Keep in mind this is the perspective of someone who was not in betas. I am a new player to the game, like many are now, and I believe coming at this from fresh eyes is important, because the game has a level of tedium and difficulty that will be insurmountable to all but those who are willing to do internet research, constant trial and error, and in general waste a lot more time than the average player would want to. Here is my story thus far.

It's worth noting that I have recently played Wasteland 2 (arizona only of course), Banner Saga, Watch dogs, Wolfenstein, Stick of truth, and a couple others... And that was just in June. I am a gamer. I am both very competent and at the same time I have no time for nonsense, because there's lots of fish in the ocean.

The first thing that went wrong in the game is the slow movement coupled with the constant backtracking around Cyseal in order to do somewhat boring (storywise) quests with little to no action involved. This got old quickly, and if it hadn't, it would have gotten old slowly because it takes a while.

Eventually I got out into the combat world, got to level 5, and then came across some astoundingly difficult fights. Now I realize you can cheese fights. I realize if you are a beta player you know what combos to do, how to cheese things, how to munchkin it up. I do not. Nor, from what I've read, does my party even have the makeup to effectively do any of this.

So my party of 4 first ran into trouble trying to get past a huge amount of mobs on the way to the northern cave tunnel. I only lost one character in this battle, but it was very difficult, and took I think like 20 minutes just to complete.

The robot was easy to defeat, despite the universal controller not working at all. And I tried every useful command.

The second problem, and the one that inspired me to write here, was the fight with Dietmar and his 7 thugs. Or was it 6. I don't care, it was too many. On my second attempt, I thought if I killed him quickly, the rest would scatter. No such luck. 7 vs my 4, everyone equal level. Crowd control effects sticking to my chars at a ratio of 2:1 vs what they were affected with.

There was really no way, without a lot of luck, after 3 tries, I was going to win this fight. I was beaten. I often opt to play in easy mode in games, especially those that I don't like other aspects of. But I like the PREMISE of the combat in DOS, and I wanted to stay on normal. I was forced to lower the difficulty and feel like a total loser. Thank you for that.

What was most frustrating is the weird environmental effects, the completely arbitrary splash damage on spells that are otherwise single-target, and the friendly fire issues. My ranger was often stunning HERSELF BY FIRING AN ARROW AT A CLOSE RANGE ENEMY, YET NOT STUNNING HIM. Every little puddle ended up electrifying whoever happened to be standing in it, and wasting points moving, just to take attacks of opportunity was even more punishing.

I feel my party is weak, I feel my characters are weak. By level 5 they've been given the most paltry of skill and attribute points to work with. I have played for what seems 20 hours already, maybe it's less than that, and we are only level 5.

So it's on easy now, but by forcing someone like me, who should have no problems with this (ToEE, BG, Icewind, etc games) to lower difficulty, you simply cannot consider the game top-notch. Combat shouldn't be about cheese to win, or X abilities are all better than Y abilities.

Keep in mind, the game has lots of good aspects, but I see very little criticism along these lines, so I feel it has to get out there.

Everything you wrote was common feedback during beta. We pretty much were agreeing that Cyseal is a really slow game start, like.. there should have been a huge start dungeon (or guild) or wilderness area before Cyseal to get you up to snuff that taught you about source hunters, their guild and all that (and give you 2 levels more than you have now in Cyseal). But it was made and scripted and done, there was no way to change that anymore... the tutorial dungeon we have now was the concession Larian made to us

Then cyseal got larger because schedules were supposed to be coming and so everyone needed a bed and what not, and last minute they were canceled, but cyseal was larger all the same. All I can say is, once you are out of cyseal and level 7, the game becomes much much more fun.

As for archer.. that's true (and very weird) sometimes things that show no AOE have AOE... as for difficulty.. the tutorial dungeon teaches you to use barrels, environmental effects and scrolls. And if you buy a bunch of fireball scrolls no fight in this game (at the start) is hard. In every RPG ever made you have to stock up before battle (And funnily, steal the start location empty ,P)

Now don't get me wrong, some early fights in this game if you don't know the ins and out of the combat system are insanely hard The Twin Fire guy? That was even hard for me, and I played in the alpha and beta, it's like a puzzle to kill these guys. I actually love that in RPG's... not everyone does though.

Just because you are a "gamer" doesn't mean all games will appeal, but I feel strategy RPG players are going to have an easier time coming into D:OS than gamers from say a WOW background.

Anyways here are some pointers:

- there is an optimal progression if you don't want to face enemies higher in level than you. If you are just starting out its better to follow this progression. I recommend clearing the immediate area around Cyseal first before taking on Dietmar because it's just going to go get harder from there

- you will be outnumbered often. Strategy lies in figuring out which target is priority and start the fight from that target

- environmental effects and friendly fire are part of the battlefield hazards. You will have to learn them. There is bit of learning by trial and error. If that doesn't appeal to you then you will have a hard time with this game unless you follow a guide

This game doesn't hold your hand and won't hold your hand. It's not a style that appeals to everyone these days

I love challenge.

Pardon me, but your argument seems to be that when you are a player with limited understanding of how the game mechanics work and thus don't make effective characters the first time around, which is entirely understandable and can happen for any new player regardless of his previous CRPG experience, you feel like a loser for occasionally enabling an easy difficulty setting because you feel that somehow this makes mock of your ability at the genre from playing other games in the past?

Why on earth would you feel that rather than considering this a valuable learning experience and spurring you on to either a) develop your characters stats so they'd be able to handle these sort of things without your changing tactics, or b) develop your tactical skills as pertinent to the game?

Do you really want to play CRPGs where you, when you've got inadequate knowledge and have a party that for whatever reason significantly underperforms, don't face any challenge when playing it at the normal difficulty setting?

Combat isn't about cheese to win on normal. It is about tactics and being the right level to take on the challenge.

Like you, I have been playing CRPGs for the longest time (in my case going back to Temple of Apshai and later on Might and Magic, Bard's Tale, and the Ultimas, and like you I have no beta knowledge to rely on, but everything that is needed to perform well is clearly understandable in-game, so even as my level 6 party can laugh at how poor I was at using the tactical avenues available to me at level 4 due to lack of experience and my level 10 party can laugh at how my level 6 party didn't get anywhere near the power out of the tools it had available at the time, I've had few problems. (Apart from taking on Braccus Rex too early. THAT was a clear sign to earn a level or two and then return.)

Which brings up the question of whether you'd have been better off waiting with taking on that particular challenge in the first place rather than sticking at it.

My party was level 6 when facing Dietmar and afterwards going for Evelyn's secret lair, which means my characters will have been significantly more powerful than they were at level 5. Have you fulfilled all the side quests in Cysael? Have you killed all the undead in the lowlevel areas (basically, the undead west and north of Cysael). How about the watcher statues? There are so many ways to get XP that you shouldn't have to face Dietmar & Co. at level 5. You could even go kill a few of the level 6 Orcs on the Orc beach, as they come in fewer numbers than the large number of pirates with Dietmar.

There's a lot of XP out there just waiting to be gotten, and Dietmar and what follows in that area is something that should definitely not be attempted early in the game unless you want a real challenge, it is something for when you are done with most of Crysael and environments.

