How much harder is Nightmare mode?

[Return To Monke]

Just finished the campaign on Medium and Noone can hear you scream. Boy, what a ride! I thought I would handle it more easily because of being used to Darkest Dungeon and squad and personnel losses, but I must say that for most of the game I found it very tense, lol

How much tougher is Nightmare mode? Does the way you play have to change?

[Bamsmacked]

Infestation increases faster; less days per Infestation level.

Enemies have a lot more HP, and they detect you faster.

It seems like there is greater volume of enemies as well. I played on Hard and Nightmare and I have noticed a lot more enemies on Nightmare.

One thing I notice as that on Hard difficulty with optimal ability usage and Suppressing fire, enemies typically didn't penetrate my firing line but on Nightmare it's pretty frequent due to volume of enemies.


TLDR ; Strict day-to-day Clocks, more HP, more enemies, faster detection times.

So yeah... IT's quite a bit harder.

[Zaphod]

I think I tried first queen like five times before I got in and out safely and this was on default difficulty. Considering going story mode just to make sure I don't hit a dead stop somewhere deeper in the story. Can't imagine what it's like on nightmare.

[Cenovita]

nightmare mode feels almost the AI is cheating, but its great and intense

[Jhea]

having played on story mode, normal and now being at level 8 on nightmare...
not that much harder tbh.

Yeah, enemies have more hitpoints, yeah enemies detect you faster.
So what?
You still have sentries that just mow them down - set 2 up and you are fine, suriving the massive onslaught.

Detection rate is still so low, that you can easily escape any room, or get your sniper to snipe that thing from afar before it detects you.

the first queen went down in mere seconds on story mode, and it took just about 15 seconds on nightmare
1 mine, 2 sentries and 4 of my marines (maybe i even shot a grenade...)

killed the queen earlier today in the atmospheric processor and it just went down in flames when 5 sentries worked it over (about 20 seconds? and there were 8 facehuggers and 2 or 3 warrior aliens coming from behind)

i have had no respect for the pretorian on mission 3 - just installed 4 sentries before the cutscene and BÄM - dead before it got out of reach.
the charger alien in mission 1?
had 2 sentries then - installed both, had to dodge his charge once, 1 shotgun blast
bäm dead.
gg

challenge i made for myself on nightmare right now is to not lose any marine, or have him that wounded that he can not do anything for the mission.
that's actually pretty hard.

[Jakob]

It's great fun and will keep you on your toes a little more I think (I've only played Nightmare so far). Mistakes will be punished harder so it's nice learning which strategies are viable.

[wei270]

ok i play on nightmare i don't feel it is too hard, for me the big thing is all global timer is short, and you can't just relay on guns to take down the enemy. you need to use your ability property to handle enemies.

example in nightmare if 2 alien drone is charging at you the same time, with just 3 marines on rifle 1 on smart gun, you may get lucky to down the first one before it reach you but the second one will be on your face. you need ot either use shotgun, grenades, mines or turrent. suppressives fire and flamer is not as effective, they are better used for larger groups.

[Coyote]

Up until you have really good weapons its required to use CP in pretty much every fight or else you will take damage.

You will also have to leave sentry guns behind and waste some resources as well as bring lots of tools to turn into CP.

But as long as you learn to do stuff like that its not so bad.
It gets harder when you reach mission 6 and warriors are leaping at you like crazy.

[Return To Monke]

Excellent, I feel much more prepared to fight them off now

[Return To Monke]

Okay, nobody told me the aliens know kungfu, can dodge bullets, and will pimp slap my marines repeatedly when they get close

[Deepeye]

Originally posted by Zaphod:

I think I tried first queen like five times before I got in and out safely and this was on default difficulty. Considering going story mode just to make sure I don't hit a dead stop somewhere deeper in the story. Can't imagine what it's like on nightmare.

I see that I am replying to a few days old comment, but this is a smart choice. I tested difficulties and with my playstyle (wanna check every corner and take my time, expose myself to atmosphere), I went for custom setup with medium health = rest story. Even though have completed a few nightmare levels, too. To say that my first run was easy... hardly.

[Lokocz]

Originally posted by Return To Monke:

Just finished the campaign on Medium and Noone can hear you scream. Boy, what a ride! I thought I would handle it more easily because of being used to Darkest Dungeon and squad and personnel losses, but I must say that for most of the game I found it very tense, lol

How much tougher is Nightmare mode? Does the way you play have to change?

You already know game mechanics, shouldn't feel much harder than 1st time on medium.

My first run was on hard difficulty, 2nd run on nightmare felt easier as I knew what is what.

You'll have to adapt to tougher and more aliens and actually pay more attention to your stress level - sometimes simply by being more stealthy.

[Return To Monke]

I've just finished the 3rd mission on Nightmare and Ironman, ironically my first run on Medium Ironman felt much tenser because this time I know what to expect. Pausing time rather than slowing it down was important, because I need time to get my bearings. Also, most of my wounds and single death came from being pincered from two directions. The threat of being attacked from multiple vectors makes me play aggressively when I need to, gunning them down to buy time and space to relocate to safer positions. I also made heavy use of the flamer and less use of mines.

It will be interesting to see if I've managed to develop proper infiltration tactics especially on the Montero and Pioneer station.

[Klinestife]

On the second to last mission of Nightmare Ironman right now. Other than getting caught offguard by how hard the first mandatory fight was, it's been smooth sailing. I've been using way more flares and way less mines because mines seem to not be oneshotting anyone anymore. If you know the mechanics and where you need to go, it'll probably even go by smoother than your first playthrough.

I will make one recommendation, though. Before you're forced to extract on the first mission, I recommend farming two Onslaught waves. That gets your whole squad to level 3 (one of your starting marines always has a debuff to get one less XP so you need two waves), and you can go into the mines with a silenced sniper + smartgun which makes that section way easier.

[ChupaCabra]

The only way to play the game is to play it in the hardest mode. The othere modes are to easy and there is no challange in them. Just remeber it is a stealth game and it is not a run and kill everything that moves kind of a game. In the hardest mode this is very important.

Place mines, trackers and sentry guns pointing to the door where the alien will come from. Best thing to do in the hardest mode is to find a room, put sentry guns and a trackers...

when you want to clear the map trigger the tracker so the aliens run to the room with the sentry guns pointing to the entrance and they will kill all the aliens. This game is stealth/Strategy game in the hardes mode.

In easy mode you can just rush, the alien dies so fast so no point in doing it more complex.

[Paladestar]

Just started my nightmare play-through and the extra health the enemies have results in big changes to mines. mines only kill drones in a single shot what seems about 5% of the time now, 90% of the time a mine will dismember a drone and about 5% of the time a mine doesn't even dismember a drone.

It's not a total disaster, a dismembered drone is so slow it becomes very easy to avoid and the fact that its dismembered and not killed stops a replacement from spawning. Ironically, it might even work out better this way, but I just got into the mine on mission one, so hard to judge so far!