Make the easier level of difficulty EASIER

Feedback/Feature Requests
73

Generation Zero’s claim with Adventure difficulty is that it is focused on story over combat. If Generation Zero were a movie or a book, it would not feature the main characters constantly dying and being replaced or otherwise respawning. We all intuitively understand that very few main characters die in a story, and that when Generation Zero says that Adventure difficulty is story focused, that is promising a mode where the average player will very rarely (if ever) die while playing.

This is not remotely true. Heavy machines, especially rivals, are perfectly capable of tanking a rocket to the gas tank and six more to the face without going down, and the reason I know this is because one of the Farmlands quests required me to take one on. It even had a pair of rockets in a nearby house, which would’ve been good design if two rockets were remotely enough to take on the boss machine outside.

Evading machines isn’t an option, because lots of missions (especially in the expansion) require you to destroy machines to progress. Ambush makes no difference, because even heavy ordnance fired directly into the weakspot of mandatory machine bosses does so little damage that emptying another dozen AR mags into them (even when aiming for weakspots) still didn’t bring it down. And this is in a fight where VO starts trying to carry the story, only to have it brought screaming to a halt for 30 minutes while I scrounge around for supplies to try and restock for another go.

The new expansion content is supposed to be an improvement on the early/middle parts of the game - and it places the emphasis squarely on attacking powerful enemy machines, not evading them, with multiple missions that require you to take out specific machines, whether waves of them attacking a fort or specific rivals out in the farms. And if these machines are intended to be fought rather than evaded, then Adventure difficulty makes them way too hard. Probably this specific issue would be mostly fixed if the tank rivals in the expansion mission were swapped out for just regular tanks, those seem to actually explode when you fire a goddamn rocket directly into their fuel source, which seems to me like a pretty reasonable reaction to that course of events, but failing that the HP of Adventure difficulty tanks and harvesters just needs to be tuned way down.

Also this isn’t the exact same thing but related: Solo players should have either significantly increased damage resistance or else spawn adrenaline shots far more often, at least in Adventure difficulty, possibly in Skirmish as well. Adventure difficulty is supposed to be story focused which means deaths should be rare for anyone who’s putting in any effort into playing the game all sneaky like, and it’s easy to get blindsided and overrun even when you have plenty of resources left if you don’t have any mates to help you up after getting flanked by a hunter. I doubt this would be a major issue in a full group of four because odds are fantastic that at least two of you will survive any unexpected trouble and be able to help your mates up and skedaddle, but in solo you can go from 80 health and 50 medkits to dead in literally seconds.

74

I take that you’re playing solely on Adventurer difficulty and you don’t like that machines won’t fall over when you breathe towards them.

To get objective understanding about Adventure difficulty, you need to have experience with Skirmish and especially Guerilla difficulty. Once you’ve learned how tough thing are in Guerilla difficulty, then you can compare Adventure difficulty to that and make objective observations.

For example, i play solo and on Guerilla difficulty. I’ve played on Guerilla difficulty since the day different difficulty levels were introduced (March '20 update). While things can get tough, i like it since game gives me a challenge to overcome. Though, i’d prefer even tougher opposition (like it was post-April '20 update) or when taking down Reaper in solo Guerilla game, in Himfjäll, with Apo machines around (which i’ve done).

I’ve also switched in-game difficulty to Adventurer for testing purposes and i have to tell you, coming from solo Guerilla game (where i’ve gotten used to), Adventurer difficulty makes everything super-easy.
There is little, if any, effort from my part needed to take out any machine. Also, the range where machine detect player is so small that i have to go under their nose for them to detect me and shoot at me. And i need to use at least 3 times less ammo to take any machine out, compared to Guerilla difficulty. Oh, machines doesn’t damage the player that much either and i can easily tank multiple shots from machines, without the need of healing myself.

So, to what your understanding is based on?

Btw, do note that GZ is co-op game 1st and it also happens to have solo play as well. It is intended to play GZ in a co-op setting but since it also has solo play, it is natural that things are tougher in solo play.

Only way to achieve that is when all machines are removed from the game. And even then, player deaths wouldn’t be that rare since there still is fall damage in the game and players can fall to their deaths. Or blow themselves up with AoE weaponry (e.g grenade). Unless you remove those too and make GZ into walking simulator.

Which expansion are you talking about? FNIX Rising or Alpine Unrest? Regardless of either of the two, none of them are meant for early- to middle-game. Instead, they are intended for late- to end-game. But the fact that you have open world and can decide on your own, where to go, can make them appear at any point of the game.

Difficulty wise, regions go more-or-less like so: Archipelago -> Farmlands -> Forest -> Mountains -> South Coast -> Marshlands -> North Coast -> Himfjäll.

