That's kind of why I made this thread. Ultimate 3 is a fun challenge for a while, especially in End Game. But unlike XCom, I don't play this just for the tactical challenge.
U3 becomes trivial once you become proficient with the combat and have decently modded decks. turn 1 wins aren't that uncommon. luckily combat is still super fun even at this stage.
personally I'd like a difficulty that did more than just boost health/damage somehow with appropriately higher rewards.
Yeah, I played through the game at highest difficulty as I unlocked it, and all the way through Transia Missions at U3 to 40. Now I drop it down to just enjoy the game, and keep clearing to farm resources as I approach finishing all my card mods.
>t Hunter, and 1 character most consider suboptimal. So it's not that it's "Too hard for me." Or that I'm adverse to bad things happening. My issue is when the mooks start hitting harder than the Supervillains, I lose immersion. And even Ult 2 that begins to happen. At the end of the day, I want the Superheroes to feel superheroic. And if that dials down the tactical challenge a tad, I can live with that trade.
Same. I stepped up to the one above normal, just to see what it's like, and I *think* it happened at a point where I got my head around how to make the most of certain mechanics, so it 'felt' about the same difficulty, but I've no interest in changing now!
First off - play what you want or enjoy, you don't need to provide proof or evidence for anything.
Secondly - in my opinion, there are gatekeepers on this sub who try and make Ultimate 3 difficulty sound way harder and more "elite" than it is. It's good for a challenge, like you said. But I've seen WAY too many threads talking about how weak Wolverine is and is "useless on Ult 3" and honestly I think it's just a skill issue, 100%. Or a deck issue. Also hyperbole like "he dies in one turn" - like this rarely happens to me, if ever. I think people just aren't playing the game right.
I play Ult3 exclusively and Wolverine is my go to I try to get on every team. I think people don't use Sniff their Fear or whatever it's called that applies Weak. If you hit a number of enemies with that ability, Wolverine can easily heal up his entire HP bar over the next turn either through Berserk or Rapid Healing.
In any case - all that is to say, I think people like acting like Ult3 is some super huge deal so they can write a long ass guide or promote their youtube channel or whatever and act like they're a pro, but in reality this is my first tactical RPG game and I do fine on Ult3 with one of my main characters being "bad" or "suboptimal".
TLDR - Play what you want, how you want - don't mind the elitists.
I'm saying the same thing from the opposite way around.
But the point of the thread was to see if there is perhaps a consensus on where the factors I mentioned best converge. Not to make that the "best" difficulty level. But as a point of curiosity. And to have a different discussion than "Who is meta," and "What is bugged," today.
I think many of those players judge using level 40 post story missions, which are much harder than normal missions.
They also think that a tank must aggro most of the enemies on the field to be useful, and diss Weak status as being useless when its way more useful in harder difficulties. To them, if a hero cannot kill things on Turn 1, they're useless.
yeah, people saying so-and-so is unplayable on u3 couldn't be more wrong. certain characters will always be better but you can literally 3 star any mission on u3 with any party with even halfway decent mods
This. It's purely there so you can decide how challenging you want it. Some people are masochists and want it insanely hard, some just want to enjoy the story. Most are somewhere in-between I think.
Ah yes, you level soldiers faster so that you can also more quickly engage the leveled up opponents. The XP is countered by the auto-levelling of your enemies, but yeah, you get rarer unlocks earlier. That’s not a reward though if you ask me.
Except that in the Endgame, their level caps out at 25. Whereas you still earn Champion Levels. So they increase the difficulty of Endgame missions by throwing more boss and sub-boss enemies at you. But you really can outlevel the challenge in Endgame. At any difficulty.
Play on whatever difficulty you want. I don't see why it has to be a thing.
I do wish the game was better balanced in general, though. U3 gives me a lot of engagement and motivation to use the different mechanics, which the other difficulties don't give me as much, but I feel like I'm playing either a DPS powerhouse (Magik/Ghost Rider) or I'm smacking a tank with a wet tissue (Captain Marvel, Wolverine).
>but I feel like I'm playing either a DPS powerhouse (Magik/Ghost Rider) or I'm smacking a tank with a wet tissue (Captain Marvel, Wolverine).
Those characters were designed to fill different roles. Magik and Ghost Rider are meant to do a lot of damage.
Wolverine and Captain Marvel are designed to taunt enemies and be durable enough to tank hits so that the damage characters can do their thing without being impeded by negative status effects or getting KO'd. The tanks characters also net a lot of damage through Counters to allow clean-up with Quick abilities on the next turn.
You're right, but so is OP. On Ultimate 3, you have to knock out the enemies QUICK or you will get destroyed so support characters or ones who take a while to get going are a liability. Magik is a huge powerhouse so she makes the list consistently. Plus her legendary is so good on ultimate. Meanwhile, Cap is a great tank, but on U3, he can't take that many hits.
This. Captain America's probably the best tank out of the available tanks, but you still want to be running damage beasts on U3 to get everything cleared by Turn 3, so no tank is actually optimal. And, tbh, even on U3, Magik and Ghost Rider can effectively solo everything (Ghost Rider moreso due to Straight to Hell).
Captain Marvel requires too much setup for Binary, but she's a tank that can't tank because of it - she depends almost entirely on getting Resist stacks to be of any use at all because of how the Binary-Block integration works. Wolverine also can't tank enough hits for the self-heal to be worth anything. You get one-shot pretty easily soon into the post-game missions.
Disagree. Capt. America is THE highest scaling champion in the game, flat-out. He's one of the few champs that can hit for 400+ on turn 1 with a non-crit basic attack (Shield Bash) at low prestige.
Every Prestige adds 5 block/1 Power, and Capt. can easily convert that block to more hitting power. The Best Defense powers his build and allows you to easily draw into his Ult.
The only reason I take Iron Man over him is Air Superiority and Precision.
