I've never really played a game of this exact type before, so when I started the game and it asked me to "choose easy if you've not payed a game of this type before", I chose to go with this difficulty. Hearing about people having to start over after 9 - 10 hours of gameplay also pushed me towards this choice.

My question is that if anyone knows what exact differences are present between the different difficulties?

Is it things like alien/soldier health, credits earned etc.? Does it also in anyway change the number of missions? (as there is not really a "story"). I ask this because after only a few hours of playing the game I'm at the the first alien base.

http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Difficulty_(EU2012) Here you go. Easy is a waste of time though. Games like this are only good when they're challenging.

The general idea is that even though people start over, they can still have fun as it happens. It probably sounds weird, but its possible.

It changes quite a bit, actually. From the DefaultGameCore.ini file...

You get 50% more funding on Easy. Your soldiers all get +2 health (Classic being the base), and enemies have less health. Thin Men, for example, have 4 health on Classic (so they don't die instantly to grenades). It also alters how much panic you get after a mission, and how much panic you start with. Civilians killed by a Cryssalid off-screen will NEVER turn into zombies (there's a 50% chance on Classic). There's also a limit of 5 hostiles that can be attacking at any given time - if you trigger any more, they will run off screen. You can only lose, at maximum, 1 country per month. You start with an extra 100 credits.

@Terramagi: I'd at least try the game on Normal. I agree, it seems like Easy.. is really Easy in this game.

I've read about an option of rookies being generated with randomized stats, how is that possible to toggle on? It'd be great to have some dice roll factor in on this as well.

@Funkydupe said:

@Terramagi: I'd at least try the game on Normal. I agree, it seems like Easy.. is really Easy in this game.

I've read about an option of rookies being generated with randomized stats, how is that possible to toggle on? It'd be great not to have some dice roll factor in on this as well.

Rookies with random stats is a Second Wave option, which is incomplete in the game files. You can download a file to enable it if you REALLY want to from a mod site like Nexus but standard modding rules apply.

I played my first playthrough on Normal and found it to be less difficult than I'd like. I imagine Easy would just be boring.

it's a modern game. Normal is the old Easy, and Easy is the old Very Easy.

"Easy" does seem quite..... well, easy. Will try it out a bit longer. If it carries on at this rate, will try to rachet up the difficulty setting.

What is better, start over or just change the difficulty and carry on with my current progress?

Just play normal. I hardly had any challenge after the initial learning stage.

UFO/X-Com/XCOM are all by design supposed to be tougher in the beginning. It is designed to give you that feeling of initial panic, then the stage of adaption, then the one where you start kicking ass.

As someone that played easy, my inexperience lead to me getting wiped. I don't know how I manage to suck so bad. My guys are in cover, and I don't rush in anywhere, yet somehow everything hits me and does a shit tonne of damage. For fun, I tried the first mission on impossible, and true to its name, I don't see how you can play it. I missed every shot. All of their shots hit me, regardless of full or partial cover, and I think I may have killed one section, before they wiped me. I'd really love to know why the concepts of cover don't seem to actually apply in my xcom universe.

@supamon said:

Just play normal. I hardly had any challenge after the initial learning stage.

This was my experience as well. You'll face some difficulty early on as you learn how it works, but you should be able to recover from any fumbles you make, because even on Normal, the results are not catastrophic if you screw up a little bit.

Apparently everyone is so much better than I at this game. I'm playing on easy, started over on easy, and still getting rocked. Love the game and find it plenty challenging on easy.

Started off on Easy, because Ryan freaked me out about the game's difficulty by always talking about how it was kicking the shit out of him, then switched to Normal after a little bit when I realized it wasn't that difficult. Currently working on a Classic Ironman playthrough now.

I think you do yourself a disservice if you don't start on normal. There is nothing wrong with easy I just think some of the charm of the game is lost when the game is not challenging. I would also suggest if you decide not to play on iron man mode you limit your reloads to only when you make a play mistake such as moving to the wrong area.

I really have been interested in the game, but I could see being frustrated from the sounds of it. Is it very easy to back yourself into a corner when it comes to upgrades and then result in having to start over?

