A
Anonymous
Anonymous
I suppose its possible? Although I'd assume that playing on a lower difficulty would make the game easier, so maybe it wouldn't make much of a difference.You played on the hardest difficulty and took your time. So, it's possible someone playing on Normal and trying to experience the story quickly could come up against a frustrating difficulty spike?
For reference, I believe the idea you need these super orcs (as the reviews claim) is when you're doing defense missions and are attacked by increasingly higher-leved orcs, you want a decent amount of powerful defenders so you aren't overwhelmed. But that's the thing, I simply took over the enemy generals to solve that problem quickly. So as they came in to attack, I dominated them to bolster my defense. Also, some of the useful skills in the game are locked behind a quests and it's a good idea to do those quests (Shadow Domination comes to mind). I hit max level by Stage 3 of 10 in Act 4, so the game also throws tons of XP your way as well.
Generally in Act IV your biggest reason to want to level up is to recruit higher level orcs. Each siege battle pretty much game me a level of experience per siege so it went quickly. Orcs that you dominate can never exceed your own level. So the higher level you are, the higher level your orcs can be. There is also gems you can set on your gear to make this easier. For example, you have a Ring, and a slot for a gem. For the entire game I set it with a white gem, because in the ring slot, that would give levels to any orc I dominated (Up to my own level). I had the top tier gem in my ring slot by the end of the game and orcs would gain 5 levels when dominated.
So for example, If I'm Mr. Max level Talion at level 60, and I dominate a level 49 Captain, with the gem in my ring, that captain instantly levels to 54. If I dominate a level 57 Captain, he gets boosted to level 60. If he's 60 already, he stays 60. If (and this is the highest level I ran into) he's a level 65, then I have no way to dominate him at all and I simply kill him for phat lewt.
There are tough orcs out there, and some tough fights. However, I never felt that I was in a no-win situation, and the game is also designed with the idea you might lose from time to time, which creates interesting situations within the nemesis system. I actually lost a siege battle in Act IV and the jackass that killed me was promoted to Overlord. When I weakened the fortress and assembled a force to take it back, he comes out and makes a speech to the effect of: "That's the thing about Man-filth. You get rid of it once, and the stench comes back twice as strong!"
I gutted him like a fish.
During another siege, I got downed by an orc captain that had the "No Chance" trait, which means my "last chance" ability, where I cant to block a lethal blow to get back up didn't work. Just as the blade was falling, one of my captains burst in and stabbed the guy through the chest with a spear. "Can't let filth like that take you out, Bright Lord," he said. I promoted him to Warchief after I retook the fortress.
Good times.