Harder difficulties?

General discussion about the game.
hborrgg
Posts: 57
Joined: Fri Sep 21, 2012 11:46 pm

Re: Harder difficulties?

Postby hborrgg » Sun Sep 23, 2012 10:05 pm

Hard difficulty is just when the rgn hates you. All the fact that you won your first go proves is that you got lucky.
zabbo2
Posts: 40
Joined: Tue Aug 14, 2012 8:12 pm

Re: Harder difficulties?

Postby zabbo2 » Mon Sep 24, 2012 12:07 am

Want hard mode? Play without pausing. Makes the game much more challenging and much more intense.
Fredchuckdave
Posts: 32
Joined: Wed Sep 19, 2012 6:13 pm

Re: Harder difficulties?

Postby Fredchuckdave » Mon Sep 24, 2012 4:11 am

Stealth A seems to be the hardest ship to win with, Stealth B isn't too bad, the rest of the ships all vary a fair amount; I should note that "hard" is a bit inaccurate, it's more you have the least % chance of winning; you could have a miraculously awesome run with a stealth ship and have an easier time than with the Red Tail. There's not all that many events in the game so its just a matter of memorizing which ones have potential for killing crew members and avoiding them unless its a very small chance or near the beginning of your run.

A hard mode would be something like: every enemy has 4 shields, cloak, and Stealth Weapons past sector 6, frequent sitings of Breach missiles, Glaive beams, and burst 3's; is that fun or interesting? Its basically just a slot machine with some initial learning curve and ways to handicap yourself.
jamotide
Posts: 105
Joined: Thu Sep 20, 2012 9:35 am

Re: Harder difficulties?

Postby jamotide » Mon Sep 24, 2012 10:50 am

Lee72 wrote:You want hard? try playing Dwarf Fortress & not this! :roll:


I did, and all that was "hard" was the interface!
Hissatsu
Posts: 68
Joined: Sun Sep 23, 2012 9:35 pm

Re: Harder difficulties?

Postby Hissatsu » Mon Sep 24, 2012 1:13 pm

I suggest instead of having harder difficulties, there'd rather be a difficulty system as in Space Rangers, where you set different sliders, and each setting affects your score. For example, you can set scrap / loot generation, difficulty of enemy events, and speed of rebel fleet advancement, and each setting could be on easy or normal, where setting to normal gives you an 8% score bonus. There could be more settings than just that, and this would allow you to play the game at the difficulty you see fit.

For example, i'd love to play a game with enemies as in normal, but scrap generation as in easy. Easy is boring with easy enemies, but in normal i am really often frustrated by not being able to buy anything.
Icehawk78
Posts: 230
Joined: Tue Sep 18, 2012 4:55 pm

Re: Harder difficulties?

Postby Icehawk78 » Mon Sep 24, 2012 2:41 pm

Hissatsu wrote:For example, i'd love to play a game with enemies as in normal, but scrap generation as in easy. Easy is boring with easy enemies, but in normal i am really often frustrated by not being able to buy anything.

The enemies in different/easy are the same, the only difference is in scrap rewards.
kuraiken
Posts: 7
Joined: Mon Sep 24, 2012 2:49 pm

Re: Harder difficulties?

Postby kuraiken » Mon Sep 24, 2012 3:01 pm

I think one of the important points is that right now, RNG really is more important in determining the difficulty than the difficulty you choose. I managed to get to the second Stage of the endboss on my first playthrough on easy, and the reason I lost was because I didn't concentrate my fire on the drone station, because I sure as hell had found awesome weapons.
In comparison, yesterday I played with Kestral Layout B on absolute nightmare mode (on easy), where I failed at the Elite Ship guarding the very last Exitbeacon before the last Sector, because throughout the entire playthrough no store appeared that sold weapons, nor did I find any from captured ships with the exception of the Ion Blaster thing. So I had three Level 1 Laser (1 shot 1 dmg) and the Ion thingy (1 shot 2 ion damage). And with an active medbay, boarding doesn't go too well.

So while I think that a harder difficulty and ultimately a customize difficulty (with point modificators) are desireable, it'd be more important to bring some stability to the RNG, to ensure that extreme scenarios like the previously mentioned one don't happen. In part, I fault the low number of sectors until the endbattle, that make it possible. A fixed world every few sectors that always offers two stores who have a little of something or similar control attempts to stabilize RNG would make increased difficulties more reasonable.
Demiansky
Posts: 5
Joined: Sun Sep 23, 2012 2:19 pm

Re: Harder difficulties?

Postby Demiansky » Mon Sep 24, 2012 8:25 pm

Well, looks like my last 3 out of 3 games since I posted last all resulted in victories. That's not to say I didn't nearly die in two of those games. The first game was with a Federation Flagship. In one sector, I had a "Battlestar Galactica" moment where I just had 5 hull left for 8 jumps and was one step ahead of destruction. I ended up just hauling ass across the nebula to find a station to repair (1 hull left by the time I found one).

My second game was with the Rock Ship, and again, a close call. I was awestruck when a Mantis dreadnaught boarded me with 4 mantis soldiers, lit half my ship on fire, and pounded my drone defenses, shields, and oxygen into dust on the very first round. I was certain there was nothing I could do, but then I had a stroke of genius. A second before my weapons were destroyed, I knocked out their teleporter, moved my entire crew to THEIR ship, then vented my entire vessel by opening up every last blast door. The mantis marines, along with the fires, suffocated while I secured their (oxygenated) vessel.

The last game was a cinch with my newly earned Zoltan ship.

So in other words, the game is still fun, but I'm finding it a little to easy to win.
Whale Cancer
Posts: 272
Joined: Fri Sep 21, 2012 3:28 pm

Re: Harder difficulties?

Postby Whale Cancer » Mon Sep 24, 2012 9:03 pm

Contribute to help save the Whales from their various diseases! *DELAYED* Should release the skeleton with the main quests attached by the end of the week (By NOV 9)! *DELAYED* Don't listen to my dates! Things always seem to come up!
Fredchuckdave
Posts: 32
Joined: Wed Sep 19, 2012 6:13 pm

Re: Harder difficulties?

Postby Fredchuckdave » Mon Sep 24, 2012 9:56 pm

@Demiansky Can you post your overall stats screen? (Main menu)

The Slug B ship seems to be the third worst next to the Stealths, Crystal B is almost as good as the Red-Tail though a bit more luck reliant.