Difficulty Variety in later Regions

[chrome pagoda]

It's only Diff 3+ in later Regions of the map. I feel this will put some components behind a difficulty wall for some people.

We need Diff 1 & 2 available in all Regions imho.

[worn quiver]

I disagree. The point of the later regions is they're meant to be harder

I wouldn't want to see a difficulty one mission in the Heart of Telmar

[chrome pagoda]

So some people will never unlock all the components? Or have to rely on being 'carried'? That's my concern.

[worn quiver]

I say this with no ill will, but if you're not good enough at the game to complete the harder regions, why should you be able to get the rewards from them?

[stray sable]

eventually you can upgrade your ship further and buy artifacts at the vendors to give you a starting bonus

[icy cave]

I personally want harder diff to be in the first couple of regions as you progress. Still having your easy mission, of course, but would like to go back and play in hard difficulty. Idk.... I will say that i dislike the reward system. I can choose to play a level 1.0 mission for 1.5 hrs and get 4 ingots or play on a 5.0 for the same time and be rewarded the same. Sure one will provide corvette opportunity but one you reach 5 components the remaining will be broken. So after all is done you only get 9 ingots.
The rewarding system needs a little love.

[boreal cedar]

Agreed. It currently feels like ingots are balanced around the time/jumps of a mission, where difficulty has no bearing at all. Using time=ingots is fine, but more difficulty should also mean=more ingots.

Otherwise you’re penalizing people for playing on harder difficulties for no reason at all as they lack incentives to play there if they are looking at other options too.

[chrome pagoda]

I understand that. But it also locks people out of content. To answer your question, accessibility. All players should have access to all content. Does it mean they can complete a Diff 4+? Maybe not, but they shouldn't be punished for it and get locked away from the meta progression.

[chrome pagoda]

I have also posted this. https://discord.com/channels/617783429446238266/1422861942652932227

Basically, I think every type of mission, length and difficulty should be in all sectors.

Imagine going further in L4D2's campaign and only being able to play on the harder difficulties.

A recent example was HD2 Super Samples being locked on Diff 7+, and the devs lowered it to Diff 6 to allow more players to get ship enhancements (meta progression).

[icy cave]

Of course. There are some growing pains, atm, but I feel, even after 1.0 launch, there will be a couple of changes. Like in HD2

[chrome pagoda]

DRG has a good system. You host a mission in any difficulty you like. Very accessible approach. Will it take longer to unlock things? Sure. But they're still reachable to everyone.

[worn quiver]

I'm not sure how you would be able to achieve this without essentially coddling people. Again, I really wouldn't want to see anything less than a difficulty five mission in areas like the Heart of Telmar

[chrome pagoda]

Well. I just think games should be accessible for a variety of people. I'm not asking for the game to be easy or to cater for everything, but locking people away from content is a no in my books.

It's not coddling. Let people play the way they want, including the Heart of Telmar.

I want the game to be successful and accessible to many.

I don't want to buy a game and be able to play only half of the map. Do you?

[coral spindle]

Not every mission on a tense battlefield is has to be a meatgrinder.

Locking more causal players in the first few sectors & limited mission types will be very detrimental for player retention and that's not good for anyone playing exclusively on diff5 as well.

If a game like Helldivers can handle diff 1 missions on the hardest planets currently under invasion (diff 1 in HD2 means only short, less complex mission, like blowing up a broadcast tower or some ammo or fuel depot while higher difficulty missions have more and much harder objectives on top of way more elite enemies at every footstep) this Jump Space can do it just as well.

[chrome pagoda]

This won't take away your ability to play only Diff 5+ all day.

[chrome pagoda]

I love HD1 and HD2 and only play highest diffs. And I will forever defend the ability to play any mission type on any planet at lower difficulties. A diverse community makes a game thrive, spot on.

I don't mind suffering while playing Dead Cells, and acknowledge that I will prob never get some gear. But whatever, I can play the whole game and get to all areas, and it's a SP game. It's me against me only, just when I am skateboarding.

[worn quiver]

I'm not sure why the facepalm reaction was necessary

[worn quiver]

That is a fair point

[coral spindle]

Even in a co-op game the freedom of choice is critical. In HD2 I either play diff 10 or diff 1/2, with next to nothing in between.

If my friend's brain is fried from a day of work or also has his little kids around, would I rather hang out playing a game we like on relaxed difficulty or not have that social contact with my friend at all? Not every player has the time or mindset to play a game like it's their only job. This doesn't even take away anyhing from tryhards.

Even better if we could still at least get a little progression in despite the low difficulty.

Helldivers manages that an on top of that veterans being incetivized to also play low difficulty (mostly for the premium currency farm) often are the first to meet new players & show them the ropes in a game where even the weakest enemies in small groups can be quite scary for a beginner.

[coral spindle]

Sorry, thumbs down react was eluding me.

[worn quiver]

I also wasn't aware Helldivers does the same thing

[chrome pagoda]

DRG, HD (1 & 2), VT2, DT, L4D2, the list goes on

[worn quiver]

DT as in Darktide, or?

[chrome pagoda]

Krynn has so few missions right now

[chrome pagoda]

yeap

[worn quiver]

As far as I'm aware, Darktide really doesn't have "regions"

Though they changed the mission selector recently and I haven't been playing

[chrome pagoda]

there's a difficulty slider, in DT and VT2

regions in Space Jump are just 'component locks' so you don't unlock everything straight away, and ofc they have a lore/story importance

you need the map fragments first, which is a nice progression system btw

they could have gone the other way, and every component would be achievible in spite of regions, and having regions being the difficulty section mechanism

[worn quiver]

I do like the idea of the regions

I apologise if I seemed rude earlier

[chrome pagoda]

No need to apologise, you're good. Different opinions, that's all.

[urban mantle]

Acces to the best loot should require skill. Hard missions have to feel rewarding. Just look at any mmo. The best loot is behind the hardest challenges

[urban mantle]

I posted my idea about that https://discord.com/channels/617783429446238266/1423331730122735636

[coral spindle]

Perseveration or getting carried does not mean skill. Loot in MMOs is gated behind perseveration and many layers of RNG. They do that and other grindy skinner box designs because they rely on monthly subscriptions, that's why the high-end dungeons are rate-limited slot machines (you get X attempts per month to try for the loot you want) not because they are enjoyable fun games.

[lapis inlet]

Corollary: There seem to be some mission types that are only available on easy or very easy. Which is a shame because the one I played recently (recovering boxes from a cave that was then ambushed, felt a bit like the gulag mission in MW2) was very fun

[chrome pagoda]

Rewards in this game comes in many shapes, more XP, better weapons, more ingots and credits. You don't need to lock components behind a difficulty wall. And I really hope they don't adopt those MMO mechanics here, they're pretty bad. We bought a game, we want to play it on any difficulty we like and still feel like we're progressing.

[grave raptor]

The idea is that you should have a good enough variety of missions to choose from, it's not the intent that you need to play at a certain difficulty or length to progress, we'll iterate on this as we go forward

[chrome pagoda]

Thanks. Yeah I just feel there's not a lot of variety as you progress the regions. Also, would be glad to get more difficult ones at earlier regions.

[rustic pike]

helldivers has a nice balance where the top tier reward currency starts being available at Haz 6/10, just at a low amount
From there you can increase if you want but you dont have to

[coral spindle]

Rock&Stone detected

[stray sable]

probably haven't unlocked a lot of regions yet

that mission is called vault breach and tends to appear in Atira and Icarion Reaches