(And have sharpened your weapons and improved your armour, have stocked up on healing potions, and so on and so forth. When you go to that area you are heading to the resolution of some major questlines, and that's when the going gets tough.)

<applause>

Simple question. If you feel like a "loser" for turning difficulty to Easy, why would the developer reducing the Normal difficulty to Easy make you feel like any less of a loser? The same thing will have happened.

I've never understood this argument. "It's too hard, but I refuse to turn down the difficulty...change the game".

All games should just change the names of their default difficulty settings. Instead of Easy - Normal - Hard, just name them Normal - Advanced - Hard. Then we no longer have to worry injuring the egos of the emotionally unstable via the use of the word easy.

There's no shame in playing on Easy. Different games are more or less difficult for different people. Expecting every game's "Normal" to be set to your personal skill level is insane.

The main problem right now seems to me that you seem to need a mage (especially on hard which is what I'm playing at now after a bug forced me to restart). Hell, he doesn't even need to do damage, I just need someone to constantly readjust the battlefield to my advantage and heal my rogue so she can clear enemies.

Regarding moving around: It feels a bit weird, but stop walking so much. Teleport all the time. You have a button to teleport from anywhere. Do it. Those portals you can port to are everywhere.

I killed Dietmar on normal with a party of 2 (Kinght and Wizard) at level 5 without Lone Wolf perk!

Well, I had to flee the fight once... but I managed to kill them!

I found the Dietmar fight to be rather a steamroll. I regard the fight outside the cave and the Evelyn fight as difficult. I actually raised the difficulty to hard after the Dietmar fight, and then beat Evely in third try. Losing my main to things that explode in the first tries, I still dont get that. But managed to only lose my cleric henchie last time while staying away from thins that explode. Which then decided not to explode actually, don't know why.

I am making progress now on hard, using potions and scrolls and crafting and spending my money on skills. I'll lower the setting if it gets too hard.

I have a twohanded knight (main). A ranger/rogue, a fire/geo wizard and a shield fighter turned Cleric.

They actually made the fight with Evelyn much easier then it was in the last version of Beta.


It ended in two turns for me.

Dietmar who?


The point is that there are so many things you can use to your advantage that difficulty is currently only based on how well the players understand the numerous options they actually have.

And how well are they synergizing their team skills and abilities tactically.


Of course, nobody can convince a player who expects to breeze through on the first play that the fault isnt in the game.

Especially after something as laughable as Wasteland beta, which has difficulty that toddlers would laugh at.

Hold on here. In CRPGs you're not generally expected to know the mechanics when you start out. Normal mode is usually scaled such that a non mix-max party will have a pretty good chance at winning any giving encounter. As the game goes on, difficult ramps up. If you're played cRPGs before, normal mode shouldn't be a frustrating experience with a good difficulty curve.

I'm a long time cRPG player and some of the early fights are downright unfair. IE you have pretty much zero chance of winning them the first time through even if you understand the mechanics pretty well. Normal mode is what I'd expect for late game fights or difficult settings. You're tossed right into the deep end and expected to swim.

I enjoy a tactical challenge, but they're going to lose a lot of players with the difficulty curve in this game.

Not really. You are actually supposed to learn the mechanics and the system and the eco system of the game as you play it for the first time and then play it all over a few times.

As you do so the difficulty actually ramps down.



No, they are elucidating.


thats an oxymoron statement.







best seller on steam for how many days now?

It's not very difficult, though. Anyone who has played as many games as the OP claims to have should've easily been able to understand how to make an invincible party from the moment they started creating their characters. You want damage, crowd control, healing, and summons. Pick a mage with water, air, and earth magic and pick healing/spider/teleport, at least that's the first thing I did, and I never played beta.

The only fight I had any trouble with was the aforementioned fight at the cave, with the 3 boars and zombies and skeletons and such, as the archers would chain-cc my guys to death at the start of the fight, but I got around that by just summoning summons in their faces so they'd CC them instead. Could've bought a fireball spell to clear out all of them, but it wasn't necessary.

I can understand someone who has never played any games like this having a lot of issues, but not someone like the OP, unless they're going out of their way to make things harder for themselves in order to complain about it, instead of trying to find solutions to their problems.

Even a mageless team can just buy scrolls to get through the hardest fights early-game, which was the first thing I did after losing to the boarfight the first time, though it turned out I didn't end up needing them.

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on what is reasonable on normal difficulty, Brian Wright.

I expect normal difficulty to be the level at which players who are not expert but competent at the game have a fun and slightly challenging experience, hard to be the difficulty where experts have a fun and slightly challenging experience, and easy to be the difficulty where rookies have a fun and slightly challenging experience.

Thus when a rookie - even one who is a veteran of the genre - plays on normal difficulty, he should expect to risk defeat, even in fairly early battles, and certainly when facing boss encounters like the one discussed here, where you are thrown curveballs as part of the encounter scripting that you have no way of knowing of and hence preparing for before the fight starts.

The genre veteran is likely to be ready for normal difficulty considerably faster than other game rookies who are genre rookies too, and hard difficulty much faster, but there'll always be an initial learning curve, whether it be minutes or hours needed to surmount based on the mechanics of the individual game and the nature of the player.

As for losing a lot of players due to the difficulty curve in the game, you may be right; It is a very hard thing for me to understand players who give up on games over something like difficulty rather than improving their gameplay or adjusting the difficulty setting to a lower level when they are in over their head (the latter option being available at any time and not requiring a game restart), out of some misguided belief that the game should allow them to succeed at the difficulty level they've chosen, but they do exist and I have no idea how common they are.

Not sure how helpful this is - but maybe use oil and smoke to channel the foes in limited numbers through chokepoints, reduce archer/mage line of sight? That's how I have won fights when heavily outnumbered.

I only have Madora as a tank, I tend to boost her with Wildfire and Oath of Desecration (both available early). Minor heal on two mages keeps her alive. Blind is also a great spell to eliminate a key enemy mage or archer.

I never played beta and I do find the fights tough, I end up using a fair few consumables each time. I've had a couple of wipes. But I massively enjoy the game. I think the quests all show passion and imagination, the dialogue is bristling with wit and quirky humour and the world is richly detailed.

I'm sure on my second playthrough (only level 6 at the mo) I will be able to optimize (my rogue is way less deadly than she could be if I had gone all backstabby on the skills) and the fights will be easier. Hope some of my tips help you, I really think the game rewards some patience.

I got to the boar fight yesterday (assuming these are the zombie boars) and won on my first try. Felt great. Difficult but scraped through with everyone still alive. Only level 3. Then I saved it.....or tried. It crashed. I have to that look forward to all over again.

And wtf 2nd playthrough?!? Is the game super short or something? Do you people sleep? Do you skip all side missions just to do the main quest? I seriously don't get it.

I understand your pain dude, but personally I really enjoy the difficulty of the fights, makes me really think about every step of the battle and plan accordingly.

