62 réponses à ce sujet

[MayCaesar]

Hey everyone,

 

I am a relatively new player, having only completed 3 official campaigns and now starting to play custom modules. Currently playing The Aielund Saga and having a lot of fun with it.

 

I played all the official campaigns, and playing Aielund now, on Very Difficult difficulty, and I struggled most of the time. I am not the best player, but at times it felt just way too difficult. In Aielund Saga, playing as a pure Sorcerer, I had to restart some fights over 10 times because of how hard the enemies hit. And in Hordes of the Underdark, I had to turn difficulty down for the Grimgnaw battle, as on Very Difficult it was just completely impossible; after dying for 50 times, I gave up.

 

So, my question is this: are custom modules usually balanced around Hardcore Rules difficulty, or maybe Normal difficulty? What do most people play? Is Very Difficult considered a funky setting for those who want more challenge in easy modules, or is it something strong players normally have on?

[MrZork]

I tend to have the most fun playing at the hardcore setting. Certainly, I think that's the best setting for Bioware's campaigns. For community modules, I would look at the notes for the module, as some have been balanced specifically for a particular setting. For the most part, there is a "season to taste" aspect of this, where you can usually take the difficulty up or down a notch, depending on what provides you with the most fun and/or challenge.

I will say that, even in modules that I think are never or only rarely difficult (like the OC, SoU, and HotU), I pretty much never play in Very Difficult mode. As I recall, the only significant difference between that and Hardcore is that opponents do double damage. To me, that is more likely to lead to annoyance as I am unexpectedly critted for 150+ HP than it is to make the game more challenging in a fun way (meaning, mostly, challenging in a way that I can reasonably overcome with better playing skills that aren't just an overabundance of boring caution).

[Proleric]

A rule-of-thumb is to start at Normal difficulty, turning up the heat if it gets boring.

 

I suspect that few module builders have time to test their work at more than one setting. Certainly, my own are tested at Normal.

 

I find that even the very best fan modules often have some "near impossible" battles. I'm happy to turn combat down, or resort to spam resting, in those circumstances.

[MagicalMaster]

Very Difficult doesn't even do what you think it does.  First of all, it only affects ranged/melee hits from enemies (so things like spell damage aren't affected).  Second, it only affects base damage of the weapon.  So a enemy Barbarian Warlord with 40 strength using a Battleaxe +5 would do 21-28 damage on Hardcore or lower...and 22-36 damage on Very Difficult.  Which, on average, is 24.5 damage vs 29 damage.

 

So it basically makes low level fights obscenely hard in many cases and barely changes anything at higher levels.  In short, never bother with it.  People design modules for either "Hardcore" (which really just means the player has less advantages than on Normal) or sometimes Normal.  Basically should assume Hardcore is the default difficulty unless explicitly stated otherwise.

[Tchos]

I always play at Very Difficult, and test my modules' fights at that level.  Thus I can expect that others can complete the fights at lower difficulties.

[MayCaesar]

Okay, I see there are as many opinions as there are people.   I guess I will play on Very Difficult normally, switching to Hardcore/Normal if something seems really impossible to beat on that difficulty. And you are right MagicalMaster, I noticed that in most cases the damage increase is far from 100%. Also, since the most dangerous things that can quickly kill you are death magic, all kinds of stuns and disables and so on, making the sheer received damage secondary in most cases, Very Difficult should not be too hard, compared to Hardcore.

 

Normal with immunity to crit hits and shorter negative effect duration seems a bit too cozy to me. I remember when, in the mentioned Grimgnaw battle in HotU I switched to Normal, it was a completely different game: if before the majority of time I spent disabled by some spell, then after that stuns barely affected my damage output.

 

Which brings me to another question: do mod makers usually assume the player to use a very effective build? When they test the modules, do they test them only with popular strong builds, or do they assume the player to have an average built character? I know how to build some classes well, but I am afraid of experimenting with more classes and multiclass combinations since I might get stuck in the middle of a custom mod with underpowered character. 

[Tchos]

Which brings me to another question: do mod makers usually assume the player to use a very effective build? When they test the modules, do they test them only with popular strong builds, or do they assume the player to have an average built character?

 

As before I can only speak for myself on this, but I generally test with decent but not optimal builds.  I generally use automatic leveling for my playtests, and reasonable (not optimal) equipment for the level.

[werelynx]

No one here mentioned that most modules faction-wise are not properly scripted for Hardcore difficulty. Unless author tests them for such.

Reason: Area of Effect spells/abilities can harm friendly/neutrals making them hostile in some cases.

You can withhold your own spells, to some extent control hirelings, but you can't make NPCs cast spells without friendly fire.

 

I myself tend to play on Normal most of the time. If module suggests hardcore then I play on hardcore.

 

I wish there was hardcore difficulty without faction issues.

