PLAYERS ARE ALREADY WORRIED ABOUT THE NEW DIFFICULTY! (Space Marine 2 Discussion) Patch 5.1

[@KekusMagnus]

I don't want a harder difficulty, I want more lore-accurate difficulty. Much larger waves of grunts that get one-shotted by bolters, less chaos marines and terminators, and those should be much harder to kill. Nids that actually die to bolter fire instead of forcing you to spam parries

[@nathancawley8759]

so you want EZ-mode basically? Minors already die to single headshots, even from most sidearms. Adding more of them instead of having real enemies does nothing except spoon-feeding you a victory screen.

[@KekusMagnus]

@@nathancawley8759 No, I want a game mode that makes me feel like an actual space marine. Try fighting 100 minoris charging you at once without cheesing parries. They only come in groups of 20 which is weaksauce

[@safermurderweapon]

@@nathancawley8759 this clown didnt read the entire comment and tried to misconstrue what was actually said lmao

[@mmwosu]

@@nathancawley8759 tell me you didn’t understand his ask without telling me

[@eggdog6185]

​@KekusMagnus cheesing mechanics? Dude it's a core mechanic. That's like complaining about eldenrings roll mechanic

[@xenosayain1506]

I dont want enemies to be spongier than lethal. Id rather more enemies or more bosses/extremis spawns. Give me more sophisticated or larger encounters. If enemies get too spongey itll just get boring

[@williamrubinol3760]

You really don't. When they released Lethal the AI director got fucking crazy within 1-2 days. It was spawning like 8-10 Soldier tyranids, 3 Lictors, 2 Zoanthropes, and the Horde director was spamming waves like every fucking 3 seconds because you were locked in a WAR and it would take so long the game director thought you were idling and would spawn another one. THEN, after ALL OF THAT SHIT, you're out of bullets health everything. Then it decides to throw a Carnifax at you. Keep in mind you have only moved about 5 feet forward in the very BEGINNING of the map.

[@daftmi9hty327]

​​@@williamrubinol3760 I liked that though i do think they should have reduced their health a little and give more ammo drops but it was absolute chaos and was alot of fun

[@nicholaslietzan9721]

Its almost like you have a choice of what difficulty you play, stop the crying man baby

[@xenosayain1506]

@@nicholaslietzan9721 did you reply to the right post? We are just giving opinions on what we'd like to see if they add more. Did someone start a flame war with you?

[@xenosayain1506]

@@williamrubinol3760 I didn't know that. That is kinda crazy. I've barely played about a month, maybe 2. And I'm on mission 6 for beating lethal.

[@feircy]

As long as their version of difficulty isnt "enemies take all your bullets to kill and there's no ammo boxes and also you cant regen armor anymore" it should be fine 😂

[@xElderVoidx]

Agreed Brother

[@kennethsalmeronrodriguez978]

One thing that Helldivers 2 made right was making the game more difficult with new difficulties without necessarily making enemies actual bullet sponges and I think that's something that should be looked for with the new difficulty. I mean I don't necessarily enjoy to mag dump an elite on the face for him just to be a okay after that. They should also buff some perks and guns too and add new ones and give us more content in that sense other than just adding new packs for the people to buy.

[@HoxtonRules]

But helldivers elites are well can be killed easily. Let's take a look at our game though.. yeah there's a problem in our equation...

[@anders0815]

The game director is all over the place. I had substancials that where easier than average minimals, and minimals that where so much harder than some substancials.

[@curtwalker11]

Not a fan of recycling content. If they are going to "change" the difficulty, change the mission. Lethal is fine for what we have now.

[@Darkwater1886]

Here's the thing. Space Marine is a game where either your are stomping or getting stomped. There doesn't seem to be a balance between the two.

[@alechall7871]

I hope the approach to the new difficulty is spawing a load more minors/majors with the lethal dmg/health scaling. Give me the challenge of lethal, but more enemies!

