Larian Studios Forums Divine Divinity (English) General Difficulty level question.

I buy the game, and do my standard 'play-on-highest-difficulty' setting. Pick a sword-and-shield tank, and off I go. Get to the first real boss, I think on level 2 of the Catacombs--and die. And again. And again, and again, and again... Eventually, I determine that the bosses--*all* of them--kill you in one or two hits, and hit you about 3 out of every 4 attacks. In addition, you have to hit them approximately five billion times to kill them.

Hrm.

I eventually figure out I can use a bow and hit-and-run tactics to take out the bosses. Fair enough. I restart, play a pure archer (and also clean up some bad skillpicks in the process). Hardest setting again. Doing fine, actually enjoying the mobility factor. Then I discover that around level 4 of the Catacombs, you start meeting 'Boss' monsters every few minutes. So now I'm spending more time doing shoot-and-runs--and quick-loads when I let the boss get too close and it kills me--than I am just playing the game. And then I find another nasty surprise: ranged boss monsters with all the above slay-instantly abilities--and they attack at range!

Ok, I give up. I've just finished the Catacombs, but I want to enjoy this game my first time through, not feel like I've just run a few dozen marathons of hit-and-runs to plod through the game. I go into 'Options', and change the Difficulty setting to Normal. Only, it seems to have had little to no effect. I still get killed in one or two hits, and maybe now the bosses only need 2 million hits instead of five billion to take down.

So, my question is sort of a two-parter:

1) Is this what I have to 'look forward' to throughout the game, even on 'normal' Difficulty? Bosses that are so impossibly difficult that I have to either shoot-and-run or use some other cheese tactic for *every single one of them*--or have to use up about a dozen or more potions per fight, practically alternating between attack-drink-attack-drink-attack-drink...

2) Or is it perhaps that I have to *start* a game on Normal difficulty to avoid the cheesy boss-kills-you-instantly effect, and in-game difficulty settings are lesser alterations? (Kind of like going from 'A little Hard' to 'Hard' to 'You idiot.' : ) --Admittedly, I could find this out myself, but that would involve starting over again at 'normal' difficulty, running through the town and the first level of the dungeon again, to reach the second level and a boss monster--which would take a few hours, and I've already done it four times. I will if I have to, but I thought I'd check here first.

Thanks in advance.

The hard difficulty is definitely hard. That's why the bosses kill you in one or two shots. That is also why, as the tips suggest (those tips that appear when you load and save), you should go elsewhere before coming back. In this case, you should probably go outside of Aleroth into the woods and kill a few orcs. They're relatively easy and give a buttload more experience than wussy skeletons. You can get to 10th, 11th level easily by killing most of the orcs around town. Some of the boss orcs are a bit more difficult (Wardrummers), but just run away from them and keep killing the regular orcs. By the time you're ready to go back to the Catacombs, you'll find that the "bosses" are a lot easier.

Hope this helps!

Rose's advice is good.If you can't shake the orcs or the drummer run back to town and let Seth kill them! You won't get the exp. points but you'll get the stuff they drop.Buy better weapons and armor too.

Once you get Bow Expertise up a couple levels (for a faster attack) and your agility up enough to use better bows and raise your offense / defense, things will be much easier and require much less run in the hit-and-run tactic.

True Shot is broke, but Splitting Arrows (mobs), Poisoned Arrows (all) or Explosive Arrows (area effect, I think) will make things easier.

As a survivor ranger on hard, I had to use a scorpion for the skeleton boss that shoots fireballs when opening 1 of the 4 tombs in the catacombs (made sure I got the last hit in for the experience points). If I stopped long enough to shoot at him, he would get a shot at me; I could kill him in a hundred(?) hits, he could kill me in two.

i was gettuing verry frustrating in the beginning of the game also.
1 hit and i was dead!.
i'm always playing as a warriar. (in hard mode)
butr this time i was forced to taker some skill pointq in meteor strike...

after the frustrating leveling u p. i founded whan you reach about level 16-17 your worst problems are over.
and the game becoms more enjoyable.
but when you rrach a too high level. the game becomes Too easy again <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />

soo just be a little bit patient.
you gonna love the rest of the game!