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75

I explained exactly what I don’t like. Read my post and try again.

This is not what “objectivity” means. Indeed, the entire rest of your post goes on to elaborate at length about how your objectivity is corrupted by having played the game since before difficulties were introduced, meaning your input on how the game comes across to new players is useless. Your schoolboy posturing about how good you are at video games does not constitute an understanding of game design.

Pro-tip: If you’re trying to present yourself as an expert, you should avoid making patently absurd statements. It is blindingly obvious that there is a level of difficulty where deaths are rare without rendering them completely impossible.

FNIX Rising’s content is available in early-to-midgame areas, unlocks automatically upon entering those areas, uses enemies who appear commonly in those areas, and is not especially harder than main game content when in missions that do not use heavy machines.

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76

I can respect that different players find different things difficult. This game has no scaling for a solo player. Locations and random spawns determine what level of machines the player will encounter. When GZ was new, the trailers urged the player to engage in guerilla warfare against the machines, and to always consider if the fight ahead can be handled.

In my opinion, the main factor that determines how easy GZ is for you, is your experience! Not so much your weapons or the difficulty you choose. A seasoned player could play the game solo on Guerilla with low level weapons.

To be fair, @Aesyle is not trying to brag about how good a player she is. I also play the game solo on Guerilla now. I first played on Skirmish, since that is closest to the game’s original difficulty that I was used to. After a good while, I knew the game and the enemies so well that Skirmish became a bit too easy, so I switched over to Guerilla. An experienced end-game player with the best available weapons will normally be able to handle Guerilla just fine. Skirmish is good for casual gameplay, but for this player, Adventure will seem like a joke. Absolutely no challenge at all.

A fresh player will need to feel their way forward and always pick fights they can win. Scavenge, conserve your resources, pick your 30 skillpoints wisely, and step by step you will master Generation Zero, I promise! And it feels so rewarding when you finally do! :slightly_smiling_face:

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77

Are you kidding? Her entire post was split evenly between boasts of how amazing she is at this game, including boasts about specific individual accomplishments, condescension towards new players, and an attempt to limit a discussion about the experience of new players exclusively to the perspective of those who have already mastered endgame content, which is obviously completely backwards: The most valuable perspective when discussing the experience of the game for new players comes from new players. Everyone else is guessing.

Slapping smileys on the end of a demand that other people enjoy video games the same way you do does not make the demand less absurd or condescending, nor will it magically conjure up the money the devs are missing out on by slapping a difficulty wall in front of a game that advertises itself as being a playable 80s movie set in Sweden. Modifying the Adventure difficulty isn’t going to change Skirmish or Guerilla, this insistence that your way of playing the game is the only valid one does nothing but harm the game’s success and its community.

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78

As much as I don’t care about changing the lower difficulty to even lower levels I really don’t appreciate the tone you’re presenting here.

@Aesyle and @NJR87 are both friendly and assertive in their posts. The forum is a place were all people are allowed to present their ideas and opinions without devaluation and attacks. I think, it would be nice if you would maintain a more positive attitude in your posts. Throwing other opinions out the window with weird arguments doesn’t support your case very well.

Both argued from their perspective as seasoned players with a lot of play time. Maybe there is something to their arguments.

Being a new player doesn’t mean you need to play only on the easiest difficulty. Some people like to enjoy a game with challenges right from the start while others prefer a more walking simulator style even after hundreds of hours of playtime. There is nothing wrong with any approach. Everybody has their own perspective and desire to play a game.

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79

Aesyle’s entire post is dedicated exclusively to arguing that I should not be allowed to participate in the conversation at all, and opened with a direct insult. What the Hell are you talking about?

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80

What? She told you how she plays. Nowhere is any mentioning of you to shut up or similar.

Sorry, that you see it that way. I found it to be funny since machines are exactly the opposite of that. Quite ironic so to speak.

81

Neither did I. Nobody has engaged in overt name calling, but Aesyle’s thesis statement is this:

This is not Aesyle talking about her playstyle, it is her talking directly to me and telling me what qualifications she thinks I need to have to participate in the conversation - specifically that she thinks that I need to have totally mastered the game to participate in a conversation about a new player’s experience. Our tone is basically identical, but you only take issue with the person who disagrees with you.

Come off it. Aesyle accused me of being so incompetent at that game that only a trivial challenge would satisfy me in the same post that she asserted that total mastery of the game was required to participate in virtually any conversation about it. In context of the rest of Aesyle’s post, her opening line is obviously intended to be insulting.

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82

Personally, I think you’re going out of your way to be offended by @Aesyle here and while, yes, she is a very seasoned player I’m sure she meant no offense. I certainly didn’t read it that way.

