End Game Difficulty

[673f55be13444lamb_lamb]

Hi, new to the forums here. I really adore System Shock 2, and have played it many times, one of my favorite games. It got me to play other immersive sims like Prey etc, but without a doubt SS2 is still my favorite. As much as  I love it, I do, however, always notice a spike in enemy spawn rates at the end of the game, on the Command Deck and on The Many. The game seems to suddenly spawn harder enemies such as rumblers left and right, and personally I found it a bit frustrating. Does anyone know of any mods that lower the end game enemy spawn rates? Considering making my own if there aren't any. Thanks, lamb.

[673f55be14b0bMarvin]

Since the discussion came up many times: Are you specifically talking about respawning enemies, meaning: Enemies spawning in areas you previously cleared completely, or are you talking about the overall difficulty of the pre-spawned enemies? Respawning in BotM wasn't really a thing.

[673f55be14d18voodoo47]

you can skip the really, apart from the boss chamber BotM has no active respawning.

SCP b6 takes care of the corridor of death on Command, and yes, high level enemies will spawn, this is the last quarter of the game, so no surprise there.

you can disable spawning completely, but to just tweak it, you would have to edit the mod.

[673f55be14e47lamb_lamb]

Hi Marvin and voodoo47. I'd say for BotM, it was just the sheer number of high level enemies. For other areas Command, maybe it was the rate at which the high level enemies respawned. I quite like that they respawn though, it adds tension, but maybe a bit too fast for my sake. Maybe I just need to have a better build at this point in the game though. And sorry if this has been brought up many times before, I had searched a few key words for posts a bit before posting myself.

[673f55be14fa0ZylonBane]

Games are supposed to get harder as you get closer to the end, and players are supposed to get strong enough to handle it. Did you put all your points into swimming or something?

[673f55be1522fsarge945]

And here I am thinking the spawn rates are generally TOO LOW across the game...

[673f55be1537bvoodoo47]

as far as I'm concerned, the sweet spot is right before the player realizes that yep, that guy just respawned again, there he goes as usual and the immersion is broken.

I'm hoping b6 is exactly at that spot.

[673f55be154dflamb_lamb]

I know there are different level's of experience in the community. Veteran players have gameplay and build experience to make even the hardest difficulty a cake walk, while newcomers might struggle even on normal. For me, I've completed the game three times so far. During the last playthrough, the beginning and middle of the game was a lot easier than it used to be for sure. I guess I felt there was a difficulty spike near the end of the game a bit though. I guess I'll do another playthrough and mix up my build a bit and see how I feel afterwards. Thanks for chipping in everyone.

[673f55be155e4lamb_lamb]

And thanks voodoo for pointing out SCP b6 and the link to the other mod <3

[673f55be159d5sarge945]

I know there are different level's of experience in the community. Veteran players have gameplay and build experience to make even the hardest difficulty a cake walk, while newcomers might struggle even on normal. For me, I've completed the game three times so far. During the last playthrough, the beginning and middle of the game was a lot easier than it used to be for sure. I guess I felt there was a difficulty spike near the end of the game a bit though. I guess I'll do another playthrough and mix up my build a bit and see how I feel afterwards. Thanks for chipping in everyone.

I don't think the disparity is difficulty related. I think it's related to what stage of the game you're in. In the early game, virtually nothing respawns, to the point where medsci1 basically stays empty forever, with the rare exception of 1 extra hybrid sometimes. Same with eng and hyrdo, which both spawn a little more but not much. Then there's that 1 spawner in command which is just ridiculous and pumps out spiders and rumblers constantly the moment you look away, but I think that was bugged.

I used to think the spawners were too low across the entire game, but I might have to revise that to say that they are probably too low up to recreation. After recreation they do get a bit more constant, and the enemies they spawn are much harder, so it evens out a little more. That said, outside of the ridiculous spawner in command1, it is probably still a tad low for my tastes, but I'm also a masochist when it comes to videogames.

[673f55be15b4evoodoo47]

my last two pre-release b6 runs were completely spawn focused, medsci, eng, hydro and ops spawns were found to be completely adequate, if you wait for the ecology to fire twice, you will get min 2 spawns per level, so if your medsci is empty, then you might have something else going on, because no way that's possible under normal circumstances (note - in most cases, you need to murder the entire level first before new spawns can happen).

b6 however boosts rec spawning a bit, resolves the corridor of death situation on command1 (not bugged, but a very unusual setup that was guaranteed to spawn to full no matter the settings on the eco), and also a small boost to command2.

the weirdest thing I've discovered was ops3 not starting to spawn until all the eggs in that narrow corridor close to the sim unit are destroyed (fixed).

[673f55be15c57sarge945]

I think the reason medsci feels so empty is because the deck is so open, so you can feasibly go everywhere you need when returning to the deck (like to the recharging station) without running into a single respawn.

Let's be honest, 2 enemies in a full map really isn't that many.

[673f55be15d2bvoodoo47]

yes, but they will be there in 4 minutes. almost no chance to miss.

[673f55be15e2dsarge945]

A typical experienced player will leave the elevator and beeline directly to the charging station, then come back, maybe do some item sorting or buy some stats in the safe area, where the enemies can't get them anyway.

That takes less than 1 minute to do, let alone 4.

[673f55be15f92Join2]

Modern gamer meets old school game design that presents the slightest resistance. Congrats on making it to the end I guess, better than that game "journalist" that got bested by a pigeon on Cuphead's tutorial.

[673f55be160b3icemann]

Huh

[673f55be161b7Join2]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOjXaAZHEQE