DAO vs BG1&2 difficulty

[K9doggie]

How hard is Baldur's Gate compared to Dragon Age Origins on Nightmare? Will playing DA on Nightmare prepare me for older CRPGs like BG, Fallout, and Arcanum? I know that DA doesn't use DnD rules and has regenerative health and non-permanent death. Would Neverwinter Nights 2 be easier for someone whose only DnD based game he has ever beaten is Planescape: Torment?

 

[hoverdog]

Basic Baldur's Gates are easy, even a cakewalk if you know what you're doing.

for any challenge, install Stratagems.

 

[SCO]

BG & II needs some custom mods to be challenging. Things like disabling all rest areas in bgtweaks (so you can only rest by cutscene or in inns), limiting xp gain rate (or increasing it if you're a unfortunate multiclass munchkin like me).

 

[felipepepe]

Baldur's Gate is quite easy, your main confusions coming from newwer RPGs will be the bigger party control and all the magics spells, itens and effects available, not to mentio some non-obvious storyline quests, especially in BG 1.

Still, just start playing it and enjoy the ride.

 

[bloodlover]

BG normal vs DA Nightmare? Why would anyone play that shit on nightmare?

 

[Jick Magger]

If you don't use a mage with the Arcane Warrior and Spiritual Healer/Blood Mage specializations? Maybe.

If you do use a mage with the Arcane Warrior and Spiritual Healer/Blood Mage specializations? No.

Then again, haven't played Baldur's Gate in awhile. Only significant challenges I remember came from bullshit moves like getting ambushed by mages near the beginning of the game and getting instantly petrified by those fuckers near that ruin, and that was only really due to trial and error.

And don't use the DLC items/accessories, not even the festive day pranks. One of them's able to make one of your companions capable of resurrecting the entire party at will.

 

[Excidium]

Bladder's Gate 1/2 encounters are usually easy or hard depending on how prepared you are. Of course it's easy if you reload and memorize every counter spell beforehand and having played already 7 times knowing every encounter by memory, like most people who call a game easy on the codex.

DA:O is easy most of the time, some encounters are harder but it's more like needing to watch out than outright rape. My little brother finished it easily back when it came out playing a ranged rogue, which is probably the shittiest class.

NWN2 is easy as fuck. Doesn't even have friendly fire by default and resting is basically just 5 seconds of real time.

 

[Average Manatee]

The main trick to these RTwP D&D games is understanding which of the 5% of spells you should always have ready in multiple copies. The other trick is figuring out when one of the other 95% of spells would totally win a hard battle and using that rather than banging your head against a brick wall.

 

[Rpgsaurus Rex]

They are very different.

Arcanum and Fallout aren't to be treated as difficult or not, they are storyfag games with lots of C&C where playing a diplo character gives the most payoff and enjoyment. BGs are party-based top-down dungeon crawlers where quests/banter/story etc. are a background but don't really add much to gameplay itself (INT/WIS/CHA are almost completely irrelevent to outside of combat). BGs also very controversial in the writing department, some adore these characters (I do), others think they're dumb Bioware shit.

If you want difficulty (i.e. get raped over and over if it's your first time), play BGs with SCS mods installed, but I don't know if I can recommend that if you don't love these games to death already. BGs are love-or-hate games that are hard to recommend to just anyone, while FO/Arcanum are non-controversial favourites. FO has OK-ish combat even though it's not really in the game's focus, while Arcanum's combat is quite shit. BG's combat feels like shit but actually has more tactical depth than either of them because you actually *control* your party, so play vanilla BGs (with BGT) if you're more in a dungeon crawling/lootwhore mood. You decide.

 

[Aeschylus]

The combat system of DA:O is highly exploitable, so for it to be hard, even on NM, you have to restrict yourself from using certain spells/party compositions. Arcane Warrior is right out, as you are basically invincible on any difficulty if you build it correctly. For a bit of a challenge, never have more than one mage in the party, and do not use the respec mod. Mana Clash breaks the difficulty of the game as it one-shots most mages and chops most of the health off many bosses. Nothing can touch a full-Dex rogue on any difficulty, so you'd probably want to avoid that if you're looking for a challenge.

