How does the difficulty setting actually work?

[The Pizza is Aggressive]

I personally found the description for it to be a bit confusing. It says that setting it to a setting higher than normal will "override" the dynamic difficulty, which adapts the game's difficulty depending on the amount of players. Does that mean the dynamic difficulty will no longer be a thing if I set the difficulty to Hard or Apocalyptic, or does it mean that the dynamic difficulty will change to match the new base difficulty level? It then proceeds to also tell you that if you want a harder challenge when playing solo, you should increase the difficulty, but that brings back the same question: But what about in multiplayer? Will enabling higher difficulties disable the dynamic difficulty, or will it make the dynamic difficulty harder? The choice of the word "override" on the description makes it very confusing because it doesn't really say anything.

[MechWarden]

The missing bit of info is that the 'Dynamic Difficulty' system culls out some of the extra non-key enemies from the maps when the area is loaded, reducing the effective enemy count and making it easier for the player to handle. It culls out the extras when a player is exploring around alone or in a small group, and turns off while in a large group.

This means that in a Singleplayer Normal difficulty game the Dynamic Difficulty would always be removing the extra enemies from the map.

[The Pizza is Aggressive]

Originally posted by MechWarden:

The missing bit of info is that the 'Dynamic Difficulty' system culls out some of the extra non-key enemies from the maps when the area is loaded, reducing the effective enemy count and making it easier for the player to handle. It culls out the extras when a player is exploring around alone or in a small group, and turns off while in a large group.

This means that in a Singleplayer Normal difficulty game the Dynamic Difficulty would always be removing the extra enemies from the map.

Ok but what about hard difficulty for instance? It would make those enemies spawn on single player, sure, but what would be the difference in multiplayer? How would a higher difficulty affect the dynamic difficulty in multiplayer? Would it spawn even more enemies? Would the enemies be stronger? Would it simply stay at a static "hard" difficulty level that doesn't scale with more players, and thus making the game actually easier? That's what I don't really understand and the description doesn't really address it.

[MechWarden]

Did a bit of searching, and found this.
https://abioticfactor.wiki.gg/wiki/0.9.1.11720_Community_Update_2#Difficulty_Changes
I hope this helps answer some of the questions you have.

But in terms of the dynamic difficulty, it only culls what was there before the feature was introduced, it never added more enemies. So if a given person explored on their own in co-op, or was playing in singleplayer, the dynamic difficulty (if not disabled) would always remove some of the enemies that would have normally spawned in. The feature just made things easier.

Unlike other games, like Deep Rock Galactic, there is no player count dependent enemy spawn ramp up happening, and the other enemy stats are not dynamic to player count either. And yes, on Hard setting, it would be easier to plow through the game in co-op vs solo.

[The Pizza is Aggressive]

Originally posted by MechWarden:

Did a bit of searching, and found this.
https://abioticfactor.wiki.gg/wiki/0.9.1.11720_Community_Update_2#Difficulty_Changes
I hope this helps answer some of the questions you have.

But in terms of the dynamic difficulty, it only culls what was there before the feature was introduced, it never added more enemies. So if a given person explored on their own in co-op, or was playing in singleplayer, the dynamic difficulty (if not disabled) would always remove some of the enemies that would have normally spawned in. The feature just made things easier.

Unlike other games, like Deep Rock Galactic, there is no player count dependent enemy spawn ramp up happening, and the other enemy stats are not dynamic to player count either. And yes, on Hard setting, it would be easier to plow through the game in co-op vs solo.

The article does answer some questions, and now I'm guessing hard would also be harder on co-op because of the enemy AI changes

[Crochwhisle purple]

more enemies appear, like pre-multiplayer oriented nerf

[MikeisaGoob]

Originally posted by The Pizza is Aggressive:

I personally found the description for it to be a bit confusing. It says that setting it to a setting higher than normal will "override" the dynamic difficulty, which adapts the game's difficulty depending on the amount of players. Does that mean the dynamic difficulty will no longer be a thing if I set the difficulty to Hard or Apocalyptic, or does it mean that the dynamic difficulty will change to match the new base difficulty level? It then proceeds to also tell you that if you want a harder challenge when playing solo, you should increase the difficulty, but that brings back the same question: But what about in multiplayer? Will enabling higher difficulties disable the dynamic difficulty, or will it make the dynamic difficulty harder? The choice of the word "override" on the description makes it very confusing because it doesn't really say anything.

No idea, ive been doing a new run on the new apocalyptic difficulty and it literally feels the exact same as the game did before they added it. I have no idea wtf any of the difficulties do but it feels broken right now.

[BioFringe]

Originally posted by MikeisaGoob:

Originally posted by The Pizza is Aggressive:

I personally found the description for it to be a bit confusing. It says that setting it to a setting higher than normal will "override" the dynamic difficulty, which adapts the game's difficulty depending on the amount of players. Does that mean the dynamic difficulty will no longer be a thing if I set the difficulty to Hard or Apocalyptic, or does it mean that the dynamic difficulty will change to match the new base difficulty level? It then proceeds to also tell you that if you want a harder challenge when playing solo, you should increase the difficulty, but that brings back the same question: But what about in multiplayer? Will enabling higher difficulties disable the dynamic difficulty, or will it make the dynamic difficulty harder? The choice of the word "override" on the description makes it very confusing because it doesn't really say anything.

No idea, ive been doing a new run on the new apocalyptic difficulty and it literally feels the exact same as the game did before they added it. I have no idea wtf any of the difficulties do but it feels broken right now.

Agreed. The only differences that I've noticed so far is that there are more enemies (not much more) in certain places and it hurts more when I'm hit. Other than that the difficulties have all felt the same.

[Nerevar]

difficulty does increase dmg taken and slightly increases enemy hp but not by much as hp sponge is worst difficulty in any game.

enemy spawns get increased. enemies respawn faster and there is more of them. apoc difficulty overrides multiplayer scaling and makes maximum amount of enemies always spawn regardless of player count.