@MightyDuck said:

I really have been interested in the game, but I could see being frustrated from the sounds of it. Is it very easy to back yourself into a corner when it comes to upgrades and then result in having to start over?

Depends on the difficulty.

Normal? I didn't even start launching satellites until the third month and I got through losing only one country.

Classic? Yeah, you can probably get hosed.

Impossible? Oh man, you are TOTALLY fucked if you don't know what you're doing.

Point is, it's very hard to actually lose the game in Normal or Easy. You might get a few nasty surprises if you try to say, advance the storyline past the Alien Base without having Firestorms pre-built and armed on all continents. But you can always recover on those difficulties, unless you REALLY fuck it up.

@Terramagi: Thanks for the information.

I'll give the game a seriously look then. This is what has had me holding off for this whole time.

Classic difficulty is currently stabbing me repeatedly in the throat.

Normal/Ironman seems to be the way to go to keep things tense while leaving yourself a decent shot at victory.

encountered my first Sectopod and Ethereal last night, my team got WIPED!!! only one dude survived the mission with 1 health... this is gonna get real ugly

Just picked this up on amazon for $35. Here's hoping I enjoy it!

I got it during the sale over the weekend and I have been playing through on easy as I have never really played a turn based strategy game and "easy" is a good difficulty for a first time player for the first time through the game. It's not overly challenging, but I have still had several missions go horribly. I look forward to cranking up the difficulty after I have finished my first playthrough.

It depends on what you want from the game. I'm enjoying "easy" my first playthrough. However, I am only using four soldiers on missions. I like the balance of having only one soldier from each class. Plus, it's cheaper since I have to outfit less soldiers, and I don't need to spend as much time training reserve units.

I don't care for the resource management aspect of the game, so easy is more forgiving in that department, and I can focus on combat.

It stays dramatic because you're horribly outnumbered, and losing one soldier puts you at a serious disadvantage (especially on ironman).

I'm sure many people are gonna say this is weak, and I'm fine with that. Again, it depends on what you want from the game. I like a four member squad and "easy" provides a nice challenge on your first campaign.

I was having a decent time early on in normal mode, but about 2-3 hours in I just got fucked so bad. Lost almost all my promoted soldiers and multiple countries had already left. I'm going to load a previous save and go easy.

Just remember, you aren't done until you've at least Ironman Classic'd that bitch.

@Hizang said:

I was having a decent time early on in normal mode, but about 2-3 hours in I just got fucked so bad. Lost almost all my promoted soldiers and multiple countries had already left. I'm going to load a previous save and go easy.

perfectly viable man. As someone who played through the older xcom titles I think going easy is a great way to ease new player into it. Challenging yourself in with hard games is great but what's the point if you're not having fun. That's why we play games, right?!

@Hizang said:

I was having a decent time early on in normal mode, but about 2-3 hours in I just got fucked so bad. Lost almost all my promoted soldiers and multiple countries had already left. I'm going to load a previous save and go easy.

perfectly viable man. As someone who played through the older xcom titles I think going easy is a great way to ease new player into it. Challenging yourself in with hard games is great but what's the point if you're not having fun. That's why we play games, right?!

This is the first game of its type that I've played, so I went with Easy. I'm still having a ton of fun with it and I've had a few tough battles.

Fuck Chryssalids.

I have played on normal/ironman since owning this game. Was rough treading starting out but have learned a lot. Will start up a 6th play through today.

It's a really good time on any setting.

I'm finding the game plenty challenging even on easy, granted I don't think I've played a turn based tactical strategy game in my entire life before this.

If you play Ironman, even easy can be rage-inducingly challenging with bad rolls.

I just beat it on easy non-iron man, and I'm thinking about going back through for another run on a higher difficulty.

Also, this game has a bell-curve of difficulty. It starts out pretty easy and quite fun, and then gets testicle-shrinkingly nasty quite fast, but then once you start upgrading your equipment and such it starts getting easier again.

Important point to all new players, interrogations are VERY important, whenever you encounter a new enemy type, capture it if you can, they give you research credits (which makes the respective research type finish faster). I found the easiest way to do this was put the arc thrower on a support class with the extra movement ability so they can get in close easier, also once they reach Major they can carry the arc thrower and another item.