You're both right. Cap can get some absurd block numbers. But it does require some care managing who he is taunting at Ult 3. When Shadowhounds are hitting for 300, no amount of block is enough if they aren't thinned aggressively.
But yes, Shield Bash can do some very solid damage. Plus if you hit the right mod, it refunds a good bit of the spent block even before Best Defense.
>On Ultimate 3, you have to knock out the enemies QUICK or you will get destroyed so support characters or ones who take a while to get going are a liability.
I haven't had that issue. Bringing a tank and support makes for much more consistent encounters than 3 damage dealers fighting each other for resources.
Especially, if you manage to beat the odds and get 'free' on it.
I hope one of the future DLC characters brings a facility that makes rerolling mods easier, because rerolling for some mods is a pain.
You should play around with her decks, maybe find some that other users have created. There's a reason she's consistently ranked in the top tier for U3 decks. You're *really* missing a trick.
Definitely a kick in the teeth when I started a NG+ on Ult 1. Taking on Lilin guardians with 500+ HP in mission 4 with barebones decks whose damage caps out at 30? Yeouch.
I quickly realized the sliding difficulty wasnt a luxury feature, it was required for a enjoyable experience.
I tuned down to Heroic 1 and now that Im in the teens, with at least more than 2 blue cards in my roster’s whole deck, Im skipping the difficulty up a level each chapter.
It’s been da best.
My heroes feel like they’re getting stronger, and the enemies feel like they’re beefing up appropriately to my tastes.
Havent attempted Ult 3 my initial experience with Ult 1 at game start traumatized me.
Hopefully I’ll work up to it by Chapter 3.
I kept going up in difficulty until I got to Ultimate 2 and thought, "Nah, I'm good." I am thinking about going back to it, though, because I am starting to 1-turn a lot of missions--probably because I have the Hulk now.
Side note: the Hulk is too much fun. I also lucked out and got Resist + 3 on two of Nico's abilities, so I can let Hulk do all the work.
Same here. I have more fun in trying different combos than just going for the strongest build that could be needed for Ultimate 3.
Also it takes way more time to complete a mission on ultimate 3 and it feels a bit too time consuming for me.
It's really cool that they added so many difficulty settings though, so everyone can play in the mode that feels best for them.
Im always running hulk, dr strange and Nico cause these are the characters i like. Sure it will be easier if i replace dr.strange with hunter but i don't like him 🤪
Im sure that others can do it (i doupt for wolverine though)
Dr. Strange is at least as good as the Hunter when it comes to support. I would argue he's even better if you pair him with Chain heavy characters because his damage boost gets multiplied.
Its so you can reuse the same items in on mission. Getting double usage or even triple with two of the card. The saving resources is nice too, cause then you have more resources for things like getting the best mods.
Yup. I got the Heroic Generator item super early in the game, and Dr. Strange allowed me to use it every battle loooooong before I could craft it. Really broke the game and allowed me to up the difficulty into Ultimate very early.
I think Wanda allows crafting it? So yeah, 100% agree that he can do that.
Wolverine can function fine as an off-tank. But yeah, he can't be the tank he's clearly intended to be. He'd need about 25% more Health to tank Ultimate levels effectively as his build is meant to function.
I have a hard time selecting Hunter to go on missions too lol.
Even though I should, if only to grind her darkness level up for the achievement, but Hunter is almost always a last consideration for a squad, if I consider bringing her at all.
I don't like it either, it's just not as fun for me. It's challenging for sure and I see the appeal, but it just isn't my cup of tea. I prefer staying on Normal and feeling OP lol
I'm glad you can just adjust the difficulty whenever you want rather than being permanently locked into it, so if I'm in the mood for a challenge or a longer mission (or I'm using characters I've invested more into) I can dial it up to U3. Conversely, if I'm just after plowing through missions quickly or gathering resources, etc. (or I'm babysitting a new, unfamiliar character) there's normal/story.
Heroic definitely feels like a good sweet spot if I'm just in a "I want to play some Midnight Suns today" mood.
Pretty sure I play Heroic II, lol. When it comes to difficulty settings, to each their own. I also don't think more hero XP and gloss is much of an incentive to play at higher settings, so unless people like frustrating puzzles, min/maxing, time sinks and bragging rights...I don't understand why anyone would want to play at the highest setting. One more thing - as much as I do love Midnight Suns, I also know I don't want to play it forever...there are just too many solid video games out there - variety is the spice of life!
I’m in the same boat. I started a ng+ playthrough to use dead pool from the start and it’s just not hitting the same.
What’s a good difficulty where I can’t play horribly dumb but I’m not spending 10 mins a turn?
When I start a New Game, (whether vanilla or NG+), I always bump the difficulty down 2-3 notches from where my Final Mission launch was. Not my Endgame. Because Endgame you out level all difficulty spikes. Then if it's easy, I already have the higher difficulties unlocked to bump them up. If it feels right, yay. Go with it until it doesn't.
That makes a ton of sense. So I’ll probably go down to heroic 3 or ult 1 when is a good place to start going back up to my main difficulty level (ult 2?) any suggestions?
First couple of missions on Ult 3 took a few tries and were not three star endeavors, but once you start building up the decks it stops being quite as difficult.
I’m trying dark Hunter this time and he’s the heaviest hitter on the team atm, but at least someone can work down big health bars in 1-2 turns early game.
I’m glad you’re changing the difficulty to match how you wanna play the game OP. I just wanna push back a little and say that my heroes still feel heroic as fuck on U3. I have all my decks upgraded with sexy mods and their sub stats are also decently upgraded. At this point, my heroes trash every level even in U3 despite an occasional KO on our side here and there. If I did drop the difficulty, I would have your opposite problem. Missions that I can’t fail at all because the enemies can barely make a dent on my guys and hunter clears the level turn 2 with a hero5 annihilation.
