Veterant or Path of the Damned (Potd) ?

[SenSx]

I love challenge and I always pick the hardest difficulty in my RPG.
BUT I hated PotD in PoE 1.

I did not change much the difficulty in the main quest.
But the side content, where the real challenge resides, was sooo cheap.
Especially the White March.
The ennemies had so high defenses, this was ridiculous.
You needed to buff your team and nerf the ennemies soooo much to be able to just hit them.
They were sooo many in each encounter so that you had to use lame tactics, like aggro the mobs one by one or in small group to even have a chance to beat them.
I could not play the team I wanted, because otherwise it would be too weak.

It was really frustrating.

And then I played Tyranny, and avoided PotD after that bad experience.
I regret that since this game was a joke, and they apparently toned down the difficulty, even PotD.

So I heard PotD was too easy in PoE 2, but they then buffed it.

So how is it now compare to the first game ?
Still as cheap and annoying ?
Or hard but fair and fun, as I want ot to be ?


Thx

[fågel#3]

I'm doing a veteran playthrough right now and I'm planning on doing a POTD run after. That way I can enjoy the game with a challange without having to min/max builds and make the ingame choices I want even though they might not be optimal in the sense of getting OP. Afterwards I'm planning doing a min/max playthrough at POTD :)

While I really like the lore etc in the first game I didin't like the mechanics of the game itself, it felt too clunky for me (might also be due to me prefering turned based combat aswell) but this game has felt really smooth and I've been really enjoying it so far! :)

While I feel veteran is a good enough of a challange for me atm I should mention that I'm not especially good at this game so take that with a grain of salt :D

[Ixoliptis]

PoE2's PotD mode is the same in terms of difficulty design, mobs have high defences etc. although the encounters are comparatively easier than PoE1's encounters purely because of multiclassing.

However when it comes to PoE2's DLCs, that's another story:

• Beast of Winter is slightly harder than the base game's encounters but the difficulty is still manageable.
  
• Seeker,Slayer,Survivor is the hardest DLC (IMHO) and will test your skills (and builds) to the fullest.
  
• Forgotten Sanctum is somewhere in the middle between BoW and SSS in terms of difficulty.

PS: All DLCs add mega-bosses which are purely aimed at hardcore players who know the game's mechanics inside-out, don't bother with them.

[SenSx]

Ok thanks I might try PotD then.

Can you switch between PotD and lower difficulties this time ?

[Raggle Fraggles]

No, you're stuck at whatever difficulty you pick from the start.

[SenSx]

Hum ok thx, that's a pity...
I think it's still possible to switch with console commands, but , no achievement then.
I'll try to avoid that if I can.

Well in the end if it's the same as PoE 1, and the DLC are harder, Veterant is probably better.
I'm not sure how much multi classing makes you stronger.

[Gearwar]

I started this game on PotD and honestly I regret it. Not because its not doable or because its so tough but because every encounter just feels a tad too long. Even normal combat encounters just take too long. Its hard to describe. You need to experience it for yourself. You fight often enough to notice this, so Id recommend veteran. It might not be the toughest challenge (buhu) but I really think overall the gameplay is a bit smoother.

[Gift]

Originally posted by Gearwar:

I started this game on PotD and honestly I regret it. Not because its not doable or because its so tough but because every encounter just feels a tad too long. Even normal combat encounters just take too long. Its hard to describe. You need to experience it for yourself. You fight often enough to notice this, so Id recommend veteran. It might not be the toughest challenge (buhu) but I really think overall the gameplay is a bit smoother.

depends on your build. im running a solo potd blood mage/nalpazca at the moment and I'm wrecking mobs left right and centre. i was actually glad i picked potd because even at potd i just mow through enemies. im actually quite disappointed. but i heard megabosses fights are insane so im waiting for that! for

[Gearwar]

Originally posted by Audun:

Originally posted by Gearwar:

