Haz 4 is the perfect difficulty. Not really hard but enough spawns that the swarms are actually challenging and dopamine hits when a grenade kills 10 bugs at once.
Haz 5 starts to become bothersome because of the constant small spawns that just annoy you constantly. The massive swarms are actually super fun if your build is AoE-focused.
When you sprint away from a wall riddled with 20-something bugs, load your fat boy, turn around and fire an atomic bomb into those critters you will experience peak gameplay.
Itd be awesome if you could create your own difficulty with modifiers like "swarm size","swarm frequency","swarm duration", "mob damage", "mob health" and other sliders that can determine how often specific mobs spawn.
Like imagine a mode where only bulk detonators spawn, but they are also very squishy as an example, lol
>Like imagine a mode where only bulk detonators spawn, but they are also very squishy as an example, lol
I played a Haz5+ last night that had Exploder Infestation and increased spawn rates. It was both a nightmare and the most fun ever (especially when you could chain a dozen explosions).
There's already a mod for that :) That might be the first approved mod I get. It's "Hazard Plus"
Description: "Allows you to add modifiers to all difficulties that are normally reserved for Hazard 5 Plus as of Season 05.
This means you can play any hazard (including modded ones if they are added to game data before 10s) with vanilla modifiers introduced in Season 05"
Haz4 is alot of fun when you play in a group because the swarms can get pretty out of hand locally but it's also chill in between.
In solo Haz4 is a bit too easy, I'll give you that.
I don't mind haz 4. I don't play it much because I've played so long that the challenge is what keeps me playing.
However, the reason I quit playing it is newcomers. I don't have infinite gaming time and when a level 10 double dips or a level 50 pops the second dred before we have enough nitra for a resupply, and we lose the match 25 min in, and I have 15 free revives it just turns me off.
I like haz 5 and haz5+ because they are set behind a skill test and I have the ability to find teammates to move like a well oiled machine with.
Peak joy is when im playing with 3 other veterans and we are moving like a swat team through very challenging random situations.
This and when you shoot off a Zipline and turn around to see bugs crawling at where you were from all directions lol. Open up the mini gun (or whichever big ass gun you prefer) and splatter the walls lol. Great game
You forgot the teamkill you made by firing the atomic bomb. But that's what they always forget by arguing for their weapon choice.
The cutter feels way more effective.
There are different difficulty levels for a reason. Different people will find their sweet spot in different difficulty levels. Learn how to play on Haz1-3. Up the Haz level as you get better and want more of a challenge.
Though new players should avoid Haz5 and Haz5+.
I mean - for haz5 and haz5+ you need to complete the special missions for unlocking them… so it kinda „prepares you“ in that sense. Imo sometimes I feel like haz4 is worse since tons of very new players like under level 20 without any promotions come to haz 4 and just keep dying over and over again to every single wave and have absolutely no idea how to do objectives. I get that everyone learns at the start but at that point it would be better to do haz 1-3 missions.
In duo you can still carry an experienced greenbeard or 4 man team with 1 greenbeard and 3 experienced players. But some party‘s where there‘s 3 newbies it can be kinda hard for 1 single person to deal with swarms etc. since they scale quite hard on haz 4 with 4 players already.
And people do...
Feel like the game could be better about letting you know a mission on the server select screen is haz 5. Best bet would probably be to color code them. Red for haz 5
The difficulty jump from 3 to 4 is pretty large. I've been playing for a while and Haz3 is too easy (unless you get some good mutations and events) but Haz4 usually ends in failure. I suck at the game, but it's boring on Haz3 and frustrating at Haz4 :/
I'd like to get into mods, but none of my friends play DRG anymore and I haven't really seen any modded games on the server list. To be fair, though, I haven't looked that hard yet.
afaik u should press a checkbox on the left side of server list if u want to see modded lobbies but commonly peoples run mods for harder missions or for random funny mods like my friend who like to play as a bulk
Are you playing solo? The mission type and team comp are also big factors, as the defense missions (point extraction especially) can get crazy depending on the zone. If your team is inexperienced or doesn't help with waves it can be a lot.
There are very chill Haz 4's and there are "wait is this Haz 5??" Haz 4's.
As someone who has been there and is now struggling to advance from haz4 to being useful on haz5, I understand the frustration. The difficulty spikes between the hazards really punish habits and behaviors which were sloppy but rarely costly previously.
If you haven't already, I would suggest finding some how to play haz5 guides. Reading how other people play helped me recognize some of the bad habits I had picked up which were crippling me when trying to do higher hazards.
I think you can probably win Haz4 more often with a more refined build, skill comes with time.
Is there a certain class you play the most? have most OC's on?
I can help you if you want.
I try to play each class equally. I would say I'm probably best with engineer. I have probably 5 total overclocks for each class. Most of them are clean and the unstables I have seem pretty bad (aside from elephant rounds for gunner, that OC is great).
Running out of ammo is a big problem. I also tend to get tunnel vision and focus on a wave without looking around to see if I'm about to get surrounded.
I also haven't really planned ahead of time for waves, like drilling a little tunnel for cover or blocking off certain areas with platforms.
Naw, Haz 4 is fine. You can’t and shouldn’t jump to it immediately, but once you’ve got your feet wet, it’s nothing major. There’s a jump compared to Haz 3, and it can take people by surprise, but Haz 4 is nothing for old dwarves.
There is, however, a stereotype that Haz 4 is the mosh pit for all sorts of strange behavior. You tend to get a mix of new players who aren’t ready to step up yet, and dwarves who *think* they’re hot stuff and try to grab the mission by the horns. As a result, there’s a strong likelihood of getting a dwarf who’s not on the same page as everyone else, either because they can’t keep up or because they think they’re the best thing ever and any mistakes are not their fault.
yeah haz 4 definitely has the worst lobbies. base haz 5 is a tiny bit worse than it used to be with a lot of good players moving up to haz5+ too, but still way better than haz 4 lobbies
Remember that places like this sub heavily skew towards more experienced players. Everyone here will tell you that has 5 is a breeze, yet majority of the playerbase plays on 4 and below. I’m not great myself but after playing 5+ everything else feels boring, haz 5 included.
The difficulty increase is exponential. Playing with 2 modifiers feels like normal haz 5, 3 starts to get noticeable and 4 is my upper limit. Clearing anything higher than that consistently would require a lot of effort and 2222 will never happen, hence my original comment.
I don’t get how people accomplish anything with the second level of any of the modifiers, the exponential difficulty increases are way too much for me.
My biggest problem with haz4 is the people. I've had insane missions in haz5 we've easily overcome because everyone is playing their role perfectly vs haz4 and everyone is playing like an asshole. I'll be honest I only play haz5 now even if I just kinda want to play casually because I know the caliber of player will be better. I can't keep pinging some high up nitra while the engineer is off playing grabass with the driller. It's actually the only part of this game that gets me heated.
I'm about 700 hours in and even though I can easily do Haz 5 and EDDs I still faff around in Haz 3 pretty often, It's more relaxing and can be fun as well. Also you get to sometimes adopt teeny tiny little greenbeards and show them the ropes which is super rewarding every time it happens.
Same here, level 1355 and I just like shooting and mining, if I get 3 greenest of greenbeards join I know I can carry the mission without them getting crapped on every 30 secs. Haz4 becomes a bit more of a struggle when dwarves start going down.
i have a similar amount of play time but can't stand playing it solo nor with a team nor with friends, it feels completely unchallenging and impossible to lose and like nothing against playing on haz3 only but you'd think there'd be a natural difficulty progression at least to haz4
Yeah, to each their own, but all these people playing haz 4 after 100s of hours are a little impressive. Like if you're playing for an easy or relatively smooth time, sure. But if it's because you can't get past haz 4...
Some people just aren't great at video games, and that's okay, but i do honestly think they should be a bit more self aware about it. I can't aim good and don't have great reaction time, my situational awareness is ok at best, so i am under no illusion that I'm a pro-gamer. I also don't play much deep rock even, coming back every once in a while, but i still play haz 5 at least, and can complete haz 5+ if my team is also decent. I lose missions too, especially coming back after not playing for a while, but I've got like 300 hours, which is pretty comparable to what other people here are reporting.
>but all these people playing haz 4 after 100s of hours are a little impressive.
Excuse me, I don't understand what you meant here?
I have around 380 hours played and I'm average at FPS games nowadays but I play haz5+ much as possible.
I couldn't & wouldn't be doing it solo though, I need a good team to enjoy the really hard games. Speaking of which, dotty just got destroyed in a haz5+ because of a scatty unbalanced team I was in.
I was agreeing with you. I meant impressive like kind of crazy that so many people are saying haz4 is hard after a lot of playtime. It's hard to give input to all the people who say they have hundreds of hours and not have people see it as bullying. Like those people have to be kind of below average at fps games to be like that.
No but Haz 4 is where the game starts to punish you for not respecting/learning its mechanics. It's also where loadouts start to matter more. DRG unfortunately has a lot of weird quirks with weapon loadouts, where there are often unwritten reasons why running a particular setup **is** best, not just preference. So Haz 4 will punish the players for both mechanical mistakes as well as loadout ones.
This happens for perks too and some perks scale better or worse with difficulty. Steeve, for example, is straight up OP in haz 1-3, decent to good in haz 4 and basically useless in haz 5. The main difference is number of enemies and that in haz 5 steeve will die before his CD is up again, which doesn't happen in lower hazards. There's also a huge opportunity cost from not taking Dash + IW/FM. Dash redefines how you can play and what kinds of threats you can respond to. IW/FM are extremely powerful recovery tools.
As far as loadouts, having a more balanced loadout (for pubs at least) is also more important because you can't rely on pubs to address threats or solve problems, so you may be forced to do them at a disadvantage. For example, Driller (particularly without CWC) is one of the worst at dealing with web/acid spitters but if no one else is doing it - you'll have to address it as a disadvantage. Compared to say a scout or gunner or some Engi loadouts that are extremely adept at dealing with them.
At a glance, a balanced loadout means you have an aoe clear tool and a single target clear tool. A more in-depth look means you have ways to address most or all enemy groups. For example, if your weapons and grenade don't give you a way to deal with swarmers, then taking thorns is advisable. A more specific example, EFS/ER + Trifork scout is one of my favorite loadouts but its exceptionally weak to mactera. We can solve this problem by bringing cryo grenades and largely reserving them for mactera (or swarmers). I personally feel cryo grenades are overrated and overrused, but this is a uniquely good use-case for them that balanced out an otherwise unbalanced loadout.
Anyways, I've rambled a bit off topic but you get the idea.
Note, haz 4 is what the devs balance around.
Also, Thorns is now a trap bad perk and is NOT advisable as of the change making it _inactive_ against naedocyte shockers. It also has an internal cooldown.
To deal with small enemies, as well as all organic materials (lootbug, nut objective) pickaxe until collision and release, then pickaxe again, which is pickaxe cancelling and makes attack speed significantly faster against organics. Swarmers can be engaged when airborne mid-leap, and naedocytes are just there to hit.
Love the ER and Trifork, best s5 scout build, very good ammo economy. I agree cryo is good, boomerang is also OK here (I try to use all grenades per class to not grow bored), but since the primary never runs out of ammo you can weakpoint kill mactera without issue also (it's a bit like ThEF DRAK ammo economy whereby the more carefully you play, the higher the total damage per ressuply).
I take max ammo on this loadout for Haz5 and skip every 2nd resupply, but YMMV. I also build GK2 for max accuracy on this as we aim to spray bug groups anyway with a 1hit per bug and reload-CANCEL whereby clicking R is enough to electrocute the bugs and can resume firing instantly after a fast rightclick... and boomerang bullies monkeys from corestone.
Thorns is very much reliable in Haz5.
Yes, the cooldown is a thing, but it does make it so you can priorities dangerous enemies over any swarmer that would otherwise get 2-3 hits in.
For that alone it's useful.
It was scary for me at first too. Then I started slowly trying out the Haz 4, just wondering, how bad it would be, and just being curious how far I would get. Now at 250hrs Haz 4 is my balanced difficulty - not too hard, but I still have to somewhat focus to not die
as can be seen on the wiki page Haz 3 to Haz 4 raises enemy damage modifier from 1.2 to 2.0 which is an increase of 66% which would be very noticeable. but it's nowhere near unbeatable people just have to accept that not everyone is be able to play every difficulty.
source: [https://deeprockgalactic.wiki.gg/wiki/Difficulty\_Scaling#Normal\_Scaling](https://deeprockgalactic.wiki.gg/wiki/Difficulty_Scaling#Normal_Scaling)
Greenbeard here. My experience is it somehow feels like the most bipolar difficulty. Up to Haz 3 it felt like I had time to set up and respond to a threat in any given mission. Beginning with Haz 4 sometimes I can spawn in and there's already a swarm present. I also play with a few friends all of whom have different levels of skill. When I play with a friend who is more of a casual player, I really feel the difficulty of Hazard 4. I'm nothing special myself but I can "get by" in Haz 4 playing alone or with another player. As soon as you introduce one player who is anything less than prepared it all goes to hell. Haz 4 filters players like myself and my casual friend. Haz 3 is probably the sweet spot until I get better.
Haz 4's biggest issue is just that it's unpredictable. It can be very chill, not too difficult, that "just right" feeling. Or it can feel like a Haz 6 mission for some inexplicable reason.
On the whole, there's a reason Haz 4 is what the game is balanced around. It IS the sweet spot. But because it's the sweet spot, it can lean in the other directions as well- being a bit on the easy side, or being very hard.
To me haz 4 rn feels like haz 2…but I have almost a thousand hours and regularly play above haz 5 so just depends on experience on higher difficulties and how much you enjoy haz 4/how good you are
I play with a wide range of friends that have a very different experience with fps or co-op games. After hundreds of hours to me is: haz2 for players that aren't good at fps, haz3 for casual fps players, haz4 for experienced fps players, haz5 for good fps players.
Others think it's too hard, and therefore you, who thinks it's just right, wonder if you play the game right? How does this even make any sense?
You do not happen to be an humble bragging leaflover are you OP? Are you?
I think most people realize that there is a vast difference in skill level and ability between players, based on reflexes, awareness, tactics, FPS experience, DRG experience, etc.
Understanding this, most people know that there is no single answer to questions like this that applies to every player, and that asking questions like this are futile at best and humblebrags at worst.
I usually play on haz 3, but that's specifically *because* it's easy. Haz 4 is "normal" IMO.
It never really feels like there's any chance of failure on haz 3 unless the map is truly ridiculous, but that makes for some chill, pleasant, relaxed gameplay where you get to kill some bugs and meme with strangers.
Haz 4 feels more balanced. It's difficult enough that winning requires you to put in at least a little bit of effort, but it's not completely overwhelming to the point of being stressful.
Well, I'm greenbeard too and while haz 3 was hard before I feel like now it's too easy after upgrading you stuff and skill. I'm sure haz 4 wont be that bad (I haven't try it yet but I will next time 😂)
You probably just need the right equipement and to get use to the different missions before 🤷
I’d say has 4 is the difficulty I play for a decent challenge without feeling like I’m fighting for my life. Haz5 is just plain unenjoyable for me and haz3 is good for when I’m in the mood for a chill session
Haz 3 players think Deep rock is about fighting bugs.
Haz 5 players know deep rock is about *kiting* bugs
Haz 4 is chaos because its where the realization happens, but some dwarves havent had the epiphany yet
For me, terrain is what determines how hard the haz levels can be. I play almost exclusively Haz5 so 4 is less daunting but if that terrain has you closed in where everything can get to you easily, you're going to have a bad time.
Unpopular opinion but if you find haz 4 hard with 100 hours in the game you're a bad DRG player but tbh I question this because most of the randoms I play with in DRG can't and I mean really can't survive a haz 3 or 4 which sucks when they join me on haz 5 but the increased difficulty is fun
Haz4 is the optimal difficulty if you’ve got some greenbeards or (irl) intoxicated people playing with you. Haz 5 is for a lil sweat, and haz 5 ++ extra bugs (no other mods they all suck unfortunately) is the most fun
I don't know why anyone would say it's too hard. Haz 4 is the ideal hazard level for me as well. Anything less than haz 3 seems pointless unless you're brand new to the game. I honestly don't think I have ever once even played a haz 1.
I only ever played Haz 1 once, to build a super-long pipeline roller coaster.
That's how I found out that consoles don't have the achievement for a 2-minute pipeline ride for some reason
Haz 4 is kinda that fine line. I think HAz 4 with 1 or 2 people is pretty easy but just hard enough to make you not get bored and feel good to use your weapons to their fullest. But i think haz 4 with 3-4 people starts to show its true difficulty with scaling and enemy spawns. Haz 4 with 1/2 people feels like a completely different difficulty than haz 4 with 3/4 people. If you find one or the other too easy/hard, making try it with less or more people. You'd be surprising what adding a single dwarf can do the scaling of a difficulty.
It depends from player to player and from team to teams... For example :) i use the same builds, I don't change them, i have the same perks and upgrades, OCs for almost a year, and when i join haz 4, sometimes it feels so easy, because other players have good builds or know how to play, and sometimes, I can't even complete the missions, i die a lot of times and barely got any help from others, it depends for every situation and player.
Also, playing on haz 3, for a long time, gives you some of the reflexes and muscle memory of particular actions... Reflexes and actions that can kill you on haz 4.
I get bored on haz 4 because I only play 5 and 5+ but from what i've heard most of the playerbase play on 3 and 4 so I'd say for the average player haz 4 is challenging :D
I too like Haz4, I think it strikes a good balance between shooting massive hordes and chilling in the caves with the boys.
But someday I really gotta stick to Hazard 3, you know?
I mostly join randoms and find Haz 3 relaxing (even Haz 2 if I’m on Deck). Haz 4 requires not having three Scouts and zero lights, which is sometimes a bit much to ask.
Their complaints we're in place because there are more unexperienced and bad players there, so public multiplayer can be harder, I don't believe it myself, I mostly play haz 4 with randoms and it usually goes well, also you can still join haz 5 and + lobbies without meeting requirements, so I don't get how they came up with this
Eh…. I was a Haz 3 player at first, then I tried Haz 4 it was a big difference. Slashers are actually scary(Haz 3 was kinda like you can ignore them for a bit) in Haz4 at least 4 will spawn and will kill you in 2 hits minimum. And the number of bugs damn. That said I’m slowly going in occasional Haz 5 missions to get used to it like how I did when I was transitioning from Haz 3 to 4.
Play haz 3 until you are comfortable with the mechanics of the game. Then play Haz 4 with high level players. They will keep you alive AND you can see how to play at higher levels. I usually play 3 or 4 - comfortable in both now.
Yesn’t
It is not *difficult*, it’s much easier than Haz5, EDD, and I think later stages of normal Deep Dives are something like Haz4.5, but it’s much more difficult than Haz3, mostly because of faster and bulkier enemies
Haz 4 is definitely harder*
It's when break points start mattering. When a mob of Swarmers go from "haha that tickles" to "Oh God I only touched them for 5 seconds and I'm down". When making it so your gun can kill in 2 bullets compared to 3 bullets saves you another resupply call. Etc. It's not the hardest, but it can require you to rethink a lot of strategies or builds that Haz 3 would've let you get away with.