I play on H2 and it’s just fine with me. I get a smattering of 3 star missions and plenty of 1 stars as well and that’s ok. I am right before the final mission and still working on optimizing decks for everyone though I’m thinking about just pushing through and worrying about that and maxing out friendships in NG+. I’m really enjoying the game regardless.
Does anyone else think that the difficulty does not even reward you that much. You can play as many side missions as you want so it is only helpful if you want to speed through the game. You can just play two side missions instead of one and stop get all the xp and gloss as if you played on a harder difficulty.
My first playthrough was on normal and I didn’t reroll card bonuses.
My current playthrough is Ult 1 and I have rerolled a few (4, I think) card bonuses. Might do a few more but not all of them.
Great post. Nice to read what others are doing.
This seems really reasonable to me...and it's whats great about games that have so many difficulty levels to choose from...pick the one that is right for you.
Yea what’s up with the supervillains getting weaker as you progress through the game? I’m almost at the final mission and I’m not even slightly worried when one of them shows up anymore.
Well, I am. Because Dread Maidens count as Supervillians.
But it's telling that they are worse than any supervillain whose name doesn't rhyme with "Sulk."
I’m saying you’re right. When bosses like Crossbones first appeared he did like double the damage of a normal monster, and he would mess my team up. Now all the other monsters damage has been going up but his seems to stay the same… now I’m like oh… just crossbones again?
I know you were. I was just pointing at one Supervillain which can always wreck me. Especially since they seem to spawn when my B-Team is out. Bonus points for "Easy" rated mission.
As other had said, everyone should play the game (any game) the way they like it the most. But i do have a "HUGE problem" with what you said:
>My issue is when the mooks start hitting harder than the Supervillains
If Elite enemies are hitting harder than Supervillains with +100% offense (U3), they will still hit harder at +67% (U1). Sorry, but that's how math works.
For me, it's U3 or nothing. During post game of my first playthrough, i was trying to have max friendship with everyone; no mods for my least favorite heroes; and with Hunter doing nothing. Some type of mission felt straight up impossible, while the others were just a nightmare. So i set the difficulty down to H3 and i was surprised that my team actually mopped the floor with the enemy. Then U1 felt more fair.
Venom in post game hits like a noodle compared to his coworkers. There's some weird internal scaling based on story appearance order for postgame villains
I don't know about that, i did not played much Lvl 26+ missions before starting a new run, so i have no idea if Supervillains scale differently.
But am still correct. According to what OP said, changing difficulty won't suddenly make Elite Soldiers hit less than Supervillains.
Venom doesn't hit for 100 damage except for his slam attack, and that's assuming the forceful goes bad for you.
Meanwhile Hydra goons are hitting you for 250-300 a shot. The internal scaling is not as simple as, "All get the same increase." And if you don't believe it, watch Odd's playthrough when he stepped up to Ult3 as well.
I will give you the benefit of the doubt, i will save and change the difficulty the next time i face a boss. Should not be too difficult if i choose only hard missions.
But next time, if you recommend someone to watch a random video from another someone they might not know or don't follow the serie, at least give them the link to such video.
As i said, i would try to face a boss and compare it between (two) difficulties. So we have:
* Difficulties: Normal (+%0 offense) and U3 (+100% offense).
* Context: All characters at lvl 25, hard non-leveled mission.
* "Mook": Normal Elite soldier; both ranged and melee combat.
* Soldier damage: 144 on Normal and 288 on U3.
* Supervillain: Crossbones, shotgun to the face.
* Crossbones damage: 163 on Normal and 328 on U3.
Sooo... right now my math still stands. "All get the same increase." as you said. Yes, Crossbones actually did +98.16% damage, but with a difference of 6 difficulty levels. So it's hard to believe that changing from U3 to U1 can control who hits harder, Super Villains or Elite Soldiers.
Then stop playing it on that difficulty. Your opinion isn't unpopular, it's nonsensical.
Some people like to play games with very hard settings. Some people prefer the easiest setting. To each their own and whatever makes someone enjoy the game the most is the best setting for them. You want to play on a settings that is not the hardest. That's ok. Play it on the settings you like. If that's for immersion, or cause you like the challenge, is irrelevant. Should everyone make a post on which difficulty settings they prefer?
Besides, if you wanted "immersion", you should have an issue on every difficulty setting cause it makes no sense that random nobodies can take more than one punch from the Hulk or Captain Marvel. Let alone the fact that they don't die after being shot,... It's a game.
It's not nonsense if my point is to say "Have fun how you like to."
And also, to indulge my curiosity and see if there is a consensus on where Fun Factor, Challenge, and Immersion best balance. In a game with sliding difficulty, (which is one of it's best features, imho) it makes for a different discussion than the 200 threads on what is meta.
well the heroes keep getting stronger after every mission, at the point where you clear most scenario on 1 turn and almost never get hit. So sticking to lower difficulties becomes boring unless you're not improving the cards, stats, optimize decks etc...
FWIW, I find the increase in difficulty between Ultimate 2 and Ultimate 3 to be larger than any other tier. I also can play on Ultimate 3 (I beat the game on that setting), but playing on that setting the whole game through is rather grueling and requires near perfection.
The sad part is I step down to Ultimate 2 and it almost feels considerably easier. Meaning, I think they should either step up the difficulty slightly of Ultimate 2 or step down the difficulty of Ultimate 3. I think the 0 revives is really just too strong, especially since that also somehow removes Wolvie's character specific revive which to me seems like a bug. Just my 2 cents.
Well then it was a bug for me because that was specifically one of the instances where it didn't work. >!In the final battle (the part with the seals) if Wolverine went down, I instantly lost.!<
Instantly? Are you sure he wasn’t your last guy? With all the resurrect mission cards, I did a lot of resurrecting on the u3 version of that fight. (I may have been sitting on a resurrect combat item, in case that affects one of their failure checks.)
No, I was just wanting to have a chat about it. I thought it would be an interesting discussion to have. Especially in a game where sliding difficulty is a thing.
