Which difficulty do you prefer?

[RP80]

Was just curious to hear what difficulty everyone plays on? Right now I play a party of five charachters with about 1,7 million exp each, using most of the good items in the game(SoA). I find the game fun and all but many battles I think are to easy. I realise that I probably haven't played the hardest battles yet, although I have heard that the now dead elemental lich is not an easy one compared to most really late game fights. rip
It feels abit late to change the diff. now since I have gotten so much stuff on normal setting. I'm thinking of perhaps put the game on hard or insane the next time I start over(which might be now, will perhaps play to parties at onces). Anyone that have cleared the game on those? How difficult was it and did you find it more or less enjoyable then on the default setting?

[Bruce Lee]

I mostly play on core rules difficulty. Sometimes putting it down to normal when learning spells as there seems to be a bug related to the percentage to learn a spell. I dont like the difficulty settings in bg2 much. Monsters doing double damage hurts some classes more than others.
I am sure many people have finished the game on insane.

[Miscreant]

You gotta turn the difficulty up if you've already played through once. While just making monsters do double damage isn't exactly a new game, it does stop you from taking fighter-based classes through the game and just pillaging and raping everywhere you go. This kinda forces you to take a main tank and cut it with a mage dual/multi for the stoneskins/mirrors, slowing your progress a bit. I get frustrated all the time thinking, "this isn't even how it is supposed to be played, I'll just turn the difficulty down because this is retarded." But then again, knowing where all the powerful items are and all the lethal recipes for spells, classes, mage killing, etc. isn't exactly how it was meant to be played, either.

If you're really against monsters doing more damage, I am just curious as to what is occuring in your games that you're not just slaughtering everything you come across. When you've already played once, even if you try to stay away from the cheesier aspects, you will unconsciously do some things that you likely never would have thought of the majority of your first time through...

[Ekental]

Core Rules... and as Miscreant said; if I want to slow myself down and rethink battles Insane.
@Lee: There arent that many spell bugs though with core rules... care to give an example?

[LotharBot]

I play core rules, except for the following times:
1) when I import a character, I import in the lowest skill. This has, for the most part, given me good HP rolls. I can't stand having a BG1 character with 70 hp come into BG2 with only 30.
2) when I scribe spells, I use the lowest skill. Saves me from having to reload.
3) when I level up, I use the lowest skill, also for HP.

I think I'd use a similar system in "hard" or "insane".

[VonDondu]

[QUOTE=LotharBot]I play core rules, except for the following times:
...
2) when I scribe spells, I use the lowest skill. Saves me from having to reload.
3) when I level up, I use the lowest skill, also for HP.[/QUOTE]
Do you reload if a party member is permanently killed? If so, how is that different from playing on "Normal" difficulty? Just curious.

For what it's worth, I usually play on "Hard", but I give my characters maximum hit points and I reload if they fail to scribe scrolls or get permanently killed.

[Bruce Lee]

What I meant was the bug when trying to learn a spell from a scroll. If you are a gnome you have something like 95% chance to learn it but I seem to fail one out of threee or four which is way to many. This is annoying so rather than reloading if I fail I set the difficulty to normal when learning from a scroll which means autosuccess.
I agree that it is much easier when playing through a second or third time. What I did instead of changing difficulty was to try and not use healing potions, only clerical healing and no resting in cheesy places.

[RP80]

I just started a game now on hard difficulty since I have like I said earlier almost finished SoA. I had ordered a copy of ToB from my local games shop but they haven't got it home yet so what am a poor addicted guy to do?
First impression is that it sure seems alot more difficult. I'm playing a chaotic good sorcerer and at the moment finding out how hard kobold arrows hits.
Not sure which party I will use but whatever npc:s I choose I quess will be alot weaker then my previous party. Since that was an evil one I had for example Korgan, Edwin and Viconia which are all pretty much the best of their classes.
Only chars I'm really sure I will use is Keldorn because his dispel and I want to use that sword in my last chars backpack...

