Make the easier level of difficulty EASIER

Feedback/Feature Requests
1

I am seriously worried that the current levels of difficulty is scaring new people off.

Now, I’m a long time player, I’ve finished the game solo and levelled up two characters to max spec. I love the co-op aspect of the game, but the story on its own is similar to that of a single player campaign.

Many new people are playing solo - something the game allows you to do. But even in co-op the game becomes extremely hard as soon as you leave the starting island. So this feedback is as relevant for solo as it is for the co-op experience.

The hunter-spawning, the missile barrages, the machine detection from a distance, are all things that should be seriously tweaked to the player’s advantage at the easiest difficulty. And don’t get me started on overall HP of the larger machines.

But wait - you might say - this game is supposed to be based on guerilla tactics and stealth and ambushes. The problem with these intended play styles is that they are only rarely effective, and hence doesn’t make a player realise that this is how the game is intended to be played.

I’ll give some examples:
(1) Stealth depends on hiding and sneaking and taking out enemies “silently”. However, correct if I’m wrong, but it’s impossible to take out an enemy without alerting every machine in the vicinity to your position. Heck, I’ve even taken out drones from like a mile away with a sniper rifle, only to have runners from that position noticing me and running towards me, forcing me to engage in close combat. Shouldn’t a game where silencers and stealth exist, cater to the “secret assassin” play style?

(2) The heavier machines’ missile barrages denies the player from staying in hiding, due to how it ignores obstacles and even walls of houses. The explosive damage is so large that the player is forced to run out of cover and expose themselves to incoming fire from other enemies. So, even if I land the first shot having sneaked to a certain position, the machines know instantly where I am having fired that first shot. Wouldn’t it be cool if you could see machines being confused or running for cover themselves, by noticing incoming fire from somewhere?

Ok so what do I wish to say with this? For me, as a long-time player, I can find strategies and try to deal with the above issues. But it’s important that new players have fun with this title as well, that they feel they can progress within the game. And right now, I see some turning away as soon as they left the starting island.

To summarise, here are a few key issues I suggest change for the easier levels of difficulty:

  • Limit AI detection of the player characters (both sound and visibility detection)
  • Reduce damage output of machines
  • For the love of god reduce frequency of missile barrages from the heavier enemies
  • For the love of GOD limit hunter spawning from harvesters, by (1) have a certain max number that can spawn on a particular harvester, and (2) scale the frequency of spawns as per level of difficulty

By making the game easier for new players, a chance for them to level up and progress is given, without compromising of the core intent of the game, which involves intended play style.

What do you think?

Edit/Add: forgot to mention that buy making the easier level easier, one could also scale down XP earned from kills, as a way to incentivise players to eventually move up the difficulty ladder.

19 Likes
2

Completely agree with this as I have experienced this first hand whilst helping new players to the game, I watched as a three man new player team all ran out of ammo, meds and adrenaline in their first tank battle with a tank and it was only an prototype tank and I had to step in and help them as it got to painful and funny to watch.
Adventure mode should never be that hard.

9 Likes
3

Could not agree more.

1 Like
4

i think it just makes me MORE cautious when i play. before, i was aggressive and close ranging everything…now i sit back and use longer distance/from cover, if possible type strats…love new mode!!!

5

Yea I love many things with the harder game modes as well! My post was mainly aimed at understanding new players’ perspective though, as I’d wish for this game to grow and to have success. I’ve had many playsessions now (and if you look at Reddit you’d see the same) where new players are quite frustrated and maybe… confused as to how the difficulty scaling works in conjunction with moving from the starting island to the rest of the map.

1 Like
6

Hi. When I play it, I’ll play it offline only. Do you think they will retouch the adventure mode making it easier? is to wait to start the game a little longer. The game looks very good but it puts back what you read about the difficulty.

7

The strong of this game is the immersion,and they ruins all the experience with the last Patchs…i can play this game hard,but hard with quality,i can t play this game right now because the insane amount of machines and insane amount of respawn/spawn,they killed all the immersion and realistic Gameplay.

3 Likes
8

I think the most obvious “unbalanced” aspect of the new update is the leap from “Adventure” to “Skirmish” mode. Adventure is rather easy (as it should be), but there’s a huge leap up to Skirmish, which feels like Nightmare mode. I feel that the current Skirmish difficulty could be Guerilla mode, and there should be something in between. :face_with_raised_eyebrow:
But I also agree that the general difficulty mode could be lowered. In fact, the best option would be to have granular difficulty settings, so one could optimize for personal preference. I wouldn’t mind if it gave an XP scaling too. As an example, here is the difficulty options for another game with robots.