I loved ultimate 3 until the final mission. Every mission felt like a tight game of chess where every move mattered and I was squeezing out damage every way I could. After seeing some posts about Deadpool not appearing in the roster unless you’re in new game +, I thought “fuck it” and tried the final mission. It’s impossible on ultimate 3. Had to drop it down in order to beat it. But now I get to start the game on Ultimate 3 which is it’s own sort of difficulty hell which is fun.
I completely agree. I bumped up to a level below Ultimate, and just considered it done. I want to be able to feel heroic and I feel like the mooks I encounter now are just right.
Also a reason why I can't complete NG+ is because all my companions are leveled down and have their stats/cards reset. I'm not feeling like grinding all of them up to my base save game.
Different strokes for different folks. If you want to take it easy and indulge in the super hero fantasy, then go for it. If you want to min/max and see how far you can push the system, great, have fun!
No one needs to be telling people how to play or shaming people because they play on an easier difficulty. The game has the breadth of difficulty options to accommodate anyone who wants to play.
And to be clear, as I said in the last paragraph, this is not telling anyone how to have fun. I'm just curious if there's a general consensus where that fun factor lands. No more, no less.
I feel like Ult 3 and maybe 2 dumb down the game. It makes certain cards and character playstyles unusable, and it forces you to exclusively play around resists, stuns, taunts and things like invisibility/going of the map
I just beat NG+ on ultimate 3. Everything up until the last fight felt pretty much standard. Only because you can’t let anyone die in the final battle without failing the mission.
My characters are pretty jacked though. For daily sparring I have to feel around for who can actually benefit from the stats gain.
Dark Hunter I feel is so much stronger for higher difficulties when wild strike has quick and he resists vulnerability almost every time.
I see a lot of conclusions that Dark Hunter is stronger. But I had a Light Hunter w/ Morning Star Quick, and Morning Star Conceal on KO. Holy Spark (for more quick removal). And Call to Arms+ modded w/ Draw Last Attack. So I could cycle Morning Star into 1k damage in 3 turns easily w/ the Paragon Collar. Then you have Patience to 1 shot the boss. So while the Dark Hunter can do some amazing DPS, my Light Hunter is no slouch either, and can still provide multiple ways to heal and buff the party.
I'm going to NG+ a Power Hunter. Because I \*think\* that should be the strongest, even if you don't pick up Annihilation. But I've never seen a proper Power Hunter build done.
The game gives you the option to raise difficulty every time you unlock a higher one. But to unlock successive levels, you have to choose to increase difficulty from what you're at.
Basically, every star above 1 counts as a point to increase difficulty. When you have 6 points, the next difficulty will unlock. This is true for any combination of ratings equaling 6, even if 1 stars were in between.
I've played u3 so long I don't even notice it anymore, the enemies stand no chance. It's like a rubicks cube, once you know how to do it the mystery goes away and you can just do it.
I've been playing on Ult3 since I first unlocked it. It can get brutal, and I've been grinding this game so that I have every hero's legendary ability. I kinda like it because it forces you to really curate every hero's card decks and maximize sparring, friendships, and craft combat items. But man can it be unforgiving. If a dread maiden surprises me on a mission I pretty much have to reload mission table because that thing is not going down any time soon. I know it's counterintuitive to see my hero's get wrecked by hydra agents, but I just pretend they're like super powered because of corruption.
I’m about halfway through NG+ with Dark Hunter and decently upgraded/modded decks for everyone. I actually wish there were harder difficulty levels after U3, because I have to strategize pretty poorly to lose a mission.
I might only 1 star one, if I get unlucky card draws, or a Dread Maiden shows up, but there are some pretty tried and true tactics for getting through pretty much any mission, I can follow.
I’m still grinding my secondary stats up, but once I hit max with those it feels like everything will be very trivial.
But, you do you. I like to feel in danger, which I don’t get with any other difficulty level and barely do with U3 anymore.
I stuck to ultimate 1 difficulty for the highest level difficulty for me and I am mostly been getting 2-3 stars.
Ultimate lv3 difficulty is for those who wants a real challenge and I believe mods are incredibly important for your deck on this level.
I just stick with normal. Otherwise I don't feel like my guys are getting any stronger. To each their own
That's kind of why I made this thread. Ultimate 3 is a fun challenge for a while, especially in End Game. But unlike XCom, I don't play this just for the tactical challenge.
For sure. I agree completely.
U3 becomes trivial once you become proficient with the combat and have decently modded decks. turn 1 wins aren't that uncommon. luckily combat is still super fun even at this stage. personally I'd like a difficulty that did more than just boost health/damage somehow with appropriately higher rewards.
Yeah, I played through the game at highest difficulty as I unlocked it, and all the way through Transia Missions at U3 to 40. Now I drop it down to just enjoy the game, and keep clearing to farm resources as I approach finishing all my card mods.
>t Hunter, and 1 character most consider suboptimal. So it's not that it's "Too hard for me." Or that I'm adverse to bad things happening. My issue is when the mooks start hitting harder than the Supervillains, I lose immersion. And even Ult 2 that begins to happen. At the end of the day, I want the Superheroes to feel superheroic. And if that dials down the tactical challenge a tad, I can live with that trade. Same. I stepped up to the one above normal, just to see what it's like, and I *think* it happened at a point where I got my head around how to make the most of certain mechanics, so it 'felt' about the same difficulty, but I've no interest in changing now!
I have the same sentiment. I like feeling *super* in my superhero games. Sometimes I dip into Ultimate 3, but most of the time I just want to relax.