 

Disclaimer: such issues won't be in every module. Some faction isssues will be due to other reasons. ..but when you face a faction issue it usually means reloading a save or quitting module/quest. Debugging is hard.

[Shadooow]

No one here mentioned that most modules faction-wise are not properly scripted for Hardcore difficulty. Unless author tests them for such.

Reason: Area of Effect spells/abilities can harm friendly/neutrals making them hostile in some cases.

You can withhold your own spells, to some extent control hirelings, but you can't make NPCs cast spells without friendly fire.

Actually, you are wrong.

 

NPCs generally casts spells without hurting others, Exception is only the caster hurting self bug (fixed in CPP) and associates (fam/sum/hen etc.) hurting PC. They will however not hurt other associates unless you set up module switch to do so and there is a big warning not to do this.

 

Anyway, I remember that on some PWs using a hostile AOE spell like cloud of bewilderment turned my familiar against me. I either fixes this in CPP and dont remember or it was bug from some other AI these PWs downloaded and used. Because I havent seen this behavior for a very long time.

[MagicalMaster]

I always play at Very Difficult, and test my modules' fights at that level.  Thus I can expect that others can complete the fights at lower difficulties.

 

What levels are your modules usually?

 

Just rather concerned because that level 1 Barbarian with 10 strength and a Greatsword doing 14 average damage vs 7 damage is a massive difference...but a level 12 Barbarian with 26 strength and a +3 Fire Greatsword doing 29.5 damage versus 22.5 damage is a much smaller difference...and the gap between Very Difficult and Hardcore will keep shrinking.

 

Meanwhile, the damage from things like mage spells are going to be the same in both difficulties -- so if you find it difficult on Very Difficult then you couldn't expect others to do it on Hardcore.

 

Also, since the most dangerous things that can quickly kill you are death magic, all kinds of stuns and disables and so on, making the sheer received damage secondary in most cases, Very Difficult should not be too hard, compared to Hardcore.

 

It completely depends on the module and your party.  A fighter with 10 strength who hits your Ghostly Visaged Wizard with a Shortsword will do 0 damage 83%ish of the time and 1 damage 17%ish of the time on Hardcore.  On Very Difficult he'll hit you for potentially up to 7 damage with an average of 2 (2-12 damage minus 5).  That is a massive massive shift.  But an enemy mage won't be any more threatening.

 

But at higher levels then it often makes little to no difference, yes.

 

Normal with immunity to crit hits and shorter negative effect duration seems a bit too cozy to me. I remember when, in the mentioned Grimgnaw battle in HotU I switched to Normal, it was a completely different game: if before the majority of time I spent disabled by some spell, then after that stuns barely affected my damage output.

 

Not just that -- ranged attacks don't provoke AoOs, potions don't provoke AoOs, AoEs don't hit friendlies, and petrification isn't permanent.

 

Which brings me to another question: do mod makers usually assume the player to use a very effective build? When they test the modules, do they test them only with popular strong builds, or do they assume the player to have an average built character? I know how to build some classes well, but I am afraid of experimenting with more classes and multiclass combinations since I might get stuck in the middle of a custom mod with underpowered character. 

 

I generally assume a default built Fighter (it's surprisingly good when compared to default characters of other classes).  I don't think it's reasonable to tune most modules assuming everyone is a Fighter/Rogue/Weapon Master or something -- but I could if I thought it necessary or was trying to make a particularly challenging module/encounter.

 

And I'm on the high end of the spectrum in terms of NWN knowledge/"hardcoreness."  I designed a final boss for Aielund and Savant thought it was insane and went to "swing the nerf bat like crazy."  Why?  I had hundreds of Heal potions per character with infinitely more available (note that in Aielund they only heal 110 HP and the party is level 35+ at that point) while Savant only expected people to use 2-3 potions per character at most.  I figure we had all those potions for a reason!  Different perspectives.

 

My point is that most module makers aren't even very aware of what an effective build is and aren't trying to make stuff very difficult.  They build because they have characters/story/environments to bring to life while not knowing/caring as much about the game's combat.

 

No one here mentioned that most modules faction-wise are not properly scripted for Hardcore difficulty. Unless author tests them for such.

Reason: Area of Effect spells/abilities can harm friendly/neutrals making them hostile in some cases.

You can withhold your own spells, to some extent control hirelings, but you can't make NPCs cast spells without friendly fire.

 

What Shadow said regarding NPCs.  In fact, this was something that severely annoyed me in some cases -- enemy mages could throw Fireballs and so forth into melee battles with both friends and enemies while me doing so would hit my friends.  Somewhat understandable given how terrible the AI is in the first place at spell casting but...I thought Hardcore meant "everyone's on an equal playing field!"

[Tchos]

What levels are your modules usually?