It's fine if you don't like it but a lot of people are attracted to this game for that very reason. Me included. No shame in playing easy though. Get the basics and learn some tricks then come back with a different set up and beat it on Normal. I had no beta experience and it was a steep learning curve but I feel that I am finally getting it.

Keep trying and you will find this game to be so rewarding and deep and full of surprises. Im sorry that you dislike the story, not much anyone can do about that. Personally I enjoyed solving the murder mystery and found it to be actually quite challenging and therefore rewarding.

I spent some time on Saturday watching a few let's play videos before deciding to buy the game on Steam (I own all the other Divinity games and have played them for what it's worth). One of those videos was on character creation, which is quite broad and open here, approaching Fallout level of freedom.

I still made mistakes, I do assume I will replay this game once we get more content though, so I am not too worried.

The class video suggesting swapping out one of the earth spells for summon spider. Oh, thank you. Summons, your answer to whatever the PC throws at you. Mages not your thing? I don't have a great answer yet.

The only fights I've lost a character in were in Evelyn's Lab and something went quite wrong for me at the Orc cave entrance boss fight. Since I have found 12 resurrection scrolls, this was not a big deal.

I have cleared all the outside and am heading into the Church to finish up my Cryseal quests later today. I am slightly over leveled as I am a completionist.

This playthrough was on normal, I will do one on hard. I do not mean to belittle the OPs difficulties, but we are on the internet. I am not a handy guy and I once installed a new light switch thanks to google. A quick trip to these forums, a quick trip to google, some thought put into spell combos...yada, yada, yada... it's all here.

I have stunned myself by standing in a puddle, I have wiped out running across my now dead Ice Elemental, the spell combos and environmental effects in this game are something I adore, and have never seen before. It will take a bit of time to get used to them, and exactly what and what does not set them off. I stun my own guys pretty frequently and Madora has been blown up quite a few times by accident.

boars are level 5, going there on level 3 is quiet a challenge !
usually monster level is a good indication for you to know if you're in the right place or not.

Also what I always do in this kind of game, is to play the game, then stop after 2 or 3 hours.
Start over with a new setup, and then loop like that until I find a build that I love and feel effective.

Then I play it.
Doing this i can master the rule of the game, test monsters and skills effects. Learn about the mechanism of the game.
For example when you learn that rain plus the 3AP air spell can froze an enemy on turn 1,
or when you understand that monster won't go through a flamming ground,
or that you can use rain to create a pool of water and then electrify it on turn 2,
or use sneaking to become invisible,
or use crushing fist on mage or archers,
or use invocations to distract 99% of the enemies while you are preparing and positioning,
or that you can delay your turn (button middle right of the screen) so you can play 2 times consecutively, or etc...


People that have heavily played game like "Fallout 1&2, Baldur's Gate, Planescape Torment" will find this game very normal or easy for the majority.
Because this the kind of game that force you to search, observe, think and understand.

Can't imagine the reaction of today gamers when starting Baldur's Gate 1, with a 2HP mage, and then facing a wolf that can hit you for 10, 5 minutes after starting the game.
Also the mage waiting for you in front of the "Friendly Arms Inn" was a good introduction to the game (100% sure everyone has die once at this place).

And now you realize how infuriated and crushed I was when I realized the save didn't work.

Sometimes I calculate my odds and, egads, deliberately subject a character to environmental effects, knowing that the enemies will take more casualty than I will.

This level of freedom in a strategy, what a time to be alive,

I have to agree with the OP that the early game experience is horrible. The game itself isn't bad but early game it seems like if you didn't start how the game designers wanted you are in for a world of hurt.

To start there is very little indication where you should be going at the early levels. The dialog system in the game is horrible since most of the people in the starter town simply repeat each other. Literally they have the same dialog trees. Basically all I know to do is go North to the cave which is blocked by a boss encounter I can't beat. I feel like I turned left when I should have turned right and I in an area that I shouldn't be in. That or there was content in the town I missed which should have leveled me 1 or two levels. Heck even the guards told me I was too low level when I opened the doors but I've talked to everyone in the town.

My biggest problem, and I am fairly new so I could be incorrect but, is there are only 2 npcs in the first town which you can have join your party. They basically duplicate my starting characters so I am stuck with 2 melee fighters and 2 mages. Now of course I can have them diverge through the leveling system but in the early levels leveling takes so long that won't happen for awhile. Why aren't there 1 of each archetype in the starting zone so you can flesh out your party how you want.

I am level 4 fighting all level 5/6 mobs and always outnumbered sometimes 2 to 1. I don't have, or even have access to, a rogue or ranger and luckily Jorhan (or whatever his name is) has a heal spell or I wouldn't have a healer. To make mattes worse I started with my characters being a Shadowblade (customized to be melee centric with bleed)and Witch (swapped out the spider spell at char creation). Uh 90% of the mobs at early levels are undead which means immune to bleed which was my main combo/mechanic (Witch bleeds mobs and melee char heals off blood). Or plague guys who bleed poison. One of the main tricks from what I can tell by reading the forums is to summon spiders which act like decoys...guess I shouldn't have dropped my summoning spider ability but who knew. My Witch is basically useless until I can get spells to change her a bit but they cost like 1500 gold a piece. I have looted a ton of Ranger stuff but can't use it. I just finished the doppelganger puzzle and in the 5 chests received 2 cool Ranger and Rogue spells and some Strength 10 gear. My guys can't use any of it (my highest strength char is str 8).

I feel like I made some incredibly bad decision (although no fault of my own) at character creation but how was I supposed to know that the bleed mechanic was useless at the beginning and summoning spiders was needed. The game should have a way for the 2 character party to be adjusted early game once players saw what the game had in store for them. I don't mean reroll or anything like that but how about some cheap spells so I can get something for my Witch to do.

Don't get me wrong I really like the premise of the game and the combat is satisfying when I don't feel completely outgunned/outleveled/outmanned. The combat ai is very good. At the early levels there is no way for me to overcome bad luck in my starting characters. I feel like the only thing I can do is save scum my way to a couple of levels.

Most people don't replay cRPGs multiple times. For those that do, that is why there are increased difficulty settings. Normal mode is for the average player, not the hardcore.




I suppose if you think corporal punishment is a educational tool. The smart way to do things would be to introduce elements to you a little bit at a time where you have a chance to adapt to them, not in some big boss fight where you die 5x before figuring it out.



That word doesn't mean what you seem to think it means.




Its a new game in summer with almost no reviews yet. I'm a KS backer so I've been on board all along, but it silly to think that the rough start on this game isn't going to turn some people off. Yah, there are some hard core players who will eat it up and be all "L2P newb!", but those people are a minority.

You can DELAY your turn!!!!!

Holy mother of god... what a nice tip. Never saw this button in 55hours of playtime.
This button should be placed next to the "Skip turn" button, wtf!

Some people should really try Age of Decadence. They'll come back to D:OS crying after dieing 50 times

I will one up you, I never noticed a skip turn button, I just hit spacebar, naturally, even though I can't remember using it for such in a game before. It will be excellent for certain builds that's for sure.