[@silasginell9251]

I agree, more enemmies rather than more hp for enemies

[@italianspiderman5012]

Yeah, seems like a logical way to increase difficulty in a horde shooter, but then, you never know what developers are thinking, because most of the time, devs don’t play their game, and that’s not even a dunk on devs, it’s just what it is.

[@ethana.kaknes6014]

We need new content to challenge us not more unbalanced difficulty that unfairly stacks the odds against us even more. Difficulty doesn't equal actual new content and while it's good to have a challenge the difficulties we have are more than enough. Also as a GL spammer whenever I'm not playing Bulwark to keep a team alive it is not easy it's tedious and not fun

[@GorsuchCody]

I swear substantial is harder than ruthless half the time 😂

[@malehumanperson7901]

It's because you're paired up with clueless people with average weapons. I often find Lethal easier than Ruthless because the team tends to really know what it's doing.

[@TheDawg1212]

@@malehumanperson7901I don’t know I’ll play ruthless and get through it easy but somehow substantial just spawns so much shit at me and everything always goes wrong for events

[@stevenm8266]

@@TheDawg1212 It does seem that you get more mobs on Sub lol.

[@Welsh7133]

We don’t need another difficulty we need fixing of the difficulties we have

[@famalam943]

The fact they think another difficulty is what’s needed instead of a rebalance is worrying. How can a game be bloated wit the amount of difficulty levels? We don’t need 6 levels, 5 is already too much just rebalance what we have. Throwing more stuff ontop of stuff is such a terrible way to go forward. It’s amateur

[@servalkorion686]

The only way it’ll work out if they completely rework the perks & buff everything so that lethal = ruthless but I kinda don’t see the point of another difficulty, like just give us more game modes

[@CommanderShiz]

Idea for new difficulty. For certain parts of the map it would be cool if on your screen it said “unstoppable wave inbound” or something and it’s a never ending wave that only gets stronger. Your team just needs to get to the next “checkpoint” area to be safe. Sounded better in my head but that’s the idea lol

[@freed991]

Kind of like darktide, you will get random swarms or hordes

[@warriorfire8103]

No I get it. That could be pretty fun. Might encourage speed running though

[@MrDekasOne]

Less than 20% of players on steam have completed a ruthless mission let alone leathal idk what makes them think the game needs a new difficulty, also on steam the game has like 13,000 players to many difficulties with pvp and a horde mode comming is spreading the player base out too much making matchmaking take longer

[@Strelitzia98]

We need a weapons buff the enemies are too tanky and the weapons feel like I’m shooting marshmellows unless I’m using a select few the bolt rifle/GL Laz Fus, heavy bolter or even melta ect….

[@liamb89]

I want harder levels, but not bullet sponges. Make warriors more lethal, have them move more, and do more damage, more bosses, etc. I want to earn my right to play as a space marine.

[@forgottenone9879]

I don't think giving them more damage is the way to go either because if you actually want a horde of enemies coming at you and they hit harder you're not gonna last long

[@liamb89]

@forgottenone9879 thats why it is a challenge. Im not talking about having a huge damage buff, but make them a little more accurate, at least. The only issue with wanting a harder difficulty but not making it harder, is youre only left with numbers and thats boring, low iq way of making it happen. Tryanids are a desdly force. Not just in numbers but in their actual strength. Reflect their inlore strength but also make bolters lore friendly as well.

[@geraldsanchez1934]

The Emperor gives his hardest battles to his Strongest Warriors.

[@xElderVoidx]

Your hymns inspire us all Brother.

[@bruterasta]

They should just crank up lethal. Less mines, more minoris, tripple extremis spawn, bullet spawns depending how many range classes you have in a team.

[@PBunyanOx]

I can barely solo ruthless 🤦have fun guys!

[@volcano3493]

You will get better over time. When I first have tried Substantial I thought it was impossible to do. Now I am doing Lethal all the time with a few Ruthless operations sprinkled in for relaxation.