W2.png927×601

Difficulty could include everything from Robot spawn rate, sensors, damage, armor, hit points, projectile speed etc. to chance of dropping loot and materials.

For me, right now, the current difficulty settings take the fun away from the game, since Adventure is too easy, and Skirmish is tedious, at least on some parameters that I would tweak if I had the option (actually I would think that if projectile speed was lowered, I’d be satisfied with the new difficulty).

7 Likes
9

I wish there would be an “Explorer” mode, which did not weaken the enemies’ HP, but instead capped their numbers, especially “bosses” (hunters, tanks, harvesters) to low numbers:

No more hunters than players, and no more than one tank or harvester (not both) at a time.

Or better yet: Advanced host options for each machine type and class, with adjustable number caps, and fine tuning for sensing ranges and special attacks.

Please hear me out.

My friends and I had started playing recently, and instantly absolutely loved almost everything about the game (except for the lack of a third weapon slot, and a missing key to toggle the hud on/off). But suddenly, the current state of the game would leave us heartbroken after ~30 hours, not being any fun to play any more.

What we had loved:

The setting, the story, the atmosphere, the pace (being whichever we wanted), the gameplay, it was all amazing. We had found the niche we had always been looking for, that no other game had offered before:

It could be calm, almost like a walking simulator combined with watching your favorite TV show, where one could enjoy the beautiful scenery, investigate for clues to the thrilling story, and come up with theories, and discuss them.

When the need for action arose, there would also be frightening enemies that could be engaged or avoided. And if the odds seemed in favor, they were great fun to engage, as they would put up a good fight. It was awesome to hide and sneak, flank, engage at will, aim for components, and come up with tactics.

What happened then:

Suddenly, the game started to spam us with “bosses” (hunters, tanks, harvesters). They come in packs by the dozen, military and up.

They can often spot us across entire fields, sometimes even through obstacles and hills.

A tank can land devastating homing missiles over hundreds of meters without a line of sight, and for us with no chance of evasion. Even houses give no good cover because of the gas attacks; and they also make the gameplay extremely boring and tedious: They leave no tactical options, just shooting out the windows, ducking, trying to run to other rooms from gas, getting stuck in door frames. And they can’t be left, because of permanent rocket spam that cannot be evaded.

Even rivals pair up in twos or threes, their weapons and armor are extremely tough.

No solution currently:

The only way to survive at this point, is to lower the difficulty - and I am only talking about the dozens of military hunters at one place, there is still no chance against multiple tank rivals.

But this does not reduce the number of enemies, it just makes them easier to kill. It completely takes the frightening part of the machines, and the tactical aspect of the game, and then just feels like a silly Call-of-Duty-like robot shooter, where the game is trying to throw as much at us as possible.

This may be interesting for the end game players, who have seen it all anyhow, but is extremely off-putting for starters, who still want to explore the world and the story.

However, it is great that the machines are real tough - apart from their overpowered sensing, and the rocket spam, both of which eliminate any tactical approach. They are huge metal-made killing machines. They are, and they should be frightening to encounter and to engage, and each on their own at that. And this should require some tactical considerations.
Quality, not quantity (of course a pack of runners is fine). So the toughness is great, just the numbers aren’t.

Our suggestion:

Please please pretty please, add an “Explorer” mode that feels like the first 30 hours. Where the world is tranquil and frightening, and not crammed and unfair. Where the damage is just as selected by difficulty, but the game will never stack an ungodly amount of “boss” enemies or even rivals. Where no robot can hear you crouching at the next house, or see you without a line of sight over 100m, or just bomb you out of the blue. Where perhaps gas masks are a hassle to put on and see through, but would then give you full protection if combined with the chemist skill. Or where special attacks like gas and rockets are limited.
In short, where gaming is tough, but focused and fair, and allows for exploration, learning, experimenting with tactics, and variation in combat.

Even better, there could be advanced host options that lets players decide their exact fine tuning: How many of each machine may spawn at one place, how far can they see and hear, should certain special attacks be limited or even disabled.

That way, absolutely everybody would be happy and satisfied, with a world and a challenge that are exactly tailored to them!