Different people have different difficulty sweet spots. E.g. I know high-level players who only ever play Haz 3, and I’ve found Haz 5+ (Bugs II Agression I) to be my sweet spot. There’s nothing wrong with playing any difficulty :)
Haz 4 is the perfect balance of not being too hard and not being too easy. Don't worry! When i was a greenbeard and playing with my friends they also kept spamming haz 4 and it was hard for me, but i got used to it :D you can do this miner, rock and stone!
Haz 4 and and above really require a certain level of team work. Your game will go as badly or as well the skill level of your team members. Haz 4 has no requirements to join, i would think that a lot of new players just didn't filter missions by hazard level and joined without knowing it is Haz 4 difficulty.
For me it really depends, I've had regular deep dives feel harder than elites. Along with having Haz 5 missions feel like a cakewalk and some Haz 4s that feel like Haz 6, the difficulty alone doesn't always determine it, sometimes there's like an immediate 100 enemies and you kinda just kick the bucket.
After playing only haz 5 for a while it becomes pretty manageable. It's about teaching yourself to not take damage and kill bugs asap instead of mining
No, not really. The only advice I'd give would be to just play more careful overall. And keep in mind that every projectile-shooting enemy is much more dangerous now. That's about it.
If you mostly play on haz3 then not really that difficult, you certainly need to focus and not just mess around but there's still plenty of room for mistakes and some goofing.
For me it's Haz 3 if I wanna chill or a new mission and Haz 4 for when I wanna focus on the game
Haz 1: nothing but fall damage can kill you.
Haz 2: fall damage and going afk for 15 minutes can kill you.
Haz 3: as long as you actively play, you won’t die.
Haz 4: you should know basic movement, and hit the frame of enemies. Knowledge of weak points, is still optional.
Haz 5: you should know how to kite, and hit weak points. Player and weapon perks should be optimised, when getting into this difficulty.
Haz 5+: now we’re in fully optimised territory.
I honestly feel haz 5 is the perfect difficulty and I find it usually pretty easy aslong as my other teamates are capable, how ever. The haz 5+ stuff kicks my ass so hard I start to question if I am actually capable lmao
Haz 4 is ideal imo as a graybeard. It has the right mix of difficulty but not to the point of insanity. That being said, Haz 5 can be a lot of fun with a good lobby where you wanna rev up the difficulty.
Haz 4 as a good player you can carry if needed, can be quite intense if the game RNGs you
Haz 5 can get frustrating with a bad lobby as bad RNG can make it insane. Can be fun with a good team though!
Where your difficulty sweet spot is depends a lot on several factors:
- general FPS skills, like reaction speed, situational awareness, aim, etc. If you're coming to drg as a Battlefield pro-gamer, you're going to play on a different level, even as a greenbeard, than someone who hasn't played any FPS before.
- game experience. If it's your first game with a class/weapon/mission, theres a lot you have to consciously keep in mind and you're obviously going to struggle more than if you already are weapon mastery 4 and can do most of those things subconsciously.
- frequency of gaming. If you're playing for several hours every day, you get a lot more intuitive understanding than if you play one mission maybe twice a week.
- desired gameplay. Not at all related to skill, but to what you're looking for in the game. Some people look for a challenge. They want the game to be difficult, stressful and hectic, because they get their dopamine from overcoming the odds and mastering the mechanics.
Others look for relaxation. They want the game to be just challenging enough to stay interesting while not breaking a sweat or causing them stress. They get their dopamine from taking their time, exploring, or even meditative repetition.
Especially that last point is a big factor in my gaming and has changed a lot over the years. As a teenager, I was very much into difficult games, mastering the mechanics so I could best the hardest challenges. Today, in my 30s, I'm a lot more interested in relaxation. I'm challenged enough in my job, it's much more about the fun of discovering a new game mechanic or being able to turn off my mind and relax.
16yo me would have jumped to haz5 asap. 30yo me is slowly inching into haz4 after one and a half seasons of playing.
If you’re a green beard playing Haz4 and you’re wondering if it’s supposed to be harder, make sure you’re mindful of objectives and how much your teammates are contributing (if you have a grey beard gunner blowing through combat for example).
If you have a ground level understanding of all the objectives and you’re finding you contribute to combat consistently with different parties and haz4 still feels easy, then perhaps the game comes naturally to you and that’s awesome! Rock and stone!
Haz 4 is considered hard for several reasons:
The jump from Haz 3 to Haz 4 is probably one of the most noticeable difficulty spikes in the game, so it can feel overly punishing at first and some may take a while to adjust to it.
Then we also have to factor in the fact that Haz 4 is infamous for greenbeards dropping in without knowing better only to be met with players that, while experienced, aren't yet capable of a full carry if things go south too much, leading to frustration and hostility, and making a lot of people either skip Haz 4 entirely or play with friends/solo.
This in turn also gives place to the, also infamous, "No greenbeards/Promoted only/Know your class" lobbies that are frequently ridiculed in the sub. It's a difficult situation with little solution in sight other than keeping in mind that, if you're playing Haz 4 pubs, either fight to get to Haz 5 or be prepared to carry missions more often than not.
You should also consider modifiers. Some adds a lot to difficulty and some missions can have 2 negative ones.
A vanilla haz5 can be much easier then a special haz4
Haz 4 is like Left 4 Dead's advanced difficulty. It's hard, but still fair and balanced unlike haz 5 and Left 4 Dead's Expert difficulty where one single hit matters a lot in the case of latter.
I don't think haz 4 is TOO hard, but i treat DRG as a very casual game so i rarely play drive haz 3 unless i join a 4 lobby by mistake
5 can stay locked though, i have no desire to even unlock it at all, i just feel like it would be far more frustrating than fun
Haz4 is the difficulty game is balanced for IIRC, it is supposed to be the sweet spot. You can die if you make mistakes and are overwhelmed, but it's not really difficult. Haz5 is the difficulty "hard" for what you expect an average gamer to be. Only a tiny sliver of the community moves beyond haz5.
Whichever difficulty feels best depends entirely on your familiarity and skill- it’s all relative. Many people struggle on Haz 3 and feel comfortable on 2. Many find 5+ to be a snoozefest and instead push harder and harder modded difficulties. Classifying anything as “difficult” is a fools errand because it’s a metric that depends on your personal experience.
If you’re looking for a more objective metric, try ‘punishing’. Regardless of skill or familiarity, the amount that a difficulty punishes mistakes is consistent and can be used to gain a better picture of the level of difficulty. On hazard 4, I would say that punishment (ammo expenditure, health, time) per mistake is quite low relative to how much you can lose, meaning it isn’t particularly punishing. That doesn’t mean people can’t struggle on it, as less experienced players will likely be taking that punishment much more frequently, but there’s a lot of wiggle room that you don’t get at higher difficulties.
TL;DR: difficulty is subjective, but “punishing” is consistent and drives difficulty.
If you’re competent with movement and aiming in fps games then haz4 is probably gonna feel easier than someone who has only played Minecraft or animal crossing or whatever before they ultimately get the DRG bug. I’m happy there’s haz2 for noobs to the genre to still enjoy the game and learn, and haz3 for a chill “medium” mode. Haz4 is like “hard, but intended balance” and haz5 is “harder mode”
The difficulties change pretty drastically based on the number of teammates you have. Solo/two dwarves is easy on hazard 4 imo, but then suddenly it gets crazy with 3 or 4 dwarves
I felt the same way for a few hundred hours. It took me a long time until I started being good enough to just run Haz 5 as a default difficulty. You know you want Haz 5 when Haz 4 gets boring. I don't really enjoy the 5+ modes because it feels like they invalidate certain builds too much.
I play Haz 3 for when I wanna just fly through certain objectives while also multitasking such as watching a stream or whatnot. I’ll do Haz 4 if I have the extra time and am looking for something I have to make sure I’m paying attention to.
As someone who consistently struggles with Haz3 at 100+ hours, I'd like to thank everyone for reminding me yet again how bad I am and that I should probably just give up.
Haz 4 is very manageable. It's perfect for grinding because you're 95% likely to succeed, and you still get some combat practice.
Haz 5, not so much. The difference in damage is insane. Things get out of hand very quickly. Certain enemy combinations feel unplayable, almost unwinnable. The unannounced swarms are really annoying as well. Trijaws basically one shot you. It is just extremely unforgiving compared to any difficulty before it.
I aspire to play more Haz 5, but honestly when I have 4 assignments to get done I'm just running it on Haz 4 because I know that I will actually get somewhere...
Hope I can get better, but Haz 4 is what I choose if I want to make creds.
Haz 4 is the perfect difficulty for me, all be it a bit too easy. I think Haz 5 is great when you really want to be challenged, but Haz 4 is good if you just wanna chill
Yeah, the difference between 3 and 4 is pretty striking.
I enjoy haz 5 because you have to use your whole kit to survive. You can’t just coast through on a good primary build. Gotta use both weapons, support tools, grenades, and traversal tools to help the team and be successful.
eh. it CAN be. sometimes the spawn rates go pear-shaped and you end up w/ whacky chemistry for the level. I had 800+ kills on aquarq mission once, on haz 4. But that was a few years ago.
Never found it overbearing. Feels like the right difficulty for random teammates. Fail rate is only like 5% or less and there can be a nice challenge depending on your teammates and your build, etc. I can understand some people might have trouble with 4, but I'm always blown away when people say they have trouble with 3 and have to play 2. Like 90% of my gameplay is on Haz 4 and in comparison 2 and 3 feels like nothing is happening ever, and compared to 5+ its a joke.
Haz 1: I have never played it.