[@laser-tw8zy]

What Saber should implement is a custom difficulty for private lobbies. Being able to have more enemies, like the numbers you get from lethal but have the enemy healthpools from lower difficulties would be really cool. You should also be able to tweak the amount of damage they do as well. THAT is what I think should happen. Am I okay with another harder difficulty? I guess, but I wish for player made difficulties more.

[@forgottenone9879]

What we need is class perks reworked.Weapon.Perks reworked more weapons and more classes

[@laser-tw8zy]

@ thats why they’re adding another difficulty.

[@Negarkasify]

Lethal already isnt that bad especially since most threats can be handled with parrying, day 1 lethal mokay that might have been an issue in the long run but still very doable, i just hope they realize that upping the enemies durability isnt fun, up the spawn rates and maintain that healthpool an extra boss would be nice though, something the modded got right far more than umodded for some missions was dropping in two carnifexes on decapitation that was actually a fun use of terrain or parrying two at the same time gave a nice adrenaline high

[@CommanderShiz]

Could not agree more! Just give me more xenos to slay at a time instead of making one majoris enemy take 3 magazines to take down.

[@OwlOwl-c4g]

Agreed, just completed my first lethal last night. its a bit of a slog but it was worth the Checkered pattern knee reward. been wanting that one for a while now.

[@zulu5405]

double terminus or more per OP would be terrifying but also awesome at the same time, i'd be down with this.

[@FenrirLupo]

Second this. What I enjoy the most is fighting extremis and terminus level foes and landing those dodges and parries. In lethal extremis come in two. So I would be fine with them spawning 3 extremis at a time, one for each of us, or a terminus and 2 extremis, or 2 terminus in the new difficulty. Along with more frequent spawns.

[@Negarkasify]

the biggest most tragic downside to terminus eenemies is we dont get parry gunstrikes with them

[@DaemonPrince]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="105">1:45</a>, People play higher difficultys not for that kind of challenge, its because their is more content available at higher difficultys, the "wow this is unbeatable but we beat it" is really only their for when you dont know the map/mechanics/how to fight enemys which leads to what you also said being knowledge the main thing. SM2 does not do a good job of this while something like Vermintide 2 and Darktide managed to do better, Saber has a pretty solid history of not having a clue how to design difficulty properly so this was to be expected.

[@colettemcdermott5677]

We need to have the main campaign extended.

[@nimblemesh]

Isn't the campaign finished already like the game that this is Titus' storys current conclusion

[@springbiscuits3049]

I play Lethal by default nowadays and I enjoy it. With all my classes leveled up, all achievements unlocked and all guns max leveled, I still enjoy playing Lethal, it brings an extremely fun element of unpredictability and puts my game knowledge to the test. I still hate chaos though and hate the new chaos enemy but I still am willing to play them on lethal. I did not expect for them to even consider adding another difficulty but I'm all for it as long as they buff the necessary perks and bolters. I hate how obsolete some of the choices in Space Marine 2 feel, like I just want to use bolters without them being overshadowed by the Grenade Launcher.

[@FinalDriveshow]

Lethal should remain the highest difficulty and adjusted accordingly for the new Prestige system.

[@peterhance549]

I managed to complete the Operation containing the Hell Drake at the end first time. I was using my Bulwark at level 25, Relic weapons. Fencing Power Sword with the Plasma Pistol and I had also been lucky with the other members of my squad, Tactical and Sniper both level 25 using Relic weapons also. Between the 3 of us, we managed to drop the Hell Drake the first time it opened up. The Sniper was using the Bolt Sniper Rifle and the Tactical was using the Grenade Launcher, again, they were all Relic Level weaponry. I was also using the Perk that gives the Bulwark the ability to take down any enemy from Majoris to Extremis instantly with a Perfect Parry, followed up with an Execution every 180 seconds I think it is. That perk has been a life saver for me and others especially at the higher difficulties! The Banner also since it’s possible to remove mortal wounds when combined with a Stim Pack straight after dropping

[@Soul-HunterVIII]

Lethal wasn't nerfed, the only adjustment to Lethal was the removal of Tight Formation. Which I'm 100% sure Tight Formation is coming back in the new difficulty. The issue with new or the hardest difficulty for casual players is when their are cosmetics rewarded for completing them and they can't get em because they're not good enough. So they'll rage post that they can't complete the difficulty and that its unfair.

