Difficulties need to change

[Krenztor]

All the bickering going on between the casuals and elitists seems to be caused by the fact that Phasmophobia is currently a zero sum game. Either it can be made more difficult or easier for everyone. Why does it have to be this way? The simple solution that the devs could implement is to differentiate the various difficulty levels more. Have different hunting mechanics, ghost speeds, grace periods before hunts, sensitivities for ghost hearing and sight, etc based on the difficulty level you are playing on. They could even go wild and create challenge modes where you are randomly given debuffs and the ghosts given buffs. The world is their oyster.

I get that this game is still in beta and that the devs are probably working on a dozen things at once, but they already had one system fully created and in the latest update they created another system. They could have kept all the old stuff in lower difficulty levels and thrown the new stuff in higher ones allowing all sides to have their cake and eat it too.

Maybe the devs didn't expect the latest update to be so divisive, but now that it has proven to be so, wouldn't the easiest solution be to solve this through modifying the difficulty levels?

[Kashra Fall]

Originally posted by Sonicle:

Some people want to play on the hardest mode but also want that mode to cater to them.

Bingo

[Krenztor]

Originally posted by Sonicle:

Some people want to play on the hardest mode but also want that mode to cater to them.

Right now, all the difficulties are essentially the same. The 5 /2 minute timer is bogus. The santiy drop rate is pretty easy to mitigate with keeping lights on if that is what you want to do. The only big difference between the difficulties is the payout, experience gain, and no insurance. So of course you want to play professional right now. When I was going through the guides people create on YouTube for learning this game, they all recommended immediately jumping to professional as there is no benefit to anything earlier than that. If someone wants to challenge me on this, be my guest. But until someone can explain to me why, under the current system, anyone would want to play on lower than professional, then my point stands. There needs to be a greater difference between the difficulties to provide a reason to play anything other than professional.

[Nox]

Originally posted by amd_4ever:

All the bickering going on between the casuals and elitists seems to be caused by the fact that Phasmophobia is currently a zero sum game. Either it can be made more difficult or easier for everyone. Why does it have to be this way? The simple solution that the devs could implement is to differentiate the various difficulty levels more. Have different hunting mechanics, ghost speeds, grace periods before hunts, sensitivities for ghost hearing and sight, etc based on the difficulty level you are playing on. They could even go wild and create challenge modes where you are randomly given debuffs and the ghosts given buffs. The world is their oyster.

I get that this game is still in beta and that the devs are probably working on a dozen things at once, but they already had one system fully created and in the latest update they created another system. They could have kept all the old stuff in lower difficulty levels and thrown the new stuff in higher ones allowing all sides to have their cake and eat it too.

Maybe the devs didn't expect the latest update to be so divisive, but now that it has proven to be so, wouldn't the easiest solution be to solve this through modifying the difficulty levels?

The difficulty overhaul should come with the progression update.
Dont know when that would happen but my tip is September.

[Kashra Fall]

Originally posted by amd_4ever:

Originally posted by Sonicle:

Some people want to play on the hardest mode but also want that mode to cater to them.

Right now, all the difficulties are essentially the same. The 5 /2 minute timer is bogus. The santiy drop rate is pretty easy to mitigate with keeping lights on if that is what you want to do. The only big difference between the difficulties is the payout, experience gain, and no insurance. So of course you want to play professional right now. When I was going through the guides people create on YouTube for learning this game, they all recommended immediately jumping to professional as there is no benefit to anything earlier than that. If someone wants to challenge me on this, be my guest. But until someone can explain to me why, under the current system, anyone would want to play on lower than professional, then my point stands. There needs to be a greater difference between the difficulties to provide a reason to play anything other than professional.

The lower difficulties are to learn the game. You can find out what a ghost is and get all evidence before the 5/2 minute marker is up because professional adds the extra layer of the house's power is off, so it is cold. The two best ways of finding the ghost, is EMF and Temp, on professional, temp is not an option for like the first 2 mins after turning the power on, which depending on the ghost, can cost you a fair chunk of your sanity.

The person you were watching is a meta gamer I assume? The meta being "Mo'money" because that is all people want in this game, but if they took the time to figure out how not to die and how to properly use their tools in the fastest and best fashion? They'd have a better time. Countless times we ran the easiest and second hardest difficulty for lower friends and were out before the ghost even became active, where as professional, there's no safety net and there doesn't need to be one.

[Alkorin]

There is definitely some tuning that needs to be done. I was just hunted across a map by a ghost who found me immediately, in a closed locker, with all electronics off and mic pickup turned off. Good times.

That said, I play on Professional, and I expect a challenge. Definitely more challenging now (for now, until we all get used to the dynamic again).

[Krenztor]

Originally posted by Kashra Fall:

The lower difficulties are to learn the game. You can find out what a ghost is and get all evidence before the 5/2 minute marker is up because professional adds the extra layer of the house's power is off, so it is cold. The two best ways of finding the ghost, is EMF and Temp, on professional, temp is not an option for like the first 2 mins after turning the power on, which depending on the ghost, can cost you a fair chunk of your sanity.

The person you were watching is a meta gamer I assume? The meta being "Mo'money" because that is all people want in this game, but if they took the time to figure out how not to die and how to properly use their tools in the fastest and best fashion? They'd have a better time. Countless times we ran the easiest and second hardest difficulty for lower friends and were out before the ghost even became active, where as professional, there's no safety net and there doesn't need to be one.

Yes, the lower difficulties are to learn the game, not play the game. That's my point. They don't offer gameplay of any value. Turning on the breaker and waiting for temps is super basic, not skill based. The sanity argument could carry weight if not for sanity pills. I don't consider myself good at this game, but I could easily maintain a high enough sanity using lights and pills that the only risk I'd have of being hunted is by a Banshee.

I watched multiple guildes, and the "mo-money" strategy had nothing to do with meta. It was pure logic. Say you want to play solo and you want to bring a realistic amount of equipment, but not all the equipment in the game. You'll probably be lugging around 2k worth. So a death costs 2k. Playing on pro, you earn about 200 per run, intermediate 135, and amateur 70. That means your success to fail needs to be about 10 to 1 on pro, 20 to 1 on intermediate, and 30 to 1 on amateur. Given how close together all of these difficulties are, for the average player, it is possibly easier to get 10 to 1 on pro than 30 to 1 on amateur. Would you disagree? Add to that time investment required and pro becomes far more enticing.

I'll also add that the best place to learn what you are describing is likely pro for the reasons you stated. Ghosts are not that active in lower levels meaning higher time investment and less real world experience gained. Also, I'll add that the way I learned to survive hunts was to go into pro with no equipment, provoke the ghost, and learn to escape from it with no risk to my equipment. So even for this type of experience, it is best to play on pro.

All of this is nitpicking points anyways. Maybe 1% or even 10% of the player base is better off playing at lower than pro, but it is overwhelmingly skewed towards pro right now. That is not the norm in most games. On most games, intermediate should be where the best risk/reward is for the majority of players. At that point you could make a legitimate argument that some people are just stubbornly playing on pro when they shouldn't be, but that is certainly not the case with this game.

Let's see if we can agree on this. If the next patch came out and it included a difficulty above pro which was exceedingly difficult, do you think it would be divisive? Would people who are playing pro right now feel the absolute need to jump into this harder difficulty even though it is well beyond what they can handle? Or would they simply stick with pro and be mostly satisfied with that?

[Dj DNA]

difficulty overhaul is one of the next things on the roadmap