147 réponses à ce sujet

[Steel Majere343]

me and a friend of mine were talking about this game, partly because its awsome, partly because we like to confuse the hell out of our girlfriends as they have no idea what were talking about for the most part when it comes to video games.

but to skip to the point we were talking about DA:O and how weve never seen so many people who play on all of the difficulty levels. youv got those crazy people that play on nightmare and hard, then youv got the normal and casual.

then we got into talking about the level of freedom each difficulty level has.

nightmare has almost no freedom in devolping your characters, you need to have stats exactly in the right place along with the right spells and use every tactic available (even cheap ones, like the cone of cold rapid fire where you have 2 or 3 mages that just continuesly lock enemies).

Hard seems to offer A LITTLE more freedom not much, you still have to have all the right skills in the right places at the right time and still have to use every tactic youv got but you have a little bit more time to do it is basically the seperation here, you dont die as quick but you will.

Normal seems to actually be harder then most games, you dont have as much freedom on normal as one would think, certain spells and abilites you have little choice but to get them eventually. and if you dont have them a lot of battles will seem frusteratingly difficult. which is my main frusteration with normal and higher difficulty levels is when you are losing so horribly that you know it has nothing to do with the tactics your using but rather the abilities and stats you dont have.

for instance i can recall a time in the deserted building in denerim (there is only one zone by that name so everyone should know it if theyve been there) where i commanded my party to go for the mage first (as is wise) and before the rest of my party even got down the stairs sten was frozen and scewered by the four archers standing in the four corners of the rooms. once the rest of my party got downstairs they proceeded to do 1, 2, and 3 damage at a time to the warriors.

after that initial fight i knew that even though they were leveled to me i was absolutely no match, there was no skill in my arsenal that could compete with that and it was frusterating to know that they were simply overpowered for their levels.

Casual seems to offer the most freedom and flexibility as it should, some fights are really really easy, but there are some challenges in there. that same deserted building still destroyed my party twice on casual mode, although both of those times i knew what i did wrong and fixed it the next go round.

so i made this post to see not only what levels you play at but what you think of the difficulty levels, does one suck? are they all balanced? share your views.

me and my friend differed in that he believes it is right that normal should require a certain arsenal as it would be the players own fault for not getting them and if you cant win a fight then you need to go somewhere else and level up until you build your entire aresenal.

I think that every battle should be win-able with almost any build, granted you need to know to put points into the right areas for a certain class but i think any set of skills and talents should make battles do-able, as to me thats where the fun comes from, experimenting with diffrent skill trees. i believe there should be some battles that have reason to be insanely difficult such as a high dragon, but others should be tones down, that deserted building left a horrible taste in my mouth of the difficulty, to me if they are going to be considered around my level then i should at least stand a chance, i dont think any enemy (other then a few select bosses) or set of enemies should pummel your party so badly.

so with this it is safe to say my game sits on normal until i find a fight that i feel i cant win, then it goes to casual (so maybe its primarily on casual )

he proceeds to play on nightmare and simply makes sure he plans out what abilities are useless and what would be the most helpfull and only gets those...every play through (boring to me)

another view of mine that is slightly off topic is the need for potions. most games in general consider potions as a necessity in some battles, i think potions should be there to make battles easier but they should not be considered when making battles. it should be assumed in battles that players have no potions, due to this potions should be scarce and not available in hundreds.

DA:O differs a little from this as potions can either be scarce or in abundance if you know about the elfroot vendor. just as well some battles wont take you any potions but others...others will take you 2 dozen, maybe 3 or four, depending on how long it takes the other three members of the party to even out the odds while master sten drinks as much as he possibly can.

sorry for the long intro there lol, im really intrested to see what players say about this as i hope to get into a development field myself one day after college and im beyond intrested to hear what other people think of these systems. please give your opinions .

[KnightofPhoenix]

I play to have fun, so I go with normal. Perhaps I will try hard and nightmare in the future, but from what I heard, nightmare just bring headaches. Casual is way too easy.

