98 réponses à ce sujet

[SheffSteel]

"Is there really any legitimate argument for not making Nightmare more difficult?"
uh... the rest of my post?

Modifié par SheffSteel, 11 décembre 2009 - 10:05 .

[Bibdy]

AgenTBC wrote...

I actually disagree with this rather strongly.  If you have a lot of people sayiing its too easy and a lot of people saying its too hard it means you have screwed up the difficulty levels.  There's a reason it goes from "easy" to "nightmare".  Bioware should have made Nightmare much harder.

Is there really any legitimate argument for not making Nightmare more difficult?  It's called "Nightmare" after all.  It should be too hard for most people, and right now its still pretty easy.

Indeed. What it means is the game's difficulty settings don't alter the game enough. If Easy, Normal, Hard and Nightmare are all basically the same, its no wonder that there's going to be a lot of people confused about the difficulty of the game.

And as evidence of that fact, look at this page: http://dragonage.gul....php/difficulty

Where's the jump in difficulty there? There's a big leap from Easy to Normal, but Normal to Hard? Hard to Nightmare? Even Normal to Nightmare (TWO steps in difficulty setting)? Where are the significant change in mechanics that are meant to stress the player? Losing 5 Attack, 5 Defense, taking 5% more damage, dealing 5% less damage and healing for 15% less isn't exactly what I would consider a 'nightmare' scenario.

[AgenTBC]

Yeah, the difficulty scaling from normal to nightmare is way too low. Ideally it would get harder mostly because the enemies act smarter but that's a lot to ask.



You could make it a lot harder by relatively simple tweaks to the AI, though. Intelligent enemies should not simply charge you at breakneck speed. They should make you come to them if they have ranged and mage backup. And so on.

[Zarenthar]

WKWBlank wrote...

I highly doubt ANYONE would find the game easy on Nightmare difficulty without cheats/god items. So yes you're game must be broken.

That's simply because:

A-you're a terrible gamer
B- you have a terrible party setup
C- you're clueless about pulling, choking and kiting techniques

The game is ridiculously easy for any seasoned gamer. Only a handful of encounters gave me trouble even on my first playthrough( Nightmare). A lot of ppl have stated they found Nightmare too easy on the forums it's a known fact...

So ya don't gimme that kind of BS.

[Thatdude88]

I also fount the game two easy on nightmare I made a post about it a month ago or so http://social.biowar.../9/index/189896

[MerinTB]

Zarenthar wrote...

WKWBlank wrote...

I highly doubt ANYONE would find the game easy on Nightmare difficulty without cheats/god items. So yes you're game must be broken.

That's simply because:

A-you're a terrible gamer
B- you have a terrible party setup
C- you're clueless about pulling, choking and kiting techniques

The game is ridiculously easy for any seasoned gamer. Only a handful of encounters gave me trouble even on my first playthrough( Nightmare). A lot of ppl have stated they found Nightmare too easy on the forums it's a known fact...

So ya don't gimme that kind of BS.

I was going to go off on a rant about what "seasoned" meant (played for decades, or played intensively for a few years but with a focus on "win" techniques, etc.) ...

then I realized - I almost never adjust difficulty on games (Mass Effect being one of the few I've ever touched, and that was to unlock achievements because I was going to replay anyway so why not?) -

I feel significantly challenged at normal, but maybe I should try nightmare and see if it feels significantly different or not.

I think taking full damage from friendly fire would definitely change my Grease / Fire sloppiness. :happy:

[Bibdy]

MerinTB wrote...

I was going to go off on a rant about what "seasoned" meant (played for decades, or played intensively for a few years but with a focus on "win" techniques, etc.) ...

then I realized - I almost never adjust difficulty on games (Mass Effect being one of the few I've ever touched, and that was to unlock achievements because I was going to replay anyway so why not?) -

I feel significantly challenged at normal, but maybe I should try nightmare and see if it feels significantly different or not.

