First of all, I want to say I appreciate the work you've done and time you spent on making and posting these video's very much. There is no better way to show your point. Great job.
It's a lot to go through however, and from the start I was especially curious to see you handle the Githyanki patrol in chapter 1. This is one of the hardest encounters in the first part IMO, because, if they got the initiativeI had at least one member down before I even had the chance to act. When I found the clip, your PC was already much more powerful than I would imagine. Where did you get these spears from that do so much damage ? Even La'zel whacking with the everburning sword didn't do so much damage in my plays. And I searched all of the surface, even Ethel's place before facing the Githyanki... And then.... picking up a guy in armor and throwing from the scaffold. Really ? Yea well the game allows it, but really ? And then complain that it's not hard enough ? I think we can consider this a bug also, unless you drank a hill giant strength potion.
So I tried to backup in time to find out where you got these weapons and armor from and that's where things get difficult as it's very hard to trace back these kinds of things. However, I came upon the fight in the marshes against the mud mephits. Your PC jumped on a rock and none of the mephits nor Wood Woads could reach him. They just hung there while Astarion shot them down one after the other. That's clearly a bug you were abusing, right ? And how did you know that on that particular stone you'd be safe. So yea I think that there was some cheesiness involved here. Why didn't you descend from that rock and fight them in earnest to really measure the difficulty of the fight ?
I started my 2nd PT about 3 weeks ago, and when I came in this spot, I wanted to check this thing out and it was impossible for me to jump on that stone, so it looks like that bug was repaired meanwhile.
Please don't take this comment wrong. You showed in all honesty how the game becomes too easy. It's not an easy task to watch it completely , though I would really like to know how in the seven hells you got 32 AC, and it is difficult to skip and find the parts that show exactly where you got your power. But it does look like you made use of foreknowledge of bugs and weaknesses of the game, right ? So a new level of difficulty won't help much, unless these bugs and weaknesses are eliminated first. Like the mephit scene would just have taken maybe twice as long to shoot them all down from that unassailable rock if there was a hard level where they had intrinsically twice as many HP and higher AC and could do more damage, but still couldn't reach you anyway.
This kind of sounds like, "I see you can beat it using your tactics, but can you beat it using my tactics?"
Regarding the Mud Mephits, for instance, using the terrain effectively isn't a bug. It's being smart about how you're engaging the enemy. Also, it's not a bug. If you couldn't get on that stone, it was probably because your strength was too low. I occasionally have characters misty step there during that fight. Not always, but sometimes.
A big part of the game (from a tactical point of view) is reading what the equipment does and figuring out how to use it effectively. Some things synergize well. I would say that's more paying attention than relying on exploits and bugs.
I did not intend it to sound like that, but on retroespect, I think your conclusion is not wrong. I'd rephrase it maybe as, "I see you can beat it using your tactics and you find it no fun anymore, but can you have fun again using other tactics ?" (not necessarily mine.) The game offers different solutions to the different challenges. If combat is your preferred one, I understand you prefer to stick with it. I hope Larian will provide a satisfactory combat difficulty in the future for the many who request it . Personally I would like them to provide more camp-scene cutscenes and a rewrite of some parts of the story to remove inconsistensies and gaps. I don't suppose I'll get that. Maybe it's because the game is so rich and so good that we want it to be perfect for us.
