Right now, I may be wrong, but I think this is a pretty good list of what's changed between the two modes:



[LIST=1]

Enemies are Stronger

Fewer good rooms (Merchants, loot drops, resource drops)

More waves (More monsters in waves as well)

Fewer module slots (Both major and minor)

Less Dust (24 to start instead of 28, and less in drops)

Move speed penalty for carrying the crystal

[/LIST]



Some of this is speculation on my part, but the sum total of the changes ends up making the difficulty curve more like a difficulty spike. Tactics that would barely get you to floor 4 in Easy will easily mop the floor with Too Easy.



I'm not suggesting we make that difficulty any easier, however. Perhaps some of these changes could be moved across different difficulty levels with the current easy marked as hard. This way more people can find a challenge befitting them, and easy doesn't quite have such a deceptive difficulty increase.



As of today, my best run into Easy has led me 34 doors into floor 6. I hadn't found the exits, and the waves completely overran me with their numbers. This was including Mk IV mortar beacheads with neurostuns to slow them down and soften them up, and Tesla batteries beyond to pick off the ones that make it through. On too easy this would prevent any enemy from becoming a problem. Not so for easy.

I already do a run in too easy mode And If I'm not wrong, ennemies are the same it's the delay of heroes which isn't the same that explains the difference you see

Pallanza wrote:
I already do a run in too easy mode And If I'm not wrong, ennemies are the same it's the delay of heroes which isn't the same that explains the difference you see

Pallanza, on the first level on Too easy, initial waves are 1-2 enemies max. You also never see more than 3 come at the same time. On Easy you will find groups of 4 right off the bad. 5 waves is also not unheard of.



The number of enemies does in fact increase.

Actually, only 1. and 5. have changed between the two modes. The others haven’t.

Mysterarts wrote:
Actually, only 1. and 5. have changed between the two modes. The others haven’t.

Wait what?



You mean in all of 40-50 runs I have just gotten unlucky in Easy finding extra heroes, merchants, etc. on the first floor? (just looking at that alone for now) I'm either unlucky or something else is going on behind the scenes. In all these runs I've found a hero or merchant on the first floor twice on Easy. Too Easy it's been more than I can count O.o



As for more waves, that is hard to show one way or another, but I know first floor waves on Too Easy tend to be 1-2 enemies per warning, while Easy consistently I see groups of 4 mouser enemies, or 3 snakes. I never see more than 1 hopper per warning on Too Easy, but 2 hoppers per warning is common on Easy. Still only looking at the first floor.



Finally, the move speed penalty and module slots I wasn't sure about, but I thought I was seeing a correlation. However with the crystal I thought it was extremely minor, within 2 speed difference (Judging by an unequipped level 3 Sara Numas) She'd be running at 21 speed on Too Easy, or 19 speed on Easy. Maybe something else was influencing it, though it couldn't have been the snakes as they halve your speed.

We really could use a modding-subforum where someone explains all the parameters.

In the level-files there's quite a bunch of new stuff sinc 0.3.5 and it looks like more is affected than just those 2 things. But it's really hard to understand what they affect.



Oh and something else:



What exactly was the thought-process at Amplitude when deciding to call the difficulty-levels "Too Easy" and "Easy" instead of "Easy" and "Normal"?

Do you really consider "Easy" to be easy? Do you have some special tactics that make it easy?



I know the game is supposed to be hard and like that it is. But I feel kinda bad about being told that what I consider to be quite challenging is supposed to feel easy.



(Note: I'm not critizising the difficulty-levels themselves... just their names.)

The XMLs change at each update, so we currently don't have time to do a manual but we're thinking about it



About the current discussion, the modifiers are in SimulationDescriptors_Dungeon.xml line 71:

- Increased FIDS at start

- Increased FIDS produced by the Crystal

- Increased health and attack power of the mobs

- Increased Dust probability of the mobs

- Divided the score by 2

Hrm. I see what you mean with the XML changes in the file, but what I don't see is anything having to do with the actual level generation in the XML files. E.g. number of rooms, number of doors, how many modules are put in each room, etc. Is this something that will be moved to the XMLs at some point?

You can find that in Configuration/DungeonConfig_LevelX !

Ok, a few questions. (All data is first floor only) I am also going to analyze the data found in the XML file for modders if they wish to use my assumptions. I would appreciate it if you would correct bad assumptions, but you are under no obligation to do so.