I think taking full damage from friendly fire would definitely change my Grease / Fire sloppiness. :happy:

I wish more people here would do that. Too many logical fallacies going around. 

"Nightmare dramatically changes the game. Its really, really hard. Therefore, if you find Nightmare too easy, you're just totally awesome at video games, or lying."

That's a perfectly logical conclusion to make, until you realise that the very first assumption there is COMPLETELY WRONG.

[Godeshus]

uhm, I was never one to spend too much time in community, so i'm unfamiliar with the lingo. While I use tactics such as luring and choke points (so i assume that's what pulling and choking is), but I am clueless as to what people mean when they say kiting.

[Bibdy]

Kiting is a term encountered in MMORPGs such as EverQuest, Guild Wars, Eve Online or World of Warcraft, referring to a popular method of killing mobs (monsters) or other players by staying at a distance, using ranged attacks, and running whenever the enemy comes near. Similar tactics may be used in other computer and video games.[1]

[Thatdude88]

Kiting means staying out of melee range and letting the bad guy chase you while you damage it using ranged attacks

[Bibdy]

Some games make it less powerful by allowing melee to attack on the move, such as WoW. If the melee catches up to you, he can bash your skull in at his leisure, unless you find a way to snare/root/stun/whatever him and get him off.



In DA:O its insanely powerful, because you can literally kite melee creatures in a circle around the room and they can't hit you, even if they're 2 feet behind you, because they have to decelerate and stop before they can get off a swing. If they get close enough, they'll stop and take a swing, hitting you regardless of how far you run during that swing (which is pretty funny looking if its a 2H weapon - hitting a guy 20 feet away with your sword), but that distance to start the swing is very short. They have to be right up in your grill to get that swing off. Meanwhile you just spin around the room regenerating mana and letting abilities come off cooldown.



I try not to use it at all, because it feels really cheap and boring when you do, but man does it make a lot of fights trivial.

[Iggynous]

this game is too easy

my first playthrough was fun, played on hard until landsmeet, then switched to nightmare. the whole time i felt challenged, where each fight was a FIGHT and winning was very satisfying

my subsequent playthroughs on nightmare have all been really easy; maybe the game's broke, maybe im just experienced, but all the fights, even bosses, are childs play now.

either way, i (and im sure many other people) would really appreciate bioware or some toolset wizkid to make something which amps up the difficulty on nightmare; either more monsters or tougher monsters, anything to make fights last longer and demand more concentration from the player to succeed.

all that said, i LOVE this game, and i'm sure this problem will be addressed because i've seen lotsa threads on it

[Godeshus]

ok thank you. Apparently I do that as well.

[Bibdy]

Iggynous wrote...

this game is too easy

my first playthrough was fun, played on hard until landsmeet, then switched to nightmare. the whole time i felt challenged, where each fight was a FIGHT and winning was very satisfying

my subsequent playthroughs on nightmare have all been really easy; maybe the game's broke, maybe im just experienced, but all the fights, even bosses, are childs play now.

either way, i (and im sure many other people) would really appreciate bioware or some toolset wizkid to make something which amps up the difficulty on nightmare; either more monsters or tougher monsters, anything to make fights last longer and demand more concentration from the player to succeed.

all that said, i LOVE this game, and i'm sure this problem will be addressed because i've seen lotsa threads on it

I made a simple difficulty mod that ramps up some of the Hard and Nightmare modifiers to retarded (e.g. you deal 25% less damage, but take 25% more damage in Hard mode and 50/50 in Nightmare) if you're interested.

http://social.biowar...m/project/1280/

[badkenbad]

Another thing for people to consider is which platform you're playing on. I've heard from my console friends that have played both console and PC versions that the console verison is much easier.



I'm going through another Nightmare playthrough right now, using a balanced party and not using any infinite money exploits and not buying infinite potion materials, so I'll see how it goes. All I can say is that from my experience, my first Nightmare game was quite easy, but my second one was a lot more nightmarish. I didn't really change things up all much--used similar parties, hit areas at similar levels, and so on. Something funny's going on.

