Mod to change difficulty curve

[Charmiskit]

Is there some kind of mod that changes the difficulty curve of the game? Haven't found one.
Important: I'm looking for a difficulty CURVE mod, not a difficulty mod. I know there's 4 difficulty settings, what I'm looking for is a mod that makes the first 1-2 months of the game not crushingly brutal and instead makes the game a lot harder later. Maybe I don't play enough games like this, but I always feel like the game either obliterates you in month 1 or 2, or you survive it and it becomes a cakewalk once your squad has tier 2 weapons.
tl;dr looking for a mod that makes the beginning a bit easier and the mid-end game a lot harder.

[Uncle Al]

I've had a very similar experience. I love playing this game but I've never finished a play through after the first one because the start of legend was too horrible for words and commander and lower gets unchallenging after the early mid game. For my latest playthough I've come up with a combination of mods that's really working well for me:

A Better Advent makes the game overall harder (recommendation is to drop at least a difficulty level) but is meant to really address the drop in difficulty at endgame. I can't swear it works as I haven't got to endgame yet using it, but it's a great mod. If you played with that but dropped a couple of difficulty levels you'd probably find a more balanced experience, assuming you're playing on commander or legend already.

Richards Classes Redux is great fun and makes your soldiers significantly stronger, which helps balance out the difficulty hike of A Better Advent. If you use Richards I'd leave your difficulty where it usually is if combined with A Better Advent or raise difficulty if you use Richards Classes on its own. Richards helps a bit with early game difficulty but it's luck based - of the 8 classes Assaults and Mages are outstandingly strong on their first promotion so if you get one or two of them you're golden. They're not wildly overpowered compared to the other classes, it's just their squaddie abilities are a personal shield and stasis, respectively, which are total godsends when you've got a team of rookies and squaddies.

Starting Spark gives you a....starting spark. Like the good old days of original X-Com where you always bought a drone tank with your starting cash and threw it forward to eat plasma fire, it's fantastic. Richards Classes also makes sparks very tanky so you have a unit that can really take the heat off the squishy guys.

With those three I'm hitting a really nice spot, difficulty wise, and it should stay fairly flat and not drop off massively in the late game. I haven't provided links because I don't know if you're playing with War of the Chosen but there are versions of all three mods for with and without the expansion. A workshop search will turn them up easily enough.

[Marcus]

you can change the dificulty level up or down as you play - in the game menu settings.

[Rockfire ✘]

It requires over 200 mods and tons of config file tweaks. Even then you can't really fix the "difficulty" of this game's brain dead AI. Ive managed to reverse the curve though.

[Rhalius]

Not having lots of soldiers has helped me some. That way your team isnt always ideal to to wounded and tired people and occasionally you might need to take a rookie with you.

Still, I just finished on normal difficulty with only one person a little wounded in the final mission. While it took me longer to get overpowered through the smaller team and having suffered 30 casualties along the way, eventually it did become too easy again.
While my first playthrough on easy with war of the chosen actually gave me some difficulty in the final mission.

So currently I wonder about going for a difficulty level higher or not since I feel normal was perfectly challenging up untill I always had a team of 6 high level troops available with modded plasma tier weapons. I mean, I did suffer 30 casualties. But by the end I kept the avatar progress on zero.

I think I might try it with some modded files to give me extra power, credits and resources so that I don't have to scrape for that, so that I can be as wel equipped as the researched stuff allows me to be.

[Aranador]

Try a playthrough where you never research magnetic or beam weaponry, just using balistics and any damage breakthroughs for your weapons.

[Sir Prometeus]

Originally posted by Charmiskit:

Is there some kind of mod that changes the difficulty curve of the game? Haven't found one.
Important: I'm looking for a difficulty CURVE mod, not a difficulty mod. I know there's 4 difficulty settings, what I'm looking for is a mod that makes the first 1-2 months of the game not crushingly brutal and instead makes the game a lot harder later. Maybe I don't play enough games like this, but I always feel like the game either obliterates you in month 1 or 2, or you survive it and it becomes a cakewalk once your squad has tier 2 weapons.
tl;dr looking for a mod that makes the beginning a bit easier and the mid-end game a lot harder.