Is this measured in number of doors opened, or number of rooms from the crystal?



Number of doors opened would suggest that the levels are not fully formed until you open the door, layout is formed, but not room contents. Number of rooms from the crystal however seems quite high since the first floor can have a maximum of 17 rooms, however there are references to which would almost require a very linear level design.



DungeonEvent is this finding the exit? If not, is it the wave probability?



Note: There is also 2 parameters at the top called ExitRoomEligibleRoomsRatio (35%) and ExitableRoomCount (2) These might instead be the only way the exit room is generated with a 35% chance that each room is eligible and two of the 13-17 rooms actually contain exits (only the first you find becomes the exit)



I have become convinced that DungeonEvent and RoomEvent are Wave probability and Room Encounters respectively. Down below it lists each event probability and the only Dungeon Event currently is Mob Waves.



First 4 depth range have a guaranteed Room Event of some kind. Depth range 5 through 13 has a 80% chance of room event an 38% chance of wave. 30% chance that this will occur at the same time. After depth range 13 Room events increase to 90%, and waves increase to 50% with a 50% chance of both. At this point waves do not happen on their own.



Room event probabilities by depthrange follow

[CODE]

DepthRangeStart Mobs Item Hero[SUP]12[/SUP] NPC[SUP]12[/SUP] Artifact[SUP]1[/SUP] DustFactory[SUP]1[/SUP] CryoCapsule[SUP]1[/SUP]

0 40% 55% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0%

3 50% 50% 0% 0% 0% 10% 10%

4 50% 50% 0% 0% 40% 10% 10%

7 50% 50% 0% 25% 160?% 10% 10%

8 50% 50% 25% 25% 160?% 10% 10%

12 50% 50% 25% 25% 15% 10% 10%

14 50% 30% 10% 10% 15% 10% 10%



[SUP]1[/SUP] Event is given a maximum occurance count of 1. This could be a variable amount in later levels. Assumption is this is maximum occurrences for the floor.

[SUP]2[/SUP] Event is given an "IsExclusive" flag. Since I have never gotten waves while finding a Hero or NPC (Merchant I assume), I assume this means it only happens if there are no waves.

[/CODE]



Some probabilities are given a depth bonus. It seems to always be positive, though it can be fractional. I do not know what this value changes.



Finally I see that the %s do not add up across in the table. I can only assume that it checks each eligible column in the row one at a time until it gets a success. Then it ends the rolls there. Due to this, initially you have a 40% chance to get mobs in your first two doors, but only a 33% chance to get an item as you first have to fail the 40% roll to get an item. That's 60%*55%.



Artifacts are given a 160% chance from depth 7-11. This means you cannot get a DustFactory or CryoCapsule if you have not yet gotten an artifact. It does not mean you are guaranteed to get an artifact either. Assuming you have found a Merchant, or hero(after 8th depth) you still have a 75% chance to get mobs or an item before you could get an artifact.



After the 14th depth, your chances of getting anything good other than FIDS production to 25% assuming you haven't found an artifact, hero, or merchant NPC. Note, your likelihood of finding a Merchant or Hero is much lower than this due to the fact that you only find them when you don't have waves incoming.



Finally, Bad events have a flag, "LevelDifficultyImpact" of 1, good events have the same flag with a value of -1. I am unsure of whether or not this affects probabilities, or just score. If the former it could be used to normalize events somewhat to a standard difficulty, so that if you keep rolling bad events, you're more likely to get a good one, or vice-versa. If the latter it just means if you had a rough time you get more points for it.



In conclusion, than you MysterArts for pointing out this file to me. Even more thanks if you help clear up some questions about it.

Hi,

• DepthRange is the number of doors opened
• DungeonEvent is the probability to trigger a dungeon event and there is currently only one dungeon event: mob waves
• Several potential exit rooms (number = ExitableRoomCount) are placed in the ExitRoomEligibleRoomsRatio most distant rooms. The last visited is the exit.
• The probabilities are weights, not percentages
• Event Probability = StartValue + number of doors opened x DepthBonus
• LevelDifficultyImpact allows indeed to normalize events
  
  

Mysterarts wrote:
Hi,

• Several potential exit rooms (number = ExitableRoomCount) are placed in the ExitRoomEligibleRoomsRatio most distant rooms. The last visited is the exit.
  
  

Very interesting information!

Good to know again how it works after it was changed from the very easily exploitable old exit-spawning behaviour.