Ok - this game is brutally tough!

[FroBodine]

I am only on the third mission, and already the corruption meter has risen to level 3. I am surrounded by endless enemies, and my guys just die.

Is this corruption meter balanced at all? Should it be at level 3 on only the third mission? I know I still have stuff to learn, but wow, this game gets insanely difficult so fast!

I sure hope this isn't the type of game where you have to rush through every mission or else the corruption meter will get out of control. I like to explore the maps, find the loot chests, find interesting things, etc. Please don't let this game force you to rush through the maps and miss half of the stuff IN the maps.

[Trash Player]

Plot missions can be completed piecemeal in multiple dives one objective at a time. Healing through passive means also happens regardless of the length of the dive, so it is easy to top hp.
The only really limited resources is sanity since crew can be revived. Try to pick up as many AoE and CC as possible.

[MasterBLB]

I read comments how hard the game is on normal difficulty, but frankly I don't see that difficulty. Maybe I'm turn-based strategies expert, hmm....

Anyway, a few tips to make it easier:
- Colony mutation for everyone. Reload savefile till you get it. Possibility to prevent a dangerous enemy from attacking is too valuable tactical option to pass it by. Passive effect is also great, watch to not stay close to protected seal, though.
- Gills mutation for 2 men in team. Now you can explore whole map without fear of suffocation, and exploring is crucial to get resources, clues, Void Marrow and shrines.
- First upgrades via Enigma Board shall be Extra Air Tank, Unnatural Selection and Augury I, then take Augury II ASAP. Reasoning is shrines give great benefits which you always want to get.
- The first two custom rooms shall be Dissection Room then Equipment Room. +1 clue extra quickly pays off, and 4th crewmen needs no comment. Next one shall be Jukebox Room, to keep your crew sane.
- When pumping out flooded rooms make batteries intact ASAP - you do want extra energy they provide.
- If it's available pick 'Sadist' quirk; sanity on kill helps a lot, and I mean A LOT. Later on as I see there will be skills which cost sanity to use, so such perk will be even more handy then.
- Do side mission, preferably "Soviet Cache", "Salvage" and "Defend the Seal". Salvage is self-explanatory, "Defend the Seal" lowers corruption level by 2-3 points, and Soviet Cache allows you to acquire powerful equipment, like speargun which deals 54-69 damage, or passive 20% damage reduction jacket. Be warned though, this mission can be tough nut to crack.
- When given an opportunity take Void Swap invocation; it gives plethora of tactical usages.
- Get Devotion I upgrade at the time you'll obtain 4th squad member.
- Don't afraid to cross white corruption tendrils, however it's advised to finish move at least 2 tiles away of them - this way Voidspawns won't damage your sanity on emerge.
- When searching seafloor without active scan move one tile at a time, then check edges of illuminated area by cursor; often you'll find enemies and resources this way. Also don't rush ahead, always leave 2-3 tiles of movement for your scout.
- Exploding pods have 2 tiles range, often thanks to them you can hurt multiple enemies by single, well placed shot.


The only I wish to know is what exactly triggers Voidspawns' emerge - maybe multiple crewmen have to step on the same tentacle, or what. But sometimes they emerged when I was at next tile to corrupted one, without stepping on it.

[Beelzemutt]

Imho the difficulty is quite well balanced, so far. I'm playing on normal. You do have to be tactical, and you can find yourself suddenly overwhelmed but that sort of chaos fits the lovecraftian feel perfectly. And even then the most attempts a mission took me so far is 3 (First to Hunger, and I only had 3 crew - though admittedly, after the first two attempts I thought it was hopeless. But once you get in the groove it's a tight but fair battle).

On top of that you can resurrect crew. Unless it gets way harder from here, imho the balance is pretty good.

[bertpigeon]

Regarding the sanity mentioned earlier i've actually not ever used any of the spells at all. No point as you lose so much sanity. I have no idea what happens when your diver reach zero sanity yet but i have one who is at least two missions away and with no way to restore maximum sanity i might have to retire him!

Another mentioned here i want to echo is how I have basically taken to abusing the save system so i run a level and rush it ignoring damage then i restart knowing where all the enemies are.I find this is the only way to win some of the salvage timed missions (soviet ones) and some of the campaign missions.

I should mention this is all playing on EASY!. Game has gotten quite hard near the end ( I think i'm near the end) And each mission now is taking me a few goes to do it.

[Captain Suction]

If your crew member's sanity pool drops below zero they become MIA, which is worse than dying because at least you can resurrect a dead diver...

[FroBodine]

That's one of my biggest problems with the game. You get punished way too harshly for using any sanity decreasing spells, etc. What is the point of this major aspect of the game if you can't even enjoy using it because your dudes will go insane and you will lose?

[Trash Player]

Sanity is cheap. Anti-psychotics recover sanity at a ratio of of 4 sanity to 1 chemical, the later seldom used for anything but other drugs.
Health can be recovered without cost by dipping into campaign missions and then retreat immediately.
Campaign missions can be completed in multiple dives, and map stays in the same state between dives.
Besides the lack of infinite grind, the campaign is a reasonably lenient experience. Streamers have beaten the game on normal with sub-optimal strategies and execution.

[seronie7]

Another co-sign that this game is ludicrously difficult even on normal mode.

I have had to restart several times because one false step meant a party wipe. With only 'Ironman' one-save mode this is like banging your head against a brick wall.

The difficulty spike (which is immediate) also discourages exploration, and God help you if you didn't take an air tank. It is simply LOL to stagger, suffocating, to the end of a level, to have a portal open and endless gribblies pour out of it and murder you. No save, back to the start.

