Difficulty Settings Per Mission

[Surrebral]

Hello, fellow Tenno!

Difficulty in Warframe is a pretty divided conversation within the community, which is usually the beginning of the "Casual vs 'Veteran'" debate. More goes on in these conversations (like how enemy scaling works, rewards, AI, etc.) but one issue that keeps coming up is the level of difficulty for content. Some argue that the difficulty is catered to the more "Casual" crowd, saying that anything under level 100 is easy, and they feel that the game doesn't offer them a challenge. Others would like to enjoy the more advanced content without requiring certain gear or loadouts to get the job done, and they should be able to play the content at their own pace. Therefore, in order to make sure that both parties are satisfied with their level of difficulty, they need to be able to select the difficulty that is best suited for them.

Hilariously enough, Anthem got this part right.

https://imgur.com/EpieQ

Players need to be able to select the level of difficulty that fits them best when they are choosing a mission. I think that the current level that planets already have should be considered the "Normal" difficulty setting, with each following level adding 15 to the base number.

Lets take the highest base level at the moment (excluding the Roflcoptelyst fight) Kelpie on Sedna at level 40. Similar to the image above, modifiers would be applied to the difficulty setting, such as boosters or increased drop chances for rarer mods, and the modifiers would stack with purchased boosters. Along with these additions, a personal preference for difficulty can be set before a mission begins, so that those who play public would be matched with similar difficulty settings. For friends or invite squads, the difficulty would be voted upon before the mission. An optional "No Mods Mode" would also be included for those seeking something more.

This is how the difficulty system would look for Kelpie on Sedna:

Easy = 25 - 30

Hard = 55 - 60, +25% Affinity Boost, Credit Boost, Resource Drop Chance, and Resource Drop Rate 

Very Hard = 70 - 75, +50% Affinity Boost, Credit Boost, Resource Drop Chance, and Resource Drop Rate 

Nightmare = 85 - 90, +75% Affinity Boost, Credit Boost, Resource Drop Chance, and Resource Drop Rate 

Ludicrous = starts at lvl 100 and can be increaded based on user preference up to 9999, flat +100% Affinity Boost, Credit Boost, Resource Drop Chance, and Resource Drop Rate

 

However, to go along with these changes, I personally think that Revives (other than Sentinel and Arcanes) should be removed from the game. Now that a player can set their own difficulty level, they no longer need the crutch of the Revive system.

This solution is far from complete, due to the needs to change bigger issues such as Armor Scaling, Rewards, Enemy AI, and so forth. Let me know if this is something that you would like to see added into Warframe or if you have ideas that could help make this system better. I'm always open to suggestions.

Edited July 11, 2019 by DariusMcSwag

[Chewarette]

Erm, if you're gonna have +150% boosters, "Ludicrous" should not be lvl 100+ but lvl 500+ imo. Level 100 are getting roflstomped as quickly as level 10 if your weapon has 8 mods

Edited July 11, 2019 by Chewarette

[Surrebral]

2 minutes ago, Chewarette said:

Erm, if you're gonna have +150% boosters, "Ludicrous" should not be lvl 100+ but lvl 500+ imo. Level 100 are getting roflstomped as quickly as level 10 if your weapon has 8 mods

Honestly I was tempted on putting a custom difficulty setting with a flat rate of boosters at 150%, but thought that would be even more ridiculous. However, it is called Ludicrous...

Maybe a "no mods mode" could also be added for the extra challenge. Will edit.

[Rawbeard]

easy goes to level 100 at least. hard should probably start at 1000. your scale is waaaay off

[Surrebral]

2 minutes ago, Rawbeard said:

easy goes to level 100 at least. hard should probably start at 1000. your scale is waaaay off

So should normal be 500 or stick to what the current level of the node is? 🙂

But seriously, everyone has a different opinion on what is considered "easy", which makes sense because everyone is at a different point in the game.

If you want lvl 1000+ then the custom setting is for you. Personally I thought the lvl 9999 survival was ridiculously fun on April Fools all those years ago. Would love to do it again. 

[Rawbeard]

1 hour ago, DariusMcSwag said:

normal

easy goes to 100. hard starts at thousand. hm. where should we start normal. hm. this is difficult, man.

[Surrebral]

8 hours ago, Rawbeard said:

easy goes to 100. hard starts at thousand. hm. where should we start normal. hm. this is difficult, man.

Im curious how many other people in the community would legitimately want to play at this level of difficulty. Changed Custom to Ludicrous since its basically the same. I wonder what kind of rewards players would be looking for at the Ludicrous setting.

[peterc3]

10 hours ago, DariusMcSwag said:

Hilariously enough, Anthem got this part right.

Hilariously enough, Anthem was built with it in mind. It is not an easy thing to just add into an already existing game.

[Surrebral]

11 minutes ago, peterc3 said:

Hilariously enough, Anthem was built with it in mind. It is not an easy thing to just add into an already existing game.

I have faith in them, take a look at Empyrean for example. They are constantly disassembling and reassembling Warframe to further its future. Im not saying they should implement this overnight, but it is something to consider as the game grows.

And like I said before, this is far from a complete solution. Problems such as Armor Scaling, Rewards, Enemy AI are things that should be addressed first before something like this.