What difficulty do -you- play on?

loganultima

loganultima

Apologies for double-post, I have accidentally typed enter before inserting all necessary options.
Edit: Couldn't delete the failed double-post so I ninja moved it to another category.

Senash

I don't have a clear answer to this one. I used to play a lot on Normal, difficulty as a teenager (Very rarely switching to Novice). One reason being is that, well I was young and couldn't take big challenges, and two is that I always played this game for the story. In the last couple of years when I replayed the game I was switching between Core Rules and Hard.

Krypteia

Core. I always found the higher difficulties to be "fake hard" - doubling enemy damage done to you etc. Which is not to say it's not hard, because it is, only it's a cheap way of making things more difficult. I'd rather the enemy worked together and cheesed spell combinations and item use - like with the Tactics or SCS mods - to seriously ruin my day on a higher difficulty setting.

loganultima

When people say they soloed the game do they generally play on normal/core?

Mechalibur

Core Rules. Anything higher seems like artificially increasing the difficulty, rather than including meaningful elements to challenge me.

In Baldur's Gate 2, I typically set it to "Normal" though. High damage spells and attacks makes chunking far too common for my liking, and I usually play underlevelled fighter-type characters with only a single arcane and divine caster in the party, usually delegated to supporting roles, so I need all the help I can get :P

First time I went through BG2, I was a mage, and contingency/summoning/time stop abusing just made everything far too easy, no matter what difficulty the game was on. So now I play fighters, downplay my mages a lot, and reduce the difficulty to normal. Oddly enough, that made things far more difficult for me, but I loved it much more than my first playthrough.

Maybe I should try a mage again, but just keep certain spells off limits.

Glokta

Core rules is what is usually play on, also i try to use diffrent ways to defeat enemies in each playthrough just for the sake of varity and not doing the same thing evry time i play :-)

Duron

Combination of Hard and Core rules. I usually pass first on Core rules but after that I tend to highten the dificulty.

Cheesebelly

Hard and Insane difficulties aren't really "hard and insane" opponents. Simply because it's the typical lazy BioWare way to balance off games - make them do more damage! It's useless, I see no reason to play on them.

Aasimar069

Only exception to core rules : I want to have 100% of my HP per level, so I move the difficulty cursor back to easy before each level up.

Why 100% HP ? Because the ame focus heavily on combat, and, unlike PNP RPG, the DM cannot adapt encounters to the strenghts and weaknesses of a party.

Kurakai

@loganultima

In your previous topic I said normal but I meant Core rules since my Dads mate DM's our pen and paper campaign with using the standard rules I guess I'm better suited to this setting but like I said, once I play through it once I'll restart upping the difficulty .

patbaker

core rules first time I beat it then insane second play through

Mungri

I like my max HP on level up, I would like to play higher difficulties if I could still have that.

O_Bruce

Core and above.

elminster

Sometimes I will switch back to normal to get full health, depends on what I feel like doing at the time, but I always play from a combat standpoint at core.

DJKajuru

I'll reload if hps or spell learning fails heheh

Alkalurops

Mungri said:

I like my max HP on level up, I would like to play higher difficulties if I could still have that.

I play on hard, and I used to switch to "normal" difficulty whenever I need to level someone until I found BG2 Tweaks mod (http://www.gibberlings3.net/readmes/readme-bg2tweaks.html) which has a "maximum hp" option.

I've done 1 insane playthrough, but double damage feels too fake hard. Exploding Aeries all over the place...

CoryNewb

Only 1 vote for novice? I guess I'm a newb! Oh well, I only played BG2 and Shadows of Amn, so I am going to be going at this blindly my first playthrough. Will ramp up difficulty on my next game (which probably won't be that long after my first game).

elminster

CoryNewb said:

Only 1 vote for novice? I guess I'm a newb! Oh well, I only played BG2 and Shadows of Amn, so I am going to be going at this blindly my first playthrough. Will ramp up difficulty on my next game (which probably won't be that long after my first game).

You are lucky in a sense. Back in the day Baldurs Gate vanilla actually gave you less experience if you played on the easiest difficulty. BG2 changed that.

allhailsteve

Originally normal but then upped to core. Never tried other difficulties.

Cyhort

Normally I do normal, but I think I'm gonna do Novice here. I play RPG's for the story, not the gameplay and battles so I want that to be as easy as possible without having to cheat right away, lol.

IntoTheDarkness

I don't like when computers *cheat* to increase the difficulty. I play on core with sword coast stratagems, which increases difficulty by making AI smart rather than granting them enforced scripts.

I feel it is much more difficult than Vanilla insane though... Fighting a demi-lich that uses a timestop followed by 3 skulltraps in CC is a pain... or rather, nigh impossible.

Oxford_Guy

Always core, if it was improved AI, rather than computer "cheats" I'd player on a higher level, though

Ravel

Personally I prefer Core Rules. Next time I'm going to try stepping up my difficulty with better save/load discipline - not reloading when I fail to copy a spell, for example.

I'd do the same with thievery if there were a more moderate intermediate penalty when you get caught stealing (paying a fine to guards/being kicked out of the store/etc) before everyone and their mom just goes all-out hostile on you.

Varyahen

I think core rules are the pure essence of that game. Hard or Insane...maybe for a few epic combats who are too much easy and sort. Mulahey for example. It's too easy, so you can play it as insane and make it more amazing.

LordsDarkKnight185

I like core rules...and as far as 100% HP goes, it ruins my excitement. Hitting 100% hp at level up is one of those CHANCE things that make D&D exciting, and should be a rarity worth celebrating. (Same with doing 100% damage or landing a crit)

AHF

I play on Hard with the SCS mods and Ascension mods. I (meta) know too much to do normal.

DeathMachineMiyagi

Core.

If Hard and Insane worked by adding new monsters or AI behavior to encounters (it does occasionally, like with the Ascension mod, but mostly not), I would choose one of those. What it does instead feels like its just letting the enemy cheat, which is more annoying than fun.

AlexDeLarge

Insane if i'm playing a normal game, otherwise Core Rules for no reload runs.

[Deleted User]

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Schneidend

Core if I have a mod installed that ensures my HP on level up won't be utter garbage.