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This thread became stupid quite quick.

Yes some additional planning should be required, but there is nothing "Tactical" about a single buff that makes all enemies 50% more damage spongey.

If anyone can show that the AI is different between difficulties, that might be something. But people wanted to fight more difficult AI, not just meat mountains.

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I'm playing on tactician mode and I am enjoying it quite a bit as I love a good challenge. Leveling up and getting some good skills and gear is essential.

I really don't understand why people are complaining that the hardest difficulty setting is too challenging. If you don't like it then play in classic mode.

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Originally Posted by Ranik
This thread became stupid quite quick.

Yes some additional planning should be required, but there is nothing "Tactical" about a single buff that makes all enemies 50% more damage spongey.

If anyone can show that the AI is different between difficulties, that might be something. But people wanted to fight more difficult AI, not just meat mountains.


Of course it's tactical, your usual one size fits all strip armor and CC to death does not work, that's the whole point of it.

The AI change is right there in that sentence - it gets a chance to actually act before you shut it down and blow it up to smethereens like you can do with 90% of Classic encounters.

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Originally Posted by Gaidax
Originally Posted by Ranik
This thread became stupid quite quick.

Yes some additional planning should be required, but there is nothing "Tactical" about a single buff that makes all enemies 50% more damage spongey.

If anyone can show that the AI is different between difficulties, that might be something. But people wanted to fight more difficult AI, not just meat mountains.


Of course it's tactical, your usual one size fits all strip armor and CC to death does not work, that's the whole point of it.

The AI change is right there in that sentence - it gets a chance to actually act before you shut it down and blow it up to smethereens like you can do with 90% of Classic encounters.


"It's tactical because the numbers are higher" rolleyes

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Originally Posted by Gaidax
Honestly, I'm not sure what people are complaining about, it is supposed to be highest difficulty setting there is which is not hardcore mode. Of course it's supposed to be difficult that's the whole point?

If I had to guess I'd say people are insulted that they are having problems with the hardest difficulty setting, i.e. they would be much happier if tactician mode simply did not exist and classic mode was the most difficult setting.

Baldur's Gate had a hardcore mode too and it is substantially more brutal than tactician mode in D:OS 2.

Last edited by dlux; 17/09/17 02:37 PM.
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Originally Posted by Ranik
Originally Posted by Gaidax
Originally Posted by Ranik
This thread became stupid quite quick.

Yes some additional planning should be required, but there is nothing "Tactical" about a single buff that makes all enemies 50% more damage spongey.

If anyone can show that the AI is different between difficulties, that might be something. But people wanted to fight more difficult AI, not just meat mountains.


Of course it's tactical, your usual one size fits all strip armor and CC to death does not work, that's the whole point of it.

The AI change is right there in that sentence - it gets a chance to actually act before you shut it down and blow it up to smethereens like you can do with 90% of Classic encounters.


"It's tactical because the numbers are higher" rolleyes


No, it's tactical because usual monkey business does not work and you need to actually be smart. In classic you can win bloody most of encounters in one silly way - put a buffed up reflect tank up front, party way at the back, spread aids on the ground and let shit die in oily fire of CC while it helplessly tries to reach your backline. Apply knockdown and CC at will and port eager ones back to the fire.

It works because you can strip armors way too easily and once those are gone the things are as good as dead, there's no AI it has no chance to do anything.

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Some fights are treated differently if you play on Tactician. The easiest one to find is the Act 2 Executioner fight early into the story that is only level 10.

On Classic, you can probably just sneak and gip-CC her right away to prevent her from calling for help. But on tactical, with the insane armor and the 90% perma dodging aura, you CANNOT do so unless you save scum really hard to get multiple crit + knock down before she can shout and ask for reinforcement. The reinforcement are level 12 and this changes the fight from a level 9 fight on Classic that can end in a single turn to a level 12 fight that is impossible on level 10 because the 2 archers she called can destroy the whole team even without the 90% dodge aura.

Also, the +50% damage buff makes AI react differently because the way the AI works, they have the same movement you do when you tranverse the map out-of-combat (in order to avoid terrain) and will do whatever they can to deal the most damage unless it kills with the AP combo they can do.

This is why the +50% damage is important. Key target, on classic, will just AoE or whatever because they can never kill your squishy in a single turn. On Tactical, because they can kill, they WILL rush you if you misposition at the start of the fight and with enough AP, Gap close in directly for a kill. This is only but one of the small changes that happens because of the tactician buff.