Modifié par KnightofPhoenix, 07 décembre 2009 - 10:44 .

[Duck and Cover]

normal isn't too bad. I ran with 3 melee and my mage PC. You don't need 2 mages. So you don't need the perfect party. But it helps to know which spells "work" and which don't. I got to choose my spells, so I didn't have to settle for some of Morrigan's or Wynn's crappier spells.But then I had to deal with Zevran's crappy talents.

(patched) Normal is just right for me. Enough challenge that you aren't steamrolling every battle with just a couple button pushes, but easy enough you can relax and take more melee or dog in your party without too much worry.

Modifié par Duck and Cover, 07 décembre 2009 - 10:53 .

[chiliztri]

Challenges are fun for me, so I play on Nightmare.

But, it wasn't always this way. I started on Normal, then once I beat the game and understood that I needed to be a clever tactician I upped the difficulty.

Playing on Nightmare right now with my Rogue, 2 tanks(Sten and Ali), and healer(Morri).

Also, I respec'd my companions so I could bring along whoever I wanted despite their initial craptastic builds.

I'm having lots of fun with my stealthy Rogue.

Modifié par chiliztri, 07 décembre 2009 - 10:55 .

[Bathead]

Meh, I'm in it for the story, not the challenge, I like it on casual.

[Metasane]

I did my first playthrough(human mage) on hard, and my current one (dalish rogue) is on nightmare, though due to learning tactics on my first playthrough I'm actually finding this one easier. I use a fair amount of potions, but I've cut down on that on this playthrough as well with no great problems. To be honest I can't really understand the point of playing below the level where there is a challenge, the idea is to activly play a role in a story, if the combat is meaningless then you might as well be reading one of those "Choose Your Own Adventure" books.

[Nyaore]

I started on Casual and through subsequent playthroughs have worked my way up to Nightmare without any real difficulties. Hard and Nightmare might SEEM like daunting challenges, but once you're used to the game they really aren't anything to worry over. The only time I've ever had trouble in those two modes was with certain bosses, and even those start to lose their edge after awhile.

Modifié par Nyaore, 07 décembre 2009 - 11:18 .

[Steel Majere343]

intresting. im getting way diffrent responses here then on some of the other forums.



on the other forums most people say casual is the average, and normal is too hard.

i think it has a lot to do with the path you chose however. one thing about this game is that all of the really difficult battles are avoidable, either they are a side quest or off of the main trail. The battles that you have to do iv noticed are pretty balanced. has anyone else tried the deserted building? and did they find what i found or was it simply my "poor" choices in development?

[chiliztri]

I'm not trying to be mean or anything, but if you think out your tactic, and micromanage your party properly you can get through any battle. Of course having the right skills helps, but tactics and micromanagement are really the key.

[Steel Majere343]

Metasane wrote...

I did my first playthrough(human mage) on hard, and my current one (dalish rogue) is on nightmare, though due to learning tactics on my first playthrough I'm actually finding this one easier. I use a fair amount of potions, but I've cut down on that on this playthrough as well with no great problems. To be honest I can't really understand the point of playing below the level where there is a challenge, the idea is to activly play a role in a story, if the combat is meaningless then you might as well be reading one of those "Choose Your Own Adventure" books.

actually from what iv heard there is no real level in this game under the challenge radar. now of course challenge is an opinion in and of itself and i can only speak from what iv heard not from personal experience as i only lower the difficulty when im frusterated so iv never played the whole game through on casual to get a feel of the general challenge level (maybe i should..just for test purposes).

most people that i talk to consider it a trade off, thus keeping the challenge the same.
in that discussion it was a trade off between buying thousands of elfroot to make potions (or using wynn or a spirit healer or both) on normal, and not buying thousands of potions on casual or needing to use a spirit healer.

i imagine buying all those potions and using a spirit healer on casual would make the game have a pretty rusty danger level, but without feeling the need for these iv heard the overall difficulty is argueably the same when playing casual without all the potions.

from my own casual experiences i notice that some battles you still might use a few potions to keep some alive (mainly a tank) you should be able to conquer any battle on casual with 10 potions. so its possible to survive on what the game gives you, or if you have a healer of some sort then less.

