It's not the same. If you choose to drop with fewer 'Mechs just to make it harder on yourself, you don't get any bigger rewards for doing so. If you take harder missions, you get bigger rewards.
Game Difficulty
- Thread starter tcharmon74
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It's not the same. If you choose to drop with fewer 'Mechs just to make it harder on yourself, you don't get any bigger rewards for doing so. If you take harder missions, you get bigger rewards.
This was posted by Conner in another thread but appears to be relevant here as well.
If all of that will be relevant that it would be great but low difficulty may result in a player having all his top mechs with light\no damage after most missions. I hope it won't be like that ofc.Not quite. The ratings are about risk/reward, but they are also about difficulty. A higher-rated contract is more difficult, hence riskier, and with more reward than a lower-rated contract. I fully expect to have to go to lower-rated contracts from time to time when my best 'Mechs are undergoing repairs.
Let's take a completely made-up example: A one-rated contract might see you facing off against a lance of light 'Mechs; easy if you're dropping with mediums. A two-rated contract might have you fight a lance of mediums and a couple of vehicles; that's more interesting for your medium lance. A three-rated contract might have you drop against two lances of heavies and mediums, with vehicle support - now that's a challenge for a lance of four mediums. Four-rated? Toss in an assault or two. Five-rated? Assaults, heavies, vehicles, turrets, the works. And with one or two waves of reinforcements just to spice things up.
One should probably also keep in mind that there will be a selection of mission types; plain-old battles, base defence, base assault, escort missions, rescue missions, and so on.
The good thing about having a selection of risk/reward/difficulty missions is that I can choose what I want to play at any given time. Do I feel like taking on a harder mission for larger rewards today or do I want to take it easy and earn a little less? Do I want to play a base assault or do a rescue mission?
Now mix in that my 'Mechs might be in a range of states of repair and that my MechWarriors may be recuperating, and it becomes an interesting decision: What can my current company strength handle? Just because I could take a three-rated contract with my best 'Mechs/MechWarriors doesn't mean I can do it with my second-stringers.
I for one do not think I will be bored at all with this game
Huh, thats strange. Unless you get additional c-bills for dropping half the lance i don't see what would be the point.
Also, if some missons may be completed with two locusts i wonder how "fun" would the be with four.
Those are for when you only have a few mechs that are opperable due to repair times, and your monthly bills are almost due and you're about to go bankrupt. And I doubt they pay well enough for you to farm with a full lance versus taking the appropriate contracts. Time is money too, and upkeep costs are a thing.If all of that will be relevant that it would be great but low difficulty may result in a player having all his top mechs with light\no damage after most missions. I hope it won't be like that ofc.
Huh, thats strange. Unless you get additional c-bills for dropping half the lance i don't see what would be the point.
Also,if some missons may be completed with two locusts i wonder how "fun" would the be with four.
I seriously doubt there will be many players that "suffer" from that particular problem; just think about it: You can only field a single lance; a maximum of four 'Mechs, 400 tons drop weight tops (once you get to the stage of the game where you even have four assaults). The opfor has no such restriction; they can field two lances, a full company of three lances, or more. They can field waves of vehicles, and they can hide their bases behind a wall of turrets.
How good do you have to be to take out a reinforced 'Mech company, supported by a company of heavy vehicles, and defending a base guarded with heavy turrets - and do so without taking more than light damage? There might be someone out there who can, but for most of us I am supremely confident that the game will not be too easy.
Huh, thats strange. Unless you get additional c-bills for dropping half the lance i don't see what would be the point.
Also, if some missons may be completed with two locusts i wonder how "fun" would the be with four.
I would guess that he used such a fast and light lance for a mission that was time specific and where he wasn't going for salvage, like an extraction.
If all of that will be relevant that it would be great but low difficulty may result in a player having all his top mechs with light\no damage after most missions. I hope it won't be like that ofc.
Huh, thats strange. Unless you get additional c-bills for dropping half the lance i don't see what would be the point.
Also, if some missons may be completed with two locusts i wonder how "fun" would the be with four.
I guess there might be many reasons.
1) you want to train new mech warriors. So you take "easy" job and put full lance with heavy mech in a job what you might do even for 2 light and 1 medium mech.
2) do you start the game with full lance and spare mech + warriors for another lance? If not early missions (specially) and these "half skull" difficulty versions might be "allways" easy enough so you can try them even with 1-2 slightly damaged pilot and medium or light mech
3) Even if you have really experienced pilots and best mech game can offer.. ..well, you CAN choose easy job. You might not get enough even for shots you use (and fuel) but it is your choice. "Requirements, one light mech, deliver this package. You most likely encounter armed hostile tank or even turret" <= sure they take 2 lance if you really want to put them in the job but price you get will be same so...
Mission types that might be able to be completed by understrength units: Extraction, Assassination, Chase, Recon, etc.
Fewer mechs means less damage to repair, but the same potential payment. In addition, while you will inflict less damage, and thus get less valuable salvage, you still get the same count of salvage items (i.e. 1/5 or 2/10). If you're desperate, 12 pieces of salvage, even with poor selection, might be a life-saver.
