Game Difficulty - An Objective View

[Dancingfirefly]

This is not a thread saying the game is too easy or too hard. This is a thread intended to capture the experience of other players. This is intended to be an objective view of the difficulty of end game as it stands.

Let's face it. We don't decide how hard the game's meant to be. That's the developer's decision. What we can do as a player base is give as much information as possible as to the situations we find ourselves in which we may feel to be applicable to the developer's scale of difficulty. Ideally we should post about the 'end game' involving exceptionally high level enemies as these enemies act as the effective benchmark of difficulty.

When it's all said and done, if players still think the game is too easy, they have the choice to move on. But we should strive to make the game suit the developer's vision, and we as the players should support them for the awesome game that they are providing us. Objective information is a crucial method of doing this. This is what a beta is all about.

I'll start.

I managed to solo an alert with Corpus. They were level 55.

I was using the Hek (Rank 25 with catalyst), and a rank 30 volt with reactor. I had redirection slotted at 930 shields, and no Vitality, so 300 health. I also have slotted Marathon (rank 3), Quick Rest (Rank 3) Continuity (Rank 4) and all four Volt skills. I only used Electric shield during the mission.

I used a total of two revives, both due to being knocked down by a moa's stomp. Otherwise I felt in danger of losing health as my shields depleted at a quick rate whenever I poked out from cover to shoot at the enemy. When I wasn't knocked down from a moa, my shields would often deplete to 300 or less in a matter of seconds. I was wounded once, reduced to 266 health. I doubt I would have survived to any extent without Redirection.

I would not have survived these encounters if I didn't use cover. I felt cover was essential to my survival. Enemies were spread out and used ranged weapons, which greatly discouraged reckless play.

I favor the Volt as a warframe and have grown very comfortable with it, and it's certainly a very anti-Corpus frame. The experience may have been quite different had I been playing my Ember, which normally does not do so well against Corpus. Despite the fact that my ultimate ability is excelled toward the destruction of Moas, I felt my electric barriers were essential to my survival.

I found myself becoming surrounded on several occasions, and it made the experience engaging. I felt challenged. The Volt's high strength shield allowed me a lot of survivability in situations where cover was more sparse. I felt the Volt's Electric Shield ability made a large impact on my ability to deal with the Corpus as I was able to fire through it while remaining unharmed. When surrounded the barrier also protected me from gunfire from the direction I was not monitoring. In two occasions, I wasn't aware of moas closing in to stomp and knock me away from my hunkered position. I died on both these occasions.

The Hek is a powerful gun and made the experience easier as well. My side arm is a Lex which is 56/60 mods, but I never had to resort to it during the run. Even though it was theoretically more powerful than my Hek, I found the Hek to be suitable enough, and enjoyable to use. The Hek has the following mods. .

60% damage, 80% multishot, 75% armor penetration, 30% fire damage, 10% bonus crit chance. The hek's effective item level is 40.

I often killed the crew members with a single head shot. Occasionally I had to finish them with another. All fliers required one shot. All moas required two.

I never felt low on ammunition while using a shotgun. I had roughly 60 rounds left at the end of it. I never used melee during the mission. I felt it was too dangerous to do so, as the damage to my shields would have been too significant by the time I closed distance with them.

This is an example of what would be appropriate for this thread. This is a mission that I experienced this morning. As an opinion, I felt that the difficulty of this mission was suitable for a challenging experience when solo, though of course this is up to the devs to decide.

Other objective views on the game's difficulty are also welcome, solo and group experiences.

[Endrance]

As far as game difficulty i'm concerned, is the tactical behavior and enemy AI, it just lacks.

I mean, they do cover and all, but that's just no enough.

Edited April 10, 2013 by Endrance

[Earl.Grey]

Well there is a simple way to make the game more difficult, only slot rank 1 mods (or no mods) that way your strength will be greatly diminished. Of course the game gets a lot easier once you have decent mods with high level, but that's just the way the game is designed, it's a gear grind and once you get decent gear the game gets easier.

[TheTenthDoc]

The game is suitably challenging for me with uncharged weapons and warframes. Well, it's actually a pain in the rear with non-shotguns, but with shotguns it's okay.

[Starberyl]

Depends what warframe you're using and increasing the difficulty from what it already is might bring up more balance issues.

[GrimmLiberty]

I think the game is a lot of fun because it can be a challenge and movement is key to that... If you stand still, you get ground up on some maps, even as a rhino. Some maps are easy peasy, but mostly because I have a good team. If I had to do them solo I figure it would be a hard chore.

As for AI, people want (and expect) all sorts of crazy things from AI... It's a hard thing to program and even harder to do 'right'. There are so many factors to take into account, that it makes it hard to program without bogging things down in calculations. And you only get so many calculations in a server tick....

Generally, that means the better the AI, the better your cpu HAS to be to play. It's a balancing issue really.

Edited April 10, 2013 by GrimmLiberty

[Hezekiah]

Well there is a simple way to make the game more difficult, only slot rank 1 mods (or no mods) that way your strength will be greatly diminished. Of course the game gets a lot easier once you have decent mods with high level, but that's just the way the game is designed, it's a gear grind and once you get decent gear the game gets easier.

Totally agree

Mods make the game easier, and a level 30 fully modded out should have a relatively "easy" but still slightly challenging feel to it.

[Venarge]

They will add different difficulties.... So everyone will be pleased.....

[Dancingfirefly]

This isn't exactly what I had in mind when I started the thread. We may as well just stop the discussion and move on.