[Kanner]

RPG stats and abilities selection = illusion of choice.



Much of the fun of the game (for some people) comes from just figuring out which basic setups work best (hence saying you play to have 'fun' is a bit odd - everyone plays to have fun).



Personally it would be nice if warriors had a bit more by way of defenses, especially against spells. Tanking in DA:O is more or less 'activate 5 sustained abilities and then go micro the mage'. You get to taunt maybe once a fight and you're done. YAY.

[Darth_Trethon]

I don't care about dealing with difficulty unless I have to though I can beat the most hardcore games out there. I beat the game fair and square three times. Now I play for fun so since there's no New Game+ I found other means to level up and get all the good gear early in the game.

[Serenity84]

Hard doesn't force you to have optimal builds. My rogue and Leliana weren't built to maximum effect at all. My PC still did the most party damage and I got by just fine.



Nightmare actually seem easier so far, because I know what I'm doing. I reloaded a handful of fights only and that just one time. Though I didn't get to the really tough battles yet. And even then I won't fail only because I should have done perfect min/max-ing

[Steel Majere343]

chiliztri wrote...

I'm not trying to be mean or anything, but if you think out your tactic, and micromanage your party properly you can get through any battle. Of course having the right skills helps, but tactics and micromanagement are really the key.

this ill have to politely disagree with.  there are some battles iv personally been in where it doesnt matter the tactic, i would have still died had i not turned down the difficulty, i know because iv tried all the tactics.

this is a tactical game to be sure but there are only so many ways to approach a battle without incoperating your own talents and skills, attack the mages and archers first is one way, go for the most challenging oponent first is another, have three people go for the highest health while having the odd one out go for the ranged, iv heard them all and tested them all. they actually dont get you very far without some key skills like cone of cold, or others that are similarly as usefull.

for instance, go do the grave quest in the forest (i forgot its actual name ha), the one where you have to summon and kill all the revenants in the forest. there is one grave where it not only summons the revenant but also about 4 skeleton archers and like 3 skeleton warriors to mob on you.

i dont care if you micro manage the whole battle every half a second, you could do everything by the book and try to kill the archers before the revenent or vice versa, if you dont have some of those key skills or a huge stock pile of potions (the potions might not even help much in some cases due to stun and kills), or extreme weapons and armor you are going to die, hands down, brutally.

so there is a certain level of difficulty that cannot be blamed on player competence it is simply depenent on what they have at their disposal,

[tigrina]

Patch notes 1.0.2 states that Easy is made easier, so I guess more people think that way. Also there will be more potion drops. Also some fights didn't scale properly according to the same notes.

Anyway, I started out on Normal and I stick to that. At start it felt like Hard mode. It really depends on your 'feeling' with the class, builds and party setup whether it feels easy or not though. I replayed some origins to get a feeling for the fighting. Now on my 3rd serious run I'm playing normal as 'easy mode'. The only thing I find really annoying that on some runs I can hardly switch out companions because it totally screws my party balance. Ah well, that is for replay fun.

Modifié par tigrina, 07 décembre 2009 - 11:51 .

[Toranilor]

I play on nightmare, and only need to use tactics when coming across enemy bosses or multiple mages. I just buit my characters in a way that seemed interesting to me (Alistair 2h Templar, PC Tank, Leliana archer and wynne on full time potion chugging/healing) and most things generaly seem fairly easy... Although on my first playthrough I had difficulty playin on normal.



I wouldnt mind seeing a 'play perfectly or you DIE!!' difficulty though.