I played on hard from day 1. While you can sure get yourself in a pickle if you approach a fight wrong, I wouldn't even call Hard really that "hard". I guess it all depends on how you design your characters, how you approach a fight (using your surroundings to your advantage with choke points, environment, etc...), but I think a large percentage of the difficulty with this game is learning to use the system and actually applying it.

Or perhaps add this to the Tutorial? I am not sure if I missed this tip or if it doesn't exist...

As a very experienced CRPG player, I agree with the OP that the "normal" difficulty is harder than most CRPGs. According to eRe4s3r's post, this was also the consensus of the beta testers, but it was too late to make significant changes.

Part of the difficulty is the "bootstrap" issue. If you are a level 1 character in a dungeon of all level 10 monsters, there is no way to win. You need some mechanism to provide foes close in level to the player at the beginning of the game for the player to gain experience and some levels so he can survive in the (virtual) real world. One example is the catacombs under Aleroth at the beginning of Divine Divinity. Most CRPGs have something similar, like the low level monsters near Seyda Neen in Morrowind or the valley of dragon flies in Might & Magic 7(?). The tutorial dungeon does provide guidance in general game play, but doesn't have the monsters to serve as a bootstrap.

I believe there are ways that this could be improved, and hopefully will, in future patches. For example, the dungeon under the abandoned General Store could be expanded greatly in terms of battle opportunities for low level characters to gain experience.

It seems to me that the current difficulty level is unfortunate as there are so many excellent things about Original Sin. The flexibility of casting a pool of water then casting an electric spell to electrify it or a fire spell to make a steam cloud is reminiscent of the original Dues Ex--very challenging to implement, but a lot of fun to play.

Thing is, the challenge isn't directly level based. It is strongly tactical in nature. My friend and I got to town at level 2 and went through the west gate to the Orcs (level 6). It was rough, but we were able to take down some of them at level 2 with just the two of us (no henchmen or companions).

The point is, all getting closer to the mobs levels does is allow you to use more common tactics of today's games (ie rush in and start swinging.

The solution is not to allow people to grind to over take levels making it easy for them to beat an encounter. The solution is to teach them how to be better at making tactical decisions, to think about what they have, what they can do, and how they can best use their environment to their advantage.

That is what a tactical game like this needs, not a grind to overpower the content.

What I think would be ideal is to have a tutorial outside of the game where it is a small dungeon with multiple encounters that require different approaches and spell/skill use to demonstrate the capabilities of play. By having it outside of the game, you can give them all the spells and abilities you want to really show the combinations. You can showcase many aspects of play without being concerned about how it interrupts the game.

Now there was a time when I would say... What a waste. They shouldn't have to make a trainer dungeon like that. I would have said, if they want to learn to play a cRPG, go learn on the many intro/starter cRPGs out there to get used to how these games are played. Problem is, those games don't exist anymore, so... it may warrant a tutorial starter outside of the game.

Vandraman; good advice. I tried to use smoke once and never accomplished this, and gave up. I'll try again. Archers are killing me lately. Where can I get Wildfire and Oath of Desecration? I'm level 7 and haven't seen either.

I am waiting for them to finish it (no seriously, that wasn't a joke). I am looking forward to playing it when they do release it... in another 15+ years, right about the time Grimoire is released.

I'm beta'ing another game, no level scaling, no pointers and paths were you can only go so far before enemies are too tough. You are supposed to get that and then go hunt somewhere else for a while and return. This is the entire game, finding weak points in the game and following those paths.

I've mentioned to those devs about feedback from D:OS just to make note. Their bottom line was they are purposely making it that way (which I knew) and it isn't negotiable good or bad, that is what they want and what they believe old-schoolers want. They assume their player base will fight through it and be better for it. They believe they will be rewarded by catering to a group of RPG'ers that have been ignored.

Just like Larian decided for D:OS.

It is simply a core philosophy from the start. If one likes it great, if not, it is what it is. Perhaps a few more vids should be watched prior to laying down dollars.

Do they stick to their guns? We'll see. That's either game.

I don't fault anyone really. Designers make the game they want. Consumers buy the games they want. There is no doubt we have been conditioned in a manner of follow some guiding system nowadays. Can you switch it up and handle it when it is taken away? That I reckon is the question, if you cannot, don't take the Red pill.

Sorry you weren't having fun.

I am having a blast, but I do agree that arriving at Cyseal is a longer lull in the action than it should be. I would prefer better pacing of combat, quest-gathering and town-exploring.

It reminds me of Temple of Elemental Evil in that regard... making characters was really fun and inspiring, and then I had an hour plus of mucking around in Hommlet which slowly killed my enthusiasm. Cyseal is better than Hommlet but still an unfortunate slowdown, IMO.

At first I felt as you did, but then I thought about it a while and realized this was an instinctive reaction due to the way games these days are made and a habit I had picked up over the years. They always follow some formula designed to attend to the short attention span, like an advertising gimmick to keep people focused on the product.

After I realized that, I started walking around in no rush, exploring and enjoying the game, as I once did in older games of past. They really have "programmed" this generation to expect a fast pace.

cRPGs are types of games that are actually meant to be played several times over. That was the core of what RPG is.

Before mass market decline came and you drones got all those shitfest linear games with one single playthrough and fake skills and no C&C at all, but instead some devolved romances and horrible "sex" cut scenes and other rubbish like that.



Corporeal punishment doesnt mean what you think it means.

And using cheap strawman arguments wont win you anything around here either.

The game does introduce elements to you little by little bit at the time and you have all the chances to adapt to them - your problem is that it requires THINKING and LEARNING instead of just pressing "play" and "awesome button".

Whats that "big boss fight you are talking about" exactly?

What do you want? A boss fight where someone like you wins in the first try?
You do realize that would make the game nothing more then a barely interactive movie for the rest of us, dont you?

Look, if you dont want to play but just "experience"... why dont you just watch youtube letsplays?

Or play one of those bioware and bethesda abominations again. Oh thats right, you cant... because there isnt anything there in those soulless empty husks.



It means precisely what i think it means and you would do much better for yourself if you didnt imagine you are telepathic.

The point being that if you understood mechanics "pretty well" then you wouldnt be loosing these easy fights like you do - and thats only happening because you expect to just press play and automatically win without actually even trying to. Because you are that lazy and that used to mind-numbing shit games that play instead of YOU.

This is actually an easy game. Relatively speaking. A game that desperately needs a proper hard mode, not this cheap simple trick serving as its replacement now.

What you refer to as "mechanics" is just a small part of the overall system. Knowing how to cast a spell or hit with a weapon are not "mechanics".



A new game... With how many other new games on steam right now? It isnt even on that list anymore.

- No reviews. Exactly. It should tell you something. About majorities and minorities.

Youre one of those that actually read the "game media" reviews? Thats how you form an opinion? By letting someone else do it for you? "game media" of all things?



Thats an oxymoron statement. Or a completely insane statement. Considering the fact that the game is top seller on Steam. Which is a fact.

Besides being a rather cheap and pathetic way to grasp for some kind of imagined and actually non existing fallacy of "call to the masses" - which dont even exist.

You would try to imply that there are some mysterious "players" that are being driven off en masse... and they somehow played the game to come to such a reaction, have they?
Which means they have bought it already, right...so... how are they then turned off?
- hypothetically speaking because none of that exists at all.

