Request for feedback : Difficulty!

[Epyon]

Let's talk difficulty levels!

It came to my attention (unfortunately a bit too late) that after the previous update (0.8.4) which improved the AI, the game became too difficult on the easier difficulties than what I intended it to be. While general consensus is that the new AI improves the game, it also is unforgiving on the early levels for people that didn't fully grasp the way the cover system works, and how you can bait the AI to leave that cover. This leads to many newcomers (and some casual earlier players) become frustrated when they shoot enemies and they don't die. While Jupiter Hell is supposed to be a difficult game, we also care for newcomers to the genre to get hooked - and early frustration isn't the best way.

Because I realized my mistake on 0.8.5 release day, there wasn't much I could do about it. So I took the opportuninity with the first bugfix patch to provide some initial changes that might alleviate some of the difficulty, especially from Easy.

Patch notes here: https://steamcommunity.com/games/811320/announcements/detail/3603371708579348338

These changes however, are more of a band-aid than a full blown solution. I want to study the difficulty and perceived difficulty of the game in more depth to improve upon it in future updates. Hence I need your input!

Let me first state some golden goals that we're aiming for - we know that we're quite far from achieving them, but you'll get the picture of what we're trying to achieve on given difficulty levels.

First the general rules for all difficulty levels: we want the difficulty to increase linearly during gameplay time. So that the better you get the further you die on average. Right now it's more about surviving Callisto - once a run gets past mid-Europa, you usually most often only die to the boss.

Our goal is that if you beat the game on a given difficulty, you should (if you play cautiosly) reach mid-game on that difficulty on a regular basis.

As for the difficulties itself: Easy should be beatable by a non-roguelike newcomer that plays faily cautiosly in say a dozen runs. Same should be with Medium, but for a roguelike player or turn-based strategy veteran. Hard should be beatable once you get to know the game. I'm not much worried about the difficulty above Hard (at the moment), as long as there are people that can beat it on a semi-regular basis. Once all major stuff is in, we will work carefuly on Ultraviolence and Nightmare! balance.

So, if you're in one of the above groups and cannot progress far in the game, please state why! We need to identify what the major difficulties are on Callisto, and how to make the game a bit harder on Io and Beyond (for Hard+).

Also, even if you beat UV on a regular basis, please give us your input!

[Pleb]

Back when I started playing on Easy, the biggest mistakes I felt I made were bad positioning in firefights and taking the wrong weapons through Callisto. Now it's more like getting surrounded before I have the weapons to deal with it, but Callisto's difficulty feels reasonable.

Most enemies after Europa don't worry me at all. Only the enemies with AoE attacks and fast exalted fiends/reavers bother me now. Maybe the enemies with claws and guns could get an upgrade.

[Malastro]

Several UV wins under my belt at this point - though admittedly none since the last patch. If you want to make the endgame harder, you need to force players into uncomfortable situations that they wouldn't subject themselves to by choice. By the time you reach Io, a good player will have already assembled an excellent kit and will know how to approach particular rooms with minimal risk. You have to surprise them with enemies from unexpected directions so that cookie-cutter tactics can't just be repeated ad nauseum.

My first thought is something like the maggots from Doom 3: melee enemies that are invisible until they're about 2 tiles away, basically in your face. You can't one-shot them from a distance because you don't know they're there. They can appear when you're already engaged with other enemies farther away.

Levels connected via short-range teleporters are another option. Basically you generate the level as a handful of disconnected complexes with one-way teleporters to travel between them, so that the player can't see what he's getting into as he ports between areas. A handful of blind jumps are then required on every level. Understandably, a rework of level generation might be off the table at this point in development.

Enemies with summons would fit the bill, too. That might be easiest - and as I understand it, an arch-vile-esque monster is already being planned?

One more brainstorm: demon "eggs"? Something that might spawn a monster at any moment, but which you wouldn't just obliterate on sight (at least, not all the time) because it costs too much ammo.

[Zappor]

I played a lot on Normal difficulty on 0.8.2-0.8.3, and could beat it quite regularly.

Played a bunch of times on Normal on 0.8.5a now, I'm not getting anywhere. :-)
The big problem is getting swarmed by lots of enemies of course.
For solutions, I think the enemies in the beginning need a lot lower aggro radius. Or be nerfed some other way. Maybe move slower, reload often and slow, etc etc.

[mosfet]

I think your description how the difficulties should be is about right, and it's not there right now.

For difficulty scaling, look at the survival function (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survival_function) and note it's an ingral. If the probability of surviving a particular level is constant, then the probability of winning the game decreases linearly. And so, if the difficulty of each level increases linearly, the probability of winning the game will decrease quadratically.

I think that quadratic curve would make for frustrating gameplay: to improve, you need to play at the deeper levels that challenge you. You would spend most of your game time grinding in early levels, hoping for better RNG when you get to the later ones. I think you want a curve that allows people to progress to depth. This is similar to The Hero's Journey, that is, how people expect story arcs to be structured.

I think there's also a problem in that the only real viable late game option seems to be the "overkill sniper". To deal with CRI bots and siege ravagers you have to be able to take them out range before they can close to attack. Anything short range is underpowered when enemies can shoot rockets or archreaver balls. You end up handle all the high level enemies about the same way (kill them at range).

[baoluo84]

The main issue (and not only relative to the latest build) is that difficulty seems to decrease instead of increasing/staying constant. The initial levels are hard because you have ♥♥♥♥♥♥ weapons and no traits. After you get your hands on a decent weapon and get a few related traits, things start getting much easier. If i can survive military barracks / Callisto anomaly then I already have pretty good chances of winning. Starting from Europa there should be new elements to keep players on their toes. Not necessarily tougher enemies, but (as others pointed out) elements that mess up with your plans. Enemies sudden appearing next to you, ambushes, an AI that coordinates a surround from multiple directions, traps, etc. etc. etc.

