[Xenomorph]

What determines difficulty during these matches? I generally see somethings being easier but those are usually set objectives (blowing up ships on first stage). I just played fistful of sand and the antagonist skill was 31% but it was easy as hell. Enemies went down super fast and did low damage. Very bizarre.

[Ac3_f4ce]

When an antag invades a mission their presence lowers enemy stats supposedly. But there are times where the enemies are the most efficient killers and the Antag didnt have to do anything.

[Xenomorph]

Yeah I kind of wish it would actually tell you the difficulty level before you were going into the mission as opposed to after. Let you have a general idea of what to escape.

[zMalevolencEz]

Its usually a 5-10% MMR difference up or down to the combined average of the Raiders team. This can go one of two ways it's a balanced fight on both sides or the Antagonist has terminators for bots/stormtroopers for bots.

I'd say about 60% of the time it's normal but since they opened up the range for shorter quests times for antags a while back I'd say it's more hot or miss.

[PohtHehd]

It has been my experience that at the so called "sweet spot" of MMR, 30-40%, the AI is woefully inadequate to aid the antagonist against a basically coordinated team.

I saw a Ginebra tank 3 Hades rifle grunts and kill them all with strikes. I left those grunts alone for 5 seconds and they were eviscerated. I know this because by the time I spawned in to start the second phase of Low Blow the Raiders had already destroyed the first 2 turrets. Ginebra took down a turret BY HERSELF without a gun or her cat powers being utilized.

There was literally nothing stopping them from coming straight for me.

Similarly, I had a team of 150+ Raiders with me as we fought a level 200+ antagonist. There was literally nothing stopping me from rushing him as soon as he spawned. I had at least one other Raider with me at all times because there was fuck-all to go kill except the antagonist. And this was on Breath of Hope!

Props to that antagonist for not disconnecting. We didn't give him an inch.  He was no threat at all. I don't even know if he was good at the game or not because we had him at such a disadvantage the whole match he pretty much died immediately following any confrontation.

Shit is fucked.

Sucks to be an antagonist.

[MSE_Karen]

Hi guys,

In a recent post, MSE_Jvela explained how the MMR system and the difficulty works. Maybe this clarifies things a little bit: https://www.spacelordsthegame.com/community/index.php?topic=3694.15

I hope this helps. Thank you for helping us making a better game!

[PohtHehd]

It doesn't help, Karen. In fact. It negative helps.

It is interesting to see some incredibly vague allusions to the MMR process but saying that difficulty is not tied to MMR doesn't help US at all. It might make sense to people who can freely read concept designs or manuals on how the development and purpose of the difficulty system is supposed to work. But, we do not have those. We have MMR.

The game itself says that higher MMR is higher difficulty and that gives you higher rewards. It even encourages players to try to maintain a high MMR for better rewards. Nope. That stuff isn't true.

So, while it may seem like Jvela's post addresses MMR to the simple-minded, it does not in fact address anything relevant to the discussion of difficulty, MMR, antagonists or AI statistics.

A more apt and informative post would be; examples, with video, of high and low difficulty AI, what we can do to get the desired AI tendencies/statistics, what exactly impacts difficulty and how we can anticipate what the next difficulty for the next match will be. As I said above, no matter how high my MMR gets the AI never seems to be able to stand toe-to-toe with the Raiders.

Now, granted, perhaps the AI stops becoming inbred at the 60-70% MMRs but there is no reason to try and get that high. I'd say with how difficulty currently works; that is an impossibility. So the MMR might not matter all the time, as you imply by referencing to Jvela, but WHEN does it matter?

It does not appear to be between 1-40 for the antagonist. Should I power through being a Raider, find a mission which I can easily beat, and achieve a high MMR? Should I lower it?

These are the only two options available to me, you see.

[PohtHehd]

Is this not an issue which MSE believes is important?

Anyway, for everyone else. I have gotten my MMR to 0.

It has totally broken the game. By lowering my MMR to below 1 I have essentially become unranked.

This makes it so whenever I antagonize ANYONE, unless they are ALSO unranked, then the AI gets a MASSIVE boost to damage and health.

So much so that they become IMPOSSIBLE to deal with, especially Wardogs. Wardogs come in such great numbers already that having their statistics scale like they were a Hades makes them literally invincible.

I had a group of level 100+ Raiders who I got matched with at MMR 0. Their collective Raider skill was 32%. They didn't make it past the first phase of Short-Fused and this is with me helping them or at least not interfering. I saw a Wardog simply punch their Harec and he was downed. He was killed a moment later by the same Wardog firing a shotgun blast.