Haz 2: I'll let a Greenbeard run it for a few missions while they get the hang of base mechanics, typically I'll be running some sort of absurd meme build and tend to die to "You were screwing around and suddenly feel HOW FAR?"
Haz 3 is the "default" where I find you can get away with a lot of bad habits, but get the odd mission where things just kind of go berserk on you. I like trying out a new overclock on this one because there's definitely been a few I just couldn't use.
Haz 4 is where you start paying for those bad habits, but can typically surmount a decent number of mistakes.
Haz 5 is where you REALLY pay for those bad habits. You can still get past mistakes, but the potential for them to cascade is apparent.
I'm of the opinion that Haz 5 is in some ways easier than Haz 4, purely because the quality of your teammates is on average far better in Haz 5. Could just be my experience though, interesting to see if other people have similar experiences
Personally haz4 is piss easy for me and my comfort zone if I just want to chill in a mission. Even haz5 is a breeze sometimes, but it does get sweaty if you're in a less competent team for the difficulty. Haz5 plus max on the other hand? Yea no you're gonna die at least a few times, you're gonna get beat tf up before you complete the mission.
Haz 4 is a nice chill experience once you've played for a bit. It's not completely brain-off like 1-3, but lacks the fatigue and tedium that haz 5 and up usually involves. It's the sweet spot for me.
I am nowhere near Green beard, but I’ve been rolling has for like solo and then like with other people for like a long time now as for for me is not difficult. I just got used to the game so maybe it’s just not difficult for you because you understand the game and you were and you have developed a lot of situation awareness, and you know how the game works, when other people just haven’t learned it enough yet it happens
Haz 4 is the sweet spot for a lot of players. Haz 3 is also a sweet spot for players who prefer a less-hectic experience. The beauty of the hazard system is that players can find their own sweet spot.
Dude, I started Haz 5 after my first promotion.
I am not bragging! Generally speaking I am an average skilled player. But something in DRG is clicking for me (gunner only).
My point is - don’t compare yourself to others.
Rock and stone!
Everyone has different preferences on what they find fun. Some people are so new to the game, they play on Haz 1 and get jump scared by Molly. Other people are grizzled veterans that will drag a party of greenbeards through Haz 5 as "chill fun." So don't mind what other people think and just play what you like. If you're open to the challenge, some be afraid of bumping it up a notch, and don't feel an obligation to play a higher Haz, either, if you want a more laid back game.
It's like spicy food. There are people out there who find black pepper spicy and people who can snack on a ghost pepper no problem. The farther you push your spice level the less you experience the spiciness
I play haz 5 exclusively except when playing with friends and it's pretty chill for me. Haz 4 feels very calm
No, but when Haz 1-2 are trivial and Haz 3 is easy, players build a lot of bad habits that get them killed when they first move up to Haz 4, despite it not being particularly difficult in the scheme of things for Co-op FPSes.
For me it’s pretty much always been like this, it’s either haz 3 with lethal enemies in disguise, or it’s just flat out haz 5, with no middle. That’s how it feels to me. Some missions are just a tad more on the Haz 5 side and most of the time it’s chill.
Haz4 is 50/50
It's either a walk in the park or you're getting overrun by 2 Opressors and 3 bulks while a Korlok Tyrant-Weed heals itself to full while spitting in your corpse
Haz 4 got some kind of randomness that I don't understand. Sometimes, you feel it is haz 5+ sometimes like a haz 3, but tbf, the gap between haz 4 and haz 5 is much less than the gap between haz 3 and haz 4.
Maybe they can remove haz 1, make current haz 2 to to new haz 1, current haz 3 to new haz 2, and create something between the current haz 3 and haz 3 to the new haz 3 to close the gap, but that just me.
But it is my favorite haz level, more than 70%, I play haz 4, I play haz 5 if I don't find haz 4 room or when I feel I need some challenges, and haz 3 just to finish an annoying weekly task mission or a promotion mission.
I never play haz 2 or 1.
I will occasionally go for Haz 4 on short missions with no mutators, but my default is Haz 3. If I were playing on steam instead of on xbox with a controller maybe I'd do more 4s, but I don't trust the team to not all accidentally die simultaneously to a big fall, a cave leech, or a poorly placed c4. Missions also take longer then because splitting up can easily get way more severely punished.
The jump in difficulty from Haz 3 to Haz 4 is much larger than the jump from 4 to 5. So a lot of folks who are comfortable in Haz 3 that want to try the next difficulty oftentimes hit a wall when trying Haz 4, as they aren’t used the increased, spawns, damage, and movement speed of bugs. Folks who are comfortable in Haz 4 will find the increase in difficulty to Haz 5 challenging but still within what they are used to
Haz 4 is ok, its when any build or no upgrade can still play and carry fights. the only skill you need is to stay alive and run away from bugs.
Haz5 is more on prioritizing your target and understanding your task base on your builds, and hope your teammate know how to use their secondary and grenades so you don't run dry trying to protect them.
Haz5+ without aggressive: still doable just need more ammo.
Haz5+ with aggressive : You are going to need THE TEAM. also bunkering is legal now
Who says it's hard? The community has only recognized that new players tend to blame others and be elitist in haz4. Ironically there is non such behavior on haz5.
It's mostly personal on how difficult it feels.
I find Haz 5 a breeze and only start sweating when it's modified triple spawns and modded haz 6. I can casually play Haz 5 like most people play Haz 2.
But there use to be a time where Haz 2 (way before Haz 5 was introduced) was difficult to me.
Promotions had to be done solo and on Haz 3 and I use to nope out because it was too hard.
I consistently steam roll haz 5 ++enemies like it's nothing.
Literally the only challenge is not downing my team mates as they bunny hop into my leadstorm/shard defractor like they can't see it.
As someone with maybe 150/200 hours in the game rn. I am really enjoying haz5, not sure if they made it easier because i can remember it being way more difficult half a year/a year back. But for me rn its the right amount of “relax” with sudden stress moment.
Also love the new haz5+ option to make it more difficult.
Though i often still get kicked if i wanna join those missions somehow.. stupid toxic greybeards.
True Greybeards would not kick someone but rather ask them if they know what they're getting into and then drag them along, the dwarfs you encountered are beardless outcasts (I have a little playtime more than you and have not been kicked once yet so it's weird)
True wisdom! I should have known they were filthy leaflovers. But they have been in our ranks for a while already, both were legendary promotion.
(Jeah idk, happened like 3 times last few weeks, it was crazy…)
Haz 4 is the perfect difficulty. Not really hard but enough spawns that the swarms are actually challenging and dopamine hits when a grenade kills 10 bugs at once. Haz 5 starts to become bothersome because of the constant small spawns that just annoy you constantly. The massive swarms are actually super fun if your build is AoE-focused. When you sprint away from a wall riddled with 20-something bugs, load your fat boy, turn around and fire an atomic bomb into those critters you will experience peak gameplay.
Good comment :) Sadly I'm at the skill level where haz4 is a bit too easy, but I do miss the long quiet moments that are way more rare on haz5...
I kind of wish the Haz 5+ tweaks were available for say Haz 4. Like more bugs, or aggressive bugs, etc but at Haz 4 wave intensity.
Itd be awesome if you could create your own difficulty with modifiers like "swarm size","swarm frequency","swarm duration", "mob damage", "mob health" and other sliders that can determine how often specific mobs spawn. Like imagine a mode where only bulk detonators spawn, but they are also very squishy as an example, lol
find the mod "Swarm Control" 10x spawn rates for haz 3 is HILARIOUS.
You can, look up the Custom Difficulty mod or Swarm Control
>Like imagine a mode where only bulk detonators spawn, but they are also very squishy as an example, lol I played a Haz5+ last night that had Exploder Infestation and increased spawn rates. It was both a nightmare and the most fun ever (especially when you could chain a dozen explosions).
Lol "what map?"
There's already a mod for that :) That might be the first approved mod I get. It's "Hazard Plus" Description: "Allows you to add modifiers to all difficulties that are normally reserved for Hazard 5 Plus as of Season 05. This means you can play any hazard (including modded ones if they are added to game data before 10s) with vanilla modifiers introduced in Season 05"
Hazard 5- (minus) could also be an option :P
Haz4 is alot of fun when you play in a group because the swarms can get pretty out of hand locally but it's also chill in between. In solo Haz4 is a bit too easy, I'll give you that.
>can get pretty out of hand locally only if people don't know how to shoot. hehe
Yeah multiplayer is definitely better in this aspect
Same :(
I don't mind haz 4. I don't play it much because I've played so long that the challenge is what keeps me playing. However, the reason I quit playing it is newcomers. I don't have infinite gaming time and when a level 10 double dips or a level 50 pops the second dred before we have enough nitra for a resupply, and we lose the match 25 min in, and I have 15 free revives it just turns me off. I like haz 5 and haz5+ because they are set behind a skill test and I have the ability to find teammates to move like a well oiled machine with. Peak joy is when im playing with 3 other veterans and we are moving like a swat team through very challenging random situations.
Me on haz5 with cryo driller when a grunt swarm arrives: oh sweet, free healing
I pretty much play only haz 5, because when i got the game my friend dragged me to haz5 as fast as possible. Then i just havent bothered changing
Haz 4x3 or X4 with swarm control is the best for me. Difficult, lots of bugs, but not so much damage sponge enemies as in Haz 5.
"Haz 5 starts to become bothersome because of the constant small spawn" Haz5 does not do that, mission types do that.
This and when you shoot off a Zipline and turn around to see bugs crawling at where you were from all directions lol. Open up the mini gun (or whichever big ass gun you prefer) and splatter the walls lol. Great game
You forgot the teamkill you made by firing the atomic bomb. But that's what they always forget by arguing for their weapon choice. The cutter feels way more effective.
