Main difference between difficulties?

[P O P]

Is it just stat increases or does it actually change the AI around so you can't just go guns blazing against the entirety of the military not because of them having bloated hp pools, but them actually being able to land your shots and coordinate a clever attack on you? I'm going to be doing the game for the first time and am stuck between doing max and 2nd max difficulty. I've played a decent amount of shooters and stealth games (this is what the game is right?) and did pretty good at max difficulty on those so I'm feeling like max difficulty will be a decent challenge, but what do you guys think? I'm too stubborn to change difficulties halfway through, so this thread will determine if I get 100 hours of hell or 100 hours of bliss :).

[uni790]

I've been playing on the max difficulty for a bit, the intelligence doesn't go up much, if at all, they do get bigger spotting ranges, faster spotting, more HP, and more damage, your stamina also drains faster. Been enjoying it myself, but AI never really gets smarter with difficulty increases in games, they just cheat more.

[Nar!]

Enemy damage intake and output is the only thing I've noticed, that gets an uplift. Their attack patterns remain the same. There are no real dynamic changes around each difficulty.

However, because they can drop you in a couple shots around your first 13-20 stat levels (depending on your build), you may feel like there's been a dynamic shift when you feel like you have to try to use more careful strategies to get through a stack of enemies.
Especially against heavies. (like the Barghest soldiers with beefed up armor)

But like I said, at some point the enemy level scaling starts to cancel itself out once you've crossed a certain threshold of godliness.

I thoroughly enjoyed my run on hard difficulty. But I now only play on very hard and sometimes I wish something more dynamic could change with certain enemy attack patterns, to make them more aggressive/circumvent my abilities and become interesting to engage in other ways other than relying on my own attack patterns, which I've gained good footing with a couple runs ago.

I say, start on hard difficulty, because part of the difficulty will also be the learning curve of your build (unless you Google information). Very hard difficulty could be reserved for a second run, if you enjoy the experience the first time around. :)

[valium]

The enemy AI gets more aggressive in the higher difficulties, so they will do more damage, more frequently.

[AmesNFire]

Enemy AI will be more likely to approach you instead of staying behind cover.
To compensate for being actually less smart, they do more damage and you do less.
So it actually gets worse in some regards.

[Rumpelcrutchskin]

I like to play on hard difficulty, seems like a best balance for me.

[Burntwafflesx]

I want to say hard but if you don't want to change difficulty midway, hard will 100% be too easy for you once you hit like lvl 35. VH is obviously the most fun but on first run it can feel a little imbalanced. they'll put a lot of elite enemies in one place, though they're not that much harder to kill, some of them will kill you with one strike or two, so unless you don't mind dying you'll be forced to have a certain build/play a certain way/play stealth and can't be very creative

[tbloyzz]

I think netrunners suffer most from increased difficulty, because on top of all the differences that apply to everyone, they have to deal with the increased hack resistance. Take our famous NCPD netrunner near Vic´s, for example. The hack resistance increases by 7 from easy to very hard, which means every single hack costs the runner 7 RAM more.

[valium]

And yet netrunners are still some of the strongest builds on very hard.

[tbloyzz]

Originally posted by valium:

And yet netrunners are still some of the strongest builds on very hard.

Absolutely. Not denying that. It might even be that the devs have risen the hack resistance for exactly that reason.
Just wanted to mention that this is another difference between the difficulties that has not been mentioned (unless I have missed it).

[Mythily]

Originally posted by valium:

And yet netrunners are still some of the strongest builds on very hard.

Sure... in the late game. Below T3 its dogwater. Literally not even worth investing in.

[Kuma]

Maybe just stop being stubborn about not changing difficulty...

[Armadea]

Melee and Netrunner are very strong, the combination of both is even stronger.
If you play shooters and are experienced, start on very hard. Otherwise it will be too easy at high levels

[valium]

Originally posted by Mythily:

Originally posted by valium:

And yet netrunners are still some of the strongest builds on very hard.

Sure... in the late game. Below T3 its dogwater. Literally not even worth investing in.

Everything in the early game sucks, it is the early game, you have nothing invested in anything yet.

[Mythily]

Originally posted by valium:

Everything in the early game sucks, it is the early game, you have nothing invested in anything yet.

Nah, some builds are definitely better than others.

[tbloyzz]

Originally posted by Mythily:

Originally posted by valium:

Everything in the early game sucks, it is the early game, you have nothing invested in anything yet.

Nah, some builds are definitely better than others.

Yeah, I heard putting everything into intelligence and then not using a cyberdeck is pretty bad...