Ridiculous Difficulty of Game -- What's the Point?

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Yes, but too much difficulty just makes a game terrible.

And different people want different difficulties.

I don't mind a game that's difficult in the least. But, the one thing I don't want to have to do is read the mind of the programmer. Where there's one way through, and you must conform to this single route in order to complete the game.

"Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines" was like this. There were a couple of missions that had 4 or 5 completely different routes, but most were a single route. Even Arcanum is like this, to a large degree; magic and explosives are incrediblely powerful compared to the firearms.

The whole idea behind "role-playing" is that you keep the routes open. And they must be WIDE open, as in 5 or 6 very different routes, as opposed to 1 or 2. Which means, you have to make a dynamic game; one that changes on you according to how well you are doing. And that is one dam tough algorithim to make.

I would have preferred IwD2 to be as serious a game as IwD1 was; but it's not. BIS noticed that everyone liked the humor in Baldur's Gate 2, and they tried to incorporate it into the game. That's not to say they did a bad job; it's just to say it makes it a completely different kind of game.

Bottom line: 3rd Edition is tough to get used to.

 

Most of the real 'tongue in cheek' type humor is in the prologue. The game is pretty serious subsequently.

There are different difficulty settings, so I'm not sure how much more you can ask in that regard.

All of the IE games have been linear, even PST. You can't really avoid that. However, I think that IWD2 is second only to PST in terms of the flexibility within the plot points. Sure, in the BGs you could do various things in a different order, but you really couldn't affect *how* you did most of the things. Most of the things you could affect were constrained by alignment. IWD2 has a pretty good number of encounters you can significantly affect through dialogue choices and other player decision. And not just "if good, pick A; if evil, pick B" stuff.

Aloha
Vormaerin

 

I do think the difficulty levels in this game are far more challenging that either IWD1 or BG2. Even the easiest setting, in some battles, is hard for me. Not that I enjoy "easy" games either....but maybe somewhere in the middle. NWN, in my opinion, was too far on the "easy" side.

I am enjoying the dialogue and the options available there. And, as Vormaerin noted, the humor of the Prologue has definitely been dropped, but, conversely, I think it should have been interspersed throughout the chapters....it goes a long way to moderating battle tensions.

 

I think the difficulty level would be dead on, except for the ridiculous spawning issues. For example, a solid tactical option (even recommended in the manual!) is to have your thief scout the area ahead of your party. Makes sense. However, 9 times out of 10 you can expect monsters to spawn behind you after you have detected enemies up ahead. It's really cheesy to see enemies spawning directly on top of your party when you've reached a trigger point up ahead with one character. Also, it can kind of defy logic if you've cleared out the area behind you room by room. Also, are there no random encounters except when you try to sleep!? I can walck back through 3 or 4 maps and encounter nothing! Seems to me that in IW and BG you could always count on random encounters. Granted, I'm only on the 3rd chapter, and maybe there's a good reason for enemies spawning on my head, and vast empty wastelands in my wake, but I don't think so.

 

I'm not a big fan of hack-and-slash (I hated, no, loathed Dungeon Siege), but I hafta say I like IWD2. Chaper 1 was a complete pain in the backside, butcha know what? I loved it. I think the difficulty of the chapter helps immerse you, as strange as it seems, and lets you know just where your characters stand: they're stronger than Joe Average, but if Joe gets enough friends together and you charge into 'em, you're going to get your ass kicked. Also, it just seemed so...I dunno...militaryish. Behind enemy lines, semi-covert ops. And the battle outside the Legion's fortress is great: it seems like you're completely screwed, but eventually you come out on top. Not to mention, you have tactical objectives, namely the drums, and you can't just set up camp in front of the gates 'cause you'll be attacked, and, and...right, sorry, got carried away. I like Chapter 1

Right...what was this topic about again?

 

I figure I'm an average level gamer, and I agree that NWN was too easy. BG2 seemed about right on normal setting, challenging.

IWD2 seems more difficult than any previous IE game (again, on normal setting). When my wife and I found it too frustrating, we've dropped the difficulty down to easy to get by a battle or two, but I kinda like the challenge.

I loved NWN, but it was a walk in the park.

 

Nice thread, and a lot of helpful advice, but I think The original post has a lot of merit. The difficulty level in IWD *IS* in *many* places absolutely ridiculous - and beyond.