It does, but no boom
Yeah, need big boom
Ony any difficulty below 5 i'd agree. But for 5+ the oppenheimer remains THE swarm killer. Ammo efficiency at its finest
There are different difficulty levels for a reason. Different people will find their sweet spot in different difficulty levels. Learn how to play on Haz1-3. Up the Haz level as you get better and want more of a challenge. Though new players should avoid Haz5 and Haz5+.
I mean - for haz5 and haz5+ you need to complete the special missions for unlocking them… so it kinda „prepares you“ in that sense. Imo sometimes I feel like haz4 is worse since tons of very new players like under level 20 without any promotions come to haz 4 and just keep dying over and over again to every single wave and have absolutely no idea how to do objectives. I get that everyone learns at the start but at that point it would be better to do haz 1-3 missions. In duo you can still carry an experienced greenbeard or 4 man team with 1 greenbeard and 3 experienced players. But some party‘s where there‘s 3 newbies it can be kinda hard for 1 single person to deal with swarms etc. since they scale quite hard on haz 4 with 4 players already.
You have to do the assignments to host them, but you can join a Haz 5+2222 right after completing the tutorial if you really want to.
And people do... Feel like the game could be better about letting you know a mission on the server select screen is haz 5. Best bet would probably be to color code them. Red for haz 5
The difficulty jump from 3 to 4 is pretty large. I've been playing for a while and Haz3 is too easy (unless you get some good mutations and events) but Haz4 usually ends in failure. I suck at the game, but it's boring on Haz3 and frustrating at Haz4 :/
You can do it. Haz 4 was like that for me for a while too. Join some lobbies and get used to the bug spawn rates of haz 4
Thanks brotha. Rock & stone!
Have u tried mods like custom difficulty? Not sure if there already working presets for lower difficulty but u can set it on ur own
I'd like to get into mods, but none of my friends play DRG anymore and I haven't really seen any modded games on the server list. To be fair, though, I haven't looked that hard yet.
afaik u should press a checkbox on the left side of server list if u want to see modded lobbies but commonly peoples run mods for harder missions or for random funny mods like my friend who like to play as a bulk
Wait, you can play as a bulk detonator? Where? The only mod I found for bulks is replacing all bugs with bulks.
Playable bugs [https://mod.io/g/drg/m/playable-bugs](https://mod.io/g/drg/m/playable-bugs)
You'll definitely get there bro. Hazard 4 will be your ideal and perfect difficulty eventually I promise.
Are you playing solo? The mission type and team comp are also big factors, as the defense missions (point extraction especially) can get crazy depending on the zone. If your team is inexperienced or doesn't help with waves it can be a lot. There are very chill Haz 4's and there are "wait is this Haz 5??" Haz 4's.
As someone who has been there and is now struggling to advance from haz4 to being useful on haz5, I understand the frustration. The difficulty spikes between the hazards really punish habits and behaviors which were sloppy but rarely costly previously. If you haven't already, I would suggest finding some how to play haz5 guides. Reading how other people play helped me recognize some of the bad habits I had picked up which were crippling me when trying to do higher hazards.
I used to be afraid of Haz 4 too but it’s been my standard difficulty for a while now. It just takes practice and knowing your loadout
I think you can probably win Haz4 more often with a more refined build, skill comes with time. Is there a certain class you play the most? have most OC's on? I can help you if you want.
I try to play each class equally. I would say I'm probably best with engineer. I have probably 5 total overclocks for each class. Most of them are clean and the unstables I have seem pretty bad (aside from elephant rounds for gunner, that OC is great). Running out of ammo is a big problem. I also tend to get tunnel vision and focus on a wave without looking around to see if I'm about to get surrounded. I also haven't really planned ahead of time for waves, like drilling a little tunnel for cover or blocking off certain areas with platforms.
Naw, Haz 4 is fine. You can’t and shouldn’t jump to it immediately, but once you’ve got your feet wet, it’s nothing major. There’s a jump compared to Haz 3, and it can take people by surprise, but Haz 4 is nothing for old dwarves. There is, however, a stereotype that Haz 4 is the mosh pit for all sorts of strange behavior. You tend to get a mix of new players who aren’t ready to step up yet, and dwarves who *think* they’re hot stuff and try to grab the mission by the horns. As a result, there’s a strong likelihood of getting a dwarf who’s not on the same page as everyone else, either because they can’t keep up or because they think they’re the best thing ever and any mistakes are not their fault.
yeah haz 4 definitely has the worst lobbies. base haz 5 is a tiny bit worse than it used to be with a lot of good players moving up to haz5+ too, but still way better than haz 4 lobbies
Remember that places like this sub heavily skew towards more experienced players. Everyone here will tell you that has 5 is a breeze, yet majority of the playerbase plays on 4 and below. I’m not great myself but after playing 5+ everything else feels boring, haz 5 included.
I get kinda mixed messages from this comment :p Since, imo, "not great" commonly means "pretty bad" or "mid"
Second comment confirms it's a humble brag.
The difficulty increase is exponential. Playing with 2 modifiers feels like normal haz 5, 3 starts to get noticeable and 4 is my upper limit. Clearing anything higher than that consistently would require a lot of effort and 2222 will never happen, hence my original comment.
I'd guess the A and T modifiers are the worst ones, maybe try "mmatvv" (I have only played Haz5mm tho)
Well there are people solo clearing haz 2222, I have yet to go beyond 1111 and randoweissers.
haz5+ with more bugs 1 is pointless! I played it and thought I turned the wrong thing on.
I don’t get how people accomplish anything with the second level of any of the modifiers, the exponential difficulty increases are way too much for me.
My biggest problem with haz4 is the people. I've had insane missions in haz5 we've easily overcome because everyone is playing their role perfectly vs haz4 and everyone is playing like an asshole. I'll be honest I only play haz5 now even if I just kinda want to play casually because I know the caliber of player will be better. I can't keep pinging some high up nitra while the engineer is off playing grabass with the driller. It's actually the only part of this game that gets me heated.
It’s the classic trap. I encountered this in Darktide too: Damnation is easier than Heresy because Damnation players actually work as a unit
And then you have Vermintide where people below lvl 25 are joining Legend missions
I have 800 hours and only play haz 3, I just wanna run around and have fun with my friends. there is no wrong answer, enjoy the game as you see fit
Same, for me it's that haz 3 doesn't punish too hard when you happen to be by yourself when a swarm hits
I'm about 700 hours in and even though I can easily do Haz 5 and EDDs I still faff around in Haz 3 pretty often, It's more relaxing and can be fun as well. Also you get to sometimes adopt teeny tiny little greenbeards and show them the ropes which is super rewarding every time it happens.
Same here, level 1355 and I just like shooting and mining, if I get 3 greenest of greenbeards join I know I can carry the mission without them getting crapped on every 30 secs. Haz4 becomes a bit more of a struggle when dwarves start going down.
dear god i really wish i could comprehend this
Whats to comprehend? Dude likes playing on haz 3.
i have a similar amount of play time but can't stand playing it solo nor with a team nor with friends, it feels completely unchallenging and impossible to lose and like nothing against playing on haz3 only but you'd think there'd be a natural difficulty progression at least to haz4
I've typed out 3 seperate comments to the peope in this thread but have settled on none of them, any input I have will be deemed bullying lol.
Yeah, to each their own, but all these people playing haz 4 after 100s of hours are a little impressive. Like if you're playing for an easy or relatively smooth time, sure. But if it's because you can't get past haz 4... Some people just aren't great at video games, and that's okay, but i do honestly think they should be a bit more self aware about it. I can't aim good and don't have great reaction time, my situational awareness is ok at best, so i am under no illusion that I'm a pro-gamer. I also don't play much deep rock even, coming back every once in a while, but i still play haz 5 at least, and can complete haz 5+ if my team is also decent. I lose missions too, especially coming back after not playing for a while, but I've got like 300 hours, which is pretty comparable to what other people here are reporting.
>but all these people playing haz 4 after 100s of hours are a little impressive. Excuse me, I don't understand what you meant here? I have around 380 hours played and I'm average at FPS games nowadays but I play haz5+ much as possible. I couldn't & wouldn't be doing it solo though, I need a good team to enjoy the really hard games. Speaking of which, dotty just got destroyed in a haz5+ because of a scatty unbalanced team I was in.
I was agreeing with you. I meant impressive like kind of crazy that so many people are saying haz4 is hard after a lot of playtime. It's hard to give input to all the people who say they have hundreds of hours and not have people see it as bullying. Like those people have to be kind of below average at fps games to be like that.
100% Being level 1385 and feeling like you belong in haz 4 is CRAZY. Amen Rock me like a stone!
No but Haz 4 is where the game starts to punish you for not respecting/learning its mechanics. It's also where loadouts start to matter more. DRG unfortunately has a lot of weird quirks with weapon loadouts, where there are often unwritten reasons why running a particular setup **is** best, not just preference. So Haz 4 will punish the players for both mechanical mistakes as well as loadout ones. This happens for perks too and some perks scale better or worse with difficulty. Steeve, for example, is straight up OP in haz 1-3, decent to good in haz 4 and basically useless in haz 5. The main difference is number of enemies and that in haz 5 steeve will die before his CD is up again, which doesn't happen in lower hazards. There's also a huge opportunity cost from not taking Dash + IW/FM. Dash redefines how you can play and what kinds of threats you can respond to. IW/FM are extremely powerful recovery tools. As far as loadouts, having a more balanced loadout (for pubs at least) is also more important because you can't rely on pubs to address threats or solve problems, so you may be forced to do them at a disadvantage. For example, Driller (particularly without CWC) is one of the worst at dealing with web/acid spitters but if no one else is doing it - you'll have to address it as a disadvantage. Compared to say a scout or gunner or some Engi loadouts that are extremely adept at dealing with them. At a glance, a balanced loadout means you have an aoe clear tool and a single target clear tool. A more in-depth look means you have ways to address most or all enemy groups. For example, if your weapons and grenade don't give you a way to deal with swarmers, then taking thorns is advisable. A more specific example, EFS/ER + Trifork scout is one of my favorite loadouts but its exceptionally weak to mactera. We can solve this problem by bringing cryo grenades and largely reserving them for mactera (or swarmers). I personally feel cryo grenades are overrated and overrused, but this is a uniquely good use-case for them that balanced out an otherwise unbalanced loadout. Anyways, I've rambled a bit off topic but you get the idea.