And if not... how do "they" know the game is so bad and evil? (there is no rough start in the game, there is only your starting incompetence and laziness)

See?

Facts. Truth. Logic.

I disagree with everything, honestly.

This type of game is not meant to be played quickly. Your problem is you had an expectation of what the play experience was supposed to be like, but it was unduly applied to this game.

The fight with the pirates is meant to be difficult. However, if you burn down the captain first, it spawns several other enemies. If anything, you should figure this out the first time fighting him, if you can't beat him.

There are probably a lot of other reasons you're having difficulty. You should take your time and progress to the beach cave slowly. I was lv6 or 7 by the time I finally went there.

Also, you need to diversify your party a bit. It's easy to make characters fall into strict RPG roles, but you're better off with a little synergistic diversity.

ALSO, some of the fights are going to be very difficult without AOE effects, and you're meant to use statuses and terrain to win fights. If your enemies are within a level of your party, there's no reason you shouldn't win a fight.

All of your sentiments seem to indicate that you are playing the wrong game, but none of these complaints are objective AT ALL.

The fights you describe as astounding difficult, I merely found challenging. The slow movement, I had no issues with by using waypoints. The Roderick fight was very hard, but once i realized that burning him down spawned more enemies, the fight was easy. The "arbitrary" nature of environmental effects are things I learned from and utilized to my advantage. I feel my party is strong because i've taken the time to make them work together.

And I don't know what you even mean here about needing to cheese, unless by cheese you mean actually pay attention to how environmental effects work, understand how to build characters, and actually equipping them well.

These words don't mean what you think they do.

That cheap one liner means as much as in the previous example where you tried it and failed at it horribly.

By retorting so cheaply you only point out that those concepts are alien to you.
Which isnt any kind of surprise, really.

It's in the tutorial already. The first time you get the chance to delay your action, assuming you haven't turned the tutorial off, it will tell you it's there at the side of the screen. For those of you that weren't aware, that's why you leave tutorial on the first time you play a game no matter how many games you have played before.

Congrats on being the first person I have ever ignored on a forum. Not everyone has time to play with the trolls.

I found the game hard at the start as well. However hard games generally have more replayability, and are ultimately more rewarding.

Heck I remember Baldurs Gate 1 was very unforgiving the first time I played it. Took me ages to get into that game as I struggled to get past the Kobold mines.

I have played lots of RPG games over the years as well - and have changed to Easy here - can't say it worries me at all. I save a lot as well. Big deal - I'm having fun. When I get the hang of it a bit more I will probably adjust it up to Normal.

On the delay move button mentioned a few posts back - I have had the tutorial on in 2 trial games and my current 'serious' run through and haven't seen it mentioned so far.

Of course, spoken like a true pathetic drone with distorted devolved issues of self entitlement and no brains, logic, common sense, knowledge or guts. Facts, truth and logic are like poison to you.

Devolved generation of empty ego "entertainment" junkies.




My man.

i myself have seen my party wiped, character killed any which way you can imagine. Sometimes fair and square, sometimes due to my mistakes or momentarily laziness, or just experimentation.

Verily... i have no idea, i cant even imagine whats with these people who actually want to be winning all the time, every time. Whats the point of that?

If i was just winning every combat encounter i would have stopped playing long ago. My brain would have died from boredom. What challenge is there then? Whats then interesting? What obstacle then i have to surmount? What to learn? Discover?

What a ghastly non logic the ego creates... ugh.

I have a similar cRPG background to a lot of folks here, starting with Ultima/Bards Tale/AD&D Gold Box and moving through the Baldurs Gates, Torment, Neverwinter and Temple of Elemental Evil games (not to mention XCOM and Fallout tactical games).

I really love this game, I backed it on Kickstarter and I dabbled a little bit with early access (about 20 hours or so in total prior to launch) so I probably had a bit of a head start with how the game mechanics work. That being said, the mechanics did change a lot throughout the course of early access/beta but the foundations of environmental interaction and elements remained true throughout.

I swallowed my ego a while ago and just settled on playing the game on easy difficulty. After my time in early access I realised that in order to play the way I want to play, I had to play it on easy difficulty. If I wanted to increase the difficulty, I would have needed to cheese the mechanics and munchkin up with min-maxing and exploiting henchman. I wasn't prepared to do that so I just settled on playing it on the lowest setting.

I do have a few personal hates about the game, I don't like the over use of sourcery in general, there is an over abundance of magical arrows, over use of magical arrows by monsters and a few minor gripes like that, I feel that they are used too early in the game.

I would have expected skeleton archers to use regular arrows with the occasional marksman ability rather than not use any marksman ability but have a rotation of freeze, poison cloud and explosive arrows. These are just things that I felt could have been done a little better, held off until midway or later in the campaign. Rather than see all of the magic up front in the first few hours of the game, they should have trickled these monsters in over the course of the game to a climactic peak at the end of the campaign.

Even though these points bother me to no end, I still see the value in how freaking amazing this game is. I can't wait to see what people do with the editor and hopefully Larian will make an expansion for it down the track too. The game is solid enough that I could see myself playing additional content for a few years (like with the modding community and Neverwinter Nights).

I can definitely see where Adam is coming from though. I was there too.

"I don't know how to play this game, therefore it sucks" is basically what you said.

If you don't understand the game mechanics or don't want to take the time to understand the game mechanics, move on to another game. Experiment with different builds, read the dialog and quests, and learn like everyone else has done before you.

This is pretty ironic statement considering your last two posts.

Hmmm.
It's true this is no easy walk in and go game. Normal should probably be titled, "Loves Me Some Tactical Action" and Hard should be, "Scouting or Twin Mage Essential".

That said, if you mess around in the starting area, the two guards and the first orc fight, you should have a good idea of party make up you like and will work. I was in beta, obviously, but I never got further than the front gate of Cyseal. I spent my time working over different combos.

This is a CRPG really meant in the old vein, and using info and preferences by backers who enjoyed getting our asses handed to us in Hard on BG, P:T and Fallout. We like dying or, alternatively, being really, really, really careful before and during a fight.

Example: last night I fought the Baron. At level 4. I had to reload a lot, but not because I died. I had to reload because the very thorough oil field I was setting as a trap kept resetting.

Once it was set and everyone was in place with boulder smash, fireball, summons and assorted goodies ready to go, the fight was on. The set-up took half an hour, though.

That's the kind of game D:OS is. Probably needs a big warning label or something.

Personally I think the folks who are struggling with the game difficulty are rushing through the game too quickly...
There are allot of quests etc to get your experience up and better gear.
If you rush straight out of a town gate you are going to be in trouble and yes you will die frequently...
The right order of how to approach the area is really important, so yes first time round you will struggle with that. My advice is try out various areas if one is too hard, there will always be a manageable area for you and it's up to you to find it.

finally:
YOU ARE NOT ALL POWERFULL the game isn't supposed to give you a cake walk easy experience. One of the main parts is supposed to be the difficult combat. enjoy it !

Indeed ! It's not a shame at all to play on easy (if you wish, see it like: lowest vs highest difficulty !)

