What exactly is "game difficulty"?

[Eigenvalue]

What exactly changes with the game difficulty? I am guessing that only the damage you receive (from enemies, mines and so on), and not the damage you deal or the numbers of total health points. Hopefully nothing quest-oriented.

[Men are from Slars]

Assuming it is the same as with every other spidweb game, difficulty affects only one thing directly: enemy experience level. This in turn affects their health, attack power, and dodge and hit rates.

[Nioca]

I thought difficulty only increased health in the Avernum series.

[Men are from Slars]

Nope. In Geneforge (and A4) Str, Dex, Int, and End are all determined based on level, and base level is multiplied by some factor dependng on your difficulty.

[Fort]

So it would be fair to say that difficulty modifies monsters' levels to make them stronger or weaker. You don't get more experience on Torment, though.

[Hume]

Well, in GF series, difficulty level indeed has nothing to do with enemy hit points.The damage you recieve on four different levels are 50%, 100%, 150% and 200% respectively. It also affect the chance they can hit and dodge. The latter hardly matters since the attack skill of the pc usually be high enough to hit 100% of the times. Their bonus chance to hit make investments in dex for dodging almost pointless on torment. Simply assume enemies always hit.

[Dikiyoba]

Originally by Hume:

 

Quote:

The latter hardly matters since the attack skill of the pc usually be high enough to hit 100% of the times.

Not always true. I usually pump my mechanics and leadership (too) high early in the game, and so there's usually a window where my attack skills are below where they should be and I end up missing a lot.

 

Dikiyoba.

[Fort]

I agree with Hume on this one; the difficulty didn't noticeably change the enemies' dodging rates in the Avernum games.

[Men are from Slars]

Hmm.

 

On second thought, I don't remember when I tested this, so maybe I never did for GF1-3. Doh.