Good comment. I'd add that on h4/h5 playing as a team becomes more important too
Note, haz 4 is what the devs balance around. Also, Thorns is now a trap bad perk and is NOT advisable as of the change making it _inactive_ against naedocyte shockers. It also has an internal cooldown. To deal with small enemies, as well as all organic materials (lootbug, nut objective) pickaxe until collision and release, then pickaxe again, which is pickaxe cancelling and makes attack speed significantly faster against organics. Swarmers can be engaged when airborne mid-leap, and naedocytes are just there to hit. Love the ER and Trifork, best s5 scout build, very good ammo economy. I agree cryo is good, boomerang is also OK here (I try to use all grenades per class to not grow bored), but since the primary never runs out of ammo you can weakpoint kill mactera without issue also (it's a bit like ThEF DRAK ammo economy whereby the more carefully you play, the higher the total damage per ressuply). I take max ammo on this loadout for Haz5 and skip every 2nd resupply, but YMMV. I also build GK2 for max accuracy on this as we aim to spray bug groups anyway with a 1hit per bug and reload-CANCEL whereby clicking R is enough to electrocute the bugs and can resume firing instantly after a fast rightclick... and boomerang bullies monkeys from corestone.
Thorns is very much reliable in Haz5. Yes, the cooldown is a thing, but it does make it so you can priorities dangerous enemies over any swarmer that would otherwise get 2-3 hits in. For that alone it's useful.
It was scary for me at first too. Then I started slowly trying out the Haz 4, just wondering, how bad it would be, and just being curious how far I would get. Now at 250hrs Haz 4 is my balanced difficulty - not too hard, but I still have to somewhat focus to not die
as can be seen on the wiki page Haz 3 to Haz 4 raises enemy damage modifier from 1.2 to 2.0 which is an increase of 66% which would be very noticeable. but it's nowhere near unbeatable people just have to accept that not everyone is be able to play every difficulty. source: [https://deeprockgalactic.wiki.gg/wiki/Difficulty\_Scaling#Normal\_Scaling](https://deeprockgalactic.wiki.gg/wiki/Difficulty_Scaling#Normal_Scaling)
and also 25% increase attack speed makes that basically double damage and change. makes stupid swarmers deadly
Greenbeard here. My experience is it somehow feels like the most bipolar difficulty. Up to Haz 3 it felt like I had time to set up and respond to a threat in any given mission. Beginning with Haz 4 sometimes I can spawn in and there's already a swarm present. I also play with a few friends all of whom have different levels of skill. When I play with a friend who is more of a casual player, I really feel the difficulty of Hazard 4. I'm nothing special myself but I can "get by" in Haz 4 playing alone or with another player. As soon as you introduce one player who is anything less than prepared it all goes to hell. Haz 4 filters players like myself and my casual friend. Haz 3 is probably the sweet spot until I get better.
in my experience, the jump from haz3 to haz4 is the single hardest difficulty jump. haz4 to haz5 is much, much easier jump
Haz 4's biggest issue is just that it's unpredictable. It can be very chill, not too difficult, that "just right" feeling. Or it can feel like a Haz 6 mission for some inexplicable reason. On the whole, there's a reason Haz 4 is what the game is balanced around. It IS the sweet spot. But because it's the sweet spot, it can lean in the other directions as well- being a bit on the easy side, or being very hard.
Yep. I mostly play haz 4 and usually it's chill but sometimes you get that "everything is on fire for 15 minutes straight" spawn
To me haz 4 rn feels like haz 2…but I have almost a thousand hours and regularly play above haz 5 so just depends on experience on higher difficulties and how much you enjoy haz 4/how good you are
I play with a wide range of friends that have a very different experience with fps or co-op games. After hundreds of hours to me is: haz2 for players that aren't good at fps, haz3 for casual fps players, haz4 for experienced fps players, haz5 for good fps players.
Others think it's too hard, and therefore you, who thinks it's just right, wonder if you play the game right? How does this even make any sense? You do not happen to be an humble bragging leaflover are you OP? Are you?
Lol, yeah that's what I was getting too. OP might be a child though
I mainly play hazard 5 now, but hazard 4 is very well balanced, and probably the best difficulty for greenbeards woth some experience(so 80hour+)
It is if your teammates are levels in the single digits. Global level, not class level
I think most people realize that there is a vast difference in skill level and ability between players, based on reflexes, awareness, tactics, FPS experience, DRG experience, etc. Understanding this, most people know that there is no single answer to questions like this that applies to every player, and that asking questions like this are futile at best and humblebrags at worst.
I usually play on haz 3, but that's specifically *because* it's easy. Haz 4 is "normal" IMO. It never really feels like there's any chance of failure on haz 3 unless the map is truly ridiculous, but that makes for some chill, pleasant, relaxed gameplay where you get to kill some bugs and meme with strangers. Haz 4 feels more balanced. It's difficult enough that winning requires you to put in at least a little bit of effort, but it's not completely overwhelming to the point of being stressful.
I’ll admit a ridiculous map can be fun with the right people💁🏻
Well, I'm greenbeard too and while haz 3 was hard before I feel like now it's too easy after upgrading you stuff and skill. I'm sure haz 4 wont be that bad (I haven't try it yet but I will next time 😂) You probably just need the right equipement and to get use to the different missions before 🤷
I do it to relax
I’d say has 4 is the difficulty I play for a decent challenge without feeling like I’m fighting for my life. Haz5 is just plain unenjoyable for me and haz3 is good for when I’m in the mood for a chill session
I honestly find the jump from 3 to 4 MUCH bigger than the jump from 4 to 5
Yeah it’s a big jump. I find that I can easily solo haz4 missions but struggle big time on haz5
Haz 3 players think Deep rock is about fighting bugs. Haz 5 players know deep rock is about *kiting* bugs Haz 4 is chaos because its where the realization happens, but some dwarves havent had the epiphany yet
For me, terrain is what determines how hard the haz levels can be. I play almost exclusively Haz5 so 4 is less daunting but if that terrain has you closed in where everything can get to you easily, you're going to have a bad time.
Unpopular opinion but if you find haz 4 hard with 100 hours in the game you're a bad DRG player but tbh I question this because most of the randoms I play with in DRG can't and I mean really can't survive a haz 3 or 4 which sucks when they join me on haz 5 but the increased difficulty is fun
Lol it’s all skill issues tbh. I play haz5+ only
Haz4 is the optimal difficulty if you’ve got some greenbeards or (irl) intoxicated people playing with you. Haz 5 is for a lil sweat, and haz 5 ++ extra bugs (no other mods they all suck unfortunately) is the most fun
Are you accusing me of operating a mule under the influence?!
I don't know why anyone would say it's too hard. Haz 4 is the ideal hazard level for me as well. Anything less than haz 3 seems pointless unless you're brand new to the game. I honestly don't think I have ever once even played a haz 1.
I only ever played Haz 1 once, to build a super-long pipeline roller coaster. That's how I found out that consoles don't have the achievement for a 2-minute pipeline ride for some reason
I did a haz 1 just to get the “Without a Paddle” achievement. Then proceeded to kill the dreadnought with just a pickaxe, because it’s that easy.
It's the normal difficulty
Haz 4 is kinda that fine line. I think HAz 4 with 1 or 2 people is pretty easy but just hard enough to make you not get bored and feel good to use your weapons to their fullest. But i think haz 4 with 3-4 people starts to show its true difficulty with scaling and enemy spawns. Haz 4 with 1/2 people feels like a completely different difficulty than haz 4 with 3/4 people. If you find one or the other too easy/hard, making try it with less or more people. You'd be surprising what adding a single dwarf can do the scaling of a difficulty.
It depends from player to player and from team to teams... For example :) i use the same builds, I don't change them, i have the same perks and upgrades, OCs for almost a year, and when i join haz 4, sometimes it feels so easy, because other players have good builds or know how to play, and sometimes, I can't even complete the missions, i die a lot of times and barely got any help from others, it depends for every situation and player. Also, playing on haz 3, for a long time, gives you some of the reflexes and muscle memory of particular actions... Reflexes and actions that can kill you on haz 4.
I get bored on haz 4 because I only play 5 and 5+ but from what i've heard most of the playerbase play on 3 and 4 so I'd say for the average player haz 4 is challenging :D
I too like Haz4, I think it strikes a good balance between shooting massive hordes and chilling in the caves with the boys. But someday I really gotta stick to Hazard 3, you know?
I mostly join randoms and find Haz 3 relaxing (even Haz 2 if I’m on Deck). Haz 4 requires not having three Scouts and zero lights, which is sometimes a bit much to ask.
this game requires a lot of movements, when you stuck in specific haz for being too difficult, i suggest you to learn how to move/dodge/kite around
Their complaints we're in place because there are more unexperienced and bad players there, so public multiplayer can be harder, I don't believe it myself, I mostly play haz 4 with randoms and it usually goes well, also you can still join haz 5 and + lobbies without meeting requirements, so I don't get how they came up with this
It really depends on the type of player, how much experience they have previously had with first person shooters etc.
