Difficulty bugged?

[Trusty]

I picked up the game after watching my friend play some of it and my game is significantly different. The emaciated zombies in the dungeon have significantly more health and every single one of them goes into a purple-headed enrage state. Additionally there's a spider in the fight near the spike pit. I've checked a few different longplays and it's definitely not the same.

[MrWhitefolks]

Exact same issue I ran into.

Looked at some first impression videos, skimmed over a few video reviews and then decided to jump on in...but unfortunately, none of those gave a proper example of what the game is in it's current state.

In turn, I thought the huge spike in difficulty was from selecting the wrong mode and I went back to restart my game and test out combat encounters only to realize I was barely past the 2hr refund window.

[Tomowatt]

I think I remember seeing several spiders in that fight when I played through it–and I think it was long after those longplays on YouTube you mentioned. That fight is a really tough one, and I died to it. Even on Hard mode, I haven't fully figured out how to beat it. But then again, I haven't practiced it a lot.

In any case, it should be fine to continue your playthrough. It might not be *deathless*, but that's to be expected from a game called "You Will Die Here Tonight".

[jon]

Hello! First, thank you all for playing and providing this feedback. We appreciate it!

A handful of items to address here:

The game is not bugged, but it is a bit harder in general-- you aren't hallucinating!

Late last year we shipped the Professional Difficulty mode update which gave us some time to beef up certain enemy AI, add some mechanics, and a few additional encounters. As a consequence of that, Prisoners went from being the easiest, least threatening enemy in the game, to being much more formidable, especially in larger numbers.

We had found that before the update many players were able to skate through that section of the game without losing any lives, which in a game called "You Will Die Here Tonight" didn't feel right. It appears now we may have over corrected, and for that I apologize!

The major difference between prisoners before and after the update is that they now charge the player when provoked, which is why they are so much more dangerous. Additionally, the have more hit-points because they take more damage when they are flashing purple, which is part of a larger system that triggers when enemies are knocked back, hit at a critical flash point, or knocked down by shooting them in the legs.

Our hope was that players would try to avoid them where possible, and learn to conserve their resources for the big fight in the pit area. The two biggest mitigations to the difficulty of that fight both in and out of Pro Mode is that you can get the shotgun right before it, which is a huge help when you get swarmed, and if you die you don't have to do it again. You continue past it with a new found respect for how dangerous prisoners can be when engaging groups of them.

As for the spider, that was just a "fun" surprise we tossed in because that enemy barely showed up at all in the story campaign and thought it would catch new and returning players off guard.

As mentioned before, we appreciate the time you guys have taken to play the game and voice your feedback. If you would like to continue the discussion please join our discord and we can figure out the best way to address this. Thanks!

https://discord.gg/TfBxfUvS

[jon]

we have pushed an update to our public beta branch that re-balances prisoners to feel more like they did in the original shipped version of the game. Their pro-mode versions are now the deadlier version. Feel free to try it out and let us know what you think--

Thanks again for the feedback!