pvar $difficulty - It DOES make a difference!

[crakerz]

After SoLan was kind enough to give me a breakdown on my first attempt at a level, I was dismayed that he had way more galaxite than he needed to finish.

The reason is, the $difficulty setting affect things in the game, one of which is the value of galaxite. Prelim testing suggests that it is worth 10% more at easy, and 10% less at hard, with normal being the center.

I also think that other things might be affected, like damage and repairs, but I'm not sure.

Can someone at spiffcode give us a breakdown? Please?

[scottlu]

Yes there are a number of differences, sorry I didn't spill those earlier. I'll compile a list and post it asap.

[crakerz]

This posted in the levels forum:

darrinm wrote:

I want to clarify the difficulty levels. Like you've learned you can test difficulty in a mission to trigger actions to make it easier and/or harder. BUT even if you don't do this, the player's difficulty choice influences a few factors of the game. Here's how it works:

Hard
- no special advantages or disadvantages (this was our internal default setting for most of the development of WI)

Normal bonuses
- decreased build time for player structures
- increased armor for player structures & units
- player can see if enemy is low on power or credits

Easy bonuses
- all Normal bonuses
- increased player unit firepower
- increased value for player's Bullpup Galaxite deliveries

The design concept for the easier difficulty settings was to crudely simulate the advantages that more skilled players have to give less skilled players a boost in ways that wouldn't throw the missions out of wack.

Thanks for the info; this really helps! (Verdagon/Wizard, this is great FAQ/Doc material )

[Verdagon]

Okay we'll add it.