I've been playing the game on and off since it released, and it feels like the hearts of stone expansion brought with it a huge difficulty increase. I, pretty much, crushed the game on death March (hardest difficulty) and am level 35, so I'm not under leveled for the new content, and everything just seems so much harder, even just encounters with a few human enemies. There's a boss early on in the expansion that's harder than any Souls boss I've faced (especially on death March). This crippling difficulty, coupled with absurd load times on ps4, forms a very frustrating experience...

Well, good thing I already have the difficulty trophies! Onto sword and story!

Yeah man, I played the base game on Death March and I'm getting rocked in the expansion (level 34). I'm actually sitting on 5 ability points, which I haven't used because I didn't want to become overpowered. Might have to use some of those! I'm actually glad it's been this difficult so far. I was worried that I would cruise through it. Just gotta figure out how to get close to this toad...

Yep. People were complaining that Death March wasn't hard enough so in the 1.10 patch they addressed the "issue." Stuff hits harder, some enemies are smarter, and the new boss fights in Hearts of Stone are way more difficult than any of the baseline stuff.

Seems to be a trend, Dragon Age: Inquisitions's Trespasser DLC has mini boss fights harder than anything in the main game, I actually wiped and had to reload and use more strategy than normal on Hard difficulty.

As for the Witcher 3 DLC, I hear that people who focused on sword play are having a harder time, need to use more signs supposedly.

Yeah, the first two big encounters were definitely tougher than the rest of the game. Switching back and forth from healing-bubble-quen to igni made it a lot easier than my normal dodge/slash approach.

Good thing I don't have the expansion yet. I honestly find the game challengning enough especially early on. I switched to just the story for a while and just recently switched back to story and sword. I think my main problem was I wasn't crafting good equipment.

But I also think the combat in this game is kinda sub-par, so...

Interesting you mention it. I just finish Trespasser today and I thought that the final boss in that DLC was definitely the hardest thing in the game. Harder than the final dragon, harder than Corypheus. I played that game on hard, not nightmare, though.

I do hope they bring some new difficulties with the expansion. I remember some of the later fights in the game taking awhile, but once you have the Quen upgrade that heals you when you get hit, I wouldn't say it's "hard." Just a matter of memorizing and being patient.

@frostyryan: It's less about just gear and more about potions and oils in W3 I find. Crafted gear is not all that far off from stuff you can just find randomly, tho it is better. But a proper potion/oil/bomb setup to a situation can essentially multiply your effectiveness several fold.

@tonic7:To be fair I though ol' Cory was a total pushover, as a completionist I was so overpowered Cory went down in about 15 seconds on hard, I think he was in the middle of transitioning to his next phase or something but i'm not sure, i killed him in the middle of some animation :P

I'm still on normal, but even with that I felt a difficulty ramp. Seems like signs are even more useful than they already were.

How would you become overpowered if you used those 5 points? You can only use as many abilities as you can slot, and you're maxed slots at level 30 right?

@alexw00d: You can unlock more abilities even if you cant use more at the same time.

True! combat builds will get quite the challenge especially on New Game +/Death March. You can see how long it took me to take down the toad here just using swordplay and quen.

Just skip to the part where I'm already fighting the toad though if ever. hahaha