BG and BGII are not particularly difficult, except maybe some of the ToB battles with Ascension and SCS2 installed. Then again, I know what I'm doing and played them to death so my opinion is probably not valid. Still, they are probably harder than DA:O.

NWN2 has mediocre-at-best combat, but it's pretty easy unless you turn the difficulty all the way up.

 

[Infinitron]

BGs are love-or-hate games that are hard to recommend to just anyone, while FO/Arcanum are non-controversial favourites.

lol, Codex.

 

[Captain Shrek]

Not to mention DA:O spell casting is simplistic.

DA:O has more reactive melee but in the end it all boils down to DPS, Tanking and kiting 'tactics'.

 

[octavius]

Bladder's

That reminds me...haven't seen fellow oldfag Blackadder around for a long time?

 

[tuluse]

Only on the codex would Arcanum be a non-controversial favorite while BG2 is a love-or-hate it game. I'm not complaining mind you, just funny.

Captain Shrek, I thought it boiled down to having 3 mages with cone of cold (or whatever it was called) and stunfreeze-locking all enemies forever.

 

[felipepepe]

BGs are love-or-hate games that are hard to recommend to just anyone, while FO/Arcanum are non-controversial favourites.

Yeah, that's why Baldur's Gate 2 was #4 at the Codexian pool of best RPGs ever, with 155 votes...

 

[Rpgsaurus Rex]

Only on the codex would Arcanum be a non-controversial favorite while BG2 is a love-or-hate it game. I'm not complaining mind you, just funny.

Dunno about "Codex consesus" tbh, I'm extremely biased towards BG2 because it was among my first RPGs so replaying it has massive nostalgia value.

Now that I'm playing BG1 for the first time so I can live through SCS and import my char into BG2 I can see that it is massively weak in the writing department - unlike Arcanum or FO - which could be a big no-no to some players. Recruitable NPCs are dull beyond hope, with honorable exceptions of Minsc and Edwin (though I'm not sure if it isn't due to NPC1 project), haven't seen a single interesting quest so far, it's basically exploring forest locations (which is moderately fun - it's my thing) and looking out for SCS magerape. If I didn't know I were going into BG2+ToB later on for massive nostalgia overdose or had SCS to keep me on my toes, I would have abandoned it a long time ago. With SCS and nostalgia drive it's great, but recommending vanilla BG1 to a completely new player... not sure.

BGs are love-or-hate games that are hard to recommend to just anyone, while FO/Arcanum are non-controversial favourites.

Yeah, that's why Baldur's Gate 2 was #4 at the Codexian pool of best RPGs ever, with 155 votes...

My recommendations are based on personal taste, and trying to convey it another guy who I know nothing about.

 

[The Bishop]

I don't think there can be a meaningful comparison between DAO and BG1/2 difficulty wise because games present fairly different challenges. In DAO it's mostly optimizing DPS and running your squishy PCs around, while BG1/2 is more about having the right tools for the right situation. If you know what you're doing both can be quite easy, but not much of skill you get from one game will carry over into the other.

 

[Average Manatee]

I don't think there can be a meaningful comparison between DAO and BG1/2 difficulty wise because games present fairly different challenges. In DAO it's mostly optimizing DPS and running your squishy PCs around, while BG1/2 is more about having the right tools for the right situation. If you know what you're doing both can be quite easy, but not much of skill you get from one game will carry over into the other.

Implying that BG1 isn't about getting 6 bows and running PCs around?

BG2 changes this because then you just cast web or w/e and don't have to run around.

 

[Rpgsaurus Rex]

I don't think there can be a meaningful comparison between DAO and BG1/2 difficulty wise because games present fairly different challenges. In DAO it's mostly optimizing DPS and running your squishy PCs around, while BG1/2 is more about having the right tools for the right situation. If you know what you're doing both can be quite easy, but not much of skill you get from one game will carry over into the other.