I started this game on PotD and honestly I regret it. Not because its not doable or because its so tough but because every encounter just feels a tad too long. Even normal combat encounters just take too long. Its hard to describe. You need to experience it for yourself. You fight often enough to notice this, so Id recommend veteran. It might not be the toughest challenge (buhu) but I really think overall the gameplay is a bit smoother.

depends on your build. im running a solo potd blood mage/nalpazca at the moment and I'm wrecking mobs left right and centre. i was actually glad i picked potd because even at potd i just mow through enemies. im actually quite disappointed. but i heard megabosses fights are insane so im waiting for that! for

Well he is a first time player and unless he loves the theory craft and just plays it for that fine but personally I play it for the story first and stick with the previous character from my playthrough and only use the story companions. If you play it like that fights just take long. Its more exhausting than fun, atleast for me.

[SenSx]

Originally posted by Gearwar:

I started this game on PotD and honestly I regret it. Not because its not doable or because its so tough but because every encounter just feels a tad too long. Even normal combat encounters just take too long. Its hard to describe. You need to experience it for yourself. You fight often enough to notice this, so Id recommend veteran. It might not be the toughest challenge (buhu) but I really think overall the gameplay is a bit smoother.

I don't mind long fights at all, quite the contrary.
I don't want them to be too short anyway.
I just hate cheapness: ennemies oneshot you, too high defenses like in the White March and side quests bounties, too many ennemies (that are too strong on top of that).

I really hated the boss in PoE 1, they were bad themselves, the challenge only resides in the presence of loads an loads of annoying mobs with them.

They did not manage to make you fight one dangerous boss alone.
The difficulty in this game came from being consistently overrun by ennemies, it was annoying...
The combats were alwready a bit messy in the first place, it made it worse.

[CloudAssault]

PotD has very much changed since the game came out. Every encounter has seen quite a few new enemies added to it (from my experience so far with my 2nd playthrough) and I'm not sure if I like it or not. Some of the fights that had maybe 3-4 mobs in the old PotD easily have 5-9 now so it will take a lot longer. I'm guessing it's going to get a lot more managable once decent gear/abilites become available, but it's a rough start for sure because the enemy is going to hit you almost every time for easily 1/4 of your health, and who knows if you'll hit them back based on your perception. I would say it's cheap at times because you can be one-shot in the beginning of a fight without having any time or any way to deal with it because you just don't have the abilities yet. If you like a challenge then you will certainly find it but be prepared to micro the ♥♥♥♥ out of every fight because it will be intense.

[Gearwar]

Originally posted by SenSx:

Originally posted by Gearwar:

I started this game on PotD and honestly I regret it. Not because its not doable or because its so tough but because every encounter just feels a tad too long. Even normal combat encounters just take too long. Its hard to describe. You need to experience it for yourself. You fight often enough to notice this, so Id recommend veteran. It might not be the toughest challenge (buhu) but I really think overall the gameplay is a bit smoother.

I don't mind long fights at all, quite the contrary.
I don't want them to be too short anyway.
I just hate cheapness: ennemies oneshot you, too high defenses like in the White March and side quests bounties, too many ennemies (that are too strong on top of that).

I really hated the boss in PoE 1, they were bad themselves, the challenge only resides in the presence of loads an loads of annoying mobs with them.

They did not manage to make you fight one dangerous boss alone.
The difficulty in this game came from being consistently overrun by ennemies, it was annoying...
The combats were alwready a bit messy in the first place, it made it worse.

well this game suffers from the same issue. The "strength in numbers approach" persists to this game as well. Since you can not actively tank anything but just use positioning you will notice a lot of the old troubles arising when mobs suddenly decide to go for anything but your tank.

And yes the enemies tend to hit hard, even with fairly good armor, so as usual it would be best to make a team of mostly ranged dps to avoid getting killed in 1-2 hits by some mobs.

Also there are now "mega"bosses which apparently force you to craft a team specifically to take them down, which already annoys me

I still believe veteran is a lot smoother experience overall.