Difficulty level is unreasonable

[Supply Side Jesus]

I like to explore in games I play. This game severely punishes any kind of exploration but doesn't give you "safe" path to follow. It seems like any time I start exploring I find high-level mobs I am not intended to fight. All I get in my combat is MISS MISS MISS. My level 5 party just got wiped by two dweomercat in a flowery a cave. WHY NOT JUST SCALE MOBS TO MY LEVEL?!?!

This game is the worst PC RPG I ever played. Absolutely atrocious and antithesis of fun. I want my money back.

[Cuddly Beast]

Originally posted by Magnets:

Originally posted by Cuddly Beast:

If you really are destroying normal enemies at your current difficulty, then...

It just means you came across an unbeatable enemy at your current level and you are relying on lucking out good rng to barely win it. That's no fun.

No. What i'm saying is that it's no fun being in a map that appears to be in your level and the following 2 groups on that map appear to be completely out of your league.

I have no problem getting destroyed by a creepy 800 lbs Bear, the game tells you by it's visuals that this fight is meant to be tough, you back away directly after your first failure.

But a bandit group with no specific visual feedback that will destroy you while you destroyed the other 2 bandit groups 2 minutes ago ? That's just dumb.


The game maps in this current state are badly designed, there is no visual feedback, the only excuse you guys are telling me is simply
" Git gud " " just reload LOOL "Well, judging by those two answers, I know i'm right.

you probably came across the bandit lord. like i said if what you say is true, that you are demolishing enemies left right and centre then you come across difficulty spikes with certain encounters then it means those certain encounters are unbeatable at your current level unless you cheese by having to reload over and over and over again. that's no fun though.

[Magnets]

Originally posted by Cuddly Beast:

Originally posted by Magnets:

No. What i'm saying is that it's no fun being in a map that appears to be in your level and the following 2 groups on that map appear to be completely out of your league.

I have no problem getting destroyed by a creepy 800 lbs Bear, the game tells you by it's visuals that this fight is meant to be tough, you back away directly after your first failure.

But a bandit group with no specific visual feedback that will destroy you while you destroyed the other 2 bandit groups 2 minutes ago ? That's just dumb.


The game maps in this current state are badly designed, there is no visual feedback, the only excuse you guys are telling me is simply
" Git gud " " just reload LOOL "Well, judging by those two answers, I know i'm right.

you probably came across the bandit lord. like i said if what you say is true, that you are demolishing enemies left right and centre then you come across difficulty spikes with certain encounters then it means those certain encounters are unbeatable at your current level unless you cheese by having to reload over and over and over again. that's no fun though.

Reloading over and over again just to find the best fights feels like cheesing too though.


There's one simple thing to show you how this game is not well designed, let's look at the unfair difficulty:


The unfair difficulty at this point is all about bug-exploiting or reloading over and over again every-fights for that perfect crit or perfect rolls during a rest. Without that you won't be able to survive. That's just how the game is designed. It's simply bad.


If a game forces you to save-scum to have a chance, then it's not designed well enough. I don't even know if the devs ever managed to finish the game on unfair, they simply tweaked the modifiers to random numbers and decided that it was enough.

It's the same with every other difficulties, they pretty much tweaked the numbers and it skewed a lot of encounters. Maybe the game is perfectly well balanced on Normal difficulty, I don't know, but on hard/unfair, it's not enjoyable at all.

[Cuddly Beast]

Originally posted by Magnets:

Originally posted by Cuddly Beast:

you probably came across the bandit lord. like i said if what you say is true, that you are demolishing enemies left right and centre then you come across difficulty spikes with certain encounters then it means those certain encounters are unbeatable at your current level unless you cheese by having to reload over and over and over again. that's no fun though.

Reloading over and over again just to find the best fights feels like cheesing too though.


There's one simple thing to show you how this game is not well designed, let's look at the unfair difficulty:


The unfair difficulty at this point is all about bug-exploiting or reloading over and over again every-fights for that perfect crit or perfect rolls during a rest. Without that you won't be able to survive. That's just how the game is designed. It's simply bad.


If a game forces you to save-scum to have a chance, then it's not designed well enough. I don't even know if the devs ever managed to finish the game on unfair, they simply tweaked the modifiers to random numbers and decided that it was enough.

