Let's talk about... Difficulty
Let’s talk about DIFFICULTY!
In Our World there are three different kinds of difficulty that we need to take into account when we talk about difficulty: Easy Difficulty, Hard Difficulty and Static Difficulty. Only Rare and Epic Infestations use Static Difficulty, so let’s tackle those first and then we can forget about them and move on.
- Static Difficulty
Static Difficulty can be seen in Rare and Epic Infestations only, these missions are the difficulty they are and there’s nothing you can do to change them. Easier Rare and Epic Infestations are more common than hard ones, and that’s about that. So let’s move on to Easy and Hard difficulty.
- ‘Easy’ and ‘Hard’
Easy and Hard difficulties in Our World are ‘dynamic’, this means that your actions in the game change the difficulty of the missions rather than them being the same for everyone (like the static difficulty missions).
Whether missions are ‘Easy’ or ‘Hard’ is randomised, with roughly 25% of Missions falling into the ‘Hard’ Category and the rest (75%) falling into the ‘Easy’ category. Now it’s important to note that these Missions look the same on the map, the levels are the only way of telling which category they fall into.
- ‘Easy’
‘Easy’ Missions take their difficulty from your overall power level. This is calculated by taking the average of your top 6 Heroes and Weapons, ignoring the very top Weapon and Hero. This gives us something which we refer to as your Player Power Level. Which easy missions you see in Our World fall within approximately 2 levels of your Player Power Level.
For example if your Player Power Level is 15, you will see Missions ranging between 13 - 17. It is possible that some missions will fall outside of this range on occasion, but this will be the norm.
So if you want to up the levels of your ‘Easy’ Missions what you’ll need to do is upgrade your Weapons and Heroes to move your Player Power Level upwards.
Calculating Player Power Level
Here’s how to figure out your Player Power Level in three easy steps!
Ignore your highest-power Hero and highest-power Weapon.
Then, from the remaining Heroes and Weapons calculate the average ‘Power’ of your most powerful 3 Heroes and 3 weapons.
Divide by 10
And that’s it!
So if the average of these Heroes and Weapons was 150 then your Player Power Level would be 15 and you would see ‘Easy’ Missions in the range of 13,14,15,16 and 17.
- ‘Hard’
‘Hard’ Missions take their difficulty from the highest ever completed Mission of that type, but are also inspired by your ‘Easy’ Missions. The lower end of ‘Hard’ Missions start at one level above your hardest ‘Easy’ Mission level, and your highest ‘Hard’ Mission will be one level higher than the hardest mission of that type that you have completed.
For both ‘Easy’ and ‘Hard’ missions the spread of Missions within each range is flat. This means that if your ‘Easy’ Mission range is 13-17 you’ll find a roughly equal spread of Missions levelling 13, 14, 15, 16 and 17 and if your ‘Hard’ Mission range is 18-22 you’ll find a roughly equal spread of Missions levelling 18, 19, 20, 21 and 22.
Let’s have an example:
My Player Power Level is 15, and I've completed a level 21 Encounter before.
I'll see level 13-17 Encounters in the ‘Easy’ Missions that spawn, and level 18-22 Encounters in the hard slots.
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Mission difficulty changes
In Our World missions get more difficult as you progress, but what if you push too far and start seeing missions which are too tough to complete? From now on, if you feel you need to back off slightly, simply stop playing the most difficult Missions, and you’ll start to see the maximum difficulty reducing over time. When you are ready for more of a challenge, start playing difficult Missions again and your maximum Mission level will go up just as before.
If you don't play the hardest level missions you see on the map (that level is determined by the hardest mission you have ever won + 1, ie. "max difficulty"), the levels will start decreasing over time.
At the time of the release of the feature, the max difficulty is reduced by approximately two levels per week, unless you start playing the most difficult missions again. The maximum reduction is a total of five levels. The reduction will never impact the level of the easiest missions.
The difficulty reduction affects each mission type separately (note that Rescue and Encounter missions are considered the same type).
Missions with static difficulty, such as rare and epic infestations, are not affected and you will continue to see them as before.