Difficult settings

[Jack_Miron]

The game is easy, or too easy at the middle of game. Pirates and unknown race - fighting is too easy for me and so is boring. In this game unknown races should be rather, but tougher to beat. I play in single mode.  Difficult settings should be able to set when we starting a new game?

[thedamngod]

When you start a new galaxy there is a option to choose the difficulty. Higher settings will mostly affect the damage dealt by enemies. On normal settings the damage you receive is scaled down a lot.

If you want to change the difficulty for your current galaxy you will have to edit the files.

 

Edit: Also moved to the general gameplay discussion forum, as it was not directly related to the beta branch.

[Tsunamik]

Yeah, I also edited my galaxy file to make it quite harder. Was playing normal, and that was no fun at all tbh...  Switched to second hardest and there is SOME challenge atleast, so going for insane difficulty should not be a problem.

[Jack_Miron]

I dont noticed that. So normal difficulty is too easy. I start to test in hard mode. Sorry for wrong place this topic.

[Michigo]

On normal enemies only deal 10-20% damage, while easy results in meager 2.5% and insane in proper 100%.

The other big thing that changes is starting reputation with factions, on insane many start more hostile.

 

Personally i feel insane is balanced best.

It may overwhelm a new player, but once you start do understand the gameplay and building mechanics a lil better insane is no big deal at all.

[Enzo Matrix]

Go do insane. enemies will have 100% fire power against you.. and their HP / shields is fairly buffed. I am fighting 100k aliens.. however again I still want tougher more threatening enemies. Once I build my 400k xanion + 200k trilium ship, I will have over 2.7 million shield with upgrades and 400k hull. Would be sweet to have special events happen that spawned a wormhole and intense sized alien ships came through it to put up an intense fight lol

 

Oh.. also refrain from building weapons from turret factories.. or else game just becomes a cakewalk. I am only using found stuff / researched from found stuff and sitting at 4.6k omicron. Game is much more fun like this I find. I only build mine turrets lol

[Xsinx]

As it is insane difficulty is a cakewalk for me. Two factors make this so, the first being you can stack shields to infinity. I only have 800k and I can take on 30 ships in avorion sectors without skipping a beat. I could have 5x those shields if I wanted but it would be ridiculous.

 

The second is crafted turrets. I run 10 lasers for 37k sustained omicron. I could slap 40... But there is just no point, even the biggest invasion ships melt in like 2-3 seconds.

 

Not sure what the solution is... Perhaps more enemies with shield bypass would go a long way. Perhaps a cap on shields or some formula where volume to cover is factored in I can run a 100k shield on a tiny ship or on a huge kilometer long behemot and they perform just as well? Seems to me the 100k shield should be stretched thin and perhaps less effecive?

 

As for weapons, it's just too random. Turret factories make all sorts of ridiculous guns and drops are also all over the place.. how is it same tech level guns can vary by 100x their damage? It's just ridiculous.

[Tsunamik]

Turrets should be standardized, thats for sure. I am cheating little bit, but I have this strategy - I don´t want bugged factory turrets, so I have a rule.. lets say I find exotic tech 30 trinium laser - so I use script to create upto 4 exotic tech 30 trinium lasers :) There is mod for adding weapons, and I simply implemented this rule... call it "artificial turret factory" creating more turrets from blueprints, idc... but its fun and quite balanced.

 

As for shield stacking - I think solution would be simple - shield should be localized like Integrity fields. No more HUGE bulks of shield hidden inside a ship, nono, shield should be directional AND localized, so you have to add ship generators to all different parts of ship, and each generator should have some shield power. So you can overlap them for increased overall shielding, or distribute them to protect different parts of ship.

This would add so much needed strategy to placing shields, and armor would make sense again (should I protect this part with shield, or is armor enough?!)

[Enzo Matrix]

blah all these ideas about limits grosses me out lol.. I like trying to get crazy high stats on a massive ship. We need to buff enemies.. not nerf us lol

turret factories though are a garbage way to get strong very easily. It should be earned through tough battling. I say aliens bring on the capitals and lets have a massive war :)

 

What I gather is what I like differs with others.. I want to build a massive super interceptor and fight super tough enemies in grand scale battles with us all zipping around like mad men. I hope I can mod my own game to allow for this. I love the "oh shit" moments lol..

 

warning, powerful aliens have appeared

 

me: oh? and what are they like? OH MY GAWD 20 ships and a capital with 2 MILLION HP 20K OMICRON AND FLIES LIKE A BAT OUT OF HELL?

Me: ... BRING IT ONNNN!

 

That is my kind of fun! Would totally make building a death star worth it

[Xsinx]

Maybe a solution would be to have enemies that somewhat match the player they are spawned for... You wanna go 20 million shields? I'll send you enemies that have high dps and shield bypass... You wanna rack  a million omicron on your ship? I'll send you highly armored ships with insane shields to soak it up... etc.