About the "delay move button" :
I really wonder this: WHO have readed the Game Manual from begin to end thoroughly ? Well, IN this nice written Game Manual I've readed you can skip your turn in combat, not in the tutorial ! (but maybe I've missed this, can be)

About my "first impressions" playing D:OS for the very first time (I've not played alpha or beta versions!) :
I really like and already LOVE this RPG just played the tutorial and ended up now in Cyseal talking to NPC's ...
And I'm SURE I gonna love this game (a Gem for sure) even more and more ... I'm more than 100 % sure of that !
And I only play a few hours Divinity: Original Sin and I'm already addicted to the game !! I wish I've tons of time to play, but no, I've not ... but I'm happy if I can play at least 1 hours or so each day or two ...

I believe it is logical that each "sailor", "worker" or .. have the same conversation. It's very nice the devs put more than one sailor/worker/etc into the game PLUS: otherwise gamers can start conplaining that "the game world is SO empthy & not 'alive' enough" bla bla bla ... And to know this: each sailor or worker don't have the same things to sell ...

And last but not least: I play a RPG just because of it's REplayability so I can have billions of hours of fun with just 1 game !
My coinpurse will have known !

Playing the game on hard. No problems here.

Thanks, glad to help! I got Wildfire from Arhu and Oath of Desecration from the woman upstairs in the King's Crab Inn.

yeah, I am too.

I am tempted to do a "naked" game where I only use weapons, no clothing, armor, or jewelry and play it on hard just to show some of these complainers that this is a PEBKAC issue.

And what does PEBKAC mean ?

Problem
Exists
Between
Keyboard
And
Chair

Also see ID ten T errors.

Just read page 1 so far... many interesting posts, already want to reply to a few before proceeding...

Applause for you, sir... the most sensible post I read on page 1. Very well explained!

Modern RPG? You would be right.
Old school? You would be so wrong.
You don't want to know how much of a beating I got playing the Baldur's Gates when I was small, not understanding a thing of the AD&D rules. I got punished... a lot. On easy!
Even now, when I do understand, and undoubtfully become 100x better because of it, play on normal, a lot of fights can be challenging for me. And then there are people who actually play BG2 "iron mode" and don't die at all for the entire game and expansion... and I'm like... HOW? I definitely could not do that.
In modern games, I definitely could do that though...

Again; Welcome to the golden age of RPG's... not those sissy hand-holding ones modern generations give you. You fail? Try again. Learn... get better. Rise above your challenge.
Of course the modern generation is not used to that, so instead if they die once, they don't, and come compaining to the developers they screwed up. As the OP. Even making arguments as "I don't understand the mechanics, I keep harming myself!"... How about learning to stop that before complaining the game is broken?

Fortunately, it seems good old-style no-nonse who do not question your intelligence RPG's are on a rise. Where gaming is meant you need to rise to your challenge, rather than your challenge is so easy (or worse, a quick-time event... ugh) even without using any tools given or understanding the system normal is a cakewalk simply cause they cannot 'afford' to harm people who will be mentally scarred going to easy.

The backing of Torment, Project Eternity and it's rank in Steam Sales do say otherwise. Also remember what a massive hit Dark Souls turned out to be?
No, it seems there's a gigantic market for this still. And if you're not going to adapt, you're in bad shape, since those other KS games are only going to make it worse than what you experience here. Better to quickly adapt to playing with skill, understanding, trial, and not ragequit for a single beating, but instead learn and improve.

Yay modern games and there difficulties being downgraded to not harm any potential souls (read: sales), eh?

EEEEDIT:

Sorry, I have to say it, but... this is really your own fault.
There are PRESETS for a REASON (set that way for a reason). By modifying them you pretty much agree with the game you understand the workings of it, and that, yes, you can seriously screw yourself over. That's why it's called advanced mode in Drakensang for example, and here it's also definitely NOT advised for new players, only those who know what they're doing.

Can't really complain you fiddled with the EXPERT options being a newbie (no offense) and then getting burned. That's why there are presets to guide new players in the right direction and the expert mode for players who know what they're doing and think they can do better than the devs set out for them, using their knowledge of the game...

Hi,

some great comments on here and not really much else to say but I'll just add that this game is simply amazing!
I too grew up with Ultima, Bards Tale and Gold Box games (also anyone remember Demon's Winter?) and this is probably the most fulfilling 'real' cRPG since Ultima 7 with perhaps a kindly nod to Baldurs Gate and NWN along the way!
However I have to admit that after years of modern so-called roleplaying games such as WOW I got to Cyseal and thought, what happens now? I was expecting to be guided painlessly through the start with easy quests and to get straight back to the fighting! I had been brainwashed by years of 'on-rails' games!
But when I realised it was not all about fighting I rediscovered my love of exploring and making real choices in cRPGs!
I just love the fact that every fight needs to be really thought about tactically, I have made many mistakes when starting this game as I never read guides or watch tutorial videos, I prefer to discover the wonders for myself
I chose a Knight and Witch character, I did not max my strength and intelligence for the relevant characters which meant I fell behind slightly on the best weapons and spells. I also did not even realise there was a second NPC to join with until I had explored quite a lot of the map!(Johon).

I now have two fighters and two wizards but actually it works well for me, that's what is so wonderful about the game, it is quite tough but never unfairly, if you fail to win a fight it's because your tactics were wrong and many different styles can work well if you understand them.

It may be that the game style and difficulty may put off some modern gamers but it is definitely worth persevering with as I feel the rewards are worth the initial slight pain
I have only been playing for a week and did not even know the game existed until a few days before that but every time I play I discover something new, so refreshing compared the 'grinding' crpgs nowadays.
Can't wait to get back to it tonight although my Wife is getting a bit sick of me playing D:OS!

LoL. Have you read his posts? If you're trying to call me a troll you're looking for hypocritical, not ironic.

There is a huge difference between a market and a gigantic market. I'm backing Torment as well. I love the old turn based games. However I realize that I'm not representative of the general population. Its common error on enthusiast forums of all stripes to assume that everyone is like them.



The main issue is that the "hardness" of the game shouldn't be fighting the UI or fighting against something that you have no realistic way to know. Take a room full over traps. Making them impossible to detect and having you find your way across the room by reloading after each one you find is the wrong way to do it. The right way is have your party have a chance to detect them on perception and maybe there is a skeleton nearby with a jounral mentioning traps his party fell to. Maybe even enviromental stuff like a bone here or there or a tripline that a play with a good eye might catch. One is requiring thought and skill to get through. There other is just "you'll learn eventually" Yah I know that some old school games did pull the complete blindside on you. It was bad design then too.

2 weeks nr 1 on Steam (and counting)... nr 1 on GOG currently as well...
Tell me how many other games did so well recently?

It's called Perception... and the same thing can be said for not brining a rogue in D&D/Baldur's Gate. Should we just remove traps since people don't bring rogues or think "meh, perception"...
Nope. Their fault, their consequences.
Not bad gameplay...

Oh, big giant neon signs, good idea. Let's do MASSIVE red warning signs around them. I mean, we didn't plant traps to TRAP people, right? What would be the point of that...