Just rather concerned because that level 1 Barbarian with 10 strength and a Greatsword doing 14 average damage vs 7 damage is a massive difference...but a level 12 Barbarian with 26 strength and a +3 Fire Greatsword doing 29.5 damage versus 22.5 damage is a much smaller difference

 

Meanwhile, the damage from things like mage spells are going to be the same in both difficulties -- so if you find it difficult on Very Difficult then you couldn't expect others to do it on Hardcore.

My point is that most module makers aren't even very aware of what an effective build is and aren't trying to make stuff very difficult.  They build because they have characters/story/environments to bring to life while not knowing/caring as much about the game's combat.

 

Mine starts at level 10.  You say 12 is not a significant difference, so I'm assuming 10 is slightly more significant than that.

 

At any rate, I find most of the battles challenging, but not overly difficult, because the areas can be done without resting after each battle, and using consumables instead to heal up.  Others disagree, though, but I'm one of the few that don't fit your "most module makers" mold there.  To me, the encounter design is just as important as the environments and characters, because I think gameplay is somewhat more important than story for a game.

[MagicalMaster]

You say 12 is not a significant difference, so I'm assuming 10 is slightly more significant than that.

 

It really depends on how you design your enemies because it literally just doubles the *base* damage on weapons.  Someone casting spells does 0 more damage per spell.  Someone using a dagger does 2.5 more damage per hit.  Someone using a longsword or longbow does 4.5 more damage per hit.  Someone using a greatsword does 7 more damage per hit.  If the greatsword user has no strength modifier and a mundane greatsword that literally doubles his damage (7 to 14).  If he has enough strength and a magical greatsword to the point where he does 35 damage per swing then it's 20% more damage (35 to 42).  If it's a level 15 rogue with 8d6 Sneak Attack using a +3 dagger then you're going from 33.5 to 36 damage -- less than an 8% difference.

 

This is why "Very Difficult" fails at being remotely useful.  While I think most people would agree that games that go "Harder means enemies have 50% more health and do 50% more damage" is less ideal than making enemies smarter or trickier to deal with...at least it's a consistent increase in difficulty at all points from all enemies.

 

To me, the encounter design is just as important as the environments and characters, because I think gameplay is somewhat more important than story for a game.

 

While I generally agree, I'm a lot more willing (personally) to forgive easy combat than stupid combat.  The HeX Coda, for example, was an amazing module with faceroll combat.  I could name several others that I thoroughly enjoyed despite them intentionally being jokes combat wise.  On the flip side, the thought of replaying Dragon Age: Origins again made me want to gouge my eyes out just because the combat was so...terrible.  I'm pretty sure it wasn't as noticeable on easier difficulties...but if you're going to include harder difficulties then make sure it's actually harder and not just stupid.  Ditto for the first Mass Effect (compare the combat of Mass Effect 2 and 3 to 1...I mean, holy cow) -- though it at least was less headache inducing compared to Dragon Age.

 

And this isn't just a matter of personal style -- Siege of the Heavens and A Peremptory Summons are NWN modules of mine with significantly more difficult combat than most modules in NWN (and I could have easily made them harder)...but I also am a huge fan of the Swordflight series by RogueKnight which has radically different combat (but still much more difficult than typical modules).

[Grani]

I think that the Very Difficult setting should be accompanied with a note informing the player that it's a setting which makes a difference only on lower levels, makes the game unbalanced and should only be turned on if Hardcore is really not good enough for you.

 

A question has been asked how builders deal with difficulty level.

Well, I might not be a typical builder, since my module (in the making) is something between a single-player adventure and a PW, but I myself decided to expand difficulty customization for players. I did this by introducing the "world difficulty" settings (to differentiate them from the original game difficulty settings). The player (a host or an admin in multiplayer) simply needs to talk to an NPC and choose the difficulty of any aspect of the module. This includes enemy difficulty (handled by buffing/debuffing enemies on spawning), death consequences severity, loot chances, etc. Every aspect has 5 possible settings to choose from, with the default one being the second easiest setting.

 

I named these world difficulty settings COMMONER, ADVENTURER, HERO, LEGEND and DEMIGOD. Oh, and the default game difficulty I'm building my module around is Hardcore, but lower settings can be successfully used along with world difficulty variations to tailor the difficulty exactly in the way you want.

 

Some people prefer optimal builds, some others prefer to take it more casually. Some like to feel the danger of losing much by dying, while others prefer a more secure approach, etc. It's my personal opinion that such a custom difficulty system is a way to make the module more player-friendly.

[MayCaesar]

Thanks for the opinions. I see there is no general consensus on how modules should be built, so one should read READMEs and follow the guidelines there. I think I also understand that Very Difficult isn't what it seems and mostly changes the difficulty curve, rather than the overall difficulty of the game. Interestingly, in the modules I've played, I didn't notice low level gameplay being particularly hard. But then, I don't think I've ever played modules aimed at very experienced in combat players.

