I felt strongly enough about this subject to actually create an account just now so I could come here and post this message to the devs in a small hope they are reading.
It'll be a nice long ranty post most people won't even read other than devs. TLDR at the bottom :P
Quick background about me:
I've been gaming for 30 years, since Super Mario came out on NES. I've played tabletop D&D, all the fun D&D games over the years like Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights etc.. including all the Diablos 1, 2 & 3, and pretty much every major MMO release.
So when I heard about this game from a friend I was like hey that sounds right up my alley. I started the game out on Classic mode figuring I would just get a feel for the game and skills then move into Tactician mode as I usually play games on hard or very hard depending on the difficulties.
Classic mode was extremely easy. No challenge whatsoever. Enemies were doing stupid things, didn't seem to hit very hard and typically died in just a few hits. It didn't feel like much fun to play at all and I was looking forward to restarting in tactician mode. I don't think I lost a single party member in any fight and never needed a res scroll.
So I got to maybe level 6 or 7 or something and felt I was familiar enough with the game to go to tactician mode. The game took a huge change from Classic.
All of a sudden not only do enemies have completely ridiculous amounts of unrealistic health and armor ratings, they also do completely insane and stupid amounts of damage. Like one shotting my tank before he can even get to his turn.
I'm sorry guys but that's just complete garbage and BS. You need to have a justifiable reason for how the enemies have so much life, so much armor and do so much damage. You can't just give them more life 'because you said so'. If that Magister has 300 physical armor, he better drop gear with 300 physical armor when he dies. If he is doing 100 damage with a hit, he better be dropping a weapon that gave him that 100 damage.
I immediately got the feeling the only way people are going to win these fights are by using completely niche builds or exploiting stupid AI. In either case that doesn't make for a fun game at all.
I got through Fort Joy on tactician. A few fights were very difficult and I felt like I had to exploit your dumb AI to win. Like blocking the narrow passageway against that girl with the blood flowers and watching all of her followers say "UNGH" or "I'll get you" every turn while you pick em off at range.
Or starting the final battle on Fort Joy against Alexander by teleporting his winged friend to you, leading to a one turn kill. Then teleporting Alexander out to that lone high point out to the left watching the idiot slowly die to my totems.
I feel like I couldn't start out the fight after talking to him as you normally would. Why? Because the first time I talked to him one of his lackeys teleported behind my healer (funny how he instantly knows which on my healer is) and one shot her with a backstab for 400 life. Like wow.... OK............ that's not BS at all.
I beat the encounter on the second fight though using nothing but cheese garbage tactics and it wasn't fun at all.
Did I beat it?
Yes
Did I get any more rewards or loot because of tactician mode?
No
Was it fun?
No
And that's the whole point of games. Is to play them, have a challenge, get rewards and have fun. I'm really confused why there isn't more loot on these guys too. I mean it takes a huge investment on some of these fights of scrolls or potions and you have to keep up on gear upgrades for 4 players as gear is much stronger even just a couple levels higher.
You kill a Magister, who was wielding a weapon and in full armor. What is on his corpse?
Nothing? NOTHING? Why the flying FRACK does this guy have NOTHING? He had 200 armor and 150 spell armor, where the hell is his gear he was wearing? I WANT THAT GEAR! For a game that seems to be going for as much realism as possible every single character that wields armor and weapons should be dropping every piece of gear when he dies. My bags should be overflowing with riches after a fight. Not picking up one piddle squat scroll worth 20 gold and a pitch fork after defeating 5 Magisters.
Someone hit you for 200 damage? Where's his weapon when he dies? Like... seriously!? I want a weapon that does 200 damage per hit!
I thought things would get better getting off that island and going to the next area. Maybe now I can go out into the world and farm up some small encounters, steal some gold and get into good gear finally.
I stole a bit in driftwood, bought some new skills, some new weapons and armor for level 10. I think my characters are pretty damn well geared for level 10 too. My 2 handed tank having 500 life and 150 armor, my healer/cold wizard having 450 life and 315 armor.
But every single fight I get into the enemies are
A) all higher level (11-12)
B) Have twice any of my characters health and armor
C) Hit for 2-3 times the amount of damage I hit for
D) Drop next to nothing when I actually do kill them!
Like seriously guys? What the hell! Even if I do beat an encounters I think ... was that fun? And the answer every time is... NO it wasn't. I'd say every fight I've had and won since I got into driftwood I've had at least one party member die if not two. I'm plowing thru res scrolls.
I found a guy on a beach. He lost his ring. I found his ring. Voidwoken spawn. Oh crap... didn't see that one coming. Cool! A fight!
(Voidwoken goes first)
(Voidwoken teleports to my tank)
*Hit, 350 damage*
*Hit, 350 damage*
(Tank dies)
Are you seriously kidding me right now? Like is that a joke? First turn before I get to even act my tank takes 700 physical damage? What complete utter garbage and nonsense is this. The only way to beat these fights is to know the fights beforehand, prep for them, get into position, trigger the fight, then start with the upper hand as if you're a psychic. You can't just trigger the fights naturally by talking to people or picking things up. It feels wrong and unnatural.
So I'm stuck between this place of:
Classic mode:
Enemies are generally stupid, don't do much damage, game isn't challenging or fun but I could play it just to see the story.
or
Tactician mode:
Enemies use more combos which is cool, but now have 2-3 times your health, deal 2-3 times your damage, and the only way to beat every encounter is to play it first, die, learn the encounter, reload, then prep for the encounter cause the game is so fracking hard you can't just play it straight up. And then still after prepping for the fight having to use 1-2 res scrolls on EVERY encounter because for some godawful uknown reasons they get stupid crap like unlimited amounts of turns with Evasive Aura and still one shot your heroes.
Tactician mode feels completely imbalanced and needs balancing so it's still challenging and difficult, but fun and beatable at the same time.
TLDR:
Enemies do way too much damage (My 2H tank hits for 100 damage, why are enemies hitting him for 200-350 damage?)
Enemies have way too much unexplainable health. Level 12 skeletons with 850hp and 800 armor? vs. my level 10 health of 450 and 200 armor? LOLWUT?
Enemies need to drop WAY MORE LOOT. Especially on tactician mode or harder. If you defeat a human who had 600 armor and 350 spell armor, he better drop gear that adds up to 600 armor and 350 spell armor when he dies.
You should be able to beat every fight, straight up without knowing the fight, assuming you are well enough geared and intelligent. Not starting the fight after dialogue, losing a character on the first turn before they even get to act.
I understand tactician mode is supposed to be hard and challenging. But when a fight starts and your tank takes 700 damage (enough to overkill him by about 100 damage) before you even get a chance to take a turn, where are the tactics in that? The only tactic now is knowing the fight beforehand and cheesing your way to victory.
Oh also as a side note: Not allowing us to have multiple summons really pissed me off. Especially after watching some stupid dog summon a giant skeleton fighter, then a skeleton archer and then summons a bloated corpse which runs into me and blows up without removing his other summons. But I can't even have a bone widow up and an incarnate at the same time. That really ticked me off. I'd love to be able to summon a bloated corpse in combat and rush him into the enemies and have him explode without having it make my Incarnate disappear. That'd be just grand!