[@xXCendreXx]

I dont understand how people can complain about difficulty... I'm doing lethal no HUD ez like bruh... if the game was lore accurate, it would be WAY WAY harder than what we have .... I don't get it... like you saied if you dont want difficulty go on ez mod... like idk...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. (ppl are still spamming grenades on meele allies in lethal btw)

[@Oakeybloke]

Would be good to see hard prerequisites for harder game modes, like having beaten lethal and be max character level (or weapon level, limiting what you can switch to in-game)

[@billylewis3530]

Idk what the new difficulty would entail maybe 2 bosses in a run? I don’t know how you go above lethal but I’m interested to see how it turns out

[@nathancawley8759]

Longer ability cooldowns, single use ammo caches, enemies with armored bodies ( so non headshots do 0 damage), additional eximus and terminus spawns, and a removal of the visual indicators for incoming attacks would all increase challenge without turning down our damage or buffing enemy hp/dps.

[@billylewis3530]

@ I need more bullets 😭

[@hawkclaw_8682]

I don’t think adding more Terminus would make it more difficult, for ppl like me (500+ hours) Terminus are basically free Health and armor refills.

[@j3lly_m3lly]

Space Marine franchise is all about power fantasy, and difficulties above minimal have severely damaged it by making marines feel extremely weak and brittle against tyranids. not to mention the lengths to which lethal difficulty did it... i hope they don't make the new difficulty turn marines EVEN WEAKER against tyranids, but instead simply throw more/bigger tyranids at the marines.

[@liamb89]

If it is easy to the point of just walking through the levels with minimal effort, the game will die rapidly without them making more levels to play on. Power fantasy is one thing, but making the change have levels where you can sweat a little bit more is a good thing. Just because you dont want to play harder levels doesnt mean people like me dont either. Just stick to lower levels. And dont forget, tyranids absolutely shred marines on the daily, we are playing against such an already weakened version of the nids already, why make them even weaker?

[@j3lly_m3lly]

@@liamb89 such a small number of tyranids can shred thru astartes according to what? your propaganda you activist who's resentful over astartes being warhammer's main faction? i know your kind well. i'll not stick to any difficulty below lethal because the lack of challenge make it impossible to make me engaged in the game.

[@liamb89]

@j3lly_m3lly according to lore. And 5 warriors surrounded by gaunts isnt small. that's a hell of a threat, even for marines. Hell, they had to nerf rippers in the games story just so there was another enemy type to feel good about. Those many rippers would have chewed up the marines in a heartbeat, haha. Where did your activist bs come from? Ive been a fan since 3rd edition, and my main army is black templars, haha. You sound more like a tourist, my dude. Tyranids are a huge threat and pose true difficulty to the best warriors in the galaxy. As i said, lore accurate carnifexes would shred, chew, and sh*t out a 4 man squad of marines easily! Never mind a single zoanthrope, it would also wipe out a fair few marines as well. Maybe read uo the lore and combat stats of these models to gain an actual idea of how they should perform.

[@j3lly_m3lly]

​@@liamb89 read up on lore as if i were as illiterate as your desperate intentional misinterpretations of anything you can find to twist for your propaganda? every time your kind yells about how carnifex could somehow defeat an astartes without support of the swarm, it's always based on some blatant misinterpretation of the lore literature. you only discredit yourself further by coming up with these blatant excuses for why you're not resentful over astartes standing in the lore while you obviously are, and attempting to discredit better to yourself. you're not speaking to your equal. "my" activist "bs" come form countless encounters with your miserable kind on countless forums, experiencing your eternal distress over astartes standing in the lore. tyranids are a threat to astartes, but only in NORMAL NUMBERS unlike what SM2 has.

