Is there any point to increasing difficulty?

[Maltheus]

I've haven't bumped my difficulty up, since playing this game. So I think wild dinos still max out at 30, in my SP game. Since increasing the difficulty also increases my max dino level, is there any good reason to do it?

It just seems like it increases taming times without actually increasing overall difficulty. If anything, I suspect it will lower the actual difficulty, since wild dinos seem to put most of their points into food, whereas I won't make that mistake. Is there something else I'm missing?

[Syphen]

It makes wild dinos spawn higher level and that is about it. If you want to tweak the damage at least on private servers you can pretty much edit your ini settings until your heart is content. Changing dino damage, resistance, player damage, resistance, food and water drain, level cap, you name it.

[Rashaka]

It actually makes it slightly more difficult. I've found that changing some of the ini files to increase the difficulty in other ways is a more effective way to make the game harder. I also increase the taming speed compared to the difficulty level. If on difficulty 4x then taming speed is also 4x or there about.

Having a higher difficulty also makes it possible to get the better quality of items in your game. Like ascendant quality red items. Granted that also means that the crafting cost goes through the roof on them.

[Steel Jacket]

Increasing the "difficulty has an inverse effect. Instead of making it more challenging you actually create an even larger disparity between wild and tamed dinosaurs. If you play lvl 30 capped dino level it will still take quite a few wacks with a maxed giganto balancing hp and damage to kill a level 30 wild stego. If you bump that difficulty up to 120 level cap and get a 120 giganto and then cap it and do the same to a 120 wild stego you'll 1 shot it with some rather impressive overkill. The same applies for alphas. With alphas capping at 30 even a maxed out spino will have some difficulty taking down that alpha rex. Now with 120 max and a capped spino you'll shred an alpha like it was nothing.

Now if you're on foot it does make the dinos slightly and do mean slightly harder, but who honestly actively tries to fight dinos on foot?

[Maltheus]

Originally posted by Rashaka:

Having a higher difficulty also makes it possible to get the better quality of items in your game. Like ascendant quality red items. Granted that also means that the crafting cost goes through the roof on them.

Yeah, this was what I was wondering about. I've been looking for higher level blueprints everywhere and not finding them. I think I have a single ramshackle carbo saddle after well over 150hrs. But it doesn't sound like it's worth it now, if I have to raise (which is actually lowering) the difficulty.

[Phantom]

If I knew what I know now I would have left the game on 30 max and just bumped up the dino damage for more challenge. Now we're sitting with a bunch of pretty useless low levels that we're attached to but don't dare take out of the base. Upping the difficulty offset is a nice way to introduce a "new challenge" on a competitive server. For coop/single player all it does is create disparity on more levels e.g. spawns, damage etc. And from what I've learned in this thread it also changes the loot!

[Engine.ini]

I have found that increasing dino damage will severely hamper new players. Just a warning FYI

[Phantom]

Originally posted by Rannith:

I have found that increasing dino damage will severely hamper new players. Just a warning FYI

I can definitely see that being the case especially for people picking up the game for the first time and joining a server solo.