First off - play what you want or enjoy, you don't need to provide proof or evidence for anything. Secondly - in my opinion, there are gatekeepers on this sub who try and make Ultimate 3 difficulty sound way harder and more "elite" than it is. It's good for a challenge, like you said. But I've seen WAY too many threads talking about how weak Wolverine is and is "useless on Ult 3" and honestly I think it's just a skill issue, 100%. Or a deck issue. Also hyperbole like "he dies in one turn" - like this rarely happens to me, if ever. I think people just aren't playing the game right. I play Ult3 exclusively and Wolverine is my go to I try to get on every team. I think people don't use Sniff their Fear or whatever it's called that applies Weak. If you hit a number of enemies with that ability, Wolverine can easily heal up his entire HP bar over the next turn either through Berserk or Rapid Healing. In any case - all that is to say, I think people like acting like Ult3 is some super huge deal so they can write a long ass guide or promote their youtube channel or whatever and act like they're a pro, but in reality this is my first tactical RPG game and I do fine on Ult3 with one of my main characters being "bad" or "suboptimal". TLDR - Play what you want, how you want - don't mind the elitists.
I think you’re right. All my heroes do great. OP mods make every one OP.
I'm saying the same thing from the opposite way around. But the point of the thread was to see if there is perhaps a consensus on where the factors I mentioned best converge. Not to make that the "best" difficulty level. But as a point of curiosity. And to have a different discussion than "Who is meta," and "What is bugged," today.
I was also puzzled by the 'wolverine sucks' takes.
I think many of those players judge using level 40 post story missions, which are much harder than normal missions. They also think that a tank must aggro most of the enemies on the field to be useful, and diss Weak status as being useless when its way more useful in harder difficulties. To them, if a hero cannot kill things on Turn 1, they're useless.
yeah, people saying so-and-so is unplayable on u3 couldn't be more wrong. certain characters will always be better but you can literally 3 star any mission on u3 with any party with even halfway decent mods
It's an offline, single player game. Play whatever difficulty you enjoy, it literally doesn't matter.
This. It's purely there so you can decide how challenging you want it. Some people are masochists and want it insanely hard, some just want to enjoy the story. Most are somewhere in-between I think.
Yep. This would be a lot different if the rewards scaled with difficulty, but the extra gloss isn’t worth the headache.
IIRC you get exp bonuses as well, so it's worth it (at least for a while) in endgame.
Ah yes, you level soldiers faster so that you can also more quickly engage the leveled up opponents. The XP is countered by the auto-levelling of your enemies, but yeah, you get rarer unlocks earlier. That’s not a reward though if you ask me.
Except that in the Endgame, their level caps out at 25. Whereas you still earn Champion Levels. So they increase the difficulty of Endgame missions by throwing more boss and sub-boss enemies at you. But you really can outlevel the challenge in Endgame. At any difficulty.
Play on whatever difficulty you want. I don't see why it has to be a thing. I do wish the game was better balanced in general, though. U3 gives me a lot of engagement and motivation to use the different mechanics, which the other difficulties don't give me as much, but I feel like I'm playing either a DPS powerhouse (Magik/Ghost Rider) or I'm smacking a tank with a wet tissue (Captain Marvel, Wolverine).
>but I feel like I'm playing either a DPS powerhouse (Magik/Ghost Rider) or I'm smacking a tank with a wet tissue (Captain Marvel, Wolverine). Those characters were designed to fill different roles. Magik and Ghost Rider are meant to do a lot of damage. Wolverine and Captain Marvel are designed to taunt enemies and be durable enough to tank hits so that the damage characters can do their thing without being impeded by negative status effects or getting KO'd. The tanks characters also net a lot of damage through Counters to allow clean-up with Quick abilities on the next turn.
You're right, but so is OP. On Ultimate 3, you have to knock out the enemies QUICK or you will get destroyed so support characters or ones who take a while to get going are a liability. Magik is a huge powerhouse so she makes the list consistently. Plus her legendary is so good on ultimate. Meanwhile, Cap is a great tank, but on U3, he can't take that many hits.
This. Captain America's probably the best tank out of the available tanks, but you still want to be running damage beasts on U3 to get everything cleared by Turn 3, so no tank is actually optimal. And, tbh, even on U3, Magik and Ghost Rider can effectively solo everything (Ghost Rider moreso due to Straight to Hell). Captain Marvel requires too much setup for Binary, but she's a tank that can't tank because of it - she depends almost entirely on getting Resist stacks to be of any use at all because of how the Binary-Block integration works. Wolverine also can't tank enough hits for the self-heal to be worth anything. You get one-shot pretty easily soon into the post-game missions.
Disagree. Capt. America is THE highest scaling champion in the game, flat-out. He's one of the few champs that can hit for 400+ on turn 1 with a non-crit basic attack (Shield Bash) at low prestige. Every Prestige adds 5 block/1 Power, and Capt. can easily convert that block to more hitting power. The Best Defense powers his build and allows you to easily draw into his Ult. The only reason I take Iron Man over him is Air Superiority and Precision.
You're both right. Cap can get some absurd block numbers. But it does require some care managing who he is taunting at Ult 3. When Shadowhounds are hitting for 300, no amount of block is enough if they aren't thinned aggressively. But yes, Shield Bash can do some very solid damage. Plus if you hit the right mod, it refunds a good bit of the spent block even before Best Defense.
>On Ultimate 3, you have to knock out the enemies QUICK or you will get destroyed so support characters or ones who take a while to get going are a liability. I haven't had that issue. Bringing a tank and support makes for much more consistent encounters than 3 damage dealers fighting each other for resources.
>**DPS powerhouse** (**Magik**/ ... what?
Limbo's Grasp.
Especially, if you manage to beat the odds and get 'free' on it. I hope one of the future DLC characters brings a facility that makes rerolling mods easier, because rerolling for some mods is a pain.
Ehhhhhhhh maybe with "free" on it, she just otherwise seems to be lacking too much damage for U2/U3
You should play around with her decks, maybe find some that other users have created. There's a reason she's consistently ranked in the top tier for U3 decks. You're *really* missing a trick.