Implying that BG1 isn't about getting 6 bows and running PCs around?

BG2 changes this because then you just cast web or w/e and don't have to run around.

This doesn't work when you're facing against pre-buffed enemy mages with Protection from Missiles and such, which is all the time when you're playing with SCS. You resort to other forms of cheese, but at least it's cheese with good variety depending on situation. Maybe I haven't figured some greater exploit that makes even SCS trivial, you tell me (or don't, so I can keep having fun reloading and reloading ) ... fuuu

 

[~RAGING BONER~]

if you ever suffer from insomnia, play Arcanum. Instant cure.

 

[hoverdog]

if you ever suffer from insomnia, play Arcanum. Instant cure.

 

[sea]

Dragon Age on nightmare is actually quite challenging a lot of the time. Some of the fights are very tough and require a lot of preparation or understanding of the spells. I still find the Archdemon, High Dragon, Gaxkang, Branka + golems, and others to be very challenging encounters that require a good bit of reactivity and correct builds/equipment. However, it's also not "unfair" like some games can be. There is HP bloat, but more commonly enemies just become significantly more deadly and use better spells and combos more often.

There are also a lot of cheese tactics you can use. If you are smart or want to break combat, you will learn to love kiting with ranged party, Arcane Warrior, Glyph of Repulsion, Mana Clash, as well as the rather overpowered spell combos. You can also drop AoE nukes on the floor of most rooms before enemies aggro and watch as they die while they stand around in their non-detecting phase (wandering enemies would add a LOT to the game's combat).

For tips, this guy has a lot of good videos on specific fights as well as general tactics:

http://www.youtube.com/user/crusherven

There is more depth to the combat system than people here give it credit for, the main problem is that RTwP tends to always make stuff a bit cluster-fucky, and the game has too many exploitable tactics and "steamroll" options compared to Infinity Engine titles (especially Baldur's Gate 2 and Icewind Dale). If it wasn't for the game supporting typical popamole "run through and kill whatever comes willy-nilly" gameplay it would be much more interesting. I know I would appreciate the mechanics much more in a fully turn-based settings because the interactions (different elemental damage types interacting, fire spreading, spell combos, etc.) would really shine there.

As far as BioWare games go I would rate quality of combat as: Baldur's Gate 2 > Dragon Age > Baldur's Gate > Dragon Age 2, although Dragon Age only beats Baldur's Gate due to better bosses and special encounter design (the rules themselves are inferior). If you beat Dragon Age on Nightmare, getting into the Infinity Engine games should not be a problem.

 

[Volourn]

"As far as BioWare games go I would rate quality of combat as: Baldur's Gate 2 > Dragon Age > Baldur's Gate > Dragon Age 2, although Dragon Age only beats Baldur's Gate due to better bosses and special encounter design (the rules themselves are inferior). If you beat Dragon Age on Nightmare, getting into the Infinity Engine games should not be a problem."

NWN> BG2 > DA > DA2 > ME > ME2 > JE > BG1 > ME3 > KOTOR

 

[Lilura]

Ass Effect popamole combat superior to the BG1, lol? Someone needs to learn to cast Sleep on lolXfartz and other mookhordes.

BG2 changes this because then you just cast web or w/e and don't have to run around.

You do realise that Web is the most powerful spell in BG1 and that Free Action is readily available, don't you?

 

[racofer]

DA:O on Nightmare made easy:

Play as a mage, focus on healing spells;
Have morrigan re-spec to healing spells;
Have Wayne with healing spells as well;
Pick one of the available warriors and build it to dish out the most damage possible;

Set all mages to heal your tank and buff him with renegeration spells;
Have each mage sustaining a different damage aura spell;
Have all mages sustain Haste at all times (it stacks on your melee character, but will make your mages attack at 1/20 of the speed because of a bug);

Your melee character will mow down everything.