Honestly, try Long War 2. Yes, at the end it will become really hard, even if you master liberation missions and infiltration mechanics, but at the beginning it will be much easier with more soldiers and better equipment

Now I can't play vanilla ever again even though I get whipped out anyways. The feeling of leading a rebellion through hit and run operations is only achieved by this mod.

Also, the mod is focused on choosing carefully which missions you need to do, and not taking everything the game throws at you. Even aborting a mission by evacuating your soldiers doesn't screw your campaign by itself

Timers are much more forgiving but the enemy reinforcements come before the timer runs out, especially when there are few turns left (they start arriving turn after turn to force you to evac)

I tried this mod as a last resort to enjoy XCOM 2 and it did it, but I have to admit that LW2 Rookie difficulty and Veteran play very differently. Veteran is a big leap from rookie. There's no shame in starting on Rookie even if you are an experienced player.

Red fog for both aliens and your soldiers is advised if you want a reallistic experience

Lastly, getting laser weaponry as soon as possible is vital in most campaigns

[Eyal]

There are second wave options that can do what you ask. Double timers will make the early game a bit less brutal because the ticking clock won't be as harsh. Add to it Grim Horizon, that makes all dark events permenant, and as the game progresses you'll get more and more of those stack up. Some of those dark events combined can really boost up the difficulty.

[red255]

What you should do is figure out.

1.) what makes the first part of the game so brutal, and minimize it.

and

2.) determine whats going on is actually going to cause you to lose the campaign.

Before Mag Weapons and Plated armor for instance you are probably going to lose some soldiers. because shots will miss and things will go wrong. especially when you are only 4 guys.

but all you are going to lose is some rookies or guys who weren't that big, and you can pick up more troopers later as you make it to later. It isn't causing you to lose, unless it is. so you just suck it up, minimize it by researching mag weapons and plated armor faster and power thru.

the other thing is more unsolid tactics and strategic layer.

none of this would serve to make the end of the game more brutal, I would just suggest beating the game if the game is easy, just beat it and start over. beat it before you are 'ready' for instance

Go when you are ready enough and can make due. Do things as early as you can, and end the campaign before it becomes stale.

[The Captain]

To have a better start, as others have said use a starting Spark. Could also start with 6 in your squad to even out the starting period. (Legendary only)
For harder difficulty mid to late game, you need some or ALL these mods. A better advent, all the Bio enemies (multiple mods), Lebs late game enemies, Additional mission types redux, Berserker Omega, Children of the King... Like with anything Xcom, once you master all these enemies and how to deal with them you'll be ok. Once you reach full plasma and powered armour, you'll still be challenged but with all the high level recruits you gain through the game rewards, an experienced Commander is not going to lose.
There is no mod I know of to increase the difficulty curve late game, as in bigger pods, multiple leader type enemies and primes etc. Its a case of making the whole campaign harder throughout only. Hopefully in XCOM 3 they will come up with this to challenge players late game, even with all the tech and lots of high ranking soldiers at hand. I'd love to get 3/4 of the way through then face new much harder enemies, and complete do or die challenging missions, base defences etc where you are almost guaranteed to lose soldiers or your entire squad if goes too badly wrong.

[Aranador]

The thing is, you DO face newer and more dangerous enemies, but by the time you are realising the late game is easy, you've learned so much about what needs to die first, and how to counter so many things. What is needed, is a different 'veteran' flag as a second wave setting, that changes all sorts of things so you've got to relearn. That is in essence what WotC did, for a bit there, it was new and hard and OMG, but then you 'got good'. It is ultimately a never ending cycle - if the game can be won, players will learn how to win. If the game can not be won, well, that is no good either. So yeah, grab mods, set yourself personal rules (like no psi or only tier 1 guns) or what ever, as long as you are having fun, you are doing it right.

[sick duck]

Just use dark horizon and beta strike. You'll never get a flawless run in the late game when all the nasty enemies come out and have double health and a ton of dark horizon advantages. Not even on rookie mode.