 

Regarding story vs combat balance, I myself am mostly interested in the story. The reason I am working hard on learning the toolset currently is that I have a few plots in my head I would like to "digitalize", and those plots are mostly focused on character interaction and combat-less exploration. However, it is clear that there are different players out there, and if my modules contain very little combat, then many of them may lose the interest. So I will need to introduce, at least, some encounters to keep everyone interested, and those encounters better be well tuned, so "story-based" players wouldn't see them as obstacles to enjoying the story, while D&D masters could enjoy the challenge. I like your system Grani, I think I might employ something like this in my modules, as long as I learn enough about the combat by that time to be able to balance such difficulties well.

 

While I generally agree, I'm a lot more willing (personally) to forgive easy combat than stupid combat.  The HeX Coda, for example, was an amazing module with faceroll combat.  I could name several others that I thoroughly enjoyed despite them intentionally being jokes combat wise.  On the flip side, the thought of replaying Dragon Age: Origins again made me want to gouge my eyes out just because the combat was so...terrible.  I'm pretty sure it wasn't as noticeable on easier difficulties...but if you're going to include harder difficulties then make sure it's actually harder and not just stupid.  Ditto for the first Mass Effect (compare the combat of Mass Effect 2 and 3 to 1...I mean, holy cow) -- though it at least was less headache inducing compared to Dragon Age.

 

Hmm, I understand it is a matter of taste, but honestly Dragon Age: Origins combat is one of my favorite RPG combats (I played on Nightmare). By it being stupid, you probably mean incredibly high HP pools and enemy damage to create a challenge instead of the enemies being clever and resourceful? If so, I agree, it indeed was a rather poor design. Then, I saw the same picture in all official modules in Neverwinter Nights 1/2, where only a handful of enemies required some thinking, instead of constant reloading hoping for the rolls to come in right. In Aielund, it was a bit different: maybe I am just not very good at D&D yet, but in some fights it was more about using cheese (running away and shooting from where enemies cannot see me, running around while my companions work on the target, leaving through zone exits and fighting enemies one by one as they come through, excessive resting, etc.) than actual strategy. The dragon in Act II was very hard to beat, I resorted to attacking it from the distance before actually talking to it, so I could deal a lot of damage before it approached me and disabled my entire group with Fear. Of course, I am playing pure Sorcerer, which is made of glass, so perhaps I indeed am supposed to run around and use all those tricks to survive...

[Tchos]

It really depends on how you design your enemies because it literally just doubles the *base* damage on weapons.  Someone casting spells does 0 more damage per spell.  Someone using a dagger does 2.5 more damage per hit.  Someone using a longsword or longbow does 4.5 more damage per hit.  Someone using a greatsword does 7 more damage per hit.  If the greatsword user has no strength modifier and a mundane greatsword that literally doubles his damage (7 to 14).  If he has enough strength and a magical greatsword to the point where he does 35 damage per swing then it's 20% more damage (35 to 42).  If it's a level 15 rogue with 8d6 Sneak Attack using a +3 dagger then you're going from 33.5 to 36 damage -- less than an 8% difference.

 

This is why "Very Difficult" fails at being remotely useful.  While I think most people would agree that games that go "Harder means enemies have 50% more health and do 50% more damage" is less ideal than making enemies smarter or trickier to deal with...at least it's a consistent increase in difficulty at all points from all enemies.

 

I don't think it needs to be a consistent increase in difficulty at all points from all enemies to be remotely useful.  I think it's fine for it to be, on average, between all classes and enemy types, somewhat more difficult than the lower settings.  If it gets easier as levels increase, what's so bad about that?  The point is, I'm not a power gamer, and I don't use optimised builds or equipment when I do my tests, so playing and succeeding at even a slight handicap should mean that most players should be able to get through my content.  And if they can't, they should be able to do it by choosing to use a lower difficulty setting.

 

...stupid combat. 

...faceroll combat. 

...jokes combat wise. 

...combat was so...terrible. 

...just stupid. 

...headache inducing

 

I'm sorry, but I can't understand your terminology here.  I can't tell if you mean that the combat uses poor AI or if you're using these words to mean "difficult".  In any case, it seems quite subjective, so I don't think there's much to discuss here.  (Note: I played DA:O on the hardest difficulty the whole time, and intentionally refused the patches that kept making the combat easier.)

 

Personally, I prefer if people tune combat on the hard side, because it's much easier for the player to make a hard game easier than to make an easy game harder.

[MagicalMaster]

I think that the Very Difficult setting should be accompanied with a note informing the player that it's a setting which makes a difference only on lower levels, makes the game unbalanced and should only be turned on if Hardcore is really not good enough for you.

 

Except even on lower levels it could make no difference in many cases or a very small difference while in others it could be massive : /

 

What you're doing with actually altering the difficulty of creatures manually with different difficulty settings is light years better.