[Gliese]

I agree that the jump in difficulty should be greater, especially nightmare.

As an example of this my perhaps all-time favourite game Civ 4 has 9 difficulty levels as follows:



Settler

Chieftain

Warlord

Noble

Prince

Monarch

Emperor

Immortal

Deity



The difficulty jump between the last two from immortal to deity, is equivalent to the difference between noble and immortal (or a full 4 levels) in terms of AI handicaps. That's a good highest difficulty.

[MerinTB]

I have, on occasion, done what would be called kiting - but it is usually only trying to keep the squishy alive until the meat shield can get in the way.



The whole running backwards while shooting thing? I find it annoying - not passing judgments on others doing it, I mean it annoys me when I do it. It feels stupid - why the hell is the enemy running at me and my stream of bullets/arrows/spells/whatever?



It's why I loved VATs in Fallout 3 - it helped make that unnecessary.



Again - not passing judgments on people who do kite - just saying that the act of doing it is not fun for me.

[Pennoyer]

In some way, I might argue that it is too hard. Nightmare is pretty difficult to finish without using some sort of cheese/exploit. There are plenty of ways to abuse the AI. If one avoids using those methods, however, the game is pretty tough. Someone that is chugging lyrium potions or using force field/taunt might find nightmare extremely easy. Same for someone that is pulling enemies one at a time. The game can be very tough, but it seems one has to avoid using certain tactics to make it so. Not ideal, but still a great game imo. One of the most polished games out of the box that I've ever played on the PC.

[Pennoyer]

AgenTBC wrote...

SheffSteel wrote...

The community seems evenly split between the "difficulty to easy" and "easily too difficult" crowds. It's probably about right.

I actually disagree with this rather strongly.  If you have a lot of people sayiing its too easy and a lot of people saying its too hard it means you have screwed up the difficulty levels.  There's a reason it goes from "easy" to "nightmare".  Bioware should have made Nightmare much harder.

Is there really any legitimate argument for not making Nightmare more difficult?  It's called "Nightmare" after all.  It should be too hard for most people, and right now its still pretty easy.

The problem is not that nightmare isn't hard enough.  There are just too many cheesy ways to win battles in the game.  This is not a twitch game.  The game was designed to have tactical fighting.  Some "tactics" will just be more effective than others.  The line between effective tactic and exploit can be a little blurry though.  Ultimately, Bioware allows you to play as you want and it is effective for the most part. 

[Gliese]

Using shimmering shield when it was bugged was an exploit, pulling enemies is using wai game mechanics to the best of your ability. It's not like we just invented pulling, it's been around for a while. Similarly aquiring and drinking potions whenever you feel like it can never be called an exploit. Cheese on the other hand is more subjective and you could certainly call it cheese if you like. But to me the fact that it is so easy to do and clearly not something that is an oversight from the devs I wouldn't call it cheese I would just say they intended for the game to be easy.

[Pennoyer]

Gliese wrote...

Using shimmering shield when it was bugged was an exploit, pulling enemies is using wai game mechanics to the best of your ability. It's not like we just invented pulling, it's been around for a while. Similarly aquiring and drinking potions whenever you feel like it can never be called an exploit. Cheese on the other hand is more subjective and you could certainly call it cheese if you like. But to me the fact that it is so easy to do and clearly not something that is an oversight from the devs I wouldn't call it cheese I would just say they intended for the game to be easy.

I think pulling enemies is perfectly fine.  The enemy AI only sending 1 or 2 of a large group is close to an exploit imo.  What would otherwise be a tough group of 10 enemies is now easily picked off 1 at a time.  This is why one might think nightmare is easy.  If you play through like that the whole way it will not challenge you.  Enemies will die before they even get close to you.  On the other hand, pulling an entire group could create some very difficult fights. 

[Kaosgirl]

MerinTB wrote...