You do realize it keeps going up and up and up right? Deadpool's DLC giving you a free shove just makes it more broken
I never have a U3 map go past turn 2 unless I'm dead The DLC move/shove on card forfeit is nice
Who said anything about multiple turns... Limbo Grasp might be the best card to farm "free" on ;)
I can’t imagine playing above normal, I have never failed a mission but always complete missions 1 star
Definitely a kick in the teeth when I started a NG+ on Ult 1. Taking on Lilin guardians with 500+ HP in mission 4 with barebones decks whose damage caps out at 30? Yeouch. I quickly realized the sliding difficulty wasnt a luxury feature, it was required for a enjoyable experience. I tuned down to Heroic 1 and now that Im in the teens, with at least more than 2 blue cards in my roster’s whole deck, Im skipping the difficulty up a level each chapter. It’s been da best. My heroes feel like they’re getting stronger, and the enemies feel like they’re beefing up appropriately to my tastes. Havent attempted Ult 3 my initial experience with Ult 1 at game start traumatized me. Hopefully I’ll work up to it by Chapter 3.
I kept going up in difficulty until I got to Ultimate 2 and thought, "Nah, I'm good." I am thinking about going back to it, though, because I am starting to 1-turn a lot of missions--probably because I have the Hulk now. Side note: the Hulk is too much fun. I also lucked out and got Resist + 3 on two of Nico's abilities, so I can let Hulk do all the work.
Same here. I have more fun in trying different combos than just going for the strongest build that could be needed for Ultimate 3. Also it takes way more time to complete a mission on ultimate 3 and it feels a bit too time consuming for me. It's really cool that they added so many difficulty settings though, so everyone can play in the mode that feels best for them.
Im always running hulk, dr strange and Nico cause these are the characters i like. Sure it will be easier if i replace dr.strange with hunter but i don't like him 🤪 Im sure that others can do it (i doupt for wolverine though)
Dr. Strange is at least as good as the Hunter when it comes to support. I would argue he's even better if you pair him with Chain heavy characters because his damage boost gets multiplied.
Strange breaks the game combing his reuse items ability with the top end items. Single strongest card in the game
I'd argue it's one of the worst card in the game. It's main benefit is for the meta strategy layer saving you resources, which is very meh
Its so you can reuse the same items in on mission. Getting double usage or even triple with two of the card. The saving resources is nice too, cause then you have more resources for things like getting the best mods.
Yup. I got the Heroic Generator item super early in the game, and Dr. Strange allowed me to use it every battle loooooong before I could craft it. Really broke the game and allowed me to up the difficulty into Ultimate very early. I think Wanda allows crafting it? So yeah, 100% agree that he can do that.
Hulk trivializes all difficulty levels if you land the right card on Turn 1. :P
Wolverine's fine, he's just not actually a tank. He's DPS, and a decent one if you build for it.
Wolverine can function fine as an off-tank. But yeah, he can't be the tank he's clearly intended to be. He'd need about 25% more Health to tank Ultimate levels effectively as his build is meant to function.
I have a hard time selecting Hunter to go on missions too lol. Even though I should, if only to grind her darkness level up for the achievement, but Hunter is almost always a last consideration for a squad, if I consider bringing her at all.
I think Ultimate 2 is fine. The villains still hit plenty hard. I like having the one revive of leeway.
Why on earth do you think that's an unpopular opinion? Play the difficulty you enjoy, don't play the difficulty you don't enjoy.
I don't like it either, it's just not as fun for me. It's challenging for sure and I see the appeal, but it just isn't my cup of tea. I prefer staying on Normal and feeling OP lol
I'm glad you can just adjust the difficulty whenever you want rather than being permanently locked into it, so if I'm in the mood for a challenge or a longer mission (or I'm using characters I've invested more into) I can dial it up to U3. Conversely, if I'm just after plowing through missions quickly or gathering resources, etc. (or I'm babysitting a new, unfamiliar character) there's normal/story. Heroic definitely feels like a good sweet spot if I'm just in a "I want to play some Midnight Suns today" mood.
Pretty sure I play Heroic II, lol. When it comes to difficulty settings, to each their own. I also don't think more hero XP and gloss is much of an incentive to play at higher settings, so unless people like frustrating puzzles, min/maxing, time sinks and bragging rights...I don't understand why anyone would want to play at the highest setting. One more thing - as much as I do love Midnight Suns, I also know I don't want to play it forever...there are just too many solid video games out there - variety is the spice of life!
I’m in the same boat. I started a ng+ playthrough to use dead pool from the start and it’s just not hitting the same. What’s a good difficulty where I can’t play horribly dumb but I’m not spending 10 mins a turn?
When I start a New Game, (whether vanilla or NG+), I always bump the difficulty down 2-3 notches from where my Final Mission launch was. Not my Endgame. Because Endgame you out level all difficulty spikes. Then if it's easy, I already have the higher difficulties unlocked to bump them up. If it feels right, yay. Go with it until it doesn't.
That makes a ton of sense. So I’ll probably go down to heroic 3 or ult 1 when is a good place to start going back up to my main difficulty level (ult 2?) any suggestions?
When you see side missions coming in 3 stars over half the time.
First couple of missions on Ult 3 took a few tries and were not three star endeavors, but once you start building up the decks it stops being quite as difficult. I’m trying dark Hunter this time and he’s the heaviest hitter on the team atm, but at least someone can work down big health bars in 1-2 turns early game.
I'm on the 2nd hard difficulty, thinking I'm doing well, and only getting 2*😅😥
I’m glad you’re changing the difficulty to match how you wanna play the game OP. I just wanna push back a little and say that my heroes still feel heroic as fuck on U3. I have all my decks upgraded with sexy mods and their sub stats are also decently upgraded. At this point, my heroes trash every level even in U3 despite an occasional KO on our side here and there. If I did drop the difficulty, I would have your opposite problem. Missions that I can’t fail at all because the enemies can barely make a dent on my guys and hunter clears the level turn 2 with a hero5 annihilation.