Ha! I note a certain sense of...sarcasm...there. Probably deserved. : )

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Hrmf. In all honesty, it had just never occured to me to leave the town until after the Catacombs. After all, when you try, some soldier guy pushes you back in saying 'Don't do it, you'll die! Get the healers!' and the healers go 'Not leaving till our leader is cured, so git into the Catacombs!' and everyone's saying 'Do {this} and {that} to get into the Catacombs', but no one's saying leave town.

Anyways, enough excuses. I am going out tonight, so I shall try the orcs tomorrow morning. Thanks for the advice, all!

juts make sure a whole bunch of those don't come, u'llbe doin' a bunch of fightin' then so watch out.

Who to the whatsis now?

Broke, as in, doesn't help? At all? Gah? Can someone confirm (or, hopefully, deny: ) this?

Bah. That was one of the reasons why I took the archer type...: (

feel confirmed IndyPendant.

See [i]Game still buggy, when do the next patch come?[/i] There was additional info in the old forum....

If you put any points into True Shot, you can use iZakaroN's SaveEditor to remove them.

here's maps of the dungeons of Aleroth.
Aye, it was a very tricky one.....
and might I add...[color:"yellow"] major spoiler!!


Aleroth Dungeons Spoilers

especially on hard

Ok, I'm a little confused. I could experiment myself, but it seems to me that the synopsis is either:

1) None of the Damage-Increasing skills actually add the damage they say they do, or

2) They all work fine--and the bonus just doesn't show up on the Attributes tab, or

3) Some of the skills (like Axe Expertise) do work but don't show up on the Attributes tab, while others (like True Shot) don't work at all.

So which is it? Was this decided for certain? I note that the last post on the 'Game still buggy' thread was about six weeks ago. Any new info since then?

Oh, and not that I'm doubting anyone's word btw; just that I may want to restart now and fight through the orcs as well as the Catacombs--and I want to know if I would, for example, be wasting skill points by taking Axe Expertise.

Before the 1.33/1.34 patch, the weapon expertise skills with a fixed damage bonus range were broke (any speed bonus, etc. was applied, but not the damage), as was True Shot.

With the 1.33/1.34 patch, the weapon expertise skills were fixed, but True Shot was not.

Some (most/all?) of the skill bonus damage is not be displayed in the character stats pane since it may be randomly applied, and when applied it may be partially or completely resisted.

Axe Expertise works fine, though after the catacombs there are more (and more powerful) swords consistently in the game.

Swords are really the way to go if , you want an easier time battling,

i think i'm gonna try a mage...first time ever.. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" />...ever <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" /> tonite....and use all the tips i got here.

wow! Mage? way to go Jurak, and nice new pic!!! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/up.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/up.gif" alt="" />

Sigh...ok, thanks all. I've restarted, this time going with a Sword-and-Shield tank (bye bye, Archer...: (--and discovered that the 'Escort the Healers' quest had a 10-day limit. Sigh. Restart. Again.

This Diablo II knockoff has some good play potential--I'm certainly enjoying myself--but I must admit to being somewhat perplexed as to how it can still be so buggy that some of the skills are totally broken, and you can fail some of the quests without even realizing it, because there's *nothing* in the game to tell you so. And after, what? A year? 2 years?--since release.

Still fun enough to continue playing though.

Have fun!

Actually, the the escort for the healers quest is not timed, as originally thought, though doing the quest sooner rather than latter will help ensure its completion.
Kiya found that reporting to Ralph about either the Ducal murderer (Cybu) or exposing Elrath will break the escort quest (the healers move, and if the two soldiers weren't healed by then, those quests are also broken).