It's the same with every other difficulties, they pretty much tweaked the numbers and it skewed a lot of encounters. Maybe the game is perfectly well balanced on Normal difficulty, I don't know, but on hard/unfair, it's not enjoyable at all.

thats what i said, reloading is cheese. it is not fun. early game unfair/hard difficulty is bull I agree, it's all about rng and lucking out good rng by doing the reload cheese. that's not fun.

early game, i played normal because i dont wanna keep reloading.

once i have my 6 man custom party, i increased the difficulty to challenging, hard then to unfair. as you progress through the game, it becomes easier and easier. this is because you are given more options to deal with enemies. as you level up, you gain more resources.

the game becomes all about skill where an optimized party and a garbage party has a day and night difference. I actually think they should buff late game unfair enemies because my party is demolishing enemies. you can make some pretty broken builds in this game.

[nshawmc]

difficulty is 100% customizable and you can change it at anytime.
so... cry more?

[nshawmc]

scale mobs is what ruins games. gtfo of here.

[HP Laserjet 9000]

I honestly like the difficulty. Bugs are annoying though, sure. I also like how they did the resting. I remember in BG you could just abuse the ♥♥♥♥ out of resting to get your spells back. I don't want to go back to that. The resting mechanic is good in this game. It doesn't allow abuse as easily. If resting was such a big problem though just hunt man lol. Difficulty settings are there too. If you are struggling on easy... maybe the game is not made for you? This game was backed by people that played pen and paper pathfinder/DnD. That is the audience they catered to. Get used to it buddy.

[Sai Kyouji]

So, the guys who are breezing through enemies in hard modes must be gods
because as you say, the game is unbeatable.

Either that or they know how the game is played & you haven't even bothered learning

[Pwned]

Why you guys having problems on facing dfficult enemies in the game and I dont? If I get killed by enemies then I just try out different build, gear and strategies or I come back to that enemy later. This is basic game mechanic thinking and for me it works. Atleast on normal mode

[Zaltys]

It'd be far easier if there weren't far too many things to handle at once.

It works in the tabletop because everyone plays their own character, but here you have to control the whole group of them rather than just your own. The AI is useless, and tends to commit mass-suicide if you don't constantly babysit everyone.

Certainly doesn't help that the devs chose this type of fast-paced combat instead of turn-based, which would've been manageable.

This game could've greatly benefited from a Dragon Age-style of modifiable AI: "Target the enemy with lowest HP", "When an ally is under 25% HP, use a [heal]", etc.

[Aedram]

I play pathinder PnP since beta. I'm playing Kingmaker on Challenging. Most battles are kinda easy to me with only a few battles I really had to reload.

Hard level is not impossible also, some streamers like CohhCarnage are playing on it and they are really having a nice time (Right now in Twitch there is a streamer playing on LAST ASLATI on HARD mode)

Its normal to MISS a lot the attack rolls in Pathfinder at low levels(expecially if you do not min/max) but it gets better at mid/high levels.

The game can be kinda hard for new players and people who don't know Pathfinder rules, although you can find all the rules easily on the web I agree that the game should have more info to help new players.

The only tip I can give you right now is to not be afraid of custom the difficult to one that you can play.

[Zaltys]

Originally posted by Cuddly Beast:

you probably came across the bandit lord. like i said if what you say is true, that you are demolishing enemies left right and centre then you come across difficulty spikes with certain encounters then it means those certain encounters are unbeatable at your current level unless you cheese by having to reload over and over and over again.

And what exactly are you supposed to do about it when those encounters are random and you can't run away?

My party was at level 2 and ran into five bandits while returning to the trading post. I only had the core four characters, because I couldn't afford any mercenaries yet. And no matter how many times I reloaded, they killed everyone before I could take down even one: they were hitting for 35 when the highest hp in my party was 18.

And no, running away wasn't an option. There were two bandits behind the group and three in front, surrounding it.

[Comfortable Capybara]

Originally posted by Aedram:

I play pathinder PnP since beta. I'm playing Kingmaker on Challenging. Most battles are kinda easy to me with only a few battles I really had to reload.

