Higher difficulties - any reason to do them?

[Veny]

Either i miss something or there is no reason to do higher difficulties. At least right after (and soon after) they are unlocked. The only benefit is... double drop of worms? But everything else seems to be more generous in the easiest difficulty so... what is the point?

[Yddnac]

A few benefits I know of:
1. Higher levels completed for reincarnation score (you get 900 extra levels completed for world 1, for example);
2. more worms (this is buffed later so that's it's more than 2x);
3. better drops/bonuses for the difficulty (depends where you are currently at for easy difficulty, I think).

[Oninou]

Goal with difficulty is to never make one totally "useless" (meaning that later i want player to sometime go back & forth and farm on the difficulty it need), the exp/potato/skull should be "almost" the same (i dont have deep data so far)
And maybe by the time we finish hard (but it require the next 2 features) it "might" make easy ... useless and leave medium/hard to roam between (but in a way easy will always be good as u can push further, and claim new equipment/bonus earlier)

[inthrees.coprus.pete]

Higher levels also can give better xp, even if it's an earlier stage. Like if you're stuck on, say, 3-3 easy, you can try 3-1 medium and your xp bar might move faster, which means more stats and talent points.

Loot drops are also higher rating in medium difficulty.

[Huillam]

Originally posted by Yddnac:

A few benefits I know of:
1. Higher levels completed for reincarnation score (you get 900 extra levels completed for world 1, for example);

You mean waves? It's not really a benefit: doing one zone/area/whathever of 200 waves or two of 100 waves would achieve the same result (minus the 15s respawn time difference).

So far I hardly see any reason to move away from easy:
Gear at the highest zone I would farm in medium is way worse than the one I'd get in easy (both for total bonuses and rating).
Upgrades (be it potatoes, skulls or confection) need to be unlocked at every reincarnation. By moving away from easy I'd simply gimp my character.
More worms may be worth once in a while to buy more cows but I can't imagine any other reason.

[Veny]

Originally posted by Yddnac:

A few benefits I know of:
1. Higher levels completed for reincarnation score (you get 900 extra levels completed for world 1, for example);
2. more worms (this is buffed later so that's it's more than 2x);
3. better drops/bonuses for the difficulty (depends where you are currently at for easy difficulty, I think).

Daaamn, i havent noticed that number of waves for reincarnation is number of UNIQUE waves. Thanks for info.
About drops... that may be a bit more complicated. ATM i am at 2-9 easy and i can also do 2-6 medium. Easy can give me 24k items with 7 bonuses while Hard can give me 19k items with 5 bonuses. Dunno if it changes later, for now, better items are certainly not the reason i should do hard difficulty for.

Also i am still unsure whether the worms will pay off. Recently i unlocked cows and... yea, while i am stuck on easy and getting more claass XPs, skulls and potatoes does not really help, getting more worms could actually help a bit more.

Originally posted by inthrees.coprus.pete:

Higher levels also can give better xp, even if it's an earlier stage. Like if you're stuck on, say, 3-3 easy, you can try 3-1 medium and your xp bar might move faster, which means more stats and talent points.

Loot drops are also higher rating in medium difficulty.

Certainly not true for the stages i am "stuck" in, which are 2-9 easy and 2-6 (or 2-7 is also doable up to some point) hard.

[Veny]

Originally posted by Huillam:

Originally posted by Yddnac:

A few benefits I know of:
1. Higher levels completed for reincarnation score (you get 900 extra levels completed for world 1, for example);

You mean waves? It's not really a benefit: doing one zone/area/whathever of 200 waves or two of 100 waves would achieve the same result (minus the 15s respawn time difference).

Nono, he is right about this. Reincarnation takes unique waves into consideration. Only in zone 1 you have 100*9 waves on easy. PLUS additional 100*9 (1-
00 on moderate difficulty does not count if they are already done on easy) waves on moderate. So, it does surely increase reincarnation multiplier a bit.

[Windar2001]

For the reasons mentioned, doing medium is worthwhile. A simple strategy is to rotate easy and medium when one slows down. When both are slow, you reinc to another class or push a bit for something that makes sense at the moment, ex. next cow is close.

Also, I tend to not push for 200 stages on the last area 9, it's not worth it. Sometimes I get 140-170 and just skip to the next world area 1 and don't even bother coming back later. Ex. 2-9-170 and I die, just skip to 3-1.

[Huillam]

Originally posted by Veny:

Nono, he is right about this. Reincarnation takes unique waves into consideration.

I could swear that's one of the first things I checked about reincarnation but obviously I was wrong. My bad then.

[Veny]

One week later i must say... yea, higher difficulty definitely drop better items and much more worms (due to some upgrades). It is just not that obvious (and true) in early game.

[Hiryukaen]

In my experience you'll gain more skulls clearing the highest stage you can full clear on easy than you do on medium. Although you'll gain more potatoes, class exp, and worms on medium full clear.
Testing was done via 24hr time periods.

[Huillam]

The gap in progression appear to shrink as one progresses through the game.
Right now I can reach:
3-9-66 on medium
4-1-41 still on medium with a max item rating of 878k.
4-2-37 on easy with a max item 527k.

And with a gap of a single zone, medium is an obvious choice.

[Veny]

Originally posted by Hiryukaen:

In my experience you'll gain more skulls clearing the highest stage you can full clear on easy than you do on medium. Although you'll gain more potatoes, class exp, and worms on medium full clear.
Testing was done via 24hr time periods.

Yea, that is odd because i am getting more skulls from medium (3-7) than easy (3-9).
Also on medium i am getting certainly less potatoes, less experiences, better items (not better rarity, just better score... oh and less items than on easy so less materials) and more worms.

So in general, higher difficulties are better to farm skulls (especially if you are stuck in 9th zone of the map) and higher zones are better to farm potatoes.
And daamn, that difference is significant.

And it is possible that the pattern of what difficulty is better for what currency is changing over time, because of this:

Originally posted by Huillam:

The gap in progression appear to shrink as one progresses through the game.
Right now I can reach:
3-9-66 on medium
4-1-41 still on medium with a max item rating of 878k.
4-2-37 on easy with a max item 527k.

And with a gap of a single zone, medium is an obvious choice.

Which would unlock new strategies for min-maxing which may not be obvious or may not follow specific pattern (like easy is always better for *something*).