 

Interestingly, in the modules I've played, I didn't notice low level gameplay being particularly hard. But then, I don't think I've ever played modules aimed at very experienced in combat players.

 

Try Swordflight Chapter 1 or A Peremptory Summons.  Though the way I designed most things in APS means Very Difficult would have less of an impact (and if you're a capable player you likely won't find APS too difficult overall, the same is true to a smaller degree with Swordflight).

 

If it gets easier as levels increase, what's so bad about that?  The point is, I'm not a power gamer, and I don't use optimised builds or equipment when I do my tests, so playing and succeeding at even a slight handicap should mean that most players should be able to get through my content.  And if they can't, they should be able to do it by choosing to use a lower difficulty setting.

 

Two things are so bad about it:

 

1, people expect (and should get) a consistent difficulty.  If I play on Hard that I means I want the whole game to be hard...not for it to be twice as difficult as Easy initially and then 5% more difficult than Easy later on.

 

2, it doesn't do what it says it does.

 

And the second point addresses the second half of your quote.  Say you have a mage boss with sneak attacking rogues guarding him.  You barely get through it and think "Well, if I made it through on Very Difficult then it should be fine for others on Hardcore."  Wrong!  Because the difficulty of that fight barely changes at all on Very Difficult.

 

I'm sorry, but I can't understand your terminology here.  I can't tell if you mean that the combat uses poor AI or if you're using these words to mean "difficult".  In any case, it seems quite subjective, so I don't think there's much to discuss here.  (Note: I played DA:O on the hardest difficulty the whole time, and intentionally refused the patches that kept making the combat easier.)

 

I specifically did *NOT* use the word difficult because it was *NOT* difficult.  It was stupid.  Terrible.  Headache-inducing.  See below...

 

Hmm, I understand it is a matter of taste, but honestly Dragon Age: Origins combat is one of my favorite RPG combats (I played on Nightmare). By it being stupid, you probably mean incredibly high HP pools and enemy damage to create a challenge instead of the enemies being clever and resourceful? If so, I agree, it indeed was a rather poor design.

 

No, I don't mean that.  I can live with that style of difficulty because then it means you need to worry about optimizing your stats, abilities, and party composition.  What I mean by stupid would include the following:

 

1, armor reduces damage by a flat amount.  Which means enemies doing more damage is an even larger difference.  If Alistair has 50 armor and enemies do 60 damage, he takes 10 damage per hit.  Then let's say we bump the difficulty up and enemies do 33% more (80 per hit).  Well, Alistair is now going to take 30 damage per hit, *triple* the damage.  Even in full plate armor (the best available at the time) and using defensive abilities (including the sustained ones) he simply got wrecked by just about everything even with myself and Wynne spamming heals on him (Heal, Regen, Group Heal).

 

2, potential solution to #1 -- avoid the attacks rather than trying to minimize the damage taken.  How?  Well, focus on getting his Dexterity super high to let him dodge attacks (which requires sacrificing Heavy Armor as it requires strength -- note that Alistair is portrayed as a heavy armored warrior in general so this is weird to start).  Problem A -- you cannot respec in DA:O, so HAHAHAHA at you for thinking the game would make sense in that strength plus heavy armor would be good for tanking when that's how the character is presented.  Problem B -- some enemies will use Perfect Striking and just hit you every time.  Sucks to be you.

 

3, no problem, we'll just chain Force Field with two mages.  Send Alistair in, have him Taunt, them make him immune to all damage while enemies keep attacking him and AoE them all down (or just auto attack a boss because your spells are worthless against single big enemies for the most part).  When that invulnerability wears off, have him taunt and then just have a second mage recast Force Field.  Repeat until all enemies are dead.  Such deep combat.

 

4, enemy mage.  HAHAHAHA Mana Clash.  Oh, he randomly resisted it?  Well, that sucks.  SECOND MANA CLASH.  Oh, he resisted that too?  Crushing Prison.  Oh, he resisted that too?  SECOND CRUSHING PRISON!  Note that any of those are literally or effectively 1 hit kills and the odds of resisting all of those are pretty low.

 

5, if all else fails, just Blood Wound.

 

6, bows?  Ha, what are those, they suck.  Unless you're in Awakening then you deal like 5 times as much damage as anyone else.

 

Accuracy grants the following bonuses:

• +(Dexterity - 10) to attack,
• +(Dexterity - 10) to damage,
• +(Dexterity - 10) * 0.5% to ranged critical chance,
• +(Dexterity - 10) * 0.5% to ranged critical damage.

