Context thread: https://forums.ubisoft.com/showthrea...culty-settings

Irreversible, artificial power is the (2nd) biggest problem when it comes to difficulty balance.
(Obviously the 1st problem is the AI issue)

I'll explain what I mean a little bit here, but first;

What are the artificial powers?
-Tiered Loot
-Gear Score
-Skills
-Perks
-Class passive abilities
-HUD elements
-Preparations
-Consumables
Anything, really, that bolsters any part of your character after the you leave the Wasp. After all, Nomad is a Ghost. You’re already as powerful as any soldier can be, so anything that makes you (the character) more powerful would be an artificial power.
To clarify, equipment like grenades, drone spray, sensor launcher, etc. are not considered an artificial power.

Playing the game on extreme difficulty with no HUD, at the very start of the game is as hard as the game gets. Everything after that makes the game easier. Pick up your first gun, and due to gear score, you’re more resilient, and do more effective damage. Get your first level, unlock a class, and *poof* you’re significantly more badass in an instant, and forever. Unlock a skill like “Tireless” and, again instantly and forever, you have 40% more stamina.

Now, Ubisoft doesn’t pay me, so I’m sure as **** not gonna be bothered to do math for them. Any math nerds out there are welcome to work out realistic numbers.
(This is just example to communicate the idea. These numbers don’t have actual value. And to simplify further, just pretend there is only one difficulty setting in the game.)

Gear score Level 1 with no skills/perks/powers with no HUD = 0% artificial power
Gear Score Level 250 with all kills/perks/powers with full HUD = 100% artificial power
Assigning totally made up, but fair, numbers to each source of artificial power gives us something like this:
Tiered loot = 5% power
Gear score = 1% power per 10 levels
Skills = 15% power
Perks = 10% power
Core class passive bonuses = 10% power
Full HUD = 25% power
Preparations = 5% power
Consumables = 5% power

Once you’ve completed the game (Maxed gear score, unlocked every perk/skill, etc.) you currently have the option to ignore Consumables and Preparations. You can fully turn off the HUD. And you can unequip two of your three perks and replace the remaining one with something worthless, like a ghost war only perk. In this example that means that you can only control 35% of your characters power. The game is permanently 65% easier than it was when you started.

What if you want to make the game harder than that? Start a new character and:
Don’t equip any tier weapons
Don’t equip any armor beyond what you start with
Don’t spend any skill points on Classes/Perks/Skills
Don’t use the HUD
Don’t use Preparations or Consumables
BUT ALSO:
Lose your progress
Lose your collected weapons of choice
Lose your Battle Pass rewards

But this isn’t a realistic solution (For most players) as it would require a massive amount of play testing to find that sweet spot when raising these individual power levels to suit your desired difficulty of play. And there is no going back. If you unlock a perk or reach a certain gear score level that makes the game too easy for you, you must start all over. This is a lot to balance!

So as I said at the beginning: Irreversible, artificial power is the (2nd) biggest problem when it comes to difficulty balance. That’s how I think Ubi can fix this, reverse some of the design choices like the community has requested. Like Gear Score, and tiered loot. And give player available options to reverse some of their character progression, without sacrificing their actual progress. Example of this have already been discussed on these forums also.
Like equipping only one weapon.
Limiting active skills available at one time by removing the flat passive effect from each skill, making them behave like perks, and expanding the available perks slots. Or plainly just giving the player the option to toggle them on or off.


Hopefully this made sense, and hopefully someone at Ubi sees this.