I went back to a room in the Black Cove I had been through at an earlier stage and was amazed as I ran through with how many times my characters said "Careful! I've spotted a trap"! I ran through the room at least three times in different directions at a lower level, didn't spot any traps and yet didn't trigger them either. Later on, my now highly perceptive mine sweeper cleared up...

Difficulty definitions vary so much between games - and may also depend on how good you are at certain things. I started Normal here and got owned so went to Easy and have had some challenge, though I might up it a notch now I am more experienced. I see no issue with that - I'm just glad when devs give me a range to choose from so that I can enjoy the game.

He never said remove traps. You're presenting an argumentum ad absurdum with your massive neon signs. His point was simply that to design a room full of traps, as in an inordinate amount of traps, and to give a player no real way to detect them other than trial and error is absurd. And it is. Perception in this game is one such way to deal with this. I also like they way Larian has handled traps.

And as a side note, in Baldur's Gate I generally just ran my high HP character through all the traps and healed afterward. Probably lame but it's what I usually did. Detecting and disabling traps was tedious. I'd rather trigger them and just rest and heal up. It was much more efficient.

You lost about 3m XP in BG2 if you really did that What is tedious to you, is neat additional gameplay option to others.. especially since planting your own advanced traps is one of the best ways to kill high level enemies (dragons etc.)

The only thing missing from D:OS is maybe a real detect traps spell. (+2 per for 15 seconds is not a real spell ,p)

Well, if you want visible lines, body warnings and a journal (cause hey, we cant have a character invest in perception, need to max some other stat more... but I still don't want any negative benefits of that), you might aswell write in neon letters TRAPS here.
Or remove them, since no-one would step on a trap that even a PER 1 character can see due to all the hints strewn around.

Also, your strategy would be good, till you suddenly get disintegrated, plane locked or all the other trap types there can be than just damage.

The problem with traps is always that if you don't make a game where rogues have any value (and imo they don't have any in D:OS) then nobody plays rogues. The real trap heavy modules in NWN where always modules focused around rogues, and in BG2 it was a open secret that you should always have a rogue with you. (Kinda weird that there only were 2 but that's 2 more than D:OS has by default...)

And let's face it.. if D:OS had a rogue like this

dungeons.wikia.com/wiki/SRD:Rogue

That didn't require wasting the few precious ability ups on PER, then people would not have a problems with traps because chances are they'd play that already themselves ;P

It really bothers me anyway that trap detection is a MAIN stat in D:OS. In DnD it's a Class Skill and for good reasons. Aside from the fact that you could level that skill when and IF you wanted it to level, it didn't waste the few precious main stat ups that you get. And finding a trap and disabling a trap are really 2 very different skills, and should be regarded as such... and why would a rogue skilled at disabling traps, suddenly be skilled at disabling MAGICAL traps? (In DnD that is a use-magical-device skill check and not a disable-trap one)

And that's the real problem why class-less RPG's will never achieve any kind of fundamental gameplay depth when it comes to sneaking. A sneaking skilled warrior will always succeed at sneaking, even when he's wearing 5 tons of plate armor and metal boots that make giant boom sounds whenever he takes a step....

As you can no doubt gather, I really like the DnD style of rogue and sneaking. It's a bit complicated and so on, but it always made PERFECT SENSE in the ruleset. (Listen (WIS) vs Move Silent (Dex)) or ( Spot (Wis) vs Evade (Dex) )

It made you skill your rogue in WIS and DEX, which gave you a character that had a lot of other skills too.... if you choose PER in D:OS over INT or STR or CON or SPEED, you end up with a useless character that can't sneak properly anyway ,p

Sorry for the lengthy text.. but the sneaking in this game really bothers me. They added sight cones which made me super happy, until I realized the enemies are dumb as bread. And all the sight cones are binary detection grids. (Which is not how sneaking should ever work in a game....)

What if you don't want your rogue to be your trap detector?

Perception adds to initiative, initial AP and critical chance, which any class can use. You make is sound as if giving a character perception makes him suddenly paraplegic or something...

And Initiative is exactly why I never skilled PER on any of my chars beyond 9. If anything it is beneficial to not move first for the melee chars (sadly it seems the game is hardcoded to always have you move first when you start combat, unless enemy initiates combat) so even less point to skill PER

But when I boosted PER on my char that had highest PER by default he ended up moving first and that was exactly what I didn't want. I want my mages to move first so that they can teleport melee guys into combat, and they can then attack without all the enemies having a go at them first, and mages in this game end up with very low PER thanks to the books.... so you end up having to manage initiative through the PER points you spend...

Initiative is actually not a positive point of PER... Initiative is literally why I hate PER ;P

Since you've been lingering around the forums and checking in since you wrote this I will assume that you've continued to play.

How is your experience now?

Have you figured out that you do not speak for the "average player" and that you should never attempt to do so again in the future?

A lengthy look at Steam's forums, where the majority of average players live by virtue of that game being available only on Steam for a period of time, and you will not see anything remotely similar to what you were claiming here.

You initially found the game hard and that's okay. Not everyone can master a computer game on their first go around. Sometimes a game's systems will click and sometimes it takes a bit to figure out.

But, regardless of that, I am curious as to how your experience with the game is now. How is it going thus far?

If you don't want your melee to go first, you can bank ap or delay his/her turn. You have the ultimate control over your strategy, including character movement order.

Besides, if your melee can go first and you do want to use up your AP why not inspire/encourage/any other buff/summon?

Reading this whole thread has taken awhile. To make a point that would have been better stated earlier.

I enjoy when i accidentally rush into a battle (Dietmar), realize I've compromised my position, and manage to succeed, or better, get that "Ah..ha!" moment and understand what needs to be accomplished in order for me to win.

Life is about learning as you go. If you aren't growing as a master mind strategist (or person for that matter) then what is the point of living? Grow, and expand your understanding so that you may win before the first move of the battle is even taken.

As one of my good friends once said, "They say people can change, but is that really true? If they decide they want to fly, will they grow wings? I don稚 think so. You don稚 change yourself. You change how you do things. You have to make your own way. You have to create a way to fly, even while you stay the same. "

There are many ways to win fights on any difficulty since this game gives you so many options.

1. Start fights by sneaking to max attack range with one unhooked char while rest of party is behind a rock or otherwise protected . Run unhooked char back to party after initiating battle and watch range enemies run into melee range for slaughter.

2. Start fights by sneaking in and cast summons in the middle of groups. The summons will most likely act as an aggro magnet allowing you party to pwn.

3. Fireball.

4. Have two chars with Teleportation. Sneak both chars with Teleportation as close as possible to boss while rest of party lays in wait. Teleport boss as close to group as possible. Have second char with Teleportation teleport boss to melee for slaughter.

I was able to sneak-kill 4 of the 7 dimatar thugs before engaging the boss.

Tldr: More like Metal Gear less like Dragon Age.

Those are just examples of things you could do and they all can be executed subtly. You don't have to do them all. Despite your mis-reading of my comment I am in favor of having perception and other out of combat skills be important. I even said as much.

