Adequate max difficulty setting

[Pure_Poetry]

Hi all,

TL; DR : Looking for the adequate max difficulty setting (above hard). Inputs welcome .

Details:

I suggested the dev a while back to add an extra difficulty setting, to which he smartly replied adding the custom difficulty panel.

I still believe there should be a FIXED “very hard” setting for try hard-sadist players who would like to face the ultimate challenge.

I’ve completed 2 playthrough so far (albeit without the 1.0 ending), the first on hard but with save scum, the 2nd “a bit above hard”, but on IRONMAN (i.e.: hard settings, and -20% xp / -20% income).

A few insights:
- My 3 adventurer deaths on ironman were OS resulting of elite enemies rolling a crit on an adv (twice an elite dire wolf, which I think is OP). Strangely never a boss, or a normal fight. Worth noting that these elites did not necessarily need to crit to OS the said adventurer.
- I also had 2-3 successful Death rolls
- I was swimming in gold by endgame (> 400k gold on day 100)
- -20% xp feels a bit grindy but OK. It doesn’t come to a point where you feel like farming either
- Starting 6-stars maps, I was sometimes completing full quests without any dmg, enemies never having an opportunity to take a single shot.
- There doesn’t seem to have a hidden progression/timer that makes you risk “falling behind” like in XCOM. There seems to have no way to effectively “lose” a campaign as you can lose everyone and rebuild from scratch (TBC)

I was wondering what other players seeking the ultimate challenge feel about the difficulty and where the bar should be set approximately for the ultimate challenge (considering that the game will likely have balancing prior to 1.0 coming out).
I feel so far :
- +20% dmg from hard diff feels right on spot. Might be slighty increased again (+30% ?) more would trigger too many OS I think and would be too hard early game.
- +20% HP could however be a little increased (+40% total ? +60% ?) I feel enemies having more HP feels more tactically engaging than them being canon glass killing machines…
- +10 accuracy also feels right. +20 max could be tried but I feel more would just screw adventurers and classes relying on dodge.
- -50% income should be the right challenge. Player would feel the pain of having to struggle economically. Losses would be painful.
- -20% xp is OK. Making it lower would just make the game more grindy imho (and would make it economically easier actually)
- Skillchecks could be more difficult. I never used a shovel, nor a chest key lower than legendary (mb 1-2). +10%, mb 20% ? Details of skillcheck are in this guide : https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3167297799 .
- Enemies ini could be improved a little, preventing mass "wait" from adventurers to systematically get a full 2-turn party start
- Any other item to tweak ?

To each player its sweet spot. I’m looking for a common ground for the ultimate challenge. Inputs much welcome.