Yeah, letting people pump up single stats super high and then making those scale linearly (and exponentially within the talent itself) makes total sense.  If you have 20 Dex you get 10 attack, 10 damage, 5% crit, and 5% crit damage.  If you have 50 Dex you get 40 attack, 40 damage, 20% crit, and 20% crit damage.  And it only gets worse from there (you get 3 stat points per level and can usually hit level 30).  For plot reasons I had Sig at the end rather than Nath but she still had 130ish Dex even with Nath having the better stuff.  So my main and Vel are auto attacking for 60-70 every second as mages...Jus is meleeing for 80ish every second as a 1H + Shield tank...and Sig is shooting for 400 damage every second.  Oh, and Jus has 200 attack vs Sig's 280ish attack.  So it's even worse than it looks because Jus will miss a lot more too.

 

Yeah.

 

7, you're a warrior and want to use abilities rather than just auto attack?  Sucks to be you, many of them are actually DPS losses to use.  They sure sounded cool, though, right?

 

-----------------

 

I could go on but you get the picture, I hope.  The combat in DA:O was so horrible in so many ways.  Makes NWN look like the most balanced/fun/sensible game in existence.  Maybe it didn't really matter on Normal or whatever, flaws of the system weren't as obvious/problematic...but Nightmare was just...ugh.

[Tchos]

I specifically did *NOT* use the word difficult because it was *NOT* difficult.  It was stupid.  Terrible.  Headache-inducing.

 

Which could mean anything, being assessments of how they made you feel instead of descriptive of the mechanics, and so they mean nothing.  Thankfully you went into a little more detail about what you meant with MayCaesar.  However, I completely disagree with what you say, can't see where you're coming from, and really can't take anything away from your assessment of the DA:O combat.

 

You say it wasn't difficult, but you also say Alistair "got wrecked by just about everything" despite constant healing.  That's not my experience at all.  I use Alistair as my tank in heavy armour and a sword and shield.  He almost never dies with Wynne's effective heals and an occasional poultice.  No need for Force Field.  And this is all in Nightmare mode, as I said earlier, so I don't know why you keep implying it's only fun in Normal or lower.

 

No, I enjoyed DA:O's combat.

 

Two things are so bad about it:

1, people expect (and should get) a consistent difficulty.  If I play on Hard that I means I want the whole game to be hard...not for it to be twice as difficult as Easy initially and then 5% more difficult than Easy later on.

 

This person doesn't expect or want that.  That stinks of level scaling, and I hate level scaling.  I want progression, in that as I rise in power, I feel the effects of that power by common combat being easier, and only notable battles (named NPCs or bosses) presenting a real challenge.

[MayCaesar]

No, I don't mean that.  I can live with that style of difficulty because then it means you need to worry about optimizing your stats, abilities, and party composition.  What I mean by stupid would include the following:

 

1, armor reduces damage by a flat amount.  Which means enemies doing more damage is an even larger difference.  If Alistair has 50 armor and enemies do 60 damage, he takes 10 damage per hit.  Then let's say we bump the difficulty up and enemies do 33% more (80 per hit).  Well, Alistair is now going to take 30 damage per hit, *triple* the damage.  Even in full plate armor (the best available at the time) and using defensive abilities (including the sustained ones) he simply got wrecked by just about everything even with myself and Wynne spamming heals on him (Heal, Regen, Group Heal).

 

2, potential solution to #1 -- avoid the attacks rather than trying to minimize the damage taken.  How?  Well, focus on getting his Dexterity super high to let him dodge attacks (which requires sacrificing Heavy Armor as it requires strength -- note that Alistair is portrayed as a heavy armored warrior in general so this is weird to start).  Problem A -- you cannot respec in DA:O, so HAHAHAHA at you for thinking the game would make sense in that strength plus heavy armor would be good for tanking when that's how the character is presented.  Problem B -- some enemies will use Perfect Striking and just hit you every time.  Sucks to be you.

 

3, no problem, we'll just chain Force Field with two mages.  Send Alistair in, have him Taunt, them make him immune to all damage while enemies keep attacking him and AoE them all down (or just auto attack a boss because your spells are worthless against single big enemies for the most part).  When that invulnerability wears off, have him taunt and then just have a second mage recast Force Field.  Repeat until all enemies are dead.  Such deep combat.

 

4, enemy mage.  HAHAHAHA Mana Clash.  Oh, he randomly resisted it?  Well, that sucks.  SECOND MANA CLASH.  Oh, he resisted that too?  Crushing Prison.  Oh, he resisted that too?  SECOND CRUSHING PRISON!  Note that any of those are literally or effectively 1 hit kills and the odds of resisting all of those are pretty low.

 

5, if all else fails, just Blood Wound.

 

6, bows?  Ha, what are those, they suck.  Unless you're in Awakening then you deal like 5 times as much damage as anyone else.

 

Accuracy grants the following bonuses:

• +(Dexterity - 10) to attack,
• +(Dexterity - 10) to damage,
• +(Dexterity - 10) * 0.5% to ranged critical chance,
• +(Dexterity - 10) * 0.5% to ranged critical damage.