SheffSteel wrote...
The community seems evenly split between the "difficulty to easy" and "easily too difficult" crowds. It's probably about right.

I know, right?

I'm not really advocating a flame war, I actually wish that they could realize they exist in about equal numbers (relatively) and see that maybe its the gamers who make it easy or hard and not the game, and since we see complaints at both ends (with a crew of us in the middle satisfied) that the game is probably just about the right balance for a mass market release.

Or perhaps not.  Depends on whether the crew in the middle outnumbers the outliers or not.  If we don't, then...

You've got a form of the Kangaxx from Shadows of Amn scenario:  impossible or trivial, with almost nothing in between.  And that's not really good - it alienates both sides, frustrating the guys who find it too hard and boring the guys who find it too easy.

Bear in mind, I already stated I'm part of the 'middle' crew here.

[Gliese]

Pennoyer wrote...

Gliese wrote...

Using shimmering shield when it was bugged was an exploit, pulling enemies is using wai game mechanics to the best of your ability. It's not like we just invented pulling, it's been around for a while. Similarly aquiring and drinking potions whenever you feel like it can never be called an exploit. Cheese on the other hand is more subjective and you could certainly call it cheese if you like. But to me the fact that it is so easy to do and clearly not something that is an oversight from the devs I wouldn't call it cheese I would just say they intended for the game to be easy.

I think pulling enemies is perfectly fine.  The enemy AI only sending 1 or 2 of a large group is close to an exploit imo.  What would otherwise be a tough group of 10 enemies is now easily picked off 1 at a time.  This is why one might think nightmare is easy.  If you play through like that the whole way it will not challenge you.  Enemies will die before they even get close to you.  On the other hand, pulling an entire group could create some very difficult fights. 

Exploit is really using bugs or at least unintended design-flaws imo. I also wish that you couldn't pull so effectively in this game, I think any group should just follow whoever initiates an attack, use a go to command or whatever. Then if the targeted mob dies before they get a lock on you they could stop and stare once more (would be great to also have search scripts but let's not get ahead of ourselves). That way you could still snipe enemies to death sometimes but most of the time attacking one mob would draw the whole group.

[Kaosgirl]

Gliese wrote...

Using shimmering shield when it was bugged was an exploit, pulling enemies is using wai game mechanics to the best of your ability. It's not like we just invented pulling, it's been around for a while.

Bad Intentions, IMO, are worse than accidental bugs.  "Pulling" is, IMO, one of the worst and most obvious exploits (in the pure sense, not the gamer-jargon sense) of AI limitations there is, and I wish devs would stop implementing mechanics that support it.

Worse, I wish players would stop defending it as 'good tactics' or whatever, because that's exactly what encourages the devs to keep supporting it.

Modifié par Kaosgirl, 12 décembre 2009 - 06:25 .

[Kaosgirl]

Gliese wrote...

Pennoyer wrote...

Gliese wrote...

Using shimmering shield when it was bugged was an exploit, pulling enemies is using wai game mechanics to the best of your ability. It's not like we just invented pulling, it's been around for a while. Similarly aquiring and drinking potions whenever you feel like it can never be called an exploit. Cheese on the other hand is more subjective and you could certainly call it cheese if you like. But to me the fact that it is so easy to do and clearly not something that is an oversight from the devs I wouldn't call it cheese I would just say they intended for the game to be easy.

I think pulling enemies is perfectly fine.  The enemy AI only sending 1 or 2 of a large group is close to an exploit imo.  What would otherwise be a tough group of 10 enemies is now easily picked off 1 at a time.  This is why one might think nightmare is easy.  If you play through like that the whole way it will not challenge you.  Enemies will die before they even get close to you.  On the other hand, pulling an entire group could create some very difficult fights. 

Exploit is really using bugs or at least unintended design-flaws imo.

Feh.

The problem is that there's no other word to replace "exploit" in the phrase "exploiting poorly thought out mechanics."  And that phrase specifically refers to things that work as intended.