[Explained] Does difficulty affect loot?

[Drennon]

We've gotten several players reaching out to ask asking how difficulty affects loot drops. We've responded in different threads, but since it's such a common question, we wanted to create a pinned thread to explain it more in-depth.

The short answer is that changing your difficulty setting doesn't affect your loot from each machine drop. Playing with more players and the difficulty scaling with those players also will not affect each machine's chance of giving you more loot.

However, on higher difficulties the chance of spawning a Rival is higher. Rivals give some of the overall best loot, making playing on a higher difficulty setting that much more appealing when hunting for Rivals.

Additional information regarding the difficulty settings:

• When playing with higher difficulty settings, players do less damage to the machines.
• When playing with higher difficulty settings, the machines do higher damage to the players
• When playing with higher difficulty settings, the machine's ability to locate players visually and through sound is increased
• When playing with higher difficulty settings, the machine's accuracy when aiming at player is increased.
• When playing with higher difficulty settings, there is no change to how many machines will spawn in the world.

[marsultor501]

Well the higher level gun does more damage too. the lower the tier the worse condition it is in as is damage and how quickly you can reload. I noticed it definitely with the pump action damage wise.

[Pestilence]

"doing less damage to the machines" Excuse me which of the devs thought THAT would be a good idea!? It´s the laziest way to increase the difficulty there is!

[TakeMyLunch]

Dealing more damage to us is fine enough but I draw the line at less damage done to the bots. Damage sponging isn't fun. Higher difficulty should be more challenging (increase dangers don't decrease effectiveness) not more frustrating (decrease effectiveness *and* increase dangers).

[iinazuma]

As long as I'm playing Rivals are just a waste of Ammo. After the fith Rival with crap loot i really don't like to gut them :/

[Darken812]

iinazuma eredeti hozzászólása:

As long as I'm playing Rivals are just a waste of Ammo. After the fith Rival with crap loot i really don't like to gut them :/

I agree iinazuma, I agree. The rewards don't make up for the resources.

[Kuroneko]

Don't know if this is the correct Post to Post my Issue but here goes. I've killed a large amount of Small Robots & also the Big Robots as well as Rivals but when i go to loot them 2 out of 10 enemies don't give anything. like i killed 6 Rival's ( they come in pairs at times ) and only 2 gave items and 2 Weapons but all of the rest din't give anything even though they have a Loot Icon , when i Loot them the Screen Loot on them is Blank. Anyone know why ?

[Darken812]

Kuroneko eredeti hozzászólása:

Don't know if this is the correct Post to Post my Issue but here goes. I've killed a large amount of Small Robots & also the Big Robots as well as Rivals but when i go to loot them 2 out of 10 enemies don't give anything. like i killed 6 Rival's ( they come in pairs at times ) and only 2 gave items and 2 Weapons but all of the rest din't give anything even though they have a Loot Icon , when i Loot them the Screen Loot on them is Blank. Anyone know why ?

It seems to be happening more & more, Kuroneko. I happened often about a year ago. You could actually get more on a variable from a military tank, than you could a rival. Now it seems all too often they aren't worth the resources. Rarely do you get enough back (ROI).

[DedZedNub]

@ Kuroneko

I've only killed robots Hunter sized and lower. But, I also see the occasional empty loot screen. Has not happened a lot though. Probably no more than 4-5 times in over 700 kills or more over multiple characters offline. Still only in the first 2 islands though.

SEEKERS seem to most often have an empty loot box. You can search them usually, 1-2 times I could not even get the loot screen up. Overally SEEKERS account for about 4 of these empty loot screens.

What I'm guessing may be happening, and it is based on hardly any pattern to go by, is that it happens when the game is transitioning states or when the robot is transitioning states.

What do I mean by transitioning states and why do I guess this?

The reason is that most of the time it happened it was in bunker or base regions where objectives for Story Missions were updating, like for the Seekers, and when it seemed that the world was respawning loot, respawning enemies recently, or a Seeker had just called in enemies with alarm, or when the lighting in the game was transitioning from day to night. Otherwise it was mostly in towns or more heavily spawned or loot places were frequent (pre-placed or not).

My guess, if it has any basis at all, is that when a Seeker switches from standard state to Alarm Call State, or one of any of its other states, it may have a check on its loot screen, either intended or otherwise, that can hang during a kill. Likewise, if the world state is going from Day to Night, or if it is hitting a 4 hour RESTOCK/RESPAWN of the World Area, then if you kill it during such a moment, the loot table can hang.