[Luis Antonio]

Until my first visit to Gamebanshee I only played on easy. Because I was not into cheese and tactics, but after coming here (I remember that tactics mod was really the cool thing at that time) I needed to make things worst for myself. Then I raised the dificulty to hard, and got beat all the times.

When I actually installed Tactics mod, I placed the slider on easiest again, and started playing to defeat the "uncheesable" battles, and that taught me a lot. Now I play almost always at core, but when I go to those battles I consider simple or I'm certain to win without a beating I raise the difficulty, just for the kicks.

Anyway, core is the best one to play, because it is real AD&D and you dont have to worry with double damage from a surprise arrow when your character is fleeing with 10 health points.

[Locke Da'averan]

i use normal, since the core doesn't make any sense to me.. if you have a party that's the one you want, why let someone get killed permanently/fail to scribe a scroll/get lower hp's since your going to reload anyway, so i keep it on normal because i can concentrate on the game and not worrying how many times i have to reload to get max hp(like in bg1 atm)

the difference between core and normal is conveniency, since it reduces the times you reload(on PnP AD&D it's entirely different matter) but in an adventure where you have the luxury of reload i just don't see the point.. hard or insane don't seem like the right way to make things harder, i prefer increased encounters and stuff like that..

[SP101]

I play on hard, for a little challenge and a "realistic play".

I don't wan't my chars to scribe at 100%, but yes, if I find a Wish Scroll, I'll reload if my mage fails to scribe it. Also, I don't want my chars to have max HP... that's just too godly!

Just look at a level 10 fighter :
- On easy, he will have 100 HP + Con Bonus
- On hard, he will have 10 to 100 HP + Con Bonus

That's a HUGE difference and this remove alot of challenge : surviving.

It's funny to run from a pack of enemy with only 5HP and no healing potions left... that's what makes BG2 fun!

But (because there's always one!), if you install challenging mods like Tactics, the game will be challenging even at easy.

[Vicsun]

So am I the only one who plays on insane in vanilla games? I do have to admit to also lower the difficulty down to normal when scribing scrolls though - I can't stand it when that essential spell not found anywhere else fails to be scribed

In tactics+improved battles I play on normal and often have the urge to lower the difficulty down to easy I tried playing on insane but encounters with duegars early on changed my opinion rather quickly.

[Coot]

I play on insane, but I don't have any mods installed that make fights harder. And insane isn't that hard, I mean, I've been through the series for seven times now.

[Luis Antonio]

[QUOTE=Vicsun]So am I the only one who plays on insane in vanilla games? I do have to admit to also lower the difficulty down to normal when scribing scrolls though - I can't stand it when that essential spell not found anywhere else fails to be scribed

In tactics+improved battles I play on normal and often have the urge to lower the difficulty down to easy I tried playing on insane but encounters with duegars early on changed my opinion rather quickly.[/QUOTE]


Dude, same thing here. I have finished the game several times, told myself ah, I'll play it at core.

Once beat. Shame.
Twice beat. Ridiculous.
Third time. Damn dwarves.
When I hit fifth time I was humble and lowered the slider...

(SPOILERS, BEWARE)

IMO improved Ily is worst than the thieves guild or any encounter except for Sola encounters and the final battle (damn, that formation is really a nightmare). The other battles (ToB battles) have not been such a problem for me, since Imp Abazigal is hard but cheesable. I had a trouble with Sendai due to bad spell selection and after five reloads I fixed my spell selection (I had not the best spells for her at that time even with the best spell selection) but she went down after three party members were down. And the final battle was troublesome because they have insane resistances. But that was expected too, and the UU cheeseguide helped me loads.

[LotharBot]

[QUOTE=Locke Da'averan]the difference between core and normal is conveniency[/QUOTE]

As well as 3/4 damage in normal vs. 1 damage in core, unless the in-game descriptions are wrong.