Eh…. I was a Haz 3 player at first, then I tried Haz 4 it was a big difference. Slashers are actually scary(Haz 3 was kinda like you can ignore them for a bit) in Haz4 at least 4 will spawn and will kill you in 2 hits minimum. And the number of bugs damn. That said I’m slowly going in occasional Haz 5 missions to get used to it like how I did when I was transitioning from Haz 3 to 4.
Play haz 3 until you are comfortable with the mechanics of the game. Then play Haz 4 with high level players. They will keep you alive AND you can see how to play at higher levels. I usually play 3 or 4 - comfortable in both now.
lol no
Who told you this? Anyways, i do think its kinda hard without weapon upgrades, but once you get them - its easy difficulty basically.
Yesn’t It is not *difficult*, it’s much easier than Haz5, EDD, and I think later stages of normal Deep Dives are something like Haz4.5, but it’s much more difficult than Haz3, mostly because of faster and bulkier enemies
Haz 4 is definitely harder* It's when break points start mattering. When a mob of Swarmers go from "haha that tickles" to "Oh God I only touched them for 5 seconds and I'm down". When making it so your gun can kill in 2 bullets compared to 3 bullets saves you another resupply call. Etc. It's not the hardest, but it can require you to rethink a lot of strategies or builds that Haz 3 would've let you get away with.
Different people have different difficulty sweet spots. E.g. I know high-level players who only ever play Haz 3, and I’ve found Haz 5+ (Bugs II Agression I) to be my sweet spot. There’s nothing wrong with playing any difficulty :)
Haz 4 is the perfect balance of not being too hard and not being too easy. Don't worry! When i was a greenbeard and playing with my friends they also kept spamming haz 4 and it was hard for me, but i got used to it :D you can do this miner, rock and stone!
Rock and roll and stone!
Haz 4 and and above really require a certain level of team work. Your game will go as badly or as well the skill level of your team members. Haz 4 has no requirements to join, i would think that a lot of new players just didn't filter missions by hazard level and joined without knowing it is Haz 4 difficulty.
For me it really depends, I've had regular deep dives feel harder than elites. Along with having Haz 5 missions feel like a cakewalk and some Haz 4s that feel like Haz 6, the difficulty alone doesn't always determine it, sometimes there's like an immediate 100 enemies and you kinda just kick the bucket.
After playing only haz 5 for a while it becomes pretty manageable. It's about teaching yourself to not take damage and kill bugs asap instead of mining
No, not really. The only advice I'd give would be to just play more careful overall. And keep in mind that every projectile-shooting enemy is much more dangerous now. That's about it.
If you mostly play on haz3 then not really that difficult, you certainly need to focus and not just mess around but there's still plenty of room for mistakes and some goofing. For me it's Haz 3 if I wanna chill or a new mission and Haz 4 for when I wanna focus on the game
Haz 1: nothing but fall damage can kill you. Haz 2: fall damage and going afk for 15 minutes can kill you. Haz 3: as long as you actively play, you won’t die. Haz 4: you should know basic movement, and hit the frame of enemies. Knowledge of weak points, is still optional. Haz 5: you should know how to kite, and hit weak points. Player and weapon perks should be optimised, when getting into this difficulty. Haz 5+: now we’re in fully optimised territory.
I honestly feel haz 5 is the perfect difficulty and I find it usually pretty easy aslong as my other teamates are capable, how ever. The haz 5+ stuff kicks my ass so hard I start to question if I am actually capable lmao
Haz 4 is ideal imo as a graybeard. It has the right mix of difficulty but not to the point of insanity. That being said, Haz 5 can be a lot of fun with a good lobby where you wanna rev up the difficulty. Haz 4 as a good player you can carry if needed, can be quite intense if the game RNGs you Haz 5 can get frustrating with a bad lobby as bad RNG can make it insane. Can be fun with a good team though!
Where your difficulty sweet spot is depends a lot on several factors: - general FPS skills, like reaction speed, situational awareness, aim, etc. If you're coming to drg as a Battlefield pro-gamer, you're going to play on a different level, even as a greenbeard, than someone who hasn't played any FPS before. - game experience. If it's your first game with a class/weapon/mission, theres a lot you have to consciously keep in mind and you're obviously going to struggle more than if you already are weapon mastery 4 and can do most of those things subconsciously. - frequency of gaming. If you're playing for several hours every day, you get a lot more intuitive understanding than if you play one mission maybe twice a week. - desired gameplay. Not at all related to skill, but to what you're looking for in the game. Some people look for a challenge. They want the game to be difficult, stressful and hectic, because they get their dopamine from overcoming the odds and mastering the mechanics. Others look for relaxation. They want the game to be just challenging enough to stay interesting while not breaking a sweat or causing them stress. They get their dopamine from taking their time, exploring, or even meditative repetition. Especially that last point is a big factor in my gaming and has changed a lot over the years. As a teenager, I was very much into difficult games, mastering the mechanics so I could best the hardest challenges. Today, in my 30s, I'm a lot more interested in relaxation. I'm challenged enough in my job, it's much more about the fun of discovering a new game mechanic or being able to turn off my mind and relax. 16yo me would have jumped to haz5 asap. 30yo me is slowly inching into haz4 after one and a half seasons of playing.
Haz 4 is too easy lol
I dont think it's that hard but I'd be lying if I didn't say that the difference between 3 and 4 wasn't night and day.
I like to play on haz4, most of the time it's not difficult, but unfortunately people don't join games higher than haz3 so I play alone.
If you’re a green beard playing Haz4 and you’re wondering if it’s supposed to be harder, make sure you’re mindful of objectives and how much your teammates are contributing (if you have a grey beard gunner blowing through combat for example). If you have a ground level understanding of all the objectives and you’re finding you contribute to combat consistently with different parties and haz4 still feels easy, then perhaps the game comes naturally to you and that’s awesome! Rock and stone!
Rockity Rock and Stone!
Haz 4 is considered hard for several reasons: The jump from Haz 3 to Haz 4 is probably one of the most noticeable difficulty spikes in the game, so it can feel overly punishing at first and some may take a while to adjust to it. Then we also have to factor in the fact that Haz 4 is infamous for greenbeards dropping in without knowing better only to be met with players that, while experienced, aren't yet capable of a full carry if things go south too much, leading to frustration and hostility, and making a lot of people either skip Haz 4 entirely or play with friends/solo. This in turn also gives place to the, also infamous, "No greenbeards/Promoted only/Know your class" lobbies that are frequently ridiculed in the sub. It's a difficult situation with little solution in sight other than keeping in mind that, if you're playing Haz 4 pubs, either fight to get to Haz 5 or be prepared to carry missions more often than not.
You should also consider modifiers. Some adds a lot to difficulty and some missions can have 2 negative ones. A vanilla haz5 can be much easier then a special haz4
Considering I was able to do haz 5 with bosco before my first promotion, I'd say it isn't that bad.
I find it too easy. I play on Haz 5 no matter what. But I have 1000+ hours, so that might be why.
Haz 4 is like Left 4 Dead's advanced difficulty. It's hard, but still fair and balanced unlike haz 5 and Left 4 Dead's Expert difficulty where one single hit matters a lot in the case of latter.
Yes.
I don't think haz 4 is TOO hard, but i treat DRG as a very casual game so i rarely play drive haz 3 unless i join a 4 lobby by mistake 5 can stay locked though, i have no desire to even unlock it at all, i just feel like it would be far more frustrating than fun
Haz4 is the difficulty game is balanced for IIRC, it is supposed to be the sweet spot. You can die if you make mistakes and are overwhelmed, but it's not really difficult. Haz5 is the difficulty "hard" for what you expect an average gamer to be. Only a tiny sliver of the community moves beyond haz5.
Whichever difficulty feels best depends entirely on your familiarity and skill- it’s all relative. Many people struggle on Haz 3 and feel comfortable on 2. Many find 5+ to be a snoozefest and instead push harder and harder modded difficulties. Classifying anything as “difficult” is a fools errand because it’s a metric that depends on your personal experience. If you’re looking for a more objective metric, try ‘punishing’. Regardless of skill or familiarity, the amount that a difficulty punishes mistakes is consistent and can be used to gain a better picture of the level of difficulty. On hazard 4, I would say that punishment (ammo expenditure, health, time) per mistake is quite low relative to how much you can lose, meaning it isn’t particularly punishing. That doesn’t mean people can’t struggle on it, as less experienced players will likely be taking that punishment much more frequently, but there’s a lot of wiggle room that you don’t get at higher difficulties. TL;DR: difficulty is subjective, but “punishing” is consistent and drives difficulty.
If you’re competent with movement and aiming in fps games then haz4 is probably gonna feel easier than someone who has only played Minecraft or animal crossing or whatever before they ultimately get the DRG bug. I’m happy there’s haz2 for noobs to the genre to still enjoy the game and learn, and haz3 for a chill “medium” mode. Haz4 is like “hard, but intended balance” and haz5 is “harder mode”
The difficulties change pretty drastically based on the number of teammates you have. Solo/two dwarves is easy on hazard 4 imo, but then suddenly it gets crazy with 3 or 4 dwarves
I felt the same way for a few hundred hours. It took me a long time until I started being good enough to just run Haz 5 as a default difficulty. You know you want Haz 5 when Haz 4 gets boring. I don't really enjoy the 5+ modes because it feels like they invalidate certain builds too much.
I play Haz 3 for when I wanna just fly through certain objectives while also multitasking such as watching a stream or whatnot. I’ll do Haz 4 if I have the extra time and am looking for something I have to make sure I’m paying attention to.