Yeah, letting people pump up single stats super high and then making those scale linearly (and exponentially within the talent itself) makes total sense.  If you have 20 Dex you get 10 attack, 10 damage, 5% crit, and 5% crit damage.  If you have 50 Dex you get 40 attack, 40 damage, 20% crit, and 20% crit damage.  And it only gets worse from there (you get 3 stat points per level and can usually hit level 30).  For plot reasons I had Sig at the end rather than Nath but she still had 130ish Dex even with Nath having the better stuff.  So my main and Vel are auto attacking for 60-70 every second as mages...Jus is meleeing for 80ish every second as a 1H + Shield tank...and Sig is shooting for 400 damage every second.  Oh, and Jus has 200 attack vs Sig's 280ish attack.  So it's even worse than it looks because Jus will miss a lot more too.

 

Yeah.

 

7, you're a warrior and want to use abilities rather than just auto attack?  Sucks to be you, many of them are actually DPS losses to use.  They sure sounded cool, though, right?

 

-----------------

 

I could go on but you get the picture, I hope.  The combat in DA:O was so horrible in so many ways.  Makes NWN look like the most balanced/fun/sensible game in existence.  Maybe it didn't really matter on Normal or whatever, flaws of the system weren't as obvious/problematic...but Nightmare was just...ugh.

 

Hmm, I had a completely different experience in terms of what is useful and what is not. But nevertheless, regarding the armor notion, I actually think that DAO had a very good separation between difficulties. 33% more damage the enemies deal means that your build should be very well optimized, so the difference between the damage Alistair takes is as small as possible. It is reasonable, in my opinion, to expect from players playing on the hardest difficulty to use strong builds, accounting for such discrepancies, and severely punish them for using sub-standard builds. And it is still not like on Nightmare your Alistair is going to die constantly, it is just that you have to control him more, so he doesn't just stand there in the middle of the battlefield, tanking all the enemy damage, but runs around, trying to transfer some of the damage intake to other characters, while not transferring too much so they start being in trouble themselves. In this regard, I dislike NWN, where the tank takes all the damage, and if the tank falls, and you don't have other tanks in your group, then you are toast. I am playing Aielund Saga, act II currently, with a Sorcerer, and as soon as the tank dies or some enemies run past the tank to my Sorcerer, I might as well reload right away, since I die to 3-4 hits. In DAO, non-tank characters actually can take some beating.

 

Also, regarding the difficulty curve, I believe both NWN and DAO are seriously flawed. In NWN, as has already been told, Very Difficult simply leads to early fight being much tougher, while later fight are almost the same. In DAO, Very Difficult makes fights against large groups of enemies incomparably harder, while fights against small groups or bosses with little support are almost the same. The first battle in Lothering is often used as an example: on Easy-Hard it doesn't present any challenge whatsoever, since among those bandits only the leader is capable of dealing any significant damage, and it is just a matter of tanking him. But on Nightmare, each bandit does a lot of damage, and the leader actually isn't much tougher: as in your example, suppose Alistair has 50 armor, and on Hard regular bandits deal 45 damage and the leader deals 60. Suppose there are 9 regular bandits and one leader. On Hard, Alistair will take 10 damage per unit of time. But on Nightmare, he will take 10 damage from each regular bandit and 30 damage from the leader, so it is a whooping 120 damage, 12 times that. Whilst, if we fought the leader alone, then on Hard Alistair would take the same 10 damage, and on Nightmare 30 - much more, but still it is only 3 times the higher, not 12 times.

 

 

This person doesn't expect or want that.  That stinks of level scaling, and I hate level scaling.  I want progression, in that as I rise in power, I feel the effects of that power by common combat being easier, and only notable battles (named NPCs or bosses) presenting a real challenge.

 

 

Actually, this is an interesting question. Later combat being easier does give the feeling of progression - but to me personally it also creates a feeling of waste, in that I became stronger and, as such, I should be fighting stronger enemies than before, not killing the same enemies easier. The best feeling of progression, I believe, a person gets when they kill something they couldn't even touch before. Like, again, in Dragon Age: Origins: if you go after Flemeth at level 10 on Nightmare, you will be wiped out faster than you can say "whoa, a dragon!" - but if you then return at level 18, it will be a completely different story.

 

So what I would like to see in modules I play is optional bosses available for fight very early but impossible to beat at that point. Then, as you get stronger, you return to fight the boss and fail again. Eventually, you manage to beat it, and such moments give me the highest level of satisfaction, make me feel like I really became much stronger than before.

 

In modern games, unfortunately, it is a rarity. The developers streamline everything, and you rarely can meet anything you cannot kill at this point no matter what: usually the developer believes than, whatever you can encounter, you should be able to kill. Witcher 3 was a nice exemption of this rule, but, unfortunately, the game had so many other flaws that it didn't hold me for long.

