The truth about difficulty levels

[scadh]

I haven't played CG yet but am looking forward to playing after another patch or two. One thing I'm confused by, though, is the disparity between what trade publication reviews have to say about the difficulty level vs what I'm reading on these forums and elsewhere from veteran strategy gamers. Nearly all reviewers commented on how hard the game is, even on normal difficulty; some even recommend playing on easy. But most actual gamers are saying the game is way too easy and exploitable. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on where the difficulty TRULY lies in between these two extremes.

I love hard games. The fun in games, for me, is the satisfaction that comes from winning against long odds. In turn-based strategy games, I often find the second-hardest difficulty setting is the sweet spot. "Normal" is nearly always too easy and "Insane" is generally borderline unfair, neither of which are fun. "Hard" is typically the sweet spot for me. When "Ironman" is available, I always choose it.

I don't consider myself an elite gamer by any stretch, but I think I'm pretty good. In my favorite game of all time, XCOM 2, I play on "Classic Ironman" difficulty, which is just about perfect. I hold my own on "Nightmare Ironman" for a while, but have never successfully won a campaign.

With that in mind, do you think CG in it's current state offers any sort of real challenge for me? There are tons of games to play -- I'm immersed in Elden Ring at the moment -- so I don't mind waiting for mods or official patches to get things ironed out, if necessary.

[Graess]

Well, i only started two campaigns and did on both less than 10 missions.. First on normal and second campaign one setting higher than normal.
On normal i was always finishing the missions without any wounded soldiers so that i could do the next one with the same team. That made leveling easier and the more leveled your marines are the easier the next mission got...
Only one setting higher and now i have even after the third mission to cycle through my marines because now 2 to 3 of marines i am doing the mission with are wounded and need to regenerate and heal up... Because i am doing now the missions with a different team and not the same guys leveling them up takes longer... I have overall more fun in the higher setting... That could change though if in the endgame the game becomes too hard... Cant tell yet ...

[MajorStir]

The game is difficult at the beginning. There are no cheese strategies and the game must be played pretty straight forward and fairly.
Later in the game however, it is possible to completely cheese game mechanics. Some of those "exploits" have been patched, but it is definitely easier to win with some loadouts and groups than others (but this is just the nature of any strategic game).
If your favorite game is X-Com2, then you should know exactly what I am talking about.
The game is not naturally easy; it is difficult. BUT, there are strategies that make the game VERY easy.

Most people on here who claim the game is "too easy" simply are using cheese strats that they didn't even discover and humble bragging. Ignore them. Just because you can cheese a game, doesn't mean you have to.

This game is worth playing. I have around 70 hours. I have completed the game 3 times and it's a good time. Just make sure you PLAY the game by varying your strats/loadouts/groups and don't run the same thing over and over and over again. Also, if the game ever seems to easy, play ironman . . . this game can be brutal and unforgiving.

[Father Ribs]

Reviewers tend to have to play lots of different kinds of games; they may have favorites, but they have to play whatever is going to get them paid.

Gamers self-select the games they buy. IMO, if you like one type of game, play one type of game, you'll be more successful than a generalist fan. Also, 40K fans probably self-select for this game as opposed to many reviewers who may be "Warhammer" fans, but aren't blood-drinking fanatics.

[Vultan]

Normal is very easy if you reach lvl 3 with your marines. Use group teleport a few times every mission and win. Even the bosses are easy without knowing anything about them beforehand. Normal is so easy that when you are required to bring two teams to a specific mission, one team will be lvl 1-2 dudes.

[The Laundromancer]

The first problem is, as with other titles like this (and as was the case for even the great XCOM) is that you have to learn to play the game how it was designed, not how you want. In XCOM, every new player ends up with their "A-Team". They'll literally call it their A-Team. They'll save-scum if anyone dies. But that's not how it's meant to be played.

Chaos Gate has different features and functions, and it has to be played on its own terms. It can't be play on the terms people want but haven't looked at. A lot of stuff in the game isn't explained, so that's on the developers, but once you grasp some basic concepts, it's not that difficult. I also find that new players tend to rush through and go for big plays instead of making their own and taking things carefully. They won't use Aegis shield, or reload, or use grenades to knock enemies off.

There are certainly some issues with the minutae of it all. There are things I would change ASAP myself, like the wording or slight balance of things, but overall, this is a great game.

The other complaint you'll hear is how easy the game gets after you level up your knights and find an effective strategy. Like, no ♥♥♥♥. Also, the internet is full of whining nerds, so filter carefully.