Fewer mechs means less damage to repair, but the same potential payment. In addition, while you will inflict less damage, and thus get less valuable salvage, you still get the same count of salvage items (i.e. 1/5 or 2/10). If you're desperate, 12 pieces of salvage, even with poor selection, might be a life-saver.
Many of us played locust and other challenges on the old forum during Beta, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to see some attempt it on release in as far as it is possible.
If true, all that would mean is that the game would likely be too hard for many players (most of the people who might buy it in fact).
As a defense of a lack of difficulty levels, "it will be hard enough" doesn't work.
Because the problem isn't that the single difficulty level wouldn't be set optimally - Its that different players have very different needs when it comes to how hard it needs to be.
I agree really, I mean a game that is remotely challenging to me would be brutal to probably a majority of people.
Example: I can't even be bothered to play Xcom games on classic difficulties. It is just far to easy to steamroll the game with no casualties. So I have to play on impossible/iron man. And I have won.
But most people find classic, especially classic/ironman to be incredibly difficult. Which seems crazy to me.
As long as there is a decent pvp scene it could make up for it though. AI just isn't at a human level in complex games.
The good news is that I do think quick mods will be possible with the JSON files. It seems to me that HBS wanted one constant that applied to everything within those files rather than three or more for the sake of simplicity in the code. As long as we're tech savvy enough to slap a new set of JSONs in there manually, we'll be able to have a higher difficulty setting shortly after launch.
Of course, we each have to find an agreed-upon mod structure, but it's not an overwhelming bar to reach (my personal inclination is to alter the repair times as well as the economics, though I would be thrilled with an eventual "Expert AI mode" like a lot of games get. I don't really plan to touch the tac game unless maybe it's to spawn a few extra enemies).
Overall it looks very similar to the Darkest Dungeon experience, which was another game that initially offered only one difficulty level.
Of course, we each have to find an agreed-upon mod structure, but it's not an overwhelming bar to reach (my personal inclination is to alter the repair times as well as the economics, though I would be thrilled with an eventual "Expert AI mode" like a lot of games get. I don't really plan to touch the tac game unless maybe it's to spawn a few extra enemies).
Overall it looks very similar to the Darkest Dungeon experience, which was another game that initially offered only one difficulty level.
Never know, thats technically nightmare level then. I imagine we will all be one upping each other with finishing the game with lower and lower tonnage or something. No repair, all light mech, only hard mission challenges and stuff!
Regarding the lack of a difficulty slider, id have liked it to possibly be like Space Rogue's custom diffulcuty:
Naturally, its not exactly translatable, and we dont get points n stuff after every play thru, but allowing us to (in game) add +10 to damage received, or -15% income or +20% mech repair costs, +10% time to travel, +20% salvage chance and the opposite could be interesting. I say ingame cos not everyone is gonna wanna mess with the files.
There's a few ways modders should be able to up the difficulty. Obviously you could try and add additional enemies on missions... or you could simply lower all rewards and/or increase upkeep costs. The latter is probably pretty easy to implement and would make the game interesting as it would likely force you to use lighter/less expensive mechs
I mentioned something like this on the old forum. That other games always had drop tonnage limits (whether it made sense or not) as a way of imposing limits on the player that they had to work around. This game has no tonnage limits, and IMO the price-as-BattleValue-substitute isn't quite where it should be. I think HBS must be aware of that idea, and I suppose they've included some other system of limitations. At least, I hope so.Never know, thats technically nightmare level then. I imagine we will all be one upping each other with finishing the game with lower and lower tonnage or something. No repair, all light mech, only hard mission challenges and stuff!
Regarding the lack of a difficulty slider, id have liked it to possibly be like Space Rogue's custom diffulcuty:
Naturally, its not exactly translatable, and we dont get points n stuff after every play thru, but allowing us to (in game) add +10 to damage received, or -15% income or +20% mech repair costs, +10% time to travel, +20% salvage chance and the opposite could be interesting. I say ingame cos not everyone is gonna wanna mess with the files.
While we don't have a drop tonnage limit per se, we do have a four-'Mechs-only limit which sets a hard drop tonnage limit of 400 tons. Then of course there's the limit of availability - you can't drop with 'Mechs you don't own, which sets your drop tonnage limit to whatever the combined weight of your four heaviest 'Mechs is
It seems more likely that you'll take more damage with fewer mechs because they would take longer to neutralize the opposition.
Depends on how experience gain is calculated ofc but if its something like "some exp for taking part in the mission + some exp for each kill or each shot" there would be no reason to not drop full lance even if some mechs never fire a shot during the mission. Ofc if the exp is evenly divided between all the pilots then dropping with less mechs would be preferable.
Also, i guess if the pilots have to rest after each mission or the mechs have to undergo maintenance(which takes time and or money) even if they took no damage and fired no shots then that too might make dropping with less mechs preferable. Is something like this in the game? If not would be a good idea for a "hard" mod methinks.
‘Mechs can immediately be sent back out into the field, but the only thing they instantly get back is ammo, any damage even just to armor will remain unless you spend time repairing them (repairs are also piece by piece, and you can stop at any point to use that ‘Mech). Pilots have no automatic downtime either, but if they are injured they cannot be sent out until 100% healed, and injuries have been tuned to be quite common.
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