And no, I don't consider myself an "average" player, I've been playing pen&paper D&D for probably as long as some posters ghere are old and computer D&D (AD&D, whatever since a game called "Pool of Radiance", I think in 1989...

The point that I keep saying to myself: The designers of IWD2, were they to be the DM in our rpg group and sit on the same table as their players, they would NOT leave the room with all limbs attached. No way.

When designing a rpg the first question when balancing ahould be "would I get away with this in pen & paper?". IWD2 completely *kills* the rpg feeling by abusing the reload game feature in an obscene and ridiculous manner.

Starting around chapter 3 or 4, about once in 5 minutes, there is a fight that CANNOT be done in the first attempt. A fight that will REQUIRE to reload, rest up, buff the party to an INSANE level and exploit the AI limitations to a completely silly extent.

There is no reload feature in roleplaying. The major POINT is that you live with your decisions, try to divide your resources in a thoughtful and skilled way and NOT to rest all 3 steps and enter EVERY fight with a full 8 rounds of buff spells to cast... The reload feature in cRPGs should be an emergency exit, something to use after one REALLY botched up (like, running with few hitpoints and almost no spells left into an encounter that could be seen coming!) and not something that is REQUIRED to solve half of the puzzles (like that f***ingly stupid 8 chambers of the insane jerk quest) or survive every 3rd fight.

Enemies that can only be killed, with an insanely equipped and obscenely buffed party AFTER 8 RELOADS (the silly temple guardian), because the only way to win is to have the "dice" roll in one's favour *murder* all kind of strategy. And fun.

Also, one very important rule of thumb when DMing a real group of players is to NOT make them feel like complete idiots. When I'm facing "run-of-the mill-enemies" (unnamed ones that exist in dozens) where a SINGLE ONE kills one of my incredibly equipped level 16 fighters FASTER than MY ENTIRE GROUP kills one of them them, I feel laughed at, not challenged...
Especially, when they ignore the rules. How else can some freaking Knight of #*%§$ Xvim do 3 times the damage that my Paladin with str enhancings, +5 holy avenger and holy power does???

Also, something VERY true has been stated in this thread, but I think in the wrong direction. Yep, it IS hard to adapt to 3rd edition. It's something I already noticed in NWN (esp. the user made mods). The designer HAVEN'T adapted yet. Most have NO idea how severly some things have changed.
Seems most plainly don't realize, that enemy casters for instance have about tripled in threat level, as there is almost NO way to prevent them from casting (especially mr and ms evercast with no skill points anywhere but concentration...). Also, it doesn't really help that THEY will cast their spells into the mellee, which the player can't...

Frankly, I'd really love to give the IWD players some reality lessons in our sunday night rpg group. IF they survive the attempt, they might learn how to make a better ROLEPLAYING game. What they made is a game of hack and slash and hit reload... not my idea of fun. A pity, as the game is great in many other aspects.

And the thing with monsters spawning on top of the party is something I LOATHED in NWN already...

Oh well... at least this'll keep me from ever abandoning my pen & paper group for computer roLLplaying...

 

At first I thought that battle difficulty was tied to whether or not a player used ALL the tools at his/her disposal (appropriate weapons, potions, spells, etc.).....that if, in fact, you had some special item in inventory that you should be using and weren't, you were penalized and the battle injuries would be far worse (i.e. quick death)...rather then if just normal weapons were used or an error in strategy occurred. I have seen that association in some games, but not here.
In some scenarios in this game, I have used every conceivable weapon at my disposal at a level that should do the job....and it doesn't. It almost gives me the impressions that the battles are blood for blood's sake.

 

Its definitely hard. However, I very much think that it is tactics that make the difference here. In the BG series (and 2e games in general), the saving throw situation was ludicrous. Any spell that relied on a save was worthless. That is manifestly not true now. I routinely use crowd control spells that never saw the light of day in BG2. Not to mention attack spells like Feeblemind.

In IWD2, it is important to keep your fighters in fluid positions, because if several bad guys start wailing on one PC that PC is going down. You need to keep those tag teams from happening if possible and learn how to break them up if they do. In BG, you would just toss some healing on your guys in situ. Not a good plan in IWD2.

I found the game very hard at first, but eventually I started realising how different things actually work under the new rules.

 

I'm not sure I agree with your assessment of the relationship of tactics vs. rule edition. I, too, used crowd control spells with more effectiveness here than in BG2 - but they were also more effective in NWN as well. Same with the effectiveness of potions in battle - not to be relied on here, but quite effective in the other two games. So what, indeed, is a "new rule strategem"? Maybe we need to make a list?