Man, in this mode, I actually have to wait for shop to restock and travel all across to map to buy knockdown arrow over and over. Won't see me doing that in Classic.

Last edited by Ellezard; 17/09/17 02:46 PM.
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Originally Posted by dlux
If I had to guess I'd say people are insulted that they are having problems with the hardest difficulty setting, i.e. they would be much happier if tactician mode simply did not exist and classic mode was the most difficult setting.

Baldur's Gate had a hardcore mode too and it is substantially more brutal than tactician mode in D:OS 2.



You guessed wrong, because like every single other person defending the current Tactician mode, you're not interested in listening to anything which originates outside your own head.

People are complaining because D:OS 1 EE set a gold standard for visible changes in difficulty, and Tactician mode was specifically a stretch goal. People were expecting a similar experience, not just the same old "boost enemy stats by a bunch" stuff which is the usual, uninteresting way that games increase the difficulty.

When the most visible difference is badly inflated health and armor values, it is not living up to the expectations which Larian set for themselves.

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Originally Posted by Stabbey
Originally Posted by dlux
If I had to guess I'd say people are insulted that they are having problems with the hardest difficulty setting, i.e. they would be much happier if tactician mode simply did not exist and classic mode was the most difficult setting.

Baldur's Gate had a hardcore mode too and it is substantially more brutal than tactician mode in D:OS 2.



You guessed wrong, because like every single other person defending the current Tactician mode, you're not interested in listening to anything which originates outside your own head.

People are complaining because D:OS 1 EE set a gold standard for visible changes in difficulty, and Tactician mode was specifically a stretch goal. People were expecting a similar experience, not just the same old "boost enemy stats by a bunch" stuff which is the usual, uninteresting way that games increase the difficulty.

When the most visible difference is badly inflated health and armor values, it is not living up to the expectations which Larian set for themselves.


Pretty much. The current state is just silly. The entire concept of difficulty is one global buff on all NPC's.

If i'm playing something like Skyrim and I want a challenge, do I change the difficulty slider up to the highest setting so I hit for 25% and the enemies hit for 300%?

No. I download mods that tweak enemy AI or allow them more interesting move sets.

Higher #'s does not mean better. I can understand some stat padding to prevent players from using certain tactics to nuke a target. But that's the limit of the differences. Stat padding.

Heck if all they wanted to do was stat padding they could have made it something a bit less lazy and just made npcs have a small chance of having +1 level when you first enter an area. Even that would be more interesting than what we have because it would at least vary from game to game.

BRB, asking the mod forum if that's possible. hahaha

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Or maybe they didn't set anything and people are just complaining because it's not the kind of mode they want. If they still complain that the mode is just bloated stat, clearly they haven't gotten out of Act 1 yet where key fights can no longer be brute forced like Classic mode because you actually have to think about how to approach them now.

But of course, the people who are doing well are a bunch of min-max cheater who refuse to play fair and just exchange blow for blow so that's clearly a bad mode and it's unfun, unfair and absolutely nothing like the glorious golden age of D OS 1 EE tactician era.

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You were one of the first, talking against this tactician mode and saying that the early phase is only doable with a lot cheesing around? You even invented new cheese tactics for it.

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Originally Posted by dlux
I really don't understand why people are complaining that the hardest difficulty setting is too challenging.


That's because apparently it's not the only thing you do not understand.

The complaint isn't "it's too hard".
It is "it achieves it's goal by making the parts of the game that are already bad even worse".

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Originally Posted by Kalrakh
You were one of the first, talking against this tactician mode and saying that the early phase is only doable with a lot cheesing around? You even invented new cheese tactics for it.


That was my first impression and I will still say that the mode will leave a very bad impression, mainly because mages are absolutely crap on level 1 - 4 with no item support and minimal skill. All the ridiculously useful one are locked behind Tier 2 or Tier 3 on Geo/Hydro that when used well, completely wins all non-boss fights.

I gave it a few more hours and I was willing to change and accept that the mode was actually decent and fun compared to classic where I rekted everything with my brain turned off.

Also, I never used any of the cheese I found. I was just messing around to find it for the lol because as a programmer, trying to imagine the way other people code their game and certain function and finding loopholes is just another fun of mine. I'm playing the game completely normal with min-max build. Every encounter can be cleared because they are more of a puzzle with very obvious answer.

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I just finished my first playthrough, with 2 physical dps lonewolfs.