There's a frustrating trend in indie games to copy From Software and Firaxis and think one-shot ordeals are the only way people like their gaming. The 'hard choices' approach also over 'choose your playstyle' is also a pity.

[largepaw]

Originally posted by seronie7:

Another co-sign that this game is ludicrously difficult even on normal mode.

I have had to restart several times because one false step meant a party wipe. With only 'Ironman' one-save mode this is like banging your head against a brick wall.

The difficulty spike (which is immediate) also discourages exploration, and God help you if you didn't take an air tank. It is simply LOL to stagger, suffocating, to the end of a level, to have a portal open and endless gribblies pour out of it and murder you. No save, back to the start.

There's a frustrating trend in indie games to copy From Software and Firaxis and think one-shot ordeals are the only way people like their gaming. The 'hard choices' approach also over 'choose your playstyle' is also a pity.

Just play on easy,makes the game a bit less forgiving but i think it takes longer to get equipment/resources as there'e not as many mobs as in a normal/hard playthrough. I tryed playing on normal but my ADHD does not allow me to be as patient as those normal/hard playthroughs require. I like to run and gun. Easy allows me to almost do that, can be a bit less forgiving. Normal in this game should be very Hard and i would not dare play this on hard. Some games these days just make levels where you have to be damn near perfect to run them on a normal setting,thats why there is 4 difficulty settings in this game. I played on normal and could not get past mission 5 without running dry on resources to heal or craft med kits....brutal. Needless to say though i really like the game.

[PurpleXVI]

Regarding difficulty, I'd say that on "Normal," at least, the air supply is probably overly brutal. Take one wrong branch on the way to the objective and there's no way you'll have enough air to actually complete the mission.

[Cevia]

Hey guys, just popping in to let you know we are still keeping an eye on all the feedback regarding difficulty. Thanks for letting us know how you've found it, everyone.

Originally posted by seronie7:

I have had to restart several times because one false step meant a party wipe. With only 'Ironman' one-save mode this is like banging your head against a brick wall.

Also wanted to quickly address this. Just in case you haven't noticed, the Story Mode does not actually have an Ironman style save system. You can access previous saves from the "Load" menu in the main menu. It's only Endless Mode that has an Ironman style single-save system.

[bertpigeon]

Originally posted by PurpleXVI:

Regarding difficulty, I'd say that on "Normal," at least, the air supply is probably overly brutal. Take one wrong branch on the way to the objective and there's no way you'll have enough air to actually complete the mission.

Just tried a huge level with two air tanks and two soviet air tanks. RAN OUT OF AIR.
I'm still on my Easy play through. I rushed through the level.

Also Anti psychotics?! what are those? Can they increase your sanity back up? So far I've not found any way to recover sanity once its permeanantly gone. What it mean sis that one enemy that damages your sanity is the bane of my play through. Wiould be nice if you could actually recover it and not just recover the onscreen bar.

[Soulequilibrium]

Just finished the game! On hard, explored every map fully, did all side missions, never cheesed the main missions with a mid mission pull out, never had someone hit zero sanity despite running on full corruption for most of the game, didn't use any mutations, got all achievements, never lost a diver and used one health kit which wasn't even really needed.

And no I'm not super great or anything. I made plenty of bad moves and got my guys caught in bad situations. You just have to have the right gear and abilities to get out of those bad situations.

So I'd say the balance is pretty okay all in all. You just have to consider all your options carefully, especially in the beginning when your options are limited due to a lack of resources, abilities and strong attacks. Making the right choices early in how you wish to build your characters can really make things easier in the long run. That would be my only point of criticism regarding the difficulty I think. Perhaps it's a bit too hard in the beginning and too easy towards the end. But that's kind of a problem that affects many tactical turn based games.

I'll be checking in on this thread from time to time so if anyone has any questions about anything please ask I'll try and help out, to add to the other folks who have already provided a lot of good points!

Regarding the anti-psychotics are a craftable item, which looks like a pill. You may have to buy the blueprint for them with clues but it's worth it. They are very cheap to make, 4 chemicals for one pill, and they restore a total of 16 sanity over 4 turns.

And no you cannot gain maximum sanity after it has gone down due to hitting zero sanity as far as I'm aware. But there are a lot of ways to maintain your crew's sanity and if you capitalize on those you won't ever have to worry about losing max sanity.

I personally used the anti-psychotics pills and the jukebox convertable room on the Salem a lot. I also had a guy with the Sadist trait which gave him 2-4 sanity on each kill he made, and he had the Jolly trait which had a small chance each turn to give the other crewmembers 2-5 sanity. Happened about once or twice per mission and it always happens for everyone when it triggers. When you do all the side missions and make sure you pick up every single resource you end up with a lot of supplies and chemicals to use on the jukebox and pills. All of this combined compensated quite well for all the sanity damage from enemies as well as the periodic -10 sanity hit from being on max corruption. I could have even used sanity draining abilities on top of this as I had a lot of resources to spare by the end of the game, though I did not.

[Zianicon]

Originally posted by Cevari:

You can access previous saves from the "Load" menu in the main menu.

Would be nice, if this load menu also available in-game. I already had to reload an older savegame. When I loaded a wrong savegame, I had to switch back to the main menu and load another one again.

[Walsingham]

One more saying it's too brutal. I say that a massive GTFO and Dwarf Fortress fan.

Brutal outcomes have to be balanced by rewarding risk taking. It should emphatically not reward abusing save games and other cheese. I can live with having warped and twisted and insane crew. I cannot live with having to creep forward and plan every ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ step.

I know some people feel the opposite. But I doubt I'm alone in my camp either.

Different setting, please. Or more settings. The Long Dark is a good example of allowing players to tailor their experience.