It’s tricky for someone with +1000hrs experience to judge the difficulty for new players. I’ve been watching my son play, who’s just started from scratch on PC and it’s a very different game in the beginning to the late game. And while “adventure” is way easier than the other difficulties it’s not quite as trivial as the description makes out so I think that might be wording issue tbh.

Should it be easier? Maybe they could add an easier mode for those that want to run + gun from the start, but it’s not the game the developers intended.

Personally I preferred it when it didn’t have difficulty levels it just was what it was but I’m totally open to them making it as easy (or hard) as players want, as what I like and what other people like are obviously not the same.

But by tackling the DLC early you’re making it harder for yourself. The DLC is late game content, story wise (and in terms of difficulty) it takes place after the main content.

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83

But not that knobitobi is going out of their way to be offended by me? I keep bringing up the quote from Aesyle directly stating that she doesn’t think I have standing to even participate in the conversation until I’ve sunk several dozen/hundred more hours into the game, and everyone just keeps vaguely gesturing that surely she didn’t mean to say the things she spent several paragraphs saying explicitly and unambiguously, and I’m not buying it. You have a partisan loyalty to established community members and do not care when they try to shut new voices out of the conversation, but take offense when those new voices call the entrenched community members on their attempted exclusion.

And also an issue with their first, second, and third trailers, their Steam page description, and every other scrap of their advertising campaign I’ve been able to locate. This idea that Generation Zero is supposed to be an immensely tactical and punishing game is not present in any of how Generation Zero sells itself to the general public. The game emphasizes its open world nature and 1980s Sweden setting stronger than its guerilla tactics, and even the guerilla tactics sell the game not as brutal or unforgiving, but just as a stealth/survival game where supplies are limited so choosing your battles is important - nothing to indicate the brick wall of enemy density and difficulty that occurs between the Archipelago and the Farmlands.

If this is the devs’ intention, then someone should probably notify them of, like, basic game design tenets, like “don’t put your endgame content in earlygame areas as part of an expansion which, once purchased, installs and activates itself automatically for first-time players, with no obvious way to disable it.”

But Generation Zero is a well-built game. Looking at the prototype runner as an example: It’s initially the only machine you encounter, it has a wholly unguarded weakpoint close to its center of mass but which is still far from the head and which destroys it instantly if shot. While some more environmental clues scattered about (for example: journal entries from the day of the calamity, written by people trying to fend off the bots, which are already in abundance) would’ve helped make it more clear without resorting to bozo box tutorials, the enemy itself is well-built to clue players in that robots have weakspots, those weakspots aren’t in the head where they usually are, and shooting them is much more effective than hitting the armor.

I doubt a studio who designed an enemy like this just didn’t realize that the expansion they packaged with the main game in a bundle, which installs content into early- to mid-game locations (including the tutorial location!), whose content is activated automatically for new players, and which has no obvious means of disabling it, might end up getting played by new players. Especially since the first couple of missions feature a mix of military and FNIX units, but no apocalypse, and no heavy machines, purely runners and hunters. Not even a particular density of hunters - I’ve run into more difficult packs of enemies (not even heavy machines, just a bunch of hunters) patrolling the Farmlands at random than were sent in any given wave to attack the ringfort in FNIX Rising content.

84

Protip: If you’re going to join a discussion, don’t start by immediately going on the defensive just because someone doesn’t share your opinions and experience of the game.

I’m going to quote the forum Code of Conduct here;

When an opinion-based discussion is being had, do not state things like “there is no argument” as if your opinion is the only one or the only one that matters. When someone has clearly stated their opinion, do not say things like “Are you serious?” and “Are you kidding me?” Remember, this is not a debate club. This is a friendly discussion community. Allow people to have their opinion. No one is to act as some sort of opinion judge, responding to each one to say whether they agree with it or not or whether or not it is a valid, well thought out opinion.

I recommend to give it a read.

//Mod

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85

You might find people take the Code of Conduct more seriously if you enforced it against both old and new members of the community - like, you know, maybe the person explicitly stating that someone else isn’t allowed to participate in a conversation until they’ve invested hundreds of hours in the game might be behaving as though their opinion is the only one that matters, y’know, on account of the direct attempt to silence new opinions. Anyways, I’m out, when the mod team takes the perspective that direct insults are permitted exclusively from older members to newer ones, there is no chance of healthy discourse.

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86

A lot of the issues I have with the game / difficulty, and the ones you’re highlighting are as a direct result of tinkering / reworking the initial areas in recent months.

To be frank, the game as it is now simply isn’t the game sold on the trailers / store page etc. Personally, I miss that game. But having said that, that original game was a lot harder than the one we have now.

