Difficulty toned down?

[MrNecromancer]

What happened to the game difficulty?

I was playing a lot with friends during the year and game was challenging on Program X. On release we played with full 4 players pack and the difficulty seems to be toned down a lot. Looks like less enemies on the maps, they barely notice you.

In a campaign where you have to execute the Snitch, in final confrontation with Coyle (near the electric chair chamber), he started to behave strangely - when he was chasing anyone from our team - he started to slowdown in a few meteres in front of the player. In Root Canal, we were looking for correct valves, and Night Hunter was nowhere to be seen. When we were changing the reels in classes, before the game-release, the area was crawling with enemies, 2 ones with machetes and a giant. Now, It is a walk in the park - there is only one enemy with a machete and he didn't really stalk us.

Is it intentional and all the fun is in Program Ultra now?

[Diablo]

The new Program X looks joke

even the Program ultra not sound brutal , i not try out but i guess the program ultra is similar to the early access program x or something like that

[Soloistair]

Program Ultra is way harder, but specially hard for the new campaign because the map is very confusing and need times to adjust to

[aleoo.w]

Yes! What happened with difficulty? :0 It's very strange thing, the game was very challenging but now it's so easy even on Program X solo... And it is also strange that no one talks about this!

[Walker☻//︻ ---]

How does difficulty system works anyway? does it effect ex-ops AI anyhow or does it add jsut extra layers like variators in program X lists and less items can found in trips? if it wont effect AI at all i dont see any idea of it..

[Player9682]

program X has always seemed easy. maybe because i've done it many times but so far it feels the same in 1.0, however Program Ultra feels like a challenge enemies are really annoying at least from what i've done they seem to find you more easily and the damage they do is insane.

[Mickterminator30]

Originally posted by Soloistair:

Program Ultra is way harder, but specially hard for the new campaign because the map is very confusing and need times to adjust to

Program Ultra is what Program X used to be. Program Ultra is much harder especially for solo players.

[Wabbit]

Originally posted by Mickterminator30:

Originally posted by Soloistair:

Program Ultra is way harder, but specially hard for the new campaign because the map is very confusing and need times to adjust to

Program Ultra is what Program X used to be. Program Ultra is much harder especially for solo players.

I'm assuming you're talking about Program X Season 1 where it had Naked and Afraid variator which I agree. It definitely had unique variators and made those Trials uniquely challenging.

Program X refresh from Courthouse update wasn't really that hard and Ultra is much harder if you are comparing it to that version.

[ShockedHearts]

core program: easy-normal

advanced program: normal-hard

ultra program hard-veryhard

they need to add more trials to ultra though, since there isnt a huge variety of ultra missions to play for experienced players.

advanced is alright still

I will say core therapy is baby mode. no enemies hardly, TONS of items, near to no threat whatsover really. A+'ed them all on my first try solo rather quickly.

advanced therapy is also rather easy for me I did get 1 A- because I couldnt find a poster lmao. but otherwise slightly harder but not too hard.

ultra I havent tried yet, but from the modifiers it just sounds like the hard programs we are used to from early access in terms of difficulty.

[Maya-Neko]

Overall:
- Program Genesis is pretty much what we had for the 1st and 2nd point of each core therapy in the past update
- Program X is mostly what we had with the 3rd point in the core therapy, including new MK-challenges being set to that difficulty (maybe even what the MK stuff was in previous Program X)
- Program Ultra should be, what the core therapies of Program X previously was, maybe even a littlebit harder on some of the stuff.

A littlebit sad, that Program X and Ultra divide the maps instead of each getting the full program in their own difficulty though.

As for the kill the snitch example: The only real change is, that the giant at the end is missing.

The slow down of Coyle however was already part of his behavior in the past update, probably to make him loose you easier and thus make it possible for him to return to the chamber faster in MP-games to interrupt the electrocution. Though obviously, it can also be abused if you're aware of it. It's pretty much up to you if you decide to do so or not.

Originally posted by Walker☻//︻ ---:

How does difficulty system works anyway? does it effect ex-ops AI anyhow or does it add jsut extra layers like variators in program X lists and less items can found in trips? if it wont effect AI at all i dont see any idea of it..

AI behavior stays the same unless a variator changes something (though that's rather indirect, like making you louder). The difficulty rather gets introduced through the amount of enemies, the amount of trapped/closed doors and some changed spawn positions and timings, as well as their dmg output.