Difficulty level names

[PieceOfMind]

When browsing various topics, and in various achievements, there are references to various difficulty levels. e.g. Ruins, Abyss, Terminus.
However when choosing a difficulty level for missions in the main story the levels are named "Easy, Normal, Hard, Expert".

Can anyone confirm which difficulty levels are which? Is there a fourth name?

[RocketBear]

It's a historical oddity. At launch, "Easy, Normal, Hard and Expert" didn't exist. You'd just run the campaign (equivalent of Hard now) and there would be a bunch of missions, getting harder and harder as you go down the branch.

So, "Grotto" missions are less difficult than "Terminus", etc.

Then when I was making the Planetary Campaign DLC, I decided to add difficulty levels that affected how much damage you take. It was easy to port it back to the vanilla campaign, so I did.

So now there are kind of two difficulty schemes.

[K84]

There's also the difficulty levels for skirmish mode, which are ranked from Surface to Terminus.

[PieceOfMind]

Just to give some examples...

Originally posted by RocketBear:

I don't know what the specific numbers are on Abyss/Terminus, so can't give you advice on that. It's a complicated system and there are a lot of variables.

For Ruins+Abyss, guardians are as likely as any other mutation once it gets enabled (after 2 other mutations).

You should also know that certain mutations exclude each other. If you see any of the "Spitter/Brute/Enraged Guard" mutations, then guardians is impossible. Impact, Sharpness, Carapace and Bombardment also turn off guardians.

Hmmm, I think that now it's obvious why it's so rare.

Are the bold words referring to the name of the mission, or the difficulty level?

An achievement:

Raider King
Kill all hives on a raid map at Terminus difficulty.

I noticed some (yellow) missions in the story have "raid" in the name. Is that what it means by raid map? The last one is called "Terminus Raid". So I have to beat that level (killing all hives of course), perhaps on easy difficulty to get that achievement?

[K84]

To get the Raider King achievement you need to complete Terminus Raid, but it won't matter if you play it on Easy, Normal or whatever.

[PieceOfMind]

Yes, I've since gotten that achievement. It feels weird as a newcomer to the game to read the description of that achievement and imagine it being somewhat difficult to obtain, but earning the achievement can be done at the "easy" difficulty level.

Any tips on which mission to attempt the Guard Slayer achievement?

[K84]

If you're just after the achievement, do it on Terminus, but drop the difficulty to easy and load up on bonuses from the shop first. If one of the aliens' starting mutations isn't Guardians, just abandon the mission and try again.

[PieceOfMind]

Thanks for the advice.

I'm also trying to get the achievement where you need to cancel 10 alien mutations on the Endgame mission. I tried that one on easy but could only seem to get 9 mutations before they stopped developing new ones. At a guess, is that because I chose the easy difficulty? Maybe that difficulty level causes one less mutation overall.

[K84]

Originally posted by PieceOfMind:

Thanks for the advice.

I'm also trying to get the achievement where you need to cancel 10 alien mutations on the Endgame mission. I tried that one on easy but could only seem to get 9 mutations before they stopped developing new ones. At a guess, is that because I chose the easy difficulty? Maybe that difficulty level causes one less mutation overall.

I think you need to make sure you don't capture all the points around the central hive until you've got the 10, otherwise they stop developing further mutations.

[PieceOfMind]

Originally posted by Kasrkin84:

Originally posted by PieceOfMind:

Thanks for the advice.

I'm also trying to get the achievement where you need to cancel 10 alien mutations on the Endgame mission. I tried that one on easy but could only seem to get 9 mutations before they stopped developing new ones. At a guess, is that because I chose the easy difficulty? Maybe that difficulty level causes one less mutation overall.

I think you need to make sure you don't capture all the points around the central hive until you've got the 10, otherwise they stop developing further mutations.

Thanks, managed to get 100% now.
For the record, got the Guard Slayer achievement on The Grotto. Found it to be the easiest. I didn't realise before that buffs would remain if you abandoned or restarted a level. Only finishing a mission wipes them.