[scadh]

First, @Father Ribs, "blood-drinking fanatics" is a spectacular phrase!

My biggest concern at this point is how much I've read - both from trade pub reviewers and strategy gamers - that the enemy AI is much, MUCH too passive and forgiving, and it's frequently possible to anticipate exactly what an enemy will do. Those are the situations that lead to exploits and cheese. I want neither. I want it be hard. Maybe I'm in the minority, but I don't even WANT to win every scenario. I'll never throw one on purpose, but in the bigger picture I find a game more fun when sometimes the bad guys win.

[Aloha]

The First 150 Days on Legend Grandmaster ( the Ironman of the Game ) Difficulty can be tough because the Enemies you are facing there are, with a few acceptions, pretty straight forward and have effective Ways to synergize with each other which can easily lead to Dead Knights.
But when the first tougher ( Midgame ) Enemies appear the quality of the AI in Terms of actually threatening you declines very fast. Some enemies don't even seem that attacking you is their Top Priority ( they Prefer Mutating or Spraying the Ground and/or using support Spells/Heals etc... )

In the Late Game the really Tough guys show up but often alone or in very small packs without other Units.... that makes them One Turn Hammer Fodder in General.

Mission Design is kinda repetitive very fast.....

Respeccing Knights is super Strange because you need Dead Knights for it.

Bosses have way too low HP in my Opinion and are easily Killed in 1-3 Turns with a Decent Team.

I have the Feeling that they balanced and Playtestet only the Beginning of the Campaign and then went out of Time or whatever.....If you except a Hard Game when you are an XCOM Vet you will definitly be disappointed very fast.

But besides that the Games has an tremendous athmosphere and a Great Story.
But do not expect anything even close to the Difficulty of XCOM 1/2 WOTC on the Higher Difs with Ironman.

So all in all Great Game but with close to Zero Replayability due to very Strange Enemy behavior and Mission Design in General. But see yourself :-) i can definitly recommend even in its actual state.

I hope that the Devs can will Fix Mid/lategame Enemy behaviour soon and beef up the Podsizes on the Higher Diffs.

[Lonesome Wolf]

Another thing I'd throw into the mix is that save-scumming can be a thing in this game, giving you an advantage with mission rewards/-placement/trait outcomes/random events/surge outcomes etc.
So depending on from what direction you come, a min/max perfectionist might have an considerable easier time with the game compared to some1 who just goes with the flow and plays it naturally and how it's meant to be played.

Playing on the 2nd hardest difficulty myself (ruthless) I think that was the right pick for me.
It get's pretty easy once you get your team setup working (level & equipment wise) but now that the game throws some of the harder/hardest enemy types my way I have something to chew on again.
But I gotta admit I'm cheesing this outcome related stuff more than a sane person would. :p (trying to stay away from teleport sheningans thou and kinda restricting myself there)

The story related missions ramp up the challenge quite abit it seems. (which is good) and I'm looking forward to defeating those Reapers atm.

Edit:
@OP: If you enjoy the challenge and can live with occasional losses I'd say try Ruthless in Ironman mode. It should keep you on your toes.
I'd recommend having a big team roster thou (the game likes to send high lvl knights on long away missions) and have an Exterminatus ready if the ♥♥♥♥ hits the fan.

[scadh]

Save-scummers are the scummiest kind of scummers! I will NEVER, EVER do it. One of my favorite things about XCOM was how roll targets were pre-seeded before a mission rather than generated at run time. Thus, if you miss a 95% shot, rage quit, reload and try that same shot again, you are guaranteed to miss again because it's using the same roll target.

It was never an issue for me because I always played Ironman and couldn't reload anyway, even if I had wanted to. But this caused great angst amongst save-scummers in 2015. I thought it was brilliant.

No do-overs!

[gokkel]

I do think it is very much on the easier side, once you get the hang of it, which didn't take long for me as someone who played XCOM for ages.

Sure, if you go at it with the logic that you don't want to get all your guys injured for ages, or even get "killed", then it can seem quite challenging at points of the game. The thing is though, none of these things are truely a big deal. Injured soldiers, even if you have no other guys in your barracks, can still be deployed. They have a few HP less, but it doesn't particularly matter.

If your guys "die", they really are just stunned for a few turns and then come back with 50% HP. Even if you make them die often enough that they run out of resilience, getting a new guy costs you a whopping 1 requisition, hardly the end of a campaign. You have do have a lot of things happen to have it a significant impact on your overall campaign.

It is more likely you die on the strategic layer due to hull damage, although that seems to be more about RNG than difficulty.