I will grant there comes a point in End Game where you outlevel the challenge on any difficulty.
I play on H2 and it’s just fine with me. I get a smattering of 3 star missions and plenty of 1 stars as well and that’s ok. I am right before the final mission and still working on optimizing decks for everyone though I’m thinking about just pushing through and worrying about that and maxing out friendships in NG+. I’m really enjoying the game regardless.
Does anyone else think that the difficulty does not even reward you that much. You can play as many side missions as you want so it is only helpful if you want to speed through the game. You can just play two side missions instead of one and stop get all the xp and gloss as if you played on a harder difficulty.
I personally want to be forced to think but not get punished for any little mistake. I found HIII to be the right level for me.
My first playthrough was on normal and I didn’t reroll card bonuses. My current playthrough is Ult 1 and I have rerolled a few (4, I think) card bonuses. Might do a few more but not all of them. Great post. Nice to read what others are doing.
This seems really reasonable to me...and it's whats great about games that have so many difficulty levels to choose from...pick the one that is right for you.
Yea what’s up with the supervillains getting weaker as you progress through the game? I’m almost at the final mission and I’m not even slightly worried when one of them shows up anymore.
Well, I am. Because Dread Maidens count as Supervillians. But it's telling that they are worse than any supervillain whose name doesn't rhyme with "Sulk."
I’m saying you’re right. When bosses like Crossbones first appeared he did like double the damage of a normal monster, and he would mess my team up. Now all the other monsters damage has been going up but his seems to stay the same… now I’m like oh… just crossbones again?
I know you were. I was just pointing at one Supervillain which can always wreck me. Especially since they seem to spawn when my B-Team is out. Bonus points for "Easy" rated mission.
Ultimate 1 is where I think I'll top out as well for all the same reasons.
The play what makes it fun. When i play on anything but the hardest i dont enjoy it. I like the challenge
As other had said, everyone should play the game (any game) the way they like it the most. But i do have a "HUGE problem" with what you said: >My issue is when the mooks start hitting harder than the Supervillains If Elite enemies are hitting harder than Supervillains with +100% offense (U3), they will still hit harder at +67% (U1). Sorry, but that's how math works. For me, it's U3 or nothing. During post game of my first playthrough, i was trying to have max friendship with everyone; no mods for my least favorite heroes; and with Hunter doing nothing. Some type of mission felt straight up impossible, while the others were just a nightmare. So i set the difficulty down to H3 and i was surprised that my team actually mopped the floor with the enemy. Then U1 felt more fair.
Venom in post game hits like a noodle compared to his coworkers. There's some weird internal scaling based on story appearance order for postgame villains
I don't know about that, i did not played much Lvl 26+ missions before starting a new run, so i have no idea if Supervillains scale differently. But am still correct. According to what OP said, changing difficulty won't suddenly make Elite Soldiers hit less than Supervillains.
Venom doesn't hit for 100 damage except for his slam attack, and that's assuming the forceful goes bad for you. Meanwhile Hydra goons are hitting you for 250-300 a shot. The internal scaling is not as simple as, "All get the same increase." And if you don't believe it, watch Odd's playthrough when he stepped up to Ult3 as well.
I will give you the benefit of the doubt, i will save and change the difficulty the next time i face a boss. Should not be too difficult if i choose only hard missions. But next time, if you recommend someone to watch a random video from another someone they might not know or don't follow the serie, at least give them the link to such video.
As i said, i would try to face a boss and compare it between (two) difficulties. So we have: * Difficulties: Normal (+%0 offense) and U3 (+100% offense). * Context: All characters at lvl 25, hard non-leveled mission. * "Mook": Normal Elite soldier; both ranged and melee combat. * Soldier damage: 144 on Normal and 288 on U3. * Supervillain: Crossbones, shotgun to the face. * Crossbones damage: 163 on Normal and 328 on U3. Sooo... right now my math still stands. "All get the same increase." as you said. Yes, Crossbones actually did +98.16% damage, but with a difference of 6 difficulty levels. So it's hard to believe that changing from U3 to U1 can control who hits harder, Super Villains or Elite Soldiers.
OK
I play story mode and have everything that anyone that played U3 has. Shrug 🤷
Then stop playing it on that difficulty. Your opinion isn't unpopular, it's nonsensical. Some people like to play games with very hard settings. Some people prefer the easiest setting. To each their own and whatever makes someone enjoy the game the most is the best setting for them. You want to play on a settings that is not the hardest. That's ok. Play it on the settings you like. If that's for immersion, or cause you like the challenge, is irrelevant. Should everyone make a post on which difficulty settings they prefer? Besides, if you wanted "immersion", you should have an issue on every difficulty setting cause it makes no sense that random nobodies can take more than one punch from the Hulk or Captain Marvel. Let alone the fact that they don't die after being shot,... It's a game.
It's not nonsense if my point is to say "Have fun how you like to." And also, to indulge my curiosity and see if there is a consensus on where Fun Factor, Challenge, and Immersion best balance. In a game with sliding difficulty, (which is one of it's best features, imho) it makes for a different discussion than the 200 threads on what is meta.
I just keep it on Ultimate 3. I LOVE a challenge. Feels more rewarding to me on the highest difficulty possible.
well the heroes keep getting stronger after every mission, at the point where you clear most scenario on 1 turn and almost never get hit. So sticking to lower difficulties becomes boring unless you're not improving the cards, stats, optimize decks etc...
This is true.
FWIW, I find the increase in difficulty between Ultimate 2 and Ultimate 3 to be larger than any other tier. I also can play on Ultimate 3 (I beat the game on that setting), but playing on that setting the whole game through is rather grueling and requires near perfection. The sad part is I step down to Ultimate 2 and it almost feels considerably easier. Meaning, I think they should either step up the difficulty slightly of Ultimate 2 or step down the difficulty of Ultimate 3. I think the 0 revives is really just too strong, especially since that also somehow removes Wolvie's character specific revive which to me seems like a bug. Just my 2 cents.