The original game was slower, with fewer, but more challenging, encounters and early on it demanded that you played it tactically (or as a group). While it wasn’t ‘Dark Souls’ in terms of difficulty and was never sold on difficulty, it did demand you learned from the early encounters.

However, a lot of people thought the empty / atmospheric opening areas should have more action, and difficulty levels be introduced.

The difficulty levels were contentious, and have been adjusted both up and down in terms of challenge. Some people preferred the harder, some easier and some took offense at the very concept of difficulty levels.

Personally, I’m not bothered if people want it to be a walkthrough or if people want it be really punishing, but at the same time I don’t think that every game needs to tailored to my preference. But I agree that the ‘Adventure’ description makes it sound easier than it actually is. This again is due to it being retro-fitted after the fact and was never part of the original design. I feel the description is “relative to Guerilla” and not particularly accurate.

I love the Souls games, and I’d argue that giving them difficulty levels would help more people come to appreciate them. But at the same time the fact that I find Cuphead frustrating and not for me doesn’t mean I think the devs should make it easier. It is what it is.

The devs have been balancing how to make the game more interesting for new players while attempting to keep late game players interested and I think that the game has suffered as a result.

The suspense in the diaries / audio logs simply doesn’t make sense anymore. The war-torn scenery completely undoes the atmosphere and mystery of the original game.

IMHO the DLC should be gated behind level / story progression but there’s no way that consumer law would permit that. You buy content you should have access to it, but yeah, they should totally signpost that it’s designed be completed after everything else. I’m pretty sure that according to diaries etc. it’s set months after the main story concludes.

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87

I meant it in general, not towards you exclusively. If a moderator misbehaves we’ll have to talk about it, and I recommend reporting it to an Admin if that happens. But I suppose it doesn’t matter now.

88

The game got a lot easier.
@ChamomileHasGames
1 year ago it was difficult for some to get ammo.
Now there are bodies and ammo boxes everywhere, but EVERYWHERE.
Now you can add small buffs against damage to clothing and even craft medkits.
Even starting a new game in adventure, it feels a lot easier than on Skirmish or Guerrilla.
The devs can´t make the game even more easy.
Just because a game has an easy mode does not mean it is a walk in the park.
Don´t you die sometimes on COD campaigns? It happens sometimes and it´s one of the most easy game campaigns to play.(all CODs since the Third)
You are not supposed to know everything on the beginning.
That is the same for almost every single game.
What games do you usually play?
If you answer that it might give some clues or not to all of this.

PS: the game was challenging for me on the first 2 weeks, at the time(October 2019) there existed no experimentals, then i started to understand how every machine moves, to listen to the sounds, what weapons works and which one does not, and it started to get more fun and easier.

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89

guys, I started on adventure because I wanted to kill robots for fun and I wanted the story.
I don’t complain to the devs, “Ohh the robot detection is too high,”
“Ohh the machines keep killing me, fix it now”
“I ran out of adrenaline, DEVVVVVS come HELP”
it’s a game about killing robots much more advanced than the Boston robotics ones, of course it’s gonna be difficult even if your on the lowest difficulty it’s the same with any other fps game
What I’m getting at is: you’re going to die whether you like it or not, you’re going to have to abandon the battle and respawn whether you like or not.
just enjoy the game for what it is you don’t even have to fight (unless you need key cards) just run past that tank or harvester.
I don’t even know what all of you are arguing about, we all play at our own pace.

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90

and, yeah I agree the game did get quite easier.

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91

I am finding this game incredibly frustrating, I love the graphics, the atmosphere, and at times, the gameplay, with a real sense of menace, but it is simply too hard: posters can give tips, etc, which is great, but we have paid for this, its seems like one of the games where the devs personality is all over it, so fences, lots of them, ok, but why no wire cutters? didn’t they have then in Sweden, of course they did, I would appreciate an option to see where the safe houses are on the map(one online are too small to see!) Maybe i just haven’t found the ritght weapons, i have the r/launcher, but no ammo. many players may find it easy, ok, but many don’t, Devs have a responsibility to them as well, can’t even find a trainer.

I really want to carry on playing this game, at the moment I am at FT back to Overby Base (from Stora Drybo, just couldn’t get further over big expanse with no cover and many enemy in front) and in a tiny room, with three tanks surrounding it, and thinklng seriouslty of unistalling, which would be a shame.

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tanks are slow unless they can sprint, just run past them or fast travel (you can fast travel if you’re not in combat so utilize stealth)

you can easily find ammo on higher level hunters, and if you’re up for it: kill a tank or harvester, I know for a fact that you can destroy a low level tank with lots of ammo and a nice machinegun

flares: use flares. distract them and run, it’s impossible that you’re that far in the game and without any flares or even fireworks.