[ellisDwilder]

First time i went through the game i played it on hard/nightmare. The only trouble i ever had was on revanents and the like, poor alistar would get knocked out in a few hits sometimes and it would be easiesr to tank on my duel wielding character with high dex, although it would be a race every time. I wouldnt mind a more difficult level.



We are talking about PC version though right? xbox and ps3 are more difficult.



I also consider my self a vet gamer, played baldurs gate 1&2 and xpacs a billion times, and mostly do pvp games(so i dont mind min/maxing my characters, it happens without me trying ><),

[Steel Majere343]

Serenity84 wrote...

Hard doesn't force you to have optimal builds. My rogue and Leliana weren't built to maximum effect at all. My PC still did the most party damage and I got by just fine.

Nightmare actually seem easier so far, because I know what I'm doing. I reloaded a handful of fights only and that just one time. Though I didn't get to the really tough battles yet. And even then I won't fail only because I should have done perfect min/max-ing

well this is quit contrary to what my experience was, lol its amazing the diffrent experiences people have.
id be intrested to know what you do, although i cant see you play lol.

some of us must have gotn some elite copy of the game where it is harder? lol. for me i often felt (again this is with more of the optional battles) that after my fifth time reloading there was no way for me to win the battle given my current equipment. no amount of tactics or micromanaging helped me. hell with that deserted building fight i mentioned earlier i had 50 something potions, they were all lesser potions, and the npcs were doing so much damage to me (after they froze and scewered my tank) that even spamming the healing potions, they did more damage then i was healing! lol, they actually killed me even after i was spamming potions micromanage style every second.

at that time i had sten as my tank, leliana and my MC as dps and morrigan as mage, and i had just come from lothering strate to denerim. and i very much felt ill prepared and awfully stacked against.

in all seriousness though do you find yourself using a lot of potions? what do you do to keep staying alive during some of those fights? do you do any of the side quests or optional fights? do you use a healer?
assuming we are playing the same game lol i know the damage capacity of mobs and i do know its impossable to survive some of those encounters without either using stun tactics, potion chugging tactics, healer tactics, or some mix match of those.

[DeathWyrmNexus]

I refuse to play below Normal and Hard/Nightmare have no appeal to me. Limits spell selection because I LOVE AoE spells. *sigh*

[HoLyEmperor]

Serenity84 wrote...

Hard doesn't force you to have optimal builds. My rogue and Leliana weren't built to maximum effect at all. My PC still did the most party damage and I got by just fine.

Nightmare actually seem easier so far, because I know what I'm doing. I reloaded a handful of fights only and that just one time. Though I didn't get to the really tough battles yet. And even then I won't fail only because I should have done perfect min/max-ing

I agree.  I've done two nightmare playthroughs, and I'm doing one on Easy right now just to see some things I hadn't seen yet.  I actually die more often on easy.  

The reason is laziness on my part.  When playing Nightmare, I'm cautious about every fight and make sure everything will be set up correctly to get through it (Holding my party, LoSing, etc.).  On Easy, I could probably randomly select one of my characters to control and then run around in circles while the AI finishes the fight with the other three.  That's with default, unmodified tactics.  The problem is then I pay less attention and forget that I just charged headfirst into the Denerim room with three blood mages, or whatever.  Oops.

There are certainly builds that are more powerful than others, especially for mages.  But they aren't necessary, not even on Nightmare.  On my second nightmare playthrough, Wynne was my only mage and I only gave her healing and party buff spells.  She wasn't used for Crowd Control at all, except for mind blast to get herself out of danger if things went after her.  My rogue (the PC on that playthrough) did make extensive use of traps, grenades, and the archer stunning shot. It worked, I made it through.

I can't speak for anyone in particular, but it seems that many of the people who find things difficult aren't making full use of whatever tools they have available.  By tools I mean all four of the characters, all the abilities they've learned, skills (potions, traps, poisons), movement, hold, and especially the environment.  On Nightmare, I frequently put my party on Hold and enable the group move thing in order to make use of LoS.  Or, I use a combination of the Hold function and shif+clicking portraits to keep my ranged away from the melee so they don't get hit by enemy AoE abilities.  Little thiigs like that make all the difference.