Now i plan my next playthrough with a 4 man team any suggestions?

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This is something someone posted on Steam:

To all players saying 'Git good' or other stupid things like that: the tactician difficulty IS problematic.

- Its a simple +50% to all stats and damage of ennemies. Far from the better AI / better skills / new ennemies that was promised

- There seems to be a difficulty spike before you complete Fort Joy. If you are unlucky on your gear drops, and complete quests pacifically, you can get at a point where you are stuck at level 3, with only unbeatable level 4 fights. At this point, the only choices you have are to the extreme cheese way (game breaking exploits like the flee/unlimited turn bug), or restart the game in classic..

- The 50% boost to armour means that cc's are worthless for a long period of time at the start of a fight. Meanwhile, the 50% damage boost means that YOUR armor is worthless as anti-cc since any cc attack will just wreck it.. It's not good design, and its juste frustrating.

- The fact that you cannot reduce difficulty is simply stupid. Since you can play more than a dozen hours wefore hitting a wall, you can justifiably be♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥if you have to start over to be able to enjoy the game. Not being able to reduce the difficulty only create frustrated players and negative opinions.

This is so true seriously.

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Originally Posted by akuratheunseen
Gotta be honest with you People are just plain wrong on how hard it is and are just undergeared most likely. I've now made it to level 14 in tactician mode and the only enemies I have trouble with are the ones a couple levels above me which is how is should be and this is with a mixed physical and magic with 1 ranger party [img:center]https://imgur.com/a/roEzM[/img]


To add to this, that is how DOS works to. You have to look at the level of your enemies in comparison to your level. If they are above you, that is telling you, there is somewhere else for you to go first and get exp there then comeback. That is very old-school and it does tax the gamer to use mind/patience. If you are under-leveled that is a big penalty in this game.

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Originally Posted by Zherot
This is something someone posted on Steam:

- Its a simple +50% to all stats and damage of ennemies. Far from the better AI / better skills / new ennemies that was promised


Is it possible to get an official response on this? I'm getting conflicted user takes. I'd like to know.

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Originally Posted by Horrorscope

To add to this, that is how DOS works to. You have to look at the level of your enemies in comparison to your level. If they are above you, that is telling you, there is somewhere else for you to go first and get exp there then comeback. That is very old-school and it does tax the gamer to use mind/patience. If you are under-leveled that is a big penalty in this game.


Even with underlevel, you can still beat hard encounter too if you know what skills are ridiculous and can be abused as a mean of hard counter.

Here's one, Evasive Aura. Slot a source orb into your necklace (Get it from the guy in the ship. HE sells it for 10k something but it's actually worth only 2.5k as its actual price so it's not hard to steal multiple copies of it)

Every situation so far has an answer to them.

The Evasive aura or Dallis aura? Teleport them so far away they can't rejoin

Enemy has too many heavy physical damage with huge health? Evasive aura.

Enemies have mage? Their damage will never be ridiculous because they still obey our rule of magic scaling so keep that Soothing Cold up at all time and they can barely hit you. Also CC immunity necklace is nice. The earliest one you can get is a unique "Immunity: Stunned" so you are guaranteed to find it in Act 1.

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Originally Posted by smokey
Yeah, I must agree, the new tactical mode is pants – but it at least forced me to abandon it, reroll as a custom ‘The Black Prince’ with the warrior voice (to counter the let down that is the The Red Ponce). It’s rushed, which is expected, given everything else they had to do. This is strictly a WIP, as I see it. The enemies have just been turned into the equivalent of bullet sponges, which was just getting really boring as the game went on.

So it’s idea time. Personally, I’m in favour of keeping classic-mode stats on enemies, but adding something imaginative that genuinely makes the combat more tactical, rather just more chore-like. I’m a big fan of random events to take care of this. I also think it would be cool if tactical mode introduced a new enemy faction whose motives run parallel to the main story.


One thing that is easy to do is drop the boost stats to armor/damage/hp and give the NPC more AP something like +2 - +4 to start and/or turn AP. That gives them the ability to use more skills per round for something different vs classic. But they aren't meat mountains as someone said and your game still feels good against them.

So the same idea I shared with the txt files, just add in the AP field names instead.

I do assume AI has a tree of skills they can use, so more AP will make them use greater skills potentially. Boom better AI!:)

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Is evasive aura so strong? i didn't tried yet but the in-game description tells that it cost 2ap, 1sp, and last for one turn.

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