difficulty level around obnoxious game-breaking fans that will never be satisfied in the first place and wish difficulty levels would get some major tweaking.

(Again, the game looks great and I'll play it- I just reserve the right to moan about some of the trends I don't like in gamer's games!)

[dulany67]

Personally, I play on Core but with enemies set to be moderately weaker and deaths door on.

Core is TT rules, weaker enemies because of stat bloat. Deaths door on because QoL.

[DCRWrites]

The other thing to remember is that when they call a difficulty setting "unfair," you should believe them.

[Etherial_Angel]

My suggestion is to play on Normal first to get a feel of the game. And, make sure to save as often as you can. Preferably before interacting, or when reaching new area. There are a lot of RNG involved, and unfortunately, some of the RNG interactions can outright kill your entire party.

Developers like to pit ambushes as well as enemies with inflated stats. Core difficulty is a little bit misleading in the description when it says the enemies stats are not tweaked. But their stats on that difficulty is actually inflated and not the same as the original pathfinder handbook.

Once you get a feel of the game and know which feats and class combo you want to get, then you can amp up the difficulty. You need to have optimised build, and prebuff all your characters before engaging any fights in higher difficulty. For this reasons, a lot of enchantment/transmutation and any crowd control spells become your friend, especially early in the game. And in higher difficulties, crowd control is almost mandatory for any fights as they can essentially temporarily remove threats completely, and you want to do that when the enemies outnumber you, and come with inflated stats.

[IKerensky]

Originally posted by DCRWrites:

The other thing to remember is that when they call a difficulty setting "unfair," you should believe them.

Yet, when they call a difficulty setting "core" dont believe them, neither for "normal".
And what genius came with the idea that the "normal" setting ennemies should be rated "slightly weaker" ???

There would be a lot less complaint if Core was rated as hard, "slightly weaker" was dubbed normal and normal to "slightly stronger" because they indeed are "slightly stronger" than the normal one from the core books...

[DarkFenix]

Originally posted by Iconoclast:

Originally posted by pelias117:

Ok-based on that, would I be correct an assuming that some people might be...overly zealous in critiquing the difficulty levels, when they are actually cranking it to the maximum level?

Anyone who says there's no problem with difficulty is actually playing a minmax build and using minmaxed mercs / retrained NPCs to deal with it by midgame or they're turning down difficulty to finish the game. If you don't have death's door turned on you need to carry raise dead scrolls because deaths are so regular due to the enemy stats, RNG and ambushes when you don't have prebuffs.

Your initial impression was correct in that you'll start off overpowered and then things fall off rapidly in act 3 until it's unplayable without lowering difficulty unless you're optimized, especially in certain fights. Enlarged doesn't make a difference really, because the stat bloat is the problem. Even normal has massively inflated stats and saves, stacked feats and almost everything has spell and elemental resistances on top. Basically if you aren't 19 str/dex starting there's no point in trying to melee because you'll never hit anything, and if your frontline isn't a dodge tank with concealment buff they'll get killed in 1 or 2 rounds because heavy armor and shield can't really compete. It's why one of the popular Seelah builds is to just make her a bard instead of a paladin because she can't really tank.

These problems are plain as day, but any time you mention it an army of tryhards will come out to tell you how wrong you are, oblivious to the fact that they're just telling you to optimize, which only reinforces the point that a 'normal' build on normal is not enough. They're also speaking from hindsight which trivializes a lot of the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ that's complained about in the first place with zero regard to the actual experience. Sure, if you know you're going to be jumped by a dragon at some specific point and it's going to use a cone fire attack and you prepare by buffing fire resistance on everyone, then the fight is 'normal' i.e. difficult if not minmaxed. If you don't know exactly what's going to happen, half the party dies instantly and now you're fighting a hard encounter with templating i.e. stat bloat designed for 6 party members, but only 3 of them are functional because of the way the encounter is presented. So you reload and prepare the right solution, or if you can't you turn difficulty down.

The entire game feels like this eventually on any difficulty but story mode, so get used to it. Doesn't matter if it's Minagho or Blackwater or Playful Darkness or the axe throwing guy at Wintersun, something WILL eventually check you and make you lower difficulty if you're not minmaxed because tactics/buffs alone won't cut it, so you might as well just do it up front for a less obnoxious experience. If you're looking for enemy stats closest to tabletop it's actually something like second lowest, less than normal mode.

Not remotely true. I'm not bothering to min/max (or to put it another way, I ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up my build) and core is frankly not that difficult. Having a decent understanding of the mechanics and building moderately optimally suffices just fine on core. I've no doubt playing unfair requires min/maxing, but honestly I'd be disappointed if it didn't.

You people keep perpetuating this silly idea that the only way to succeed on the upper difficulties is to be some super tryhard who does everything to perfectly maximise statistical gain according to some megamunchkin build. It's just not true.

I don't know why you people can't drop your stupid ego for 5 seconds. So a fight kicked your ass, that stings your fragile pride. Is it your fault? Nah, couldn't possibly be that, it has to be the game's fault.

[dawnpatrolss]

Back to original Q. To farm more xp, how much more xp could this "more enemies" option produce i wonder (regardless of difficulty level)? 10-20-30% more xp? Cause this setting could be extremely useful on borderline to essential if the xp farming gets such a good boost.

Thinking of quest-rewards in comparance, i would like to guess it would not affect accumulated endgame amount of xp that much at all?

[laputanconstruct]

Originally posted by dawnpatrolss:

To farm more xp, how much more xp could this "more enemies" option produce i wonder (regardless of difficulty level)?

I was only tried to track it in chapter one, but the XP gain for killing mooks there is so trivial that ten times the number of enemies would have made little impact on level gain. I don't know how it affects latter chapters.

The big value of more enemies is that it makes tactical considerations like avoiding getting flanked a real concern. To me, more enemies with lowered difficultly feels more like a tactical RPG and less like an AC measuring contest.

[pelias117]

Originally posted by laputanconstruct:

Originally posted by dawnpatrolss:

To farm more xp, how much more xp could this "more enemies" option produce i wonder (regardless of difficulty level)?

I was only tried to track it in chapter one, but the XP gain for killing mooks there is so trivial that ten times the number of enemies would have made little impact on level gain. I don't know how it affects latter chapters.

The big value of more enemies is that it makes tactical considerations like avoiding getting flanked a real concern. To me, more enemies with lowered difficultly feels more like a tactical RPG and less like an AC measuring contest.

Hmmm...Thanks, if you tracked it in Act 1 and it was negligible, than there's no way its MORE useful at higher levels! I know why developers have the computer cheat, it becomes way to easy to outthink an AI opponent, I'd just LOVE to feel heroic and fight a whole lot more weak troops than have different single-entity crusaders pose a threat to my supposed chosen one...