Hard level is not impossible also, some streamers like CohhCarnage are playing on it and they are really having a nice time (Right now in Twitch there is a streamer playing on LAST ASLATI on HARD mode)

Its normal to MISS a lot the attack rolls in Pathfinder at low levels(expecially if you do not min/max) but it gets better at mid/high levels.

The game can be kinda hard for new players and people who don't know Pathfinder rules, although you can find all the rules easily on the web I agree that the game should have more info to help new players.

The only tip I can give you right now is to not be afraid of custom the difficult to one that you can play.

^this.

Custom. Difficulty. If it's too hard, switch it up for now. If you run into an optional fight that's too hard, come back later when you have better gear/stats/skill. If you run into a story fight that's too hard, switch it to I lost my pacifier story mode :)

Originally posted by Zaltys:

My party was at level 2 and ran into five bandits while returning to the trading post. No matter how many times I reloaded, they killed everyone before I could take down even one: they were hitting for 35 when the highest hp in my party was 18.

This is why there's multiple auto and quick save slots.

[Shahadem]

Originally posted by kampfturke:

Originally posted by Sigmarsson:

No, it doesn't. Started a new game in Story Mode just to test it. Still got 24 DEX Kobolds

oh come on.
I struggled at first, but once I actually buffed before big fights then enemies fell easy. I am playing hard.

BUff Buff Buff my friend.

If you have to constantly buff then the game is poorly designed.

It is obvious to anyone with a brain that enemy AC, hit chance and damage are WAY higher than they should be, especially given the inadequate stats available to us in the character creator.

Also when the game has a mission timer then telling people to level up and come back later simply is the wrong answer. I understand that there is a fine and very difficult line to walk between making your quests feel like they aren't important and not giving your players enough time to do all the things they want, however when the game does time us then coming back just to fight that one mob you couldn't be is a negative outcome. A better outcome is to simply not have overleveled mobs in areas, especially when your game mechanics weren't adjusted to reflect the fact that game is now a dungeon crawler instead of a DM controlled PnP session.

[Faray]

Originally posted by Shahadem:

Originally posted by kampfturke:

oh come on.
I struggled at first, but once I actually buffed before big fights then enemies fell easy. I am playing hard.

BUff Buff Buff my friend.

If you have to constantly buff then the game is poorly designed.

It is obvious to anyone with a brain that enemy AC, hit chance and damage are WAY higher than they should be, especially given the inadequate stats available to us in the character creator.

Also when the game has a mission timer then telling people to level up and come back later simply is the wrong answer. I understand that there is a fine and very difficult line to walk between making your quests feel like they aren't important and not giving your players enough time to do all the things they want, however when the game does time us then coming back just to fight that one mob you couldn't be is a negative outcome. A better outcome is to simply not have overleveled mobs in areas, especially when your game mechanics weren't adjusted to reflect the fact that game is now a dungeon crawler instead of a DM controlled PnP session.

Buffing is pretty standard in these games, and honestly I've had my buffs last multible fights so it doesn't seem that big of a deal to me.

That being said I do agree the game feels over tuned challenge wise on the lower difficulties, and this is coming from someone playing on challenging.

[Cuddly Beast]

Originally posted by Zaltys:

Originally posted by Cuddly Beast:

you probably came across the bandit lord. like i said if what you say is true, that you are demolishing enemies left right and centre then you come across difficulty spikes with certain encounters then it means those certain encounters are unbeatable at your current level unless you cheese by having to reload over and over and over again.

And what exactly are you supposed to do about it when those encounters are random and you can't run away?

My party was at level 2 and ran into five bandits while returning to the trading post. I only had the core four characters, because I couldn't afford any mercenaries yet. And no matter how many times I reloaded, they killed everyone before I could take down even one: they were hitting for 35 when the highest hp in my party was 18.

And no, running away wasn't an option. There were two bandits behind the group and three in front, surrounding it.

i lower the difficulty settings and sliders to the lowest and beat the heck out of them. game gonna give me an unlucky roll that doesnt happen often, then the game has to pay up!! if you find yourself rolling unlucky into in a random encounter that is so damn hard, either reload save game prior to random encounter or do what i do. it doesnt happen alot anyway. once i beat the unlucky rolled random encounter, i put my difficulty settings back to where it was. tada