Well, just did Ancient Gods part 1 mission 1 and...

[Nonexistinghero]

Gonna turn the difficulty down to easy. It's not that I can't do it on the normal mode, but the encounters are just too long. They're easily double the length of the regular campaign's main game encounters and they constantly throw insane amount of enemies at you. It was just ridiculous. And after you get rid of them and think you beat the encounter, it happens again and even worse and then to top if off they'll throw another one at you... and all of that in a single encounter. That's easily a 10-15 minute redo of intense combat if you die towards the end, something that in the main campaign really only happened during the final boss.

I don't mind having to deal with so many enemies at once if it's over after 1 wave, but most encounters have about 3 waves like that. When I saw a single small platform filled with over 10 stupid enemies spamming fireballs at me right after I dealt with a superheavy and about 20 other fodder enemies running up to me I kinda decided I was gonna turn down the difficulty for the next level.

I played a lot of Doom Eternal in this past week to finally beat the final boss (year ago the final boss killed me a few times and I never played again because a different game distracted me soon after, but I played on a fresh new file on replay now), I'd rather beat the DLC before burning out. Basically to finish that. With how many enemies they throw at you per encounter I don't see myself coming back to the DLC parts (but I will no doubt return to replay the main game at some point).

[Sar]

TAG2 is usually considered to be easier, but it still has longer arena encounters like TAG1. 3 waves are the norm in the DLCs.

[Nonexistinghero]

Yeah, difficulty isn't really the problem. I'm scraping by like usual, but the encounters take so long.

[Sar]

I mean, they would take less time if you killed enemies faster? But that comes with experience. I’m sure I spent waaay more time than 15 minutes on some of those when I first played TAG1.

[Nonexistinghero]

Well, this was the first level and I was just playing on normal. And of course I'm talking about successful attempts, not a 10-15 for multiple tries. I'm more of the playing philosophy of win quickly, die quickly. I can usually deal major damage to superheavies or kill them by throwing a freeze grenade and then unloading a chaingun on them (mobile turret mod). The freeze usually doesn't last long enough to kill one, but they'll die a few seconds after they unfreeze and I can usually risk tanking some damage from the fodders until its dead.

Anyhow, I mostly turned down the difficulty for enjoyability. I don't think it would be a whole lot faster, enemy health seems relatively similar if not the same so far. I don't really enjoy the onslaught of enemies as much as the main game. Too much focus throwing insane amounts of enemies at the player of all tiers. Practically all of the heavies and superheavies show up in every major combat arena as well (and often multiple of them at once). I probably wouldn't die all that much, but I'd prefer getting through the DLC's and actually beating them than actually burning out of the game and not beating them.

[Sar]

Oh yeah, I was talking about successful attempts as well. Counting all attempts, some arenas took me hours or even days, in case of a particular arena in the second level.

The health values are unchanged with the difficulty, that’s true. Mostly easier difficulties will allow you to be more aggressive, that’s correct. I myself am a big fan of chaingun but it’s best used to finish off superheavies or destroy heavies. The best DPS in the game is Lock-On Burst mod for Rocket Launcher. Very ammo hungry, of course, but will destroy Barons and Tyrants.
https://youtu.be/ce3lLKqYxnE?si=z23kzTgTfbWBK1J0
And I agree that it’s better to finish the game at least once on Easy than to get burned out on Normal or higher!

[Nonexistinghero]

I usually resort to the lock-on burst if I'm not in a position to hang around close by or to finish them off in case I can't do it with the chaingun. I mainly like to save the rockets for regular heavies that give me a hard time and to finish off the Doom Hunter once I wreck its sled.

I did think the first level of TAG1 felt extremely long. Took me longer than most of the main game's stages. But I feel like I'm a slow player. I check out some videos on Youtube and there's mostly players doing it in like 9-10 hours for the main game and that missions take like 30-60 minutes. It took me like 20 hours to finish the main game, find all secrets and upgrade everything and on average missions would take me 90-120 minutes or so to finish (granted, most of that time was spent exploring. I used a guide once... in that acid water level where I had to destroy a random ass statue to find 1 of the 3 hidden switches).

[Sar]

I think that statue secret is the one time I actually had to resort to a guide. Couldn’t find it myself at all.

[furbleburble]

There is no shame in playing on lower difficulties, whatever the reason. Enjoy the game how you feel is most appropriate for you!

[UNBREAKABLE]

TAG1 is like 3 master levels back to back that double down on everything taught in the campaign. I think the devs even said players may need to turn the difficulty down at first when playing it.

TAG2 tones the pacing down a bit and is generally more care-free than TAG1. Until you reach the final boss, but anyway.