This is something that truly only Generation Zero could cater! How great would that be?

And on top, I am sure this could be realized without too much effort. I would gladly even invest my own time to create a modification that does this, if it was possible; but as far as I know, there is no open development kit right now.

For my friends and me, the game has become so frustrating, we cannot continue anymore. But it had been so amazing until now. We miss the experience we had so far, and would be extremely thankful for a way to get it back.

Is there a chance?

6 Likes
10

Same feature request topics merged.

//Mod

You may not know this, but the entire Archipelago region is one big tutorial. Hence why it is so easy compared to the rest of the game.

1 Like
12

The fact that it may be intended as a tutorial does not change the fact that we enjoyed this part of the game very much, but couldn’t enjoy the game afterwards.

But with the feature I suggested, we and like-minded people would still be able to enjoy the rest of the game, without compromising the experience of those who wish for the game to be as it currently is.

2 Likes
13

It’s good feedback :slight_smile:

The newest update went overboard on the difficulty a bit. I think the idea of Adventure difficulty is that it’s supposed to be close to what you’re suggesting with more focus on exploration, story, atmosphere and that sort without combat getting in the way too much.

5 Likes
14

Yes I agree, and as @Gustave pointed out, even in Adventure mode there is just a few seconds between missile barrages would you have aggroed a larger machine, where timing is everything to run like a mad-man in any direction to avoid splash damage. This is the outcome of nearly EVERY tactical approach you had before the machine noticed you.

Now, when I see this from a newcomer’s perspective I can understand why it feels off-putting.

15

would also be cool if they added the ability to have inf weight on storage box maybe like a settingwhen you make a new world/ character

16

Thank you :slightly_smiling_face:

But just to be sure there won’t be a misunderstanding:

Combat is great and should by no means be removed from the game! And there should be plenty enough of it, too - just as within the Archipelago region.

The option I am hoping for should not at all reduce the number of battles. And not the HP of the machines either. Instead, it should reduce the number of giant machines in each of those battles, as well as their overpowered attacks and sensing.

2 Likes
17

It’s not the amount of big machines (harvs/tanks) that make the game currently relatively unplayable, it’s the skewed attack pattern that drops you very fast.

I’d rather take 2-4 harvs/tanks at once, with the pre-update attack pattern than 1 harv/tank with post-update attack pattern. Since in former case, you have plenty of time to avoid attacks and take cover while in latter case, it’s very difficult to avoid the attack and when you do get hit, most of the times, you’ll die instantly. Also cover doesn’t do much good either.

18

Those are two different aspects to why we can’t enjoy the game after the Archipelago region:

Being detected over 100m and devastated by special attacks just makes the game virtually unplayable - definitely off-putting to us starters, it’s simply annoying, and nothing else.

But then there is also the aspect of immersion and atmosphere - as well as tactics being interesting. One giant killer machine, which is tough to kill and takes all of your focus, is so much more frightening than two or more giant machines of the same type, who are easier to kill. It is also much more fun to fight just one boss at a time, and really concentrate on them.

19

Harvs and tanks usually walk alone, making 1vs1 combat easily doable. Though, sometimes, there are patrols consisting of 2 tanks (near the North part of the map).

Tip 1: scout the area before engaging bigger machines. Since when there are other machines around, they will join the battle once you start shooting at it.
Tip 2: if you engage tank and other machines join, take out weaker ones 1st, leaving strongest one last. It makes the combat a lot easier. (Oh, doesn’t work when engaging harvester since latter can call in hunter pod airdrops.)

That bug came with latest update and makes any kind of stealth gameplay next to impossible. But chances are good it gets fixed in the next update. :slightly_smiling_face:

2 Likes
20

You’re giving me hope here by referring to that attack pattern as a bug. Here’s hoping it will be patched out or replaced by something more playable :+1:

21

That would be great, and is actually one of the most urgent issues imho. A fix to this would at least allow the players to pick their fights and their approach.

Curiously enough, everything seemed perfect within the Archipelago region. So my guess is that this bug is caused by improper scaling to the higher class machines.

Our biggest beef with “boss clogging” were actually hunters, especially when they carry gas. However, the first gas-hunter on it’s own was fun to engage, so I’d rather have the numbers reduced to no more than there are players, or even less, or whatever the host would wish for the game, than to weaken hunters all together.

But there were also times where several rivals would team up, them being tanks or harvesters, which was just not possible to beat for us.