This may be an unpopular opinion, but I liked it back when SSH and Virtuoso had no warning (and by extension, no safety and anomaly) zones visible, it felt more of a challenge (right now, only DTs satisfy that itch). When it was changed a while back to show everything, it made the game feel easier. So, maybe there could be a change, regarding difficulty?
I would like to see a new difficulty that removes the zone visibility. To keep some consistency seen with the difficulties, this new difficulty level (the name is Savant, as you’d know where things are by now) would have a 250% boost to scores, missions will be 45% harder, 35% faster projectiles and “massively” improved key drop rates. I would go up with the given 10% intervals, but this could be a bit much, unless some think otherwise.
The quip/description for Savant would be: “I can do this with my eyes closed!” The idea being that there’s no zones showing, thus flying “blind”.
An alternative would be to have the existing SSH difficulty have no zones visible (like it had before) and keep Virtuoso as it is now. The difficulty values of the SSH without visible zones would remain as it is now. This would feel more like a natural stepping stone, where when one is confident enough to venture into SSH from Virtuoso, they would have some knowledge of where zones will be and where chickens will spawn, putting the knowledge they gained to good use.
Unless I’m mistaken, there was some old images that had more difficulty bits on the “dial” before it was redone to be the existing six. So, making a seventh should be possible.
Should a new Difficulty be made?
- Create a Savant Difficulty
- Redo existing SSH Difficulty
- No changes
And if people ask about how I handled waves like Shear Stress and Merry Go Round beforehand, I’d stay at the center of the screen and move into position once I see the alignment of the chickens as they come in. For waves like Splat!, the gravity alignment is easy to know where they come in.