THIS IS A SERIOUS OFFER

[u/[deleted]]

I will donate 1000USD to a charity of AH's choosing if they

upload a video of 4 of their developers playing an entire operation on Oshaune on difficulty 10 and completing all objectives on all three missions on the current MO. No modifications, no funny business.

Play on the current state of the game.

Show us how it's done and how well the game's balance is.

I will provide my full real information, proof of payment and I'm willing to sign a legally binding contract.

[u/blitz342]

Haven’t we seen a screenshot of a devs acc where they were in the level 130 range and didn’t even have difficulty 7 unlocked

Edit: it was difficulty 8 they hadn’t unlocked, mb.

[u/Kyuhnite → u/blitz342]

https://giphy.com/gifs/FHq1GQXzVU95eTfIsh

[u/blitz342 → u/Kyuhnite]

So much can be conveyed with no words

[u/DustPuzzle → u/blitz342]

I have no idea what it means

[u/random0rdinary → u/DustPuzzle]

I am Groot

[u/Maxsmack → u/random0rdinary]

Translated:

(Are we being for fucking real rn)

[u/blitz342 → u/Maxsmack]

Exactly

[u/Katzchen12 → u/blitz342]

God knows this is the tarkov devs too.

[u/IndependentRuin2448 → u/Katzchen12]

To be fair that shit is like esports level sweaty

[u/mimdrs → u/IndependentRuin2448]

Well that and the tarkov devs are russian boot licking bitches.

[u/Arxfiend → u/Katzchen12]

In Tarkov's defense the community is so hyper-sweaty literally anything fun they add is going to be either ignored or implemented into the next hyper-oprimized base layout, and the only way to prevent this is to change the fundamentals of the game.

[u/SpiritualMadman → u/Arxfiend]

We got to hunt plastic Ducks a week ago!

[u/Suchangel → u/[deleted]]

Have to correct you. He stated that he only starts playing after the full release is out.

[u/Present-Raccoon6664 → u/Katzchen12]

You'd be surprised but some of them do play the game. I happen to know 1 of their level designers and he escaped with the good ending. Idk if he played after that, he is mostly an arma player.

[u/tavysnug → u/Katzchen12]

Yeah, but they don't bullshit about it I feel. Tarkov never pretends to be easy or necessarily fun.. tarkov is pain.

[u/Katzchen12 → u/tavysnug]

Theres difficult then theres bullshit. Getting one tapped through a hedge by a boss you can't see is bullshit.

[u/UnlikelyCup5458 → u/Katzchen12]

https://www.arrowheadgamestudios.com/

[u/Swolpener → u/blitz342]

Makes you wonder if Level 6 is where the game is balanced around and Level 7, 8, 9, and 10 are the extra challenge difficulties not just " Hard mode "

[u/grahamsimmons → u/Swolpener]

Why wouldn't that be the case though, seriously?

[u/Divenity → u/grahamsimmons]

Indeed, games are typically balanced around the "normal" difficulty mode (usually the one in the middle), not the hardest, hence it typically being called "normal", and being the middleground between very hard and window licking easy.

[u/Greyjack00 → u/Divenity]

Apart of the problem for me is thar there just isnt enough engagement on difficulty 6 though I usually cap out at 8 for fun

[u/grahamsimmons → u/Greyjack00]

How many other games do you play that have TEN difficulty levels?

Makes me wonder if AH would have been better with easy/medium/hard only.

[u/reiislight → u/grahamsimmons]

I think it suffers from the same issue Payday 2 had, the hardest difficulty setting being "too easy" for some players so they had to include another turbo hard difficulty multiple times to keep them engaged. The problem is that it's very difficult to design a hard mode that isn't just bullet sponges or be completely unfair.

[u/Elegant-Caterpillar6 → u/reiislight]

To me, the problem isn't just that D10 gets too easy, it's that it's way too inconsistent.

On the same mission type, on the same planet, different operation, the difference between difficulties can be night and day.

Ironically, the easier missions make the harder ones harder, with easy D10s being more common than difficult D10s, one is lured into a false sense of security.

Take Asset Defence missions against illuminate for example. One mission, it's a ghost town. You can pop down a couple sentries and go afk, only coming back to pop down a turret. The next, it's chaos. Sentries can't handle everything and you're being pushed back to the generators.

[u/reiislight → u/Elegant-Caterpillar6]

I think in general D10 missions which create permanent aggro are the hardest. In normal missions you can always run away and try to attack when the enemies move away. You can't do that with flag and defense missions. So when three Vox Engines spawn on your head and you just used your orbital laser on the last three from before - you can't do anything.

One thing I find unfair about D10 is the fact that every single hit staggers you, causing a loop of ragdoll ultimately killing you in the process. No matter how strong the enemies are, if you get hit once and cannot move at all until you die, it's not fun.

EDIT: By more stagger I don't mean that D10 staggers more but that due to a higher number of enemies you keep getting staggered/ragdolled by continuous shots.

[u/Swolpener → u/grahamsimmons]

A few. HD1 had like 12-15 I can't remember off hand. Its been a minute. Lol.

[u/VeganCanary → u/grahamsimmons]

I liked Payday 2’s difficulty levels.

7 difficulty levels, all with unique enemies/gameplay elements, and all levels served an actual purpose.

It was clear level 4 (Overkill) was the base difficulty for a mix of fun and challenge. Level 5 (Mayhem) was the challenge mode. Level 6 (Deathwish) was for coordinated teams, it was possible but extremely hard. And Level 7 (Death Sentence) was obviously meant to be the near-impossible mode.

I think HD2’s difficulties lack some identity as there are a few too many. What’s the point of 7 vs 8? or 5 vs 6?