I had a boss battle in my first playthrough where i actually lost all my guys due to some special boss mechanics I didn't know about, so I actually lost the mission, but it had zero impact on my campaign. Sure, my guys were all injured, but they all came back healed after some time, and even stronger with some augment giving them extra crit chance or so.

[scadh]

Originally posted by HN:

Originally posted by scadh:

trade publication

Trade publication?
What year is this? 1998 again?

Who in their right mind still listen to what thos talentless activist hacks have to say about videogames?

Hell, your post alone is just another proof that these people are indeed talentless hacks that don't know anything about videogames and literally suck at it.

Well, I was certainly playing video games in 1998 -- and, indeed, even 1988 and 1978, but I take everything with a grain of salt. Because everyone's opinion varies, I'd never put too much stock in any single stranger's review of a game. Their tastes might differ considerably from mine.

But it is possible to gain some insight into how good a game is, or a movie, or a book, if you look at opinions in the aggregate. I always refer to Metacritic to see what the community, both the "pros" and the "players", think about a game. If the average of 40 different game review sites rate a game 9/10, there's an excellent chance that it will be fun for people who enjoy that genre. I'm old and can't stand first-person-shooters, so I don't care if the community thinks it's 10/10, I know I won't enjoy it. But if a bunch of my peers who love turn-based strategy games tell me a game is fun, there's a high likelihood that I'll like it, too.

That having been said, I find your accusation of people whom you've never met and who are making a living doing something they love as "talentless hacks who don't know anything about games" to be short-sighted, mean-spirited and hypocritical. Opinions are just that and while some might be more valuable than others, we're all entitled to our own. What makes you think your opinion matters more than someone who writes game review at IGN? What makes you think you'd be a better game-reviewer? Most of them are very good writers and, honestly, they've probably played way more games than most people. That doesn't make them better than you or me, but I'll give their opinions the same respect I gave yours. The points you've made are similar to others I've read, all of which will inform my decision on when to purchase CG in order to form an opinion of my own.

[thorin.hannahs]

The game is like Xcom at first where the beginning is usually the hardest but once you get rolling it becomes way too easy. I don't use the cheese comps that have been mentioned and it is far too easy. I take my head phones off for a mission and just have an audio book or video going on my phone in order to play because it is sort of a grind now.

Wounded knights are not particularly punishing as you can just send them out right away with a small hit to max health. "Killed" knights are also not a big deal as they come back 3 turns later with half health and if you complete the mission you get to keep them.

Bosses need health buffs because mechanically they are interesting but it doesn't matter if it only takes 1-3 turns to kill them. I want a slugfest where I am forced to deal with the mechanics while chipping away at the boss.

Enemy AI is not a threat. They prioritize utility over dealing damage.

There is a strategem that everyone knows is broken. You can mass teleport your team to wherever you can see once a mission. I suggest you play without this for it to be more engaging.

The Xcom 2 timer they implemented is almost always a non-threat so feel free to abuse abilities.

Ship event RNG is probably the most difficult thing in the game.

The game is easy more so if you have played games such as Xcom and Fire Emblem and are used to tile-based high stakes tactic games.

[Subtle Butt ( >ω<)っ ♡]

Its both hard and easy. If you're going in blind, or taking say your XCOM experience to CG, you'll get smacked. Once you really understand how the pod mechanics work, the classes, items and synergy it becomes easy.

I will say, Legendary difficulty is pretty difficult just because you have crap gear, low level knights and alot of HP to chew through. Plus random events can really punish your ship, take out knights out of action and straight up lose you a campaign.

[phoneplace]

Never say Never in this game. I played GrandMaster mode till NOW! I ran into GandMaster report that in ONE turn took 6 hull 4 weapons down to 0. I know this is a bug. But I will not play GrandMaster mode again until it is fixed. I was on day 1238 and it is a TOTAL lost. Now I have to be prepared to SAVE SCUM if need be. : (

[Galdred]

I wouldn't advise playing grandmaster, because some events can kill your ship (and your game), if you pick wrong/are unlucky (and I played the original Chaos gate and both XCOM in ironman mode).

As for the difficulty, it is not that different from XCOM indeed: it starts quite challenging, but as you get better gear and your knights get better, difficulty falls off really fast.
The mid late game enemies are too stupid (AI wise), and too small in number to keep the challenge consistent with the early game.

That said, some boss battles and deeds remain pretty deadly throughout the whole game.
Despite these shortcomings, I would wholeheartedly recommend the game, because the core system is very solid, and the abilities that make the campaign too easy later on are really fun to use.