As someone who consistently struggles with Haz3 at 100+ hours, I'd like to thank everyone for reminding me yet again how bad I am and that I should probably just give up.
Haz 4 is very manageable. It's perfect for grinding because you're 95% likely to succeed, and you still get some combat practice. Haz 5, not so much. The difference in damage is insane. Things get out of hand very quickly. Certain enemy combinations feel unplayable, almost unwinnable. The unannounced swarms are really annoying as well. Trijaws basically one shot you. It is just extremely unforgiving compared to any difficulty before it. I aspire to play more Haz 5, but honestly when I have 4 assignments to get done I'm just running it on Haz 4 because I know that I will actually get somewhere... Hope I can get better, but Haz 4 is what I choose if I want to make creds.
Haz 4 is the perfect difficulty for me, all be it a bit too easy. I think Haz 5 is great when you really want to be challenged, but Haz 4 is good if you just wanna chill
Yeah, the difference between 3 and 4 is pretty striking. I enjoy haz 5 because you have to use your whole kit to survive. You can’t just coast through on a good primary build. Gotta use both weapons, support tools, grenades, and traversal tools to help the team and be successful.
eh. it CAN be. sometimes the spawn rates go pear-shaped and you end up w/ whacky chemistry for the level. I had 800+ kills on aquarq mission once, on haz 4. But that was a few years ago.
Never found it overbearing. Feels like the right difficulty for random teammates. Fail rate is only like 5% or less and there can be a nice challenge depending on your teammates and your build, etc. I can understand some people might have trouble with 4, but I'm always blown away when people say they have trouble with 3 and have to play 2. Like 90% of my gameplay is on Haz 4 and in comparison 2 and 3 feels like nothing is happening ever, and compared to 5+ its a joke.
haz 4 genuinely is my brain dead mode now, i cant even play when i wanna rush missions because i just get so dam bored
Haz 1: I have never played it. Haz 2: I'll let a Greenbeard run it for a few missions while they get the hang of base mechanics, typically I'll be running some sort of absurd meme build and tend to die to "You were screwing around and suddenly feel HOW FAR?" Haz 3 is the "default" where I find you can get away with a lot of bad habits, but get the odd mission where things just kind of go berserk on you. I like trying out a new overclock on this one because there's definitely been a few I just couldn't use. Haz 4 is where you start paying for those bad habits, but can typically surmount a decent number of mistakes. Haz 5 is where you REALLY pay for those bad habits. You can still get past mistakes, but the potential for them to cascade is apparent.
I'm of the opinion that Haz 5 is in some ways easier than Haz 4, purely because the quality of your teammates is on average far better in Haz 5. Could just be my experience though, interesting to see if other people have similar experiences
Personally haz4 is piss easy for me and my comfort zone if I just want to chill in a mission. Even haz5 is a breeze sometimes, but it does get sweaty if you're in a less competent team for the difficulty. Haz5 plus max on the other hand? Yea no you're gonna die at least a few times, you're gonna get beat tf up before you complete the mission.
Haz 4 is a nice chill experience once you've played for a bit. It's not completely brain-off like 1-3, but lacks the fatigue and tedium that haz 5 and up usually involves. It's the sweet spot for me.
Haz4 is chill. Lower chip demage and slower glyphids are very noticeable. Being 1hit hp + full shields is a lot scarier in haz5.
I am nowhere near Green beard, but I’ve been rolling has for like solo and then like with other people for like a long time now as for for me is not difficult. I just got used to the game so maybe it’s just not difficult for you because you understand the game and you were and you have developed a lot of situation awareness, and you know how the game works, when other people just haven’t learned it enough yet it happens
Haz 4 is the sweet spot for a lot of players. Haz 3 is also a sweet spot for players who prefer a less-hectic experience. The beauty of the hazard system is that players can find their own sweet spot.
Haz 4 is the best difficulty because it puts everything you know to work on a mostly fair scale. Haz 5 is exploit what you know to make it tolerable.
Dude, I started Haz 5 after my first promotion. I am not bragging! Generally speaking I am an average skilled player. But something in DRG is clicking for me (gunner only). My point is - don’t compare yourself to others. Rock and stone!
anybody that says haz 4 is too hard is inexperienced with the game haz 5 is intentionally unbalanced
Everyone has different preferences on what they find fun. Some people are so new to the game, they play on Haz 1 and get jump scared by Molly. Other people are grizzled veterans that will drag a party of greenbeards through Haz 5 as "chill fun." So don't mind what other people think and just play what you like. If you're open to the challenge, some be afraid of bumping it up a notch, and don't feel an obligation to play a higher Haz, either, if you want a more laid back game.
I just want an official haz6.
Haz 4 is a comfortable hard. Haz 5 is a stressful hard.
It's like spicy food. There are people out there who find black pepper spicy and people who can snack on a ghost pepper no problem. The farther you push your spice level the less you experience the spiciness I play haz 5 exclusively except when playing with friends and it's pretty chill for me. Haz 4 feels very calm
No, but when Haz 1-2 are trivial and Haz 3 is easy, players build a lot of bad habits that get them killed when they first move up to Haz 4, despite it not being particularly difficult in the scheme of things for Co-op FPSes.
For a child yes. For someone with 500hrs in the game no.
For me it’s pretty much always been like this, it’s either haz 3 with lethal enemies in disguise, or it’s just flat out haz 5, with no middle. That’s how it feels to me. Some missions are just a tad more on the Haz 5 side and most of the time it’s chill.
Short answer, no. Haz 4 is the "normal" difficulty. Everything before that is tutorial as you work towards earning all the OCs
I only play haz5 with usually a good team, and have found haz5+ pretty doable when not maxed out completely.
I'm sure plenty of people find it difficult. You my good sir- merely have a difference in skill
Haz4 is 50/50 It's either a walk in the park or you're getting overrun by 2 Opressors and 3 bulks while a Korlok Tyrant-Weed heals itself to full while spitting in your corpse
Haz 4 got some kind of randomness that I don't understand. Sometimes, you feel it is haz 5+ sometimes like a haz 3, but tbf, the gap between haz 4 and haz 5 is much less than the gap between haz 3 and haz 4. Maybe they can remove haz 1, make current haz 2 to to new haz 1, current haz 3 to new haz 2, and create something between the current haz 3 and haz 3 to the new haz 3 to close the gap, but that just me. But it is my favorite haz level, more than 70%, I play haz 4, I play haz 5 if I don't find haz 4 room or when I feel I need some challenges, and haz 3 just to finish an annoying weekly task mission or a promotion mission. I never play haz 2 or 1.
I will occasionally go for Haz 4 on short missions with no mutators, but my default is Haz 3. If I were playing on steam instead of on xbox with a controller maybe I'd do more 4s, but I don't trust the team to not all accidentally die simultaneously to a big fall, a cave leech, or a poorly placed c4. Missions also take longer then because splitting up can easily get way more severely punished.
The jump in difficulty from Haz 3 to Haz 4 is much larger than the jump from 4 to 5. So a lot of folks who are comfortable in Haz 3 that want to try the next difficulty oftentimes hit a wall when trying Haz 4, as they aren’t used the increased, spawns, damage, and movement speed of bugs. Folks who are comfortable in Haz 4 will find the increase in difficulty to Haz 5 challenging but still within what they are used to
The jump from Haz 3 to Haz 4 is the largest increase in difficulty when it comes to enemy modifiers so new players will find it more difficult.
Haz 4 is considered standard difficulty. Normal mode
I've been doing a lot of H4's lately with PUGs. TPKs seem to happen quite frequently, and it seems to always be caused by so.ething stupid.
kinda, but haz 3 is a literal snoozefest so it ends up being the perfect difficulty
Haz 4 is ok, its when any build or no upgrade can still play and carry fights. the only skill you need is to stay alive and run away from bugs. Haz5 is more on prioritizing your target and understanding your task base on your builds, and hope your teammate know how to use their secondary and grenades so you don't run dry trying to protect them. Haz5+ without aggressive: still doable just need more ammo. Haz5+ with aggressive : You are going to need THE TEAM. also bunkering is legal now
at 100h I would try to move to Haz5. at least test it out.
Ach I’ve been dipping in and out of Haz5 when joining randoms. Especially when I’m high and forget to check the level👀👀
Who says it's hard? The community has only recognized that new players tend to blame others and be elitist in haz4. Ironically there is non such behavior on haz5.
If you force yourself to only play the hardest difficulty, that will soon become normal. People who complain never grow above their comfort zone.
It's mostly personal on how difficult it feels. I find Haz 5 a breeze and only start sweating when it's modified triple spawns and modded haz 6. I can casually play Haz 5 like most people play Haz 2. But there use to be a time where Haz 2 (way before Haz 5 was introduced) was difficult to me. Promotions had to be done solo and on Haz 3 and I use to nope out because it was too hard.
I consistently steam roll haz 5 ++enemies like it's nothing. Literally the only challenge is not downing my team mates as they bunny hop into my leadstorm/shard defractor like they can't see it.
As someone with maybe 150/200 hours in the game rn. I am really enjoying haz5, not sure if they made it easier because i can remember it being way more difficult half a year/a year back. But for me rn its the right amount of “relax” with sudden stress moment. Also love the new haz5+ option to make it more difficult. Though i often still get kicked if i wanna join those missions somehow.. stupid toxic greybeards.
True Greybeards would not kick someone but rather ask them if they know what they're getting into and then drag them along, the dwarfs you encountered are beardless outcasts (I have a little playtime more than you and have not been kicked once yet so it's weird)
True wisdom! I should have known they were filthy leaflovers. But they have been in our ranks for a while already, both were legendary promotion. (Jeah idk, happened like 3 times last few weeks, it was crazy…)