[Tchos]

So what I would like to see in modules I play is optional bosses available for fight very early but impossible to beat at that point. Then, as you get stronger, you return to fight the boss and fail again. Eventually, you manage to beat it, and such moments give me the highest level of satisfaction, make me feel like I really became much stronger than before.

 

I agree; I like that kind of progression, too.  And one important point about it is that it's optional, in that you can avoid it when you're too weak and come back later when you're stronger.  The other kind that I mentioned doesn't need to be a waste of time either if you can avoid the low level combat, or choose to engage and wipe them out easily.  I just don't want every encounter to be exactly matched to the party's abilities, because it essentially makes levels meaningless.

[Grani]

This person doesn't expect or want that.  That stinks of level scaling, and I hate level scaling.  I want progression, in that as I rise in power, I feel the effects of that power by common combat being easier, and only notable battles (named NPCs or bosses) presenting a real challenge.

 

I think I have a solution to the problem of level scaling taking away the feeling of progression.

I tend to have level-scaling from some point, but there's still a minimum level in a given area that the monsters will have.

So, let's say there's a forest with enemies at at least 8th level.

If you go there with a 3rd level toon, you'll get wrecked. If you go there with an 8th level toon, you'll be presented with a challenge. If you go there with a 12th level toon or even higher, the enemies will still be around your level, so the challenge will still be there.

 

So, in this case progression means more freedom of exploration. You won't be butchering through hordes of low-level enemies, but you'll gradually stop being afraid of every dark corner.

[Tchos]

It's not exactly what I prefer, but you can't please everyone.  It would be nicer if there were also a maximum as well as the minimum you propose, so that if you go back to a given level area at some point late in the game, the enemies there will be no match for you.  Enemies that once you avoided would now avoid you.

 

There are problems with that approach too, though.  Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning attempted ranged level-scaling with a minimum and maximum for zones based on the player level.  The only problem there was that combined with the extra XP from enemy respawning (which is hard to avoid sometimes, as they see you from a far distance), the world was also sufficiently large that I believe a typical player will outlevel even the maximum levels of entire zones before reaching them, based on my own experience.

 

I just prefer fixed level enemies.

[MayCaesar]

Well, in Dragon Age: Inquisition main story quests had a scaling range: for example, if the range was 8-12, then:

- At level below 8, you fight the enemies of level 8.

- At level between 8 and 12, you fight the enemies of your level.

- At level above 12, you fight the enemies of level 12.

This system worked well, in my opinion, for instanced-based quests there, but I don't think it would work really well for Neverwinter Nights, where you can leave a zone, level up a bit, then come back to it and notice that you haven't become any stronger.

 

I believe, in single player games scaling will always take away the feeling of progression, at least a bit. Let the levels be fixed, but let the player also go to higher level zones early on, where they would get destroyed, so when they return there later and get a chance at fighting the enemies, they will feel stronger than before.

 

 

To my taste though, the level gap in Neverwinter Nights is too big. For example, in Mass Effect 3 Shepard of level 25 would perform just a little bit better than Shepard of level 20. In Neverwinter Nights, however, a level 25 Fighter will simply destroy a level 20 Fighter, the latter having no chance whatsoever. In a level 23 zone of original campaigns difficulty, the former will do quite well, while the latter will keep dying all over.

So, perhaps, a partial scaling (like in Guild Wars 2) would work. For example, when you level up, the Goblin in the zone will level up with you, however he will take only 80% of HP points he would take by a regular level up, his damage won't change as much too, and so on. Such a system isn't easy to implement, but I think it would provide both the feeling of progression and, yet, not make a well leveled character into immortal god in lower level zones.

[Tchos]

In Neverwinter Nights, however, a level 25 Fighter will simply destroy a level 20 Fighter, the latter having no chance whatsoever.

 

This is a matter of how the levels are scaled.  Level 25 is well into epic levels.  An epic character should destroy any non-epic character, as they're essentially demigods.

[MayCaesar]

This is a matter of how the levels are scaled.  Level 25 is well into epic levels.  An epic character should destroy any non-epic character, as they're essentially demigods.

 

True, I might not have chosen the best example. But if we compare, say, level 15 Fighter to level 12 Fighter, the picture will be similar: the latter will be little more than a punching bag. In many other games the difference between levels is not as drastic as in D&D.

[Tchos]

Yes, but the games that immediately come to mind have levels that are scaled differently.  Where, for instance, the max level is 100 instead of 20-30.  In my games, epic levels aren't allowed, and you're expected to retire at level 20, rather than every adventurer going on to gain unimaginable power compared to mere mortals, so a difference of 1 level would be 5 times stronger in one of my D&D games compared to a game where the max level is 100.