In general, I did not find that leaving the area and then returning fixed the robot wreck to be lootable. Seemed to fail, except maybe 1 time, but can't vouch for that being accurate. In other games, such as Dying Light 1, sometimes loot can either return to the surface (if inaccessible to click on), or can very rarely reset if in a container (although this last I doubt occurs any more in DL1, did in Dead Island Original at least in past).

To clarify, the inability to Loot Anything, is characterized almost always (for me), by the loot screen being accessible and coming up but being empty. But sometimes, probably 1-2 times, no loot screen came up. These were on actually robot wrecks (carcasses) killed by me. Of course, on rare occasions it is hard to know if it is a player killed corpse or one placed by the game beforehand. But in most of these cases, I believe these were military class runners or a Hunter Prototype.

My experience, again, is limited so far to the first two islands. I play offline almost entirely and play time is probably in the 60-76 hour category, so not a lot to go on. Had to restart a couple of characters, to reset the game for new DLC (which was probably not necessary to do in retrospect), but did have to do it to reset the Stats and Achievements (forget actual name) that were borked by creating a second character in same save.

So this is all fresh on the full Bundle.

[Big Italy]

I only have a little over 20 hours of game time but I certainly experienced WAY better loot drops when playing multiplayer with higher level people.

On the first two areas I only ever received tier 3 items, though mostly were tier 1 and 2. However, when joining up with others I was amazed at the amount of tier 3 drops, multiple tier 4, and several tier 5. This also wasn't just with the small/large robots or Rivals, it was in the normal loot boxes and such.

My load-out went from tier 2/3 to 3/5 with just a single match-up. Oddly they were mostly duplicates of what I already had, but still, I was a kid in a candy store.

[Ch4rm5nDer]

Drennon eredeti hozzászólása:

We've gotten several players reaching out to ask asking how difficulty affects loot drops. We've responded in different threads, but since it's such a common question, we wanted to create a pinned thread to explain it more in-depth.

The short answer is that changing your difficulty setting doesn't affect your loot from each machine drop. Playing with more players and the difficulty scaling with those players also will not affect each machine's chance of giving you more loot.

However, on higher difficulties the chance of spawning a Rival is higher. Rivals give some of the overall best loot, making playing on a higher difficulty setting that much more appealing when hunting for Rivals.

Additional information regarding the difficulty settings:

• When playing with higher difficulty settings, players do less damage to the machines.
• When playing with higher difficulty settings, the machines do higher damage to the players
• When playing with higher difficulty settings, the machine's ability to locate players visually and through sound is increased
• When playing with higher difficulty settings, the machine's accuracy when aiming at player is increased.
• When playing with higher difficulty settings, there is no change to how many machines will spawn in the world.

if you expect this game to be like most looter shooters like borderlands when more players increased loot drops or xp gains then no its not... its an apocalyptic survival with some minor rpg but no increased loot gains at all......ofc the mobs will do increased dmg and have better awareness of the players on the hardest difficulty and when 4 players are there. what do u expect? if its destiny 2 or borderlands that u want then go play those

[Midnight Sun Highlander]

Glad that the number of robots themselves doesn't change, because in the North it is a LOT especially in solo plays lol

[Fylas]

ignore difficulty and keep it to minimum unless I feel like being challenged, got it.

[Asmosis]

So whats the % incease/decrease in damage/HP when going to higher difficulty modes? 10%, 20%, 50%, 100% ?

Just wondering how big of a difference they make. I found this in another thread, is it accurate?
- Adventure = x0.5
- Skirmish = x1
- Guerrilla = x2
So if Skirmish is the default, adventure you have 2x health and deal 2x damage (4x easier) and Guerilla is the opposite where you have 0.5x health and enemies take 2x damage (making it 4x harder).

[SniperGirl]

Asmosis eredeti hozzászólása:

So whats the % incease/decrease in damage/HP when going to higher difficulty modes? 10%, 20%, 50%, 100% ?

Just wondering how big of a difference they make. I found this in another thread, is it accurate?
- Adventure = x0.5
- Skirmish = x1
- Guerrilla = x2
So if Skirmish is the default, adventure you have 2x health and deal 2x damage (4x easier) and Guerilla is the opposite where you have 0.5x health and enemies take 2x damage (making it 4x harder).

It is an instant notice in the different difficulties, both the damage you do to the machines and the damage they do to you. I look at them as more resources used verses stocking up resources. You also have to adjust your timing and distances.

Easy to dodge rounds verses you are damaged before you move. Hiding behind something to not get hit verses you get hit anyway.

[sibtraid1979]

С таким графонием, с таким потенцивалом, такой сталкер бы получился...