This is only possible because of what I can do with the system. I can control my MMR and that gives me complete control over any and every match I play in.

When I am a Raider my MMR lowers the difficulty so fucking low. Hades rifle grunts have, no shit, 80 HP. They will unload a clip into me for something around 60 damage total. Their strikes will do 4 damage. This is at 10% difficulty. I can probably get it lower depending on the other Raider's MMRs.

So..I have demonstrated that MMR is an incredibly heavy influence on difficulty in the game and that it is evidently one of the only deciding factors.

I am just one person but having MMR 0 means I will always have the advantage and I can give that advantage to fellow Raiders while using it as an antagonist makes me an unkillable supergod. Which goes back to my point about bandying about Jvela's post, it is giving people the wrong idea because it is not entirely truthful.

If you want to succeed at this game then you should lower your MMR as it has everything to do with difficulty. Your level, your forge level, your amount of matches played - none of it matters. If it does it is in such a minuscule way as to be totally negligible.

And, if anyone was wondering, my rewards have not changed at all. The only thing that has changed is now, as an antagonist, the Raiders I fight will receive a 0% skill bonus from me. They get nothing from fighting me and with a near-perfect performance they can barely get a 6 with me as an antagonist. Not to mention the immortal butchers that the AI becomes.

I had a friend, whose MMR was above 40%, who told me about a long ass 40+ minute match on a mission which was rated as 42% difficulty. He received a 5.6 for his troubles and got something like 1k gold and 600 faction. At my MMR I can do that same mission FOUR times as fast as him getting a 9.1 each time, rather effortlessly, and come away with 12k+ in gold and 4k+ in faction. In the same amount of time.

In the SAME amount of time. Needless to say, he decided to start lowering his MMR by becoming a friendly antagonist. I told him I thought it was an incredibly wise decision.

Lower your MMR. You will thank me later.

[Tekato]

Is this not an issue which MSE believes is important?

Anyway, for everyone else. I have gotten my MMR to 0.

It has totally broken the game. By lowering my MMR to below 1 I have essentially become unranked.

This makes it so whenever I antagonize ANYONE, unless they are ALSO unranked, then the AI gets a MASSIVE boost to damage and health.

So much so that they become IMPOSSIBLE to deal with, especially Wardogs. Wardogs come in such great numbers already that having their statistics scale like they were a Hades makes them literally invincible.

I had a group of level 100+ Raiders who I got matched with at MMR 0. Their collective Raider skill was 32%. They didn't make it past the first phase of Short-Fused and this is with me helping them or at least not interfering. I saw a Wardog simply punch their Harec and he was downed. He was killed a moment later by the same Wardog firing a shotgun blast.

This is only possible because of what I can do with the system. I can control my MMR and that gives me complete control over any and every match I play in.

When I am a Raider my MMR lowers the difficulty so fucking low. Hades rifle grunts have, no shit, 80 HP. They will unload a clip into me for something around 60 damage total. Their strikes will do 4 damage. This is at 10% difficulty. I can probably get it lower depending on the other Raider's MMRs.

So..I have demonstrated that MMR is an incredibly heavy influence on difficulty in the game and that it is evidently one of the only deciding factors.

I am just one person but having MMR 0 means I will always have the advantage and I can give that advantage to fellow Raiders while using it as an antagonist makes me an unkillable supergod. Which goes back to my point about bandying about Jvela's post, it is giving people the wrong idea because it is not entirely truthful.

If you want to succeed at this game then you should lower your MMR as it has everything to do with difficulty. Your level, your forge level, your amount of matches played - none of it matters. If it does it is in such a minuscule way as to be totally negligible.

And, if anyone was wondering, my rewards have not changed at all. The only thing that has changed is now, as an antagonist, the Raiders I fight will receive a 0% skill bonus from me. They get nothing from fighting me and with a near-perfect performance they can barely get a 6 with me as an antagonist. Not to mention the immortal butchers that the AI becomes.

I had a friend, whose MMR was above 40%, who told me about a long ass 40+ minute match on a mission which was rated as 42% difficulty. He received a 5.6 for his troubles and got something like 1k gold and 600 faction. At my MMR I can do that same mission FOUR times as fast as him getting a 9.1 each time, rather effortlessly, and come away with 12k+ in gold and 4k+ in faction. In the same amount of time.

In the SAME amount of time. Needless to say, he decided to start lowering his MMR by becoming a friendly antagonist. I told him I thought it was an incredibly wise decision.

Lower your MMR. You will thank me later.

So true mmr is so stupid you pretty much get punished for being good at the game.