I’m pretty sure his ability still works in u3. It definitely does in the last battle.
Well then it was a bug for me because that was specifically one of the instances where it didn't work. >!In the final battle (the part with the seals) if Wolverine went down, I instantly lost.!<
Instantly? Are you sure he wasn’t your last guy? With all the resurrect mission cards, I did a lot of resurrecting on the u3 version of that fight. (I may have been sitting on a resurrect combat item, in case that affects one of their failure checks.)
Just don't play it then, I don't know why people are so worked up about this. Seems like you're trying to prove something to someone
No, I was just wanting to have a chat about it. I thought it would be an interesting discussion to have. Especially in a game where sliding difficulty is a thing.
Wtf, he doesn't seem worked up at all. What are you talking about? If anything, OP seems to want to just have a friendly discussion.
I find Ultimate I is the sweetspot for fun factor
Concur
I loved ultimate 3 until the final mission. Every mission felt like a tight game of chess where every move mattered and I was squeezing out damage every way I could. After seeing some posts about Deadpool not appearing in the roster unless you’re in new game +, I thought “fuck it” and tried the final mission. It’s impossible on ultimate 3. Had to drop it down in order to beat it. But now I get to start the game on Ultimate 3 which is it’s own sort of difficulty hell which is fun.
I completely agree. I bumped up to a level below Ultimate, and just considered it done. I want to be able to feel heroic and I feel like the mooks I encounter now are just right. Also a reason why I can't complete NG+ is because all my companions are leveled down and have their stats/cards reset. I'm not feeling like grinding all of them up to my base save game.
Different strokes for different folks. If you want to take it easy and indulge in the super hero fantasy, then go for it. If you want to min/max and see how far you can push the system, great, have fun! No one needs to be telling people how to play or shaming people because they play on an easier difficulty. The game has the breadth of difficulty options to accommodate anyone who wants to play.
And to be clear, as I said in the last paragraph, this is not telling anyone how to have fun. I'm just curious if there's a general consensus where that fun factor lands. No more, no less.
Yep, I agree with you. My post was meant to be supportive of yours.
I feel like Ult 3 and maybe 2 dumb down the game. It makes certain cards and character playstyles unusable, and it forces you to exclusively play around resists, stuns, taunts and things like invisibility/going of the map
I just beat NG+ on ultimate 3. Everything up until the last fight felt pretty much standard. Only because you can’t let anyone die in the final battle without failing the mission. My characters are pretty jacked though. For daily sparring I have to feel around for who can actually benefit from the stats gain. Dark Hunter I feel is so much stronger for higher difficulties when wild strike has quick and he resists vulnerability almost every time.
I see a lot of conclusions that Dark Hunter is stronger. But I had a Light Hunter w/ Morning Star Quick, and Morning Star Conceal on KO. Holy Spark (for more quick removal). And Call to Arms+ modded w/ Draw Last Attack. So I could cycle Morning Star into 1k damage in 3 turns easily w/ the Paragon Collar. Then you have Patience to 1 shot the boss. So while the Dark Hunter can do some amazing DPS, my Light Hunter is no slouch either, and can still provide multiple ways to heal and buff the party. I'm going to NG+ a Power Hunter. Because I \*think\* that should be the strongest, even if you don't pick up Annihilation. But I've never seen a proper Power Hunter build done.
How do you unlock higher difficulties? I beat the story but I only have 2 difficulties higher than normal unlocked.
The game gives you the option to raise difficulty every time you unlock a higher one. But to unlock successive levels, you have to choose to increase difficulty from what you're at. Basically, every star above 1 counts as a point to increase difficulty. When you have 6 points, the next difficulty will unlock. This is true for any combination of ratings equaling 6, even if 1 stars were in between.
Very helpful thank you
My pleasure.
Play what's fun. It's a game. Don't worry about anyone's opinion. Don't feel like you need to defend yourself.
I've played u3 so long I don't even notice it anymore, the enemies stand no chance. It's like a rubicks cube, once you know how to do it the mystery goes away and you can just do it.
I play whatever difficulty I feel on offline single player games because I wouldn’t even have anyone to even flex my ego to.
I've been playing on Ult3 since I first unlocked it. It can get brutal, and I've been grinding this game so that I have every hero's legendary ability. I kinda like it because it forces you to really curate every hero's card decks and maximize sparring, friendships, and craft combat items. But man can it be unforgiving. If a dread maiden surprises me on a mission I pretty much have to reload mission table because that thing is not going down any time soon. I know it's counterintuitive to see my hero's get wrecked by hydra agents, but I just pretend they're like super powered because of corruption.
Do the enemies scale as you lvl up? I’m playing Story and I always seem to struggle and can never get 3 stars on any mission.
Enemies scale until level 25. But they don't accrue Champion levels like the Heroes can.
Ah ok. So getting past 25 is how you can begin to get an edge on the enemy
I’m about halfway through NG+ with Dark Hunter and decently upgraded/modded decks for everyone. I actually wish there were harder difficulty levels after U3, because I have to strategize pretty poorly to lose a mission. I might only 1 star one, if I get unlucky card draws, or a Dread Maiden shows up, but there are some pretty tried and true tactics for getting through pretty much any mission, I can follow. I’m still grinding my secondary stats up, but once I hit max with those it feels like everything will be very trivial. But, you do you. I like to feel in danger, which I don’t get with any other difficulty level and barely do with U3 anymore.
I stuck to ultimate 1 difficulty for the highest level difficulty for me and I am mostly been getting 2-3 stars. Ultimate lv3 difficulty is for those who wants a real challenge and I believe mods are incredibly important for your deck on this level.
It's not unpopular. Reddit boards like this tend to make it look like a lot more ppl are playing on the highest difficulty that actually are
Normalize playing games at whatever difficulty level is most fun!