Whem playing ES1, the difference between difficulty levels was only the bonuses/penaltiesw received by the player/AI. If you played the game whith othe original factions it make Endless difficulty very hard. But...

If you only want the achievement for winning on Endless, and cara a s**t about having fun, you just create a faction wiht all negative traits and an affinity that didnt give any bdirect bonus (not sophon for sciene or empire for indutry, as examples), then choose this faction for your AI opponents and you have negated a lot of it's bonuses, makin game very easy, even in Endless difficulty.

I know it is very close to cheating, but have to admit: did twice. I never repeated because the game loses all it's fun.



Said that, I seen othe games, not just a 4X, but XCOM EU a part from bonuses received by the AI, in lower difficulties it's cheating in favour of player sometimes (look the ufopaedia).



I understant that you can't create a totally different AI for every difficulty, but can you just tweak it instead of giving bonuses in ES2, to avoid this easy way to make endless newbie?



I know that there are a lot of threats about dificulty, just giving a nasty exemple.



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NOTE: dont know if the SH*T faction tactics works in EL.

There has to be a point at which a player takes on some responsibility for ruining their own fun.

I have to agree with Darkscis here. In Tetris and Winmine on Win 95 back in the day you could edit the .ini file to enter whatever you chose as highscore. Then you were left to deal with the fact that well, the scoreboard was pretty much meaningless.



This is very similar. However, if that where you find your fun, then by all means you shouldn't stop doing it!

I'm not saying I found fun doing this. Just did twice after buying the game to quickly get the achievement + "primus inter imperatores". Then spend lots of hours until I can win on endless without this.

I was just giving an example of things that I don't want in ES2. I fond ES and EL (didn't try DotE), very good games, just saying that I don't want ES2 allowing you this kind of cheating, exploits or call whatever you want.

I've found more difficulty (and lots more fun) when doing the "endless pwnage" achievement on normal than getting the "learner is now the master" this way.

I'll avoid speaking about AI, or about the different bonuses which are the only difference between difficulty levels, as all this has been broadly talked all around the forums, and I've read a VIP saying that Amplitude will fix it.



Said all that, don't take it as a post blaming you, just thinking about what to avoid. I've been playing your games since 2013, and sure that will buy ES2 (probably before releasing if you put an alpha).

Frogsquadron wrote:
I have to agree with Darkscis here. In Tetris and Winmine on Win 95 back in the day you could edit the .ini file to enter whatever you chose as highscore. Then you were left to deal with the fact that well, the scoreboard was pretty much meaningless.



This is very similar. However, if that where you find your fun, then by all means you shouldn't stop doing it!

It's not just about achivements though, let's say I'm actually trying to enjoy Endless difficulty but I can't. Because it is essentially the same AI with newbie and does the same mistakes and same moves. Only difference is that it had huge bonuses at the start.

I'm just not fond of this mechanic where you create an artificial gap between the player and AI by just giving bonuses to one side. And calling it "yeap, we made it difficult boys".

It's more or less what rockmassif said.

You can beat endless on your firs week of play, just looking at ES wikia, understanding that the only difference between difficulty levels are the AI bonuses, and negating it. I think that beating the AI on hardest difficulty is something that an average player shouldn't be able to do in his/hers first week with that game.

No asking for a different AI for each difficulty level, just tweaking it like the cheating after RNG in XCOM or something more suitable to ES, and fixing this exploits.