 

Well, the crowd control stuff is due to the new rules on how saving throws are managed. High level characters in 2e had all but automatic saves in all categories. That is not true anymore.

Potions, however, are different. I am sure that if IWD2 had potions of Cure Critical and Heal rather than just Light/Moderate/Serious wounds, it would be hugely different.

 

The game is a lot harder on HoF mode (goblins can kill 2 lv16 fighters) and you get the same items as in the normal mode only improved (check out the merchent in chapter 1). But the game just sucks. Potions are more then useless, and there's no way you can finish it without lv9 spells, furthermore all other spells just don't do good enough damage (2 deleyed blast fire balls + horrid whilting and they are no more then hurt). Don't really see the point of it but what the hell it's not like I have anything better to do

 

Even though the battles are more difficult, the further I get in the game, the more I find myself enjoying it -- the dialogue is truly exceptional and the visuals are really quite fine as well....and it's nice to visit familiar places that you've been to before. I seem to be doing better in the battles, having changed my strategy a bit from earlier in the game....plus we're also gaining levels, which is definitely making a difference. I do think that the difficulty issue is annoying, particularly at lower levels, and, imo, detracts somewhat from the game's playability, but there's so many other pluses....that the game can still be a lot of fun to play.

 

Chapter 1 was really hard (low level characters combined with steep tactical 'relearning' curve). But I found the rest of the game to be a reasonable level of challenge.

 

An interesting question that I'd like to ask: how many of you do regularly play pen & paper D&D, AD&D or even D&D 3rd edition? Even more so, how many here have experience *DMing* 2nd and 3rd edition?

Because, frankly, I feel pretty silly being the only one it seems who thinks that the game balance in EARLY chapters is PERFECT while being completely LUDICROUS at high levels. Everyone else seems to think the first chapters to be tough while the later chapters supposedly get easier.

The explanation, I think, is because the early levels favour the P&P like playing style, while the latter are tailored *exclusively* for merciless 100% computer powergaming.

I LOVED chapter 1, especially the high *difficulty* level there. All fights in the beginning are extremely well balanced to be really "on the edge".

BUT: For level 1 characters it doesn't matter much, how well rested and how well prepared you enter a battle. Simply because it makes hardly a difference. A mage has one sleep spell and one chromatic orb, the most powerful buff available is a bless spell and one potion or spell of CLW will usually bring a char to full hp.
The low level fights are all about positioning, careful moving and trying to make the most out of extremely limited resources. EXCELLENT done in IWD2. After the battle of the palisade, I had literally used up the VERY last of my iron rations, thrown the last burning potion and 3 of 6 characters were deep red. But all lived and the fight was done. In the first attempt. Loved it!

The later fights all work like this: Pretty healthy, but not entirely fresh party (after a fight or two) is exploring, happens upon a group of ludicrously powered-up enemies and gets their butts handed over on a platter. Reload. Cast buff spells for about 3 minutes. Ridiculously powered up party hands butts to enemies.

Am I really the only one who gets little to no enjoyment out of this cheesy method???

A fight where I have to reload has completely lost it's edge (and meaning, at least to me). I KNOW where it happens. WHEN it happens. I know what enemies will be there, how they will act, what resistances they have what spells they will use and even more. In pen & paper I'd see no point whatsoever to have a fight like that. Looking into the DM's notes is cheating!

But all the later fights are balanced that way. When EACH SINGLE enemy is more powerful (stat-wise) than the corresponding character, how else could it be? A slayer Knight of Xvim, I'd estimate, corresponds roughly to a level 22-25 Fighter or Paladin. They do damage that the chars will not even do fully buffed and have resistances that fully equipped and insanely buffed chars *might* have. Yet they exist in DOZENS, accompanied by more of the same...

The correct "tactic" for the later game is maximum cheesy powergaming, as far removed from "real" D&D as possible. Call me old-fashioned, but I prefer the "feel" of the pen & paper setting. In IWD one could code a makro for all the boring chores of casting the daily (hourly? 10-minutely?) buff orgy. And where'd the point in that...?

 

I have to agree with Armin, I thought that the challenge in the prologue and chapter 1 was great. I had to reload my first fight with Phaen, but that was about it until we got outside the horde fortress, then it got interesting for a time. But by chapter 2 the game had gotten much easier. Pretty much my fights consisted of my barb and monk, usually with just bull strength cast upon them, kicking the crude out of all comers while the rest of my crew used them for target practice. Some fights that I figured would be tough were easy as heck, and others that I thought would be a snap I had to reload multiple times.