I also keep my AI tactics to a minimum.  Just a few core things... chug a potion if under 25%, focus fire on the tank's target, and that's about it.

[ReubenLiew]

Survival skills makes the entire game easier.

[Serenity84]

With the optional fights, it's a matter of when you do them. Level scaling isn't total, so you will eventually get more powerful than some of the enemies.

The deserted building was mostly tough for me because I completely underestimated the length of that dungeon. At the end I was a bit low on resources. I had to reload in some rooms, but it was a nice challenge overall. Not sure when I did it. Level 10-12 I guess. You probably did a bit early. Noone forces you to do it that time.
...could have had better loot though...

Same with the revenants. If you do them as early as you can, you have no chance. Later on it's still challenging, but manageable.

I just had Morrigan with the simple heal spell and mostly relied on lesser and normal health potions. A lot of them in some fights, but I didn't need them constantly either. Depends. My rogue was pretty survivable with high dexterity and Alistair also got better with increased DEX.
This time I have a mage with the spirit healer specialization and gave her group heal and revival.

In the hard playthrough I used traps to soften up difficult opponents. That can really help a lot. You can take many enemies down to half their health before they reach you. Though it feels a bit cheap to trap a door and the hallway, then open the door and have everyone run after you.

Modifié par Serenity84, 08 décembre 2009 - 12:17 .

[Nick the Weregoat]

nice wall of text. A friend of mine slid me from normal on my mage to nightmare while I was on the solo part of the mage tower. I didn't even notice until I got to the dwarf town. The first enemy group gave me a run for my money. Eesh. My next character will most likely be a nightmare mage. But for my first playthrough I'm a normal warrior. I find the game is mostly rather easy. I've only recently run into trouble on one fight in the back alleys, where my entire party gets stunlocked as the enemy has it's way with my tank.



Grrr.

[Steel Majere343]

tigrina wrote...

Patch notes 1.0.2 states that Easy is made easier, so I guess more people think that way. Also there will be more potion drops. Also some fights didn't scale properly according to the same notes.

Anyway, I started out on Normal and I stick to that. At start it felt like Hard mode. It really depends on your 'feeling' with the class, builds and party setup whether it feels easy or not though. I replayed some origins to get a feeling for the fighting. Now on my 3rd serious run I'm playing normal as 'easy mode'. The only thing I find really annoying that on some runs I can hardly switch out companions because it totally screws my party balance. Ah well, that is for replay fun.

this is true, as for a lot of people thinking that way as i said the other forums considered normal hard and casual normal.

but i think most of that is due to these fights that arnt even necessary to complete. the deserted building and the revenant quests are both optional and they are some of the hardest fights in the game. although this could be due to improper scaling i guess.

[HoLyEmperor]

Nick the Weregoat wrote...

nice wall of text. A friend of mine slid me from normal on my mage to nightmare while I was on the solo part of the mage tower. I didn't even notice until I got to the dwarf town. The first enemy group gave me a run for my money. Eesh. My next character will most likely be a nightmare mage. But for my first playthrough I'm a normal warrior. I find the game is mostly rather easy. I've only recently run into trouble on one fight in the back alleys, where my entire party gets stunlocked as the enemy has it's way with my tank.

Grrr.

lol.  I've noticed that the only significant changes between Normal and Nightmare are that the "weak" monsters get a lot tougher.  The boss fights don't seem to be significantly harder.  The mage tower's fade part, in particular, is rather unsusceptible to difficulty level.  It's pretty easy no matter what.

The alley fights... even the maps that don't seem like it, you can quickly move your party around corners to avoid the archers.  Those particular archers will stay put while you pick off the leader and the close combat mobs.  Then you mop up the rest.