Most fun difficulty?

[Mkok]

I was wondering which difficulty is the most fun one? Either in the concept of what you enjoy more, or in the concept of how many features the difficulty has that are disabled on other difficulty leves.

One of the new player guides for xpiratez said that there is basically either JS or "the else" and they said the mod was designed with JS difficulty in mind. But some other post claimed xpiratez was designed with the 3rd difficulty in mind. I also found claims that lower difficulties have some features of the mod disabled.


So far I started a run on 2nd difficulty, made it to cca 2 in-game years, then I started a new run on JS, 6 months in and I already encountered quite a lot of new content I never encountered on the previous run.

[Psyentific]

Jack Sparrow has some unique content, as well as early/midgame difficulty spikes (see: missile strikes). Jack Sparrow is the almost-impossible meme difficulty, not the intended experience. It's aimed at experienced players using some powergamer stratz; for example if you don't get base defenses online within a few months the aforementioned missile strikes will quickly put your run into a deathspiral.

I usually play on Blackbeard, I find it's pretty fairly balanced. The easiest difficulty, Capn' Kidd, has the Wasteland Sorceress event disabled which locks you out of voodoo content. John Silver, between them, is good for noobs and I use it for messing around and casual runs. If you're looking for a challenge without the meme difficulty then Davy Jones is good.

The difficulty levels increase the number of enemies spawned in missions, as well as the percentage of enemies which start facing your landing zone. It also decreases the cash you get from selling items, so the profitability of loot is decreased and the viability of various manufacturing-for-profit changes.

[Delian]

Jack Sparrow is the almost-impossible meme difficulty

Jack Sparrow is so easy that I had to add armorMultipliers: [0.75, 1.0, 1.0, 1.25, 1.5] to Piratez_Globals.rul, just so that enemies don't die too fast. Also, that forces me to actually use chem weapons vs high armored enemies.

if you don't get base defenses online within a few months the aforementioned missile strikes will quickly put your run into a deathspiral

You'd have to play extremely badly to not have defenses up in time. Basically, this is something that will catch a first-time JS player once and that's it. And even if the missiles hit you, it's just a bit of money wasted to repair whatever got hit.

I'd say that JS is for experienced players, while Davy Jones is ok for everyone else. Difficulty doesn't have much effect on the game because once you survive a year or two, you'll be rolling in cash no matter what and it becomes impossible to die.

[Iazo]

Weren't you the guy who savescums? Kinda cheeky to claim JS is 'easy' if you savescum.

If not, ok, you're just good. JS is still not easy.

Also JS content is on an accelerated timetable. It's not stuff you will not meet in a normal playthrough.

[Abyss]

I played one JS/ironman campaign for two full in-game years (10 days IRL), carefully calculating every turn so no uber dies (peasants/dogs are disposable).
Then accidentally third or fourth major faction base assault was StarGods and that's it. Campaign is lost with no regrets.
It was prior to missiles introduction.

When missiles were introduced, JS/ironman is something like 25% of success past first missile strike, because it's always lack of funds because of constant re-recruitment. 
They say build farming bases. Savescummers, they are. There's no money to do so even with all cashy missions done and 4-5-6-10k score each month.

And then came Xilmi and introduced Brutal AI.
And on JS/ironman everything is fucked past first 10 battles.

So, most fun will be Davy Jones with Brutal AI + little savescumming.

[Mkok]

I played one JS/ironman campaign for two full in-game years (10 days IRL), carefully calculating every turn so no uber dies (peasants/dogs are disposable).
Then accidentally third or fourth major faction base assault was StarGods and that's it. Campaign is lost with no regrets.
It was prior to missiles introduction.

When missiles were introduced, JS/ironman is something like 25% of success past first missile strike, because it's always lack of funds because of constant re-recruitment. 
They say build farming bases. Savescummers, they are. There's no money to do so even with all cashy missions done and 4-5-6-10k score each month.

And then came Xilmi and introduced Brutal AI.
And on JS/ironman everything is fucked past first 10 battles.

So, most fun will be Davy Jones with Brutal AI + little savescumming.

I tried the JS, and the sheer amount of ninja bases was just so... boring. Like 20 bases with just 2 mission variations in them by the time missiles start raining in just 6 months? Why not I guess...

But by the way, does brutal AI work with xpiratez? I didnt use ti cause I read its buggy?

[Solersun]

So, most fun will be Davy Jones with Brutal AI + little savescumming.

Which settings boxce did you use for this?

[Xylon666Darkstar]

Jack Sparrow difficulty.

[Rokksta]

I played Jack Sparrow and i can survive in it, but this isn't fun for me. This is more for people who wants a true challenge.

I play mostly Davy Jones. The lowest difficulty i would go is Blackbeard. If you go lower then the amount of enemies will decrease quite a bit, which isn't actually good.

So my advice: Play Blackbeard. After you understand the game play Davy Jones. If you want a challenge play Jack Sparrow.

[RSSwizard]

John Silver or whatever its called.
The second from lowest difficulty.
Because the game is already tedious and difficult in the first place - but this difficulty doesn't arbitrarily nerf the tech tree like the lowest difficulty.

[Ruberto]

I found that I have most fun when playing on normal difficulty and then relaxing a bit.
It allows me to experiment with wacky suboptimal weapons and gear, and to send gals in silly costumes to some mission instead of min-maxing all the time.

[Tamren]

John Silver strikes the perfect balance for me. It's easy in some ways but properly difficult in others, especially for first-time players. It took me four whole tries just to reach the second year after going in blind, and I had to concede at that point because government splinter cell teams were kicking my door in on a weekly basis after my boss rank outstripped my income and tech level. I am currently on my fifth attempt.

I tried upping the difficulty to Blackbeard a few times but it didn't feel fun. I was constantly running the math in my head and realizing that I was behind the score curve, it felt like being saddled with a mortgage you know you'll never be able to pay off.