Substantial harder than ruthless?

[Phileosophos]

I played about 20 games tonight to see how the difficulty levels feel since the latest patch. Average was back to being easy, and ruthless was a solid challenge, but substantial was over the top impossible throughout multiple games. Sure, sometimes I was joined with players who really didn’t belong on that difficulty (I’m looking at all you sub-level-five n00bs wanting to be carried), but most of the issue was simply the director.

Most of those games didn’t have a single lull. No rest. Never a moment without the “INCOMING HORDE!!!” alarm blaring constantly. And not just a dozen mediums with uncounted fodder but every mini boss in the book: multiple ravenors, multiple lictors, carnifex after neurothrope after endless pairs of zoothropes. I don’t think any one of the ruthless games I played was even half as hard as virtually all of the substantial games.

Is that mode still messed up or what?

[murk farmer]

zoanslop laser takes all armor + 80% health in Substantial, but only all armor in Ruthless. Substantial is currently busted, like everything else in this game.

[AonGreyFox]

May be RNG, but dev didn't tell the truth about patch note. Overall spawn of Majoris are lower on all difficulty. I usually play on Sub, but I feel it not that bad. Only Zoan is always broken.

Never see Terminus after another through.

My average Extremis on Sub is about 4-6 while 7-8 are on very, very bad run like full time carry and they still dead here and there without interrupt the reinforce so the process is stroll enough to trigger more spawn.

Never try with speedrusher through, so I'm don't know how bad can it be with those party pooper.

[Bedman]

conspiracy theorist?

[Chaos]

I doubt it.
Are you sure it's not the quality of the teammmate that make things harder than it seems?

[DanaramaPyjama]

Yeah honestly they don't feel much different to me. My whacky theory is that the boundaries set for AI director's RNG overlap. It's supposed to throw more at you if you're doing well, so it could be that it's throwing more at you in substantial than ruthless.

But like I said, crazy theory of mine.

[Syd]

I am going to bet its the AI director, in substantial you might be doing more damage, and clearing the horde quicker, thus the director thinks you need more of a challenge.

[Kotzi]

Probably as anecdotally as the other "lower difficulties are too hard" threads. Minimal isnt, average isnt and so forth.

Its RNG sometimes a run harder than the last run but never as hard or even harder than the next difficulties.

New player experience in these games has always been, "this is too hard i will never advance to the next difficulty", untill you actually clear the higher difficulties routinely.

[Ishan451]

Originally posted by Phileosophos:

Is that mode still messed up or what?

When i played it the last couple days it seemed fine to me. It is easier than Lethal for certain.

Originally posted by Kotzi:

Its RNG sometimes a run harder than the last run but never as hard or even harder than the next difficulties.

Server performance is much more a factor than anything else. I can play with my buddies and one match i have a ping of 25, with no red symbol of death in the top right corner, the next match i have a ping of 25 with red symbol of death and no longer get Gunstrikes and my friends "warp" through the level. And other times i have a ping of 80+... and all of that despite playing with the same people all evening.

It is an absolute coin toss if the game is enjoyable and playable or not. And it is the same for one of my friends... for him it's also a coin toss whether or not the game is a lag free experience or whether he struggles to get Gunstrikes...

I even gave up playing Bulwark, because the server was so bad at times it wouldn't even give me the extra health when i placed my banner. The joke then always being that i managed to be to far away from the Banner, despite setting it myself.

And my buddy with the server issues also frequently has the situation where he wouldn't get the Banner effect, despite the Banner being placed directly inside his model or right next to him for an execution heal.

To me, personally, that has much more influence in the match difficulty at this point than anything else.

[Kotzi]

Ye servers and netcode are really bad, only reason i still stick to ruthless because i cant tell if i am good enough for lethal. Hard to tell if you messed up skillwise or because of connection.

Well managed to complete 2 but i dont want to be a burden and mess up because on the connection.

[YARD_STALEV]

Yeah, this thought dawned on me yesterday.
For some unknown reasons Reinforcements are spawned twice often on Sub than Ruth.
Oh and Snipers, those Snipers ))

[Chimz]

Maybe the lower skilled teammates made it a harder experience?

[Lord Cornelius Orion IV]

This was definitely an issue prior to the latest patch. I had operations where substantial was more difficult than lethal.
Since the patch it seems to be corrected. But I only tried one substantial operation to see if they patched it.

[Dubstep_Samurai]

Idk about harder, but it didnt feel any easier for sure. For some reason every time i tried substantial, i did find myself sweating as much as it was ruthless,

Worth to mention that few days ago, out of curiosity, i tried first operation on minimal difficulty and was baffled by amount of enemies. There were so many! Not every time did i see that many spawn even on ruthless. Everything died fast because i used lvl 25 class and relic weapons, but the number of enemies was off the charts. It would be unforgettable experience to deal with it as a brand new player.

This gives me impression that something funny is happening with difficulty settings at the moment.

[Kotzi]

Sry but in these kind of games most people get overwhelmed by "hordes" even on the lower difficulties in the beginning.

[AonGreyFox]

Sadly we didn't have statistic about Majoris in end screen yet, which can prove to be useful when gathering data about bonkers AI director.

If the end screen have total number of kill / major and special jump by about 40%+ than average game then it's surely quite going bonkers rng.

I still remember 4.0 have director going complete nut on all difficulty and so call high skill people just going nut on casual for git gud more, not game for ya, and so on... Well, look at the truth we know for now...