What is the difference between the difficulty settings?

[topeira]

What is the difference between the difficulty settings?

hi guys.

im playing on NOMRAL (second setting) and having fun even though im starting to outlevel some quests.
i know the difference between the difficulty settings is more than just how much damage enemies deal to geralt and the fact he cant regen health while meditating, but i was wondering if poeple can give a list, preferably with stat numbers, that tell what changes between NORMAL, HARD (broken bones) and DM.

is it how much XP you gain? if so - how big is the difference?
is it about how much damage geralt inflicts? (unlikely. i think all of geralts stats remain enchaged throught all the difficulty settings)
is it about how much health enemies have? by how much?
any info will be appreciated. =)

 

[styku]

Can't give you the numbers, but supposedly enemy AI gets smarter on higher difficulties. Can't confirm this, but on Death March they really seem pretty intelligent (at least most of the time! )

 

[Sethanor]

dont know all differences but some are:

- less xp the higher the diff.
- no health regen during meditation on BB & DM
- enemies have more life and deal more dmg

never tried anything lower than DM so i dont know any other, but those are the common few

edit:
i dont feel like AI is too smart on DM to be honest ... esp. humans feel pretty stupid.
1v1 you can button-mash almost all humans to death and the "boss-monsters" are easy as hell as soon as you know their patterns, which is pretty dissapointing cause it makes them feel boring and a grp of drowners half your level is more of a threat than a ?? boss-monster

 

[Vatt_ghern]

- less xp the higher the diff.

That rumor has been shown to be false, unless you have evidence to the contrary.

 

[topeira]

That rumor has been shown to be false, unless you have evidence to the contrary.

from looking at the game files it seems to be false indeed. there is a very clear amount of XP you get and need to level up. there are simple mods that alter that in a single file and it doesnt seem like there is a different file for each difficulty level so i think leveling up is static.

 

[RayofLight]

- no health regen during meditation on BB & DM

After playing through initially on Broken Bones and now going back again on Death March, I wish that when you meditated there was a toggle switch that would allow you to consume the minimum amount of food to regenerate all your health back for these settings. I have acquired so much food that I don't end up using because it's annoying to put the food into the quick slot only for those time. Also, sometimes I found that a Potion of Clearance would pop in to replace my food on the quick slot when I finished up with one pile/stack of a certain type of food. Not only was that dangerous, it meant I had to go and manually reequip the food to the quick slot every time, or only eat food one at a time after opening the inventory.

Honestly I kind of wish we had three quick slots. The pockets we have aren't really used that much at all except for 2-3 quest items and a torch. I'd rather just have only a solitary pocket and get an extra quick slot, maybe on the master crafted armor only.

 

[Elbarto145]

<!-- difficulty levels -->
<ability name="difficulty_CommonEasy">
<tags>DifficultyModeAbility, Easy</tags>
<health_final_multiplier type="add" min="-0.5" />
</ability>

</ability>-->
<ability name="difficulty_CommonMedium">
<tags>DifficultyModeAbility, Medium</tags>
<health_final_multiplier type="add" min="0.1" />
<damage_final_multiplier type="add" min="0.4" />

</ability>
<ability name="difficulty_CommonHard">
<tags>DifficultyModeAbility, Hard</tags>
<health_final_multiplier type="add" min="0.2" />
<damage_final_multiplier type="add" min="1.3" />

</ability>
<ability name="difficulty_CommonHardcore">
<tags>DifficultyModeAbility, Hardcore</tags>
<health_final_multiplier type="add" min="0.8" />
<damage_final_multiplier type="add" min="2.3" />
<staminaRegen type="mult" always_random="false" min="0.2" max="0.2" />
<force_resistance_perc type="add" always_random="false" min="0.1" max="0.1" />
<burning_resistance_perc type="add" always_random="false" min="0.1" max="0.1" />
<will_resistance_perc type="add" always_random="false" min="0.1" max="0.1" />
<shock_resistance_perc type="add" always_random="false" min="0.1" max="0.1" />
</ability>

\gameplay\abilities\common_abilities.xml

That are the differences between the difficulties.

 

[topeira]

<!-- difficulty levels -->
<ability name="difficulty_CommonEasy">
<tags>DifficultyModeAbility, Easy</tags>
<health_final_multiplier type="add" min="-0.5" />
</ability>

</ability>-->
<ability name="difficulty_CommonMedium">
<tags>DifficultyModeAbility, Medium</tags>
<health_final_multiplier type="add" min="0.1" />
<damage_final_multiplier type="add" min="0.4" />

</ability>
<ability name="difficulty_CommonHard">
<tags>DifficultyModeAbility, Hard</tags>
<health_final_multiplier type="add" min="0.2" />
<damage_final_multiplier type="add" min="1.3" />

</ability>
<ability name="difficulty_CommonHardcore">
<tags>DifficultyModeAbility, Hardcore</tags>
<health_final_multiplier type="add" min="0.8" />
<damage_final_multiplier type="add" min="2.3" />
<staminaRegen type="mult" always_random="false" min="0.2" max="0.2" />
<force_resistance_perc type="add" always_random="false" min="0.1" max="0.1" />
<burning_resistance_perc type="add" always_random="false" min="0.1" max="0.1" />
<will_resistance_perc type="add" always_random="false" min="0.1" max="0.1" />
<shock_resistance_perc type="add" always_random="false" min="0.1" max="0.1" />
</ability>

\gameplay\abilities\common_abilities.xml

That are the differences between the difficulties.

nice find!
care to explain what these are?:
<health_final_multiplier type="add" min="0.8" />
<damage_final_multiplier type="add" min="2.3" />

is that enemies health and damage?

doesnt make sense though. why would enemies have 0.1 health in MEDIUM? what is 1.0 than?
and same question regarding damage....

i just dont know what to make of these...

 

[Sethanor]

look at the "multplier type". it states "add" so i'd guess on hardcore its enemy base health (which is probably hardcoded somewhere) PLUS 0.8 % of that on top.
that would mean a monster with 1000 base-health would have 1.8k on hardcore, 1.2k on hard, 1.1k on normal and 500 on easy

this is just my GUESS tho, not confirmed

 

[Elbarto145]

look at the "multplier type". it states "add" so i'd guess on hardcore its enemy base health (which is probably hardcoded somewhere) PLUS 0.8 % of that on top.
that would mean a monster with 1000 base-health would have 1.8k on hardcore, 1.2k on hard, 1.1k on normal and 500 on easy

this is just my GUESS tho, not confirmed

Cant confirm this but i think you are right.

You can look at the stats of the enemies in the gameplay\abilities\monster_base_abl.xml btw.

 

[fushu]

I tested this out. quest XP is the same between all difficulties. However I know for certain things (for example Axii on dialogue) will grant different amounts of XP depending on the difficulty. Meaning you will be a higher level at the end of the game in Easy compared to Hard. Additionally you will end up getting different loot from quests depending on the difficulty (for example. certain enemies that appear during quests in Hard won't appear in Easy)

 

[topeira]

(for example. certain enemies that appear during quests in Hard won't appear in Easy)

what? can you give an example?

 

[fushu]

well for example in Hard, a drowner popped up during the blacksmith quest at the beginning, where as in easy nothing appears. in Hard there was a high level water hag protecting one of the treasures in the swamp, in Easy nothing was protecting the treasure.