 

Guns, armor and shields also need a bit more of a rock/paper/scissors mode.. give us guns that TOTALLY ignore shields.. Give us insane armor that prevents us from using shields... give us insane shields that prevents us from having armor... and so on.. This way with any loadout, you'd still stumble on packs that can cut through you like butter if you ain't careful.

[Ohm is Futile]

To me, this all sounds like we need more checkboxes and sliders for difficulty because it's going to be horrible to balance and any hard changes is going to please some and bother others.

[gblnk]

Maybe a solution would be to have enemies that somewhat match the player they are spawned for... You wanna go 20 million shields? I'll send you enemies that have high dps and shield bypass... You wanna rack  a million omicron on your ship? I'll send you highly armored ships with insane shields to soak it up... etc.

 

That's going to cause problems on multiplayer. Imagine you're minding your own business and someone warps in with an insanely powerful ship. Next thing you know you're getting smashed to pieces by equally insane pirates and aliens.

[Tsunamik]

Maybe a solution would be to have enemies that somewhat match the player they are spawned for... You wanna go 20 million shields? I'll send you enemies that have high dps and shield bypass... You wanna rack  a million omicron on your ship? I'll send you highly armored ships with insane shields to soak it up... etc.

 

Guns, armor and shields also need a bit more of a rock/paper/scissors mode.. give us guns that TOTALLY ignore shields.. Give us insane armor that prevents us from using shields... give us insane shields that prevents us from having armor... and so on.. This way with any loadout, you'd still stumble on packs that can cut through you like butter if you ain't careful.

 

Please no... thats what oblivion did, and it was no fun whatsoever (why upgrading your stats, when it doesn´t matter?)

[Falkenherz]

I am also very bored in the endgame (normal difficulty). Every 10 minutes latest, I get beset by 5 to 10 Xsoltans or bandids, the ensuing battle takes long but is never really dangerous for my high-end spacecraft. As such, combat degrades to an unwelcome interruption on my last phase of questing, namely finding the last high-end tech40+ weaponry, collecting xsoltan tech fragments and convincing all inner-core factions to help out in the final combat. On the sideline, I am bothered with having to weed out about 600 turrets and modules each other while. No, thanks.

 

I started a new game on insane, and at least the beginning is quite challenging. I got my ship nearly shot to pieces several times, ran into resource bottlenecks, had even to abandon my damaged ship with a "dinghi" in quest for new resources and cash. But I fear the gameplay will degrade again in later stages, when you have already too much of everything and nothing can really challenge you or advance anymore.

 

My suggestion would be to refine weapon and shield mechanics, to introduce a scissors-paper-rock-mechanic, so that you have to adapt your ship also in endgame environments, according to what challenge a given sector throws at you. There should be shield- and armor-breaker weapons, shield and integrity field mechanics should respond differently to cannons than lasers, etc. Logistics should be streamlined and condensed to those elements which pose a game challenge for the player. The ability to build fleets needs to be finalized. As of now, managing a fleet of ships, already making them follow you and fight properly, is a nightmare and no fun at all.

 

 

[Falkenherz]

Maybe a solution would be to have enemies that somewhat match the player they are spawned for... You wanna go 20 million shields? I'll send you enemies that have high dps and shield bypass... You wanna rack  a million omicron on your ship? I'll send you highly armored ships with insane shields to soak it up... etc.

 

Guns, armor and shields also need a bit more of a rock/paper/scissors mode.. give us guns that TOTALLY ignore shields.. Give us insane armor that prevents us from using shields... give us insane shields that prevents us from having armor... and so on.. This way with any loadout, you'd still stumble on packs that can cut through you like butter if you ain't careful.

 

Please no... thats what oblivion did, and it was no fun whatsoever (why upgrading your stats, when it doesn´t matter?)

 

I agree, no fun if it is badly done. Elder Scrolls Online does it, too, but better. The enemy gets adapted to that what you should be able to do on your current level. You are still left with the challenge to actually be able to do all what is expected of a character at a given level. And you can "out-level" your current level with a good combination of skills and equipment. On top, you can challenge yourself more by going against a larger number of opponents.

 

However, I am not sure the game needs more challenge but rather more depth in the endgame.

 

[LoSboccacc]

the enemy already grows stronger toward the center, so there's that, no need for further scaling.

 

difficulty could control the tech level offset for each sector and scarcity of easily available materials (read: asteroids, unguarded wrecks) on top of enemy damage, and that would make progression much slower

 

 

but please no enemy levelling - it sucks to finally upgrade the armor to shield and suddenly everyone is just stronger, it kills all drive one might have to build a better ship.