Hi,

I feel quite frustrated ATM, because I cannot progress through the game.

I have started anew with a tank like character, because with the mage it was pretty much impossible to win almost any fight.

Seriously, do you guys think this game is too difficult even at normal level? I simply cannot go past the groups of shadows at the beginning of the game.

Am I missing something here?

I think it's a bit hard at hard level. But I found normal level pretty easy. What's happening in your combat, exactly? You aren't trying to fight the bear on the first pass through the area, are you?

No...I thought to leave the bear alone for the time being.

I am simply trying to progress through the game, but the enemies are simply too difficult to kill. I even backtracked a little to "farm" levels before progressing, but there is the odd encounter that completely wipes out my party. Saving after each encounter and loading 10 times when the odd "impossible" encounter happens, does not help the longevity of this game.

I have being playing RPGs for about 20 years, so I know what I am talking about. To me, it seems that the difficulty of this game as not been tested properly. I wan to play normal, and normal should be. I do not want to set the difficulty to easy because...well...normal should be NORMAL.

I know I am not talking about the mass of people who always jump to these kind of threads claiming that even the impossible difficulty is easy and bla bla bla (no offense meant), but it looks that the game is simply too difficult and frustrating at this point.

Well, I've probably got you beat on playing experience, since I'm in my 60s now. I played D&D using the beige pamphlets in the 70s (also honest-to-God wargames, but that's another story for another time).

The shadows are a bit tricky because they teleport and like to target the weakest member of your party. With all the monster groups (not just shadows), it's a good idea to pull as few as them to your party at a time. Many of the groups can be split and defeated in detail.

Also, I strongly recommend the spell fan of flames, to deal with them. It's tricky to use for 2 reasons (or 3): You have to maneuver the mage around so the fan will hit only bad guys and not your party members, while hitting all of your foes (which often puts your mage where the bad guys can attack him). Also you have to predict where the bad guys will be by the time the spell fires. Once they start teleporting around this can be difficult. Doorways and even corners make great choke points for bunching them up.

If your puller is chased by a roomful rather than one or two, then you can have your entire party keep running. The monsters give up the chase pretty quickly. Sometimes when this happens. you can target the rearmost with an arrow, and pull just that one, while the rest return to their room.

You do have to use smart tactics. And when one thing fails miserably, put it down for a bit and think about another way to try it.

Where are you stuck, precisely? Is it shadows in the church of Eothas in Gilded Vale? If yes, just ignore that dungeon for the time being and return once you're confident you're going to beat them, you can even wait to find more party members (or construct some of your own). I found that, with the correct approach, the game is relatively easy on normal - you just have to figure out what weaknesses of various foes are and act upon that. Holding on weapons with varying damage types in your inventory helps too. And keep in mind that those ghosts are very voulnerable to magic - in fact so much that I usually wiped them with my druid and mage within seconds. My tactic was to tie them up with Eomer or whatever his name is (the tank you find in Gilded Vale) and then just bombard them with spells. Sometimes, I even risked hitting Eomer - worth it in the end, since shades were dead and I was alive.

Change your tactics.
Also, you can make game easier for you, make sure you sleep before a hard fight, eat some food, enchant your items, and position yourself correctly (tanks-frontliners).

For the shadows - look at the beastariy to see their immunities and weaknesses, maybe you use a weapon/spell that they have high resistance to ?

Its hard to know exactly what the problem you had with the shadows because except teleporting around i pretty much defeated them easily with a good ol' sword.

Also take note to abuse your priest, he has strong defensive and offensive spells ;)

Nope, game start is harder since you have low level, almost no party members and bad items.

Once you find/hire (hint) some members and start getting some magic items here and there, game becomes much easier.

Take your time. Combat is NOT important in this game (except for getting loot, of course), so focus first on exploring and questing to get levels and you'll soon find yourself ROFLstomping enemies.

With the Patch 1.03 the things will be a little easier as the mage has an increase on his spells ranges.
I can't speak in the normal setting due I'm playing in the last one (and only resting when my characters are almost death), but the enemies seem to be smart, they focus on the weakest members first (Particularly the shadows). So, you need to engage them with your meele warriors, and in case of teleport do not left alone your mages. And as Alcaray say it, tactics is everything in this game: Try to make them follow you a small corridors, see if pistols are better option than crossbows and bows, etc.

Engage is similar to attacks of opportunity from the D&D 3.X, however has a big difference: when a creature get inside of the engage range of other will be forced to stop. This is true for your warriors trying to rescue other members, and for the foes trying to reaching your mage

If you begin to explore everything before following the main quest (That is before enter the big city), suddenly the difficult will jump when you reach the second village ( Stupid stone scarabs). And eventually, some random encounters begin to happens that become very hard (Though you can avoid fighting them). At least for me, I had to rest more times in these places (Probably was a place planned for level 7-8 instead of 5) but once I went to the big city everything got "normal" (until I found the next pack of shadows, stupid smart and lethal shadows).

And remember, as you don't get XP by killing, farming is not truly how the game was designed, so, look for secret passages! In this game, if your locksmith can't open the door, probably your PC with high perception will find a key or a secret button, or a high resolve will get info from the other NPC

P.d. IF you has a encounter with shades and shadows, DESTROY THE SHADES First!
P.d.2. I usually don't upgrade weapons until the end, but in this game I was forced to do it, for killing spirits, though giving extra damage to kith is good, so yes, this game is hard.

If you know what you're doing it's rather easy at normal. Even at hard.

You know that shadows can be in most cases one shotted with a first level AoE spell?

I'm playing hard and it is not too difficult. And my character is a low endurance&health one. It could be a bit more difficult, but it's nice.

If you find it too difficult, it means you have to adjust your tactics. If some location is too difficult, maybe you should visit it later.

Shadows are vulnerable to fire. Position your party well. Shades are the difficult ones due to high damage reduction, I had to try a few times with a 4 level party (Rogue PC, Aloth, Durance, Edér - but Durance was still 3 level). Try blinding them so they will be less dangerous, than fry them with fire spells.

Or consider playing easy..


BTW finding secret doors or compartments is based on Mechanics skill and requires enabling the stealth mode. You may find various clues (where to find the key, for example), though.

I was getting raped by shadows before discovering that I could kill them off with Aloth's first level fire AoE spell.

You have no place to complain about the game being too hard if you aren't playing on the easiest difficulty setting. It's as simple as that.

This game is primarily aimed at veterans of old Infinity Engine games, and for them it isn't particularly difficult. In fact, a lot of them are complaining that Hard is way too easy. Being an "RPG veteran" doesn't necessarily mean much (no offence).

Are you sure? I was understanding that finding secret things is based in perception, except traps that is based in mechanics.

I say that, because usually the member of my party who find the secret cache is my main character which don't has mechanics points but has a good perception. My rouge don't find them so easily.

Perception has no use in spotting traps or secrets.

Holy hell, hat's off to you sir elder Gamer, that is quite admirable actually.

Anyway, to the OP i'd say use food to your advantage and traps and if it's still not enough go explore some other area and come back to this one later.