Unlock the "experienced" difficulty agents and programs? (Updated with answer)

[Glamorpuss]

I basically wasted the entire weekend grinding, trying to beat the game on experienced to unlock Central, Monst3r, Faust, and Brimstone. I had a lot of fun playing the game on easy, and playing with different types of difficulty by flipping various switches, but the specific set of difficulty switches for "experienced" seems to be beyond me, and isn't fun.


Answer:
1. Uninstall or disable the DLC. This is a pretty big component, since the DLC increases the difficulty of the game quite a bit, regardless of choosing easy/experienced/expert. It's got new enemies, new harder enemies, and doubles (or more) the number of missions/time you have before the end of the game - all things that add to the difficulty!

2. Change the number of rewinds. If you only change this setting, without touching any of the others, the difficulty will still count as "experienced" instead of "custom", so you'll be able to unlock your new agents and programs. Being able to rewind 99 times is probably more than you'll ever need in a single mission, so this should be overkill.


NOTE:
I've edited this original post to reflect the whole discussion and include the answer, so you don't need to read the whole thing to find the answer! :)

[Geothermal1159]

Can't you just give yourself as many rewinds as well as day resets as you want on the campain set up? Or does changing those values make it so you can't unlock the characters even on experianced?

If it doesn't keep you from unlocking them then you could just give yourself a bunch of rewinds and resets to beat it with out cheating (in terms of using third party sources) but otherwise the only other things I could suggest is to look at guides or videos about how they play and learn to adapt your strategy.

[Glamorpuss]

Any time you flip any of the settings, it no longer counts as "experienced" (or "easy", or "expert). It counts as a "custom" difficulty, which means it won't unlock anything.

As far as following guides/videos, I suspect they were written/recorded before the DLC, or at least before some major update, since they all seem to be talking about it like it's not so hard to win on experienced. Either way, I've already tried and failed to complete the game with normal methods, and just want to not deal with the hassle.

[Synavix]

You should be able to change "Rewinds" at the top to 99 (or less if you want) without it changing to custom difficulty as long as you leave everything else on the default presets. At least I'm able to, just tried it.

I think there is even an achievement for specifically changing the number of rewinds to fewer than the default on one of the preset difficulties.

[Glamorpuss]

Thanks! I'll give that a shot this week; Hopefully it will be enough before I have to resort to cheat-mods. :)

[CarThief]

Yeah that's a pretty useful list of advice, but if the DLC is giving you trouble you're not required to use it, you can just untick it when doing a new game/save, it should not count as a custom run, as far as i'm aware.

Might as well add that it's a poor idea to go in a room without observing it safely for any guards patrolling in and out (typically while peeking and then closing the door from an nearby room, which lets you keep your additional sight range even with a closed door), avoids nasty suprises that way, should they spot an agent you thought was in good cover.

Shouldn't be too difficult after a few tries, maybe just one try is enough with the advice mentioned in the topic.

[Geothermal1159]

As meantioned you can turn off the DLC so those guides that were written before the DLC can still be used since you can play the game dlcless and still unlock it all (well except for dlc stuff but I am pretty sure that is unlocked by default once you activate the dlc so no worries there).

[Jooshimus]

It's an exercise of logical thinking and if their brain hasn't been worked this way before they'll start off worse than others, some getting frustrated it seems.

For example I never did beginner, I did tutorial -> experienced first go. I'm sure there's others who could have done the same if not better, but the point is logical thinking plays a big part in your starting point.

Just have to keep an open mind, take notice of how the mechanics work and try new things. Rather than not thinking things through, doing the same thing, losing and then shifting blame, it's your own psychology holding you back.

[Glamorpuss]

I've already been playing the game using every trick on that list, and I've been playing permadeath games like Nethack for a decade. My trouble is I keep making small mistakes that compound over the course of a mission, and the campaign. If I can't unlock these characters with the 99 rewinds, I'm just going to cheat. The game's official forums state it's no longer being worked on, even for bugs, so I'm not worried about playing the game "right". I just want to have fun, and not have my time wasted with difficulty options that I don't find enjoyable.

Hell, I might even make the cheat-character mods, just so I can see how easy it can be to make new content. This is a pretty damn good game engine, so it's a shame the devs stopped after one DLC. :)

P.S.
Easy difficulty is too easy for me, but I don't like the particular set of options for experienced difficulty either. It's pretty obvious from the set of switches on expert that it's less of a jump from experienced than experienced is from easy. Either way, I would prefer completely custom difficulty, just to switch up how the game is played.

P.P.S.
Books don't stop you from flipping past boring pages, non-video games can have house-rules, and movies and music can be fast-forwarded. Videogames are unique in their ability to restrict the freedom of the customer.

[Jooshimus]

Originally posted by Carly 2000:

I've already been playing the game using every trick on that list. My trouble is I keep making small mistakes that compound over the course of a mission, and the campaign.
Easy difficulty is too easy for me, but I don't like the particular set of options for experienced difficulty either.

This doesn't add up. My ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ detector is going off.

Main differences between beginner and experienced is unsafe patrols and increased final resistance. Unsafe patrols you just peek into unscouted rooms and end turn. Countering final resistance means accumulate wealth to buy stats/weapons and kill/KO/manipulate guards away from Monst3r.

Alarm changes shouldn't matter; you get advanced warning. More guards shouldn't matter; it's just more of the same but still not enough to be problematic. Less rewinds and no level retries; shouldn't be making so many mistakes anyway, don't play when drunk.

If you want more help and you can't identify what you're doing wrong then we'll need video evidence of what you're doing so we can identify it for you. Otherwise good luck to you and have fun.

[Glamorpuss]

Originally posted by Synavix:

You should be able to change "Rewinds" at the top to 99

This worked, although I was too tired / not fully reading the comments in this thread, because I also could have benefitted from following this advice:

Originally posted by CarThief:

if the DLC is giving you trouble you're not required to use it

Originally posted by BFTPaul1159:

As meantioned you can turn off the DLC

If I'd have known /realized this (this is what happens when I don't sleep well...from playing too much Invisible Inc), I probably would have finished experienced in a lot less time. I actually finished the game on easy before buying the DLC, and it only took me 3 hours! I hadn't even realized I'd sunk 90+ hours into this game. Yikes!

Thanks for the help! :)