[Zappor]

Any progress on this topic?

[Epyon]

There's a lack of feedback currently :/. We do have some ideas to make Hard/UV harder, and Easy got definitely easier in 0.8.5a. As we'll be rolling out 0.8.6 out soon (which has significant changes to class skills) I guess we'll have to just keep this discussion open for more Easy/Medium feedback.

As for your particular suggestions - the aggro was lower, and that annoyed people because they got swarmed instead of being able to bait enemies into fighting them one on one. They do move slower, but I don't want to overdo it, as it looks wierd if they skip too many turns.

[baoluo84]

another thing about difficulty.. in the current state of affairs, medium feels harder than hard. The strategies required to kill enemies in medium are exactly the same as hard. But in hard you get more enemies and more xp, so by the time you get to mini-boss levels (anomaly/barracks) you are much better equipped on hard..

[Cosmo]

Coming in to the 8.0.6 patch after mostly skipping out 0.8.5, and a fair bit of playtime on 0.8.4 with just a bit pre 0.8.4.

I play a lot of Medium, and currently, i've felt the game was very fair, especially with the Marine's new anti-rocket perk. I felt i never had to super consider my ammo or health pack usage, and it's been relatively reasonable. The added durability to armor was really needed and it's in a good place now, though maaaybe could use tuning down just a bit (also have repair packs changed how they calculate the repaired amount? used to be straight 50%).

All in all, for at this point a decent player of Jupiter Hell, i feel Medium is in the right spot at the very least. 0.8.4 was brutal sometimes and the lack of early game loot (i read Calisto got a bit of a boost) could spell disaster for a run.

[Connorses]

Been playing on Medium. I've played roguelikes, but don't often beat turn-based roguelikes. I've played 64 runs at this point and ONE of them I got to Europa. Having a difficult time figuring out I could do different, which perks I should take etc.

[Dervix]

I tried a few runs to Valhalla Spaceport on Easy and Medium with dumbest perks choices possible and a bit brainlessly.
There are enough medpacks, armor shouldn't break either.
Ammo is more than sufficient for both 9mm and shotguns, you'll only have about 60% of the .44 ammo needed to main a revolver (without cycling weapon from the floor).
Easy is easy, medium not so much because you'll fight more enemies, and medpacks are barely enough to cover for dumb mistakes. Only way i can see someone getting killed in the early game is a fiend ambush or standing out in the open fighting multiple enemies and/or keep shooting with high pain.
9mm auto rifle and revolver are +/- efficient for Callisto, with .44 hunter even better choice. Pistol and SMG are weak, and shotgun has a skill component (basically if you don't know how much hp each enemy has and when and where to move closer and shoot, you'll end up eating lead during an otherwise unnecessary reload).

[ULTRA]

Yeah, the Callisto portion should not be difficult for anyone but I feel like if they die there then it's mostly a learning experience (like taking a tumble down Valhalla Command without thinking about it for example) and thus in the course of gameplay-as-designed.

Originally posted by Connorses:

Been playing on Medium. I've played roguelikes, but don't often beat turn-based roguelikes. I've played 64 runs at this point and ONE of them I got to Europa. Having a difficult time figuring out I could do different, which perks I should take etc.

Not sure why, either I'm incredibly lucky or I just know something you don't - I got to Europa my first try on medium. I perked into hellrunner to begin with (marine) because I assumed there would be some point where I'd be ambushed and not be able to just blast shotgun pellets down a hallway to win everything. This also hedges against the possibility that you won't find good armor since it scales inversely with your armor grade, for an avoidance-style defense rather than damage mitigation.

Originally posted by Dervix:

9mm auto rifle and revolver are +/- efficient for Callisto, with .44 hunter even better choice. Pistol and SMG are weak, and shotgun has a skill component (basically if you don't know how much hp each enemy has and when and where to move closer and shoot, you'll end up eating lead during an otherwise unnecessary reload).

Autorifle can pretty much just handle the entirety of Callisto alone. The application of the SMG is a little more mysterious, but you'll notice it's 5x6 damage vs. the auto rifle's 3x7, and its range is 2/6 instead of 2/3/8. In other words, it's an auto shotgun that uses 9mm rounds instead of 12ga cartridges. 9 mm pistol is just for challenges I assume, since its strength seems to be in cost effectiveness and accuracy at range (beating even the auto rifle at medium range), but is overall poop.

[Dervix]

The problem with the SMG is damage thresholds and the -10% hit.
At ideal range 2 it has only about 60% chance of landing all 5 shots.
Sargeants and soldiers have 20hp and armor 2. 4 SMGs shots will leave them with 1 hp (really!), so if you try to use a SMG instead of a revolver or a shotgun, 40% of the time you'll end up hurting.
If you're a technician, go ahead and A-mod that SMG and you should be fine, anyone else should just go with revolver or shotty.

[Epyon]

I just dropped a test version, that among other things removes the -10% SMG penalty and sets the HP of most callisto security to 18 - curious how it will work. Saturday and Sunday we'll finish the 0.8.7 release I hope, where more suggested changes will also be in, so I'll gladly return to this discussion!

[RAGEDog]

you could always add a "can i play daddy mode" where you start off with like armor and decent weapon/items but basically same as easy mode that way a person can play longer and learn more before death.
the main part of this would be giving the person a chance rather than being surrounded and killed first level.
i only ever play on harder difficulties :P because i like pain and have not had a completion yet.