If you delay the turn you end up moving after all enemies... when you manage proper initiative, your warrior moves after the mages that teleport and crowd control (ice-wall/fireball/firefly) but before the enemies... and thus can deal damage and stuns BEFORE enemies move....

To me, Initiative control was always more important than perception ,)

hello all,

i only registered here to reply to this thread (and i sincerely hope the devs read this)

i was about to buy this game, but this thread has made me wait. i want to see how the developers react to these whines and if they cave in, i will not buy the game. i have a long history in playing RPGs and i want a game that is hard even on the easiest difficulty (i love a good challenge).

i will not buy a game only to have it ruined by developers who would cave in to people whining about it being hard.

just saying

thanks for reading.

cheers

skuko

I found the whole area with Evelyn to be ridiculously easy even on hard. I mean seriously, it wasn't even remotely a challenge and I could have done it without armor and crap weapons.

Chess, go, bridge, and poker, most people would agree, are among the most complex and challenging of all games. Yet the rules for each are simple and known from the beginning. Imagine trying to play chess without knowing how the pieces move. Or trying to play poker without knowing the rank of the hands. Yes, you can learn these things by playing, making mistakes, and losing over and over again. But why should you? The problem with D:OS, imho, is not that it is too hard, but that even the most basic rules--such as how to craft, to name but one--are not documented. The User Manual is so basic as to be useless, and the online tutorial is not only incomplete, but haphazard in what it covers. FAQs are now beginning to appear, but this is simply the result of Larian foisting the job of documentation onto users, who have paid good money for the "privilege." Please don't tell me stumbling blindly through the early game is good for me or that I am too lazy to die a hundred times in order to learn. I don't mind a hard game, just one where the basic rules are a mystery.

Nothing in the game is really "new" in terms of cRPGs. People who are experienced with them aren't having problems with the game. In fact, this game was designed as a spiritual successor to Ultima VII. It also is far more intro-friendly than Ultima VII was.

Anyone who takes the time to read the manual will be fairly well prepared for the game. Sure, there are things to learn on the way, but... well... that is the point of these types of games. If they could teach you everything possible in the game with a quick tutorial, why... it would be like every other shallow piece of mainstream garbage out there to which this was specifically designed to remedy.

Does that make any sense now?

"Nothing in the game is really "new" in terms of cRPGs. People who are experienced with them aren't having problems with the game. In fact, this game was designed as a spiritual successor to Ultima VII. It also is far more intro-friendly than Ultima VII was."f

I am experienced with crpgs, going back long before Ultima VII. If I want to stumble around blindly, I'll stick with real life. If I'm going to play a game, I'd prefer knowing the rules first. Again, to clarify, I'm not criticizing the game--I like the game and will continue to play it--but the basic documentation sucks. And for that there is no excuse

Can you give some specific examples in the game where you have to stumble around blindly because it isn't described in the manual or through some tip window in the game?

I had to learn through trial and error that 100% fire resistance doesn't protect me from lava instadeath. That sentinels can see through 5/5 stealth but not invisibility. Had to stumble around the Cyseal outskirts trying to find Aureus' locations, because apparently he is too much of a prick to mark them on your map.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the game, but it could be that much better if there was less trial and error reloading.

I VERY VERY VERY strongly agree to that !

DOS is basically a slap into the frace of all of the mnodern Action-RPG lovers.

And it's good that it is so, becauuse DOS is one of the only and last remaining games to be NOT Action-RPGs ...

Because ... after so many gaming companies following the trail of money and copying Blizzard's models of gaming, 99 % of ALL computer-based role-??ying games ARE Action-RPGs nowadys ...

Blizzard and their followers (in the trail) has been overly efficient in fully eradicating EVERYTHING that is not an Action-RPG ...

So, meanwhile I#ve had my "really bad experiwences" as well, I'm actually GLAD i had them - because the game is teaching me. Harsh teaching. To be strict with planning ahead. Tell me that you'd need that in an Action-RPG and I'll laugh ...

I suggest that the easy difficulty gets renamed to casual so people who have to downgrade the difficulty feel like shit for being such casual scrubs.

P.S. there's no fucking way you played Baldurs Gate and find this too difficult, you're probably a Skyrim kid.

You find that unreasonable? Lava isn't the same as fire. Even so, you died and then found out. I didn't test it because I also saw the hint on the loading screen that explained that. Personally, I don't consider that one to be a failure to inform. I mean, some part of the back of your mind had to have thought it may not have worked? I mean, its lava!





That is for you to explore. This is common knowledge for RPGs(ie from the D&D days and many games that used that system over the years). Stealth is a physical skill, using light and shadows to hide. Those with extremely high abilities to spot details, see at night, etc... (high perception) can see through such. Invisibility on the other hand is a magical means of hiding. Unless one has magical ability to see through such an illusion, they won't be able to detect it.

Personally, I love finding out stuff like this. My friend and I spend a lot of time messing around with different spell, skill approaches, different mechanics, etc... and we have found a lot of interesting things in the game because of it. If that is all laid out, well... it defeats the exploration of options in play.

Even if you did know the difference between that, how would you know if they could see or not unless you experimented? Are you saying the game should just tell you? How would your character know?

As for the locations, those are in general directions. You don't have to stumble around, you just head in the general direction he tells you and you will come across them. If you are expecting to have things like this dropped on your map, well... you are missing the point of this style of game. There is no hand holding and unless the NPC giving you directions knows exactly, all you will get is general directions.




Nothing wrong with reloading, especially when you are new to the style and genre of the game. I disagree that the issues are simple trial and error to resolve though. I mean, testing and finding out is a huge aspect of these games. If you knew upfront because it was clearly marked for you, what is the point?

When I first began the game I kept getting my butt handed to me because I failed to understand the environmental mechanics.

Once you learn how to handle fire/poison/oil/water/lightning you'll be fine. You can turn the tide of an impossible battle with a well placed shot of lightning on a pool of blood, or oil around a campfire, or using fire to set alight poison everywhere.

I actually found early game quite fun. It's mid-late game when you get epic spells/skills that it tends to drag on for me as much of the challenge is gone.

Nicely said.



Yes, there are several different ways to handle it, you can basically play with those enemies as you want.

Anyway, i suggested doing a better, deeper harder difficulty as a dlc, a proper difficulty increase because i saw that the devs dont really even have time for that.

And now, this is one of the reasons why i mean to make a mod out of it.
Although there will be other adjustments to the game in it and it surely wont be simplistic changes to HP and damage.

Tinker, Tailor, Hunter mod.

Could use a few other people there too since i mean to add several new quests to the game too.

The one bit I have found a bit annoying so far is a tiny switch on a wall where a painting was supposed to be but wasn't - but that may have been a bug.

Yeah, that Church painting is a pain if you didn't enable 360 degree turning... if that's the one you meant.

Anyway, just wanting to say *most* people in this thread make me proud. Instead of when being toughed come whining to the forums to complain about something like a lot of others and demanding "fixes" (for non-issues) you instead simply decided to learn and get better... Glad such people still exist, I was starting to wonder it in the modern gametimes, and with many a thread's 'suggestions' even here