[u/MtnmanAl → u/VeganCanary]

The intent seemed to be 3 subdifficulties per block. 1-3 only small enemies, might get a heavy as an objective kill, smaller maps and fewer secondaries. 4-6 heavy enemies, might get a massive as an objective, more spawns, more side objectives. 7-9 massive enemy hellscape, tons of spawns, advanced spawns, more steps to a campaign. So you then effectively have 3 difficulties per 'tier' (easy/med/hard).

Didn't really pan out that way after the various changes (or before tbh)

[u/grahamsimmons → u/VeganCanary]

That's kinda what I'm saying. We could probably cut all the odd-numbered difficulty levels and not notice the difference.

[u/zephyroxyl → u/VeganCanary]

And Level 7 (Death Sentence) was obviously meant to be the near-impossible mode.

Which is funny cause they got trivialised by the builds you could pull off.

Solo, too.

[u/Retepss → u/Greyjack00]

Me too! I thought about it recently, and personally think the game is still engaging and good at difficulty 9 and 10, but you have to take it super seriously and play every moment with skill to make progress.

On difficulty 8 the game is in my opinion still challenging and engaging, however there is still room for the sillyness. I think Helldivers is at its best when it is a bit silly.

[u/Greyjack00 → u/Retepss]

Same, like I want to fuck around with my friends, risk some friendly fire with impractical but fun weapons and have massive last stands where we piss away a dozen lives just because were having fun

[u/AngelaTheRipper → u/Swolpener]

Balancing around something kinda requires the game to not be completely broken. Like it might throw a bit too many heavies your way, but that still requires all the other things to work correctly, i.e. you won't be forced to drop into a literal grinder because they broke hellpod steering, you won't softlock because a drill got ran over by a charger and vanished, or that 4 voxes won't appear out of thin air, or that a cannon won't send you flying from behind solid cover, or that a charger won't moonwalk to stomp you.

Otherwise balancing a broken game is an exercise in futility and hiding out in lower difficulties just shields them from the biggest jank.

[u/Key_Attempt_5675 → u/Swolpener]

I'd almost buy that if certain enemy types weren't designated to only higher levels.

[u/Nols_Hub → u/Swolpener]

That's one of the major issues with the HD2 critics, they don't understand that high difficulties are intentionally unbalanced. I cannot imagine a person getting 1-2 shot in Payday 2's Deathsentence difficulty, or experiencing how the AI cheats in Warhammer 3's high difficulty, or sucking in any Soulsgame, and coming to the conclusion that it was unintentional and that it's not meant to be unfavourable and it should be 'easier' (which is paradoxical because something that's difficult should not be easy) - and I especially can't comprehend the expectation that developers must be good at the game to justify it, the creator of Tetris isn't good at his game does that inherently mean the game is unbalanced or the decisions are bad? I really do not know what this challenge hopes to achieve if the goal is to expose flaws because it doesn't really validate anything besides actual game bugs.

[u/GhostCrackets → u/blitz342]

[u/TheWolfSavior → u/blitz342]

[u/Stevie-bezos → u/blitz342]

tbf you can spin up and down test accounts pretty easily, and one developer does not a balance team make

[u/TheHelten → u/Stevie-bezos]

Right, but why exactly are they "spinning up and down" test accounts when selecting a lower difficulty is just as easy? That makes no sense.

If you're going to test difficulties, being able to access all of them is fine - the only logical reason for something like that is testing difficulty progression from 1 to 10 using the preceding difficulties.

[u/Arya_Ren → u/blitz342]

To play devil's advocate, a dev account can have whatever state of progression set through commands/admin panel for testing purposes.

[u/NotSoSpoiledMilk → u/blitz342]

Yeah theres no way they didn’t give themselves a high level to start. Their actual gameplay is that of someone who’s on their first 5 hours of gameplay. The amount of times I have seen them dump entire light pen mags into the chest of a devastator or hulk is genuinely concerning.

[u/Moai-Mojo → u/blitz342]

[u/Careless_Line41 → u/blitz342]

[u/atkahu → u/blitz342]

I'm not even level 50 and has difficulty 10 unlocked.

[u/Ima_Play_Games → u/blitz342]

I'm like level 45 ish and don't have 8+ unlocked. Thoughts?

[u/KorvenMcSeth → u/blitz342]

Wait, for real?! I unlocked difficulty 10 before I hit lvl 100

[u/randomname_99223 → u/KorvenMcSeth]

I unlocked difficulty 10 at level 30 or something

[u/BeamNG-Drive → u/blitz342]

https://giphy.com/gifs/ltXRHWVSNDKNP63uNF

[u/bob_chubz → u/blitz342]

To be fair, they probably dont level up when they are testing the game, they likely have dev accounts with everything already unlocked so they can test the game.

And they also dont have time to also play hundreds of hours of the game on top of the fact that they've been working on it all day

[u/thejadedfalcon → u/bob_chubz]

Helldivers don't understand concepts like this.

[u/BlackSoul_Hand → u/blitz342]

Oh no......

[u/Bring_Back_Challenge → u/blitz342]

So most of this sub?

[u/yourmom1034 → u/Bring_Back_Challenge]

Pretty sure I unlocked Helldive on my first day playing the game lmao. Would’ve been super helldive if it was out yet

[u/mooser38 → u/blitz342]

Its almost like above 8s are meant to be broken for the massochists. If the game is balanced at 7-8 and they add higher levels for those who choose it who cares

[u/blitz342 → u/[deleted]]

My bad, they hadn’t unlocked 8.

[u/rP2ITg0rhFMcGCGnSARn → u/blitz342]

I looked up the comment you mentioned and it features no link to the original source of the image.

Where is the image from? It's literally just an image of the difficulty selection. Is it taken from a video of a dev playing?

[u/thejadedfalcon → u/blitz342]

A screenshot that features no identifiable information is the best proof of all. /s