For example, the iron golems under the monastery, wiping out the monks, wiping out the duergar in the guard post after getting the reward for killing the monks, and the beast lord guy with the 4 mages, 8 bears, and 6 hunters. Those fights were way too easy, even without buff spells (although they did help in the golem fight).

Some fights were much tougher than I thought they would be, like the Remorhaz Queen and the fight with Lysara after entering via the backdoor into the Abishia (?) room, took me 3 or four tries before I could do it without losing a character. Crude, she only had a few priests and barbs with her and darn if half my party did get held or charmed. Then the darn beasts woke up after Lysara when down and tried to wipe me out as well… Oh well, I got through it with the right combo of tactics and the rest of the fights in the temple were a snap.

I have not made it to chapter 5 yet, but it seems like I am going to be living in my stoneskin and improved haste spells… That is kind of a bummer… But, the game is great and so far it has not been too hard. I can’t wait to finish it so that I can go through on HoF mode.

 

Well, I have to disagree with this premise. I thought chapter one was pretty hard. The fight sequences were stacked very close upon each other and each one was individually capable of wearing out the party's healing capabilities. Thus, you had to pull back and rest an unreasonable amount of times relative to the supposed story. What? No one noticed you cleaned out the bridges? Or that Gark was dead? The orc camp never realized that yesterday all the goblins were slaughtered in the next chamber? Chapter 1 is pure CRPG design and would be utterly ridiculous in p&p. Now, this is a CRPG, so that's fine.

For the later chapters, I don't see this issue. Maybe you play 'wander around, get spanked, reload and buff', but that isn't required. I don't play that way. Buffs that last hours I keep up, but otherwise they have to cast in combat or after I have scouted out an upcoming fight. The later chapters have a mix of routine and tough fights.

This change in relative difficulty is exactly what is described in the DMG/PHB on how parties work. Low level ones can only handle one or two fights between rests, while high level parties can go much further.

 

I agree with Vormaerin on the difficulty issue. The earlier battles seemed to be far more difficult and require much more preparation than what I'm seeing in the later chapters. I'm in Chapter 5 now and have stopped using all preventive potions and spells....we just go in and hack away, my mage throws maybe a fireball or two and a missile...and it's over in very short order. What I particularly enjoy is when we're surrounded by hordes of undead, grossly outnumbered, and my cleric goes into his undead routine....they all drop like flies instantly! -- battle over...in seconds! I'm sure there will be tough battles ahead, but so far, nothing like what I saw in the earlier chapters.

 

Ok, I just want to set the record straight here about the "Eight Chambers of Cheese". It was HORRENDOUSLY easy. How you ask? Well the first 7 chambers left me staring at my screen in astonishment at how pathetic it was. I have a pure monk, maybe that is why I found it quite easy. Let's face it people, it is a MONASTARY, you are trying to become an associate to a bunch of MONKS, and you must do the challenges WITHOUT LOOT ON. Took me all of about 6 seconds to figure out monk was best candidate. Now the last chamber I admit had me a bit miffed. But after a few tries I went in with wizard, and watched with glee as my animated dead shredded the brass monks while the wizard fled in circles from flames. Just wanted to vent at the apparent stupidity of my fellow gamers.
Alot of the "challenges" in this, they practically bludgeon you with hints. Like the door in dragons eye??? Come on people, he "heard a scream" right before it opened... I find that by holding alt, reveals all lootable/openable chests, doors, switches what have you. Just have to learn to use your brains a bit. I wholeheartedly agree on the needing to buff up your party for many of the fights in this is more than slightly gay.

Dan

[ September 27, 2002, 01:36: Message edited by: Lord Nad ]

 

Uh, get a clue, okay? Not everyone can be expected to have a monk in their party and not having one makes the monastery challenges rather more difficult. That has nothing to do with stupidity. Similarly, the example you gave about dragon's eye highlights only that you have no clue. The knob you need to turn to open the prison door neither shows up when clicking on the rack itself, nor when you use the alt button. It can only be found by carefully moving your mouse around the rack until you notice the double arrow symbol. That isn't player stupidity, that's bad game design.

[ September 27, 2002, 03:01: Message edited by: Vormaerin ]