[@j3lly_m3lly]

​@@liamb89 read up on lore as if i were as illiterate as your desperate intentional misinterpretations of anything you can find to twist for your propaganda? every time your kind yells about how carnifex could somehow defeat an astartes without support of the swarm, it's always based on some blatant misinterpretation of the lore literature. you only discredit yourself further by coming up with these blatant excuses for why you're not resentful over astartes standing in the lore while you obviously are, and attempting to discredit better to yourself. you're not speaking to your equal. "my" activist "bs" come form countless encounters with your kind on countless forums, experiencing your eternal distress over astartes standing in the lore. tyranids are a threat to astartes, but only in NORMAL NUMBERS unlike what SM2 has.

[@Sourlife.]

ofc we need a higher difficulty! Lethal is a runtrough with the correct ppl and classes. i am blessed with good Battlebrothers who arent egoistic morons, so we fight side by side and manage to run nearly without problems through lethal. Important is, that the higher difficulty is highly rewarded too, atm there is no reward or meaning doing ops.

[@ghostzero5919]

Sometimes I feel like Lethal difficulty players are more team friendly compared to lower difficulty players, basically sharing resources and playing more as a unit if that makes sense. Some players try to be that one man army but that can compromise the operation.

[@johnnymo4000]

Is it? Have you beaten lethal with standard issue weapons and only top row perks? I'd bet you haven't.

[@Sourlife.]

@@johnnymo4000 for what purpose? I mean running highest diff is meant to use proper weapons and perks, whats your point?

[@johnnymo4000]

@@Sourlife. Because it makes Lethal organically more difficult. I take it you aren't so good you need a new difficulty or you'd be able to handle a standard issue run.

[@Sourlife.]

@johnnymo4000 its just an artificial rise of the difficulty. I expect the devs to design the content so that with the best setup the game is hard and rewards are given accordingly. For example, if there is a reward for "use the worst weapons and worst perks", i expect it to be balanced accordingly. For me, what you describe is nonsense. 😀

[@RaduAdrian-f7k]

They should either drastically increase dmg or reduce enemy HP and then drastically increase the number of enemy waves. The game can already feel lore acurate on lower difficulties while being lvl 25 with relic weapons, but the enemy numbers are too damn lame. The only reason why I am having fun on lethal is the sheer enemy numbers.

[@indeedgaminghere401]

The problem with Lethal pre-patch wasn’t that it was “to hard”, it was that the tether functions restricted and dictated the way you played the game. I beat a couple matches pre-patch on lethal the first day with randoms…it wasn’t fun, it was annoying. And a mechanic that means if your whole team is dead you just can’t heal is simply stupid. “Hey, this mode is hard cause we turn off potentially half your skill tree” is not good game design. I hope, that this new difficulty is difficult in a way that is fun and not just more health and damage to enemies. Give me variants of Extremis enemies that are only are only in this difficulty that have different moves and effects. Even throw 10 Extremis enemies at us at once, throw more enemies at me. But limiting how I play isn’t fun in general. Personally, I’m not upset they’re adding a new difficulty. But I do wish the man power being directed at it was going to the horde mode, new weapons, armor and missions. I don’t think that many people are leaving or not playing as much cause they can’t play the same mission with the same weapons for the 200th time on a hard enough difficulty.

[@roxy8977]

I personally disagree with new difficulty atm cuz I see many players are already struggling with current lethal difficulty and many give up in the middle of the mission when playing online. Just like the film Men in Black said “a person is smart but people are dumb”, the words “if you are not good enough, don’t play the difficulty” wouldn’t work that way. When there is the best difficulty, large number of people would play and quit without saying anything.

[@cameronnowell2856]

More Extremist enemies at the same time please

[@peterhance549]

If they were to solve the enemy spawn issues, like the amount of Zoe’s and the similar ones that come in pairs, limit the amount in any single Operation

[@dropzofcrimzon]

Brother, the only thing I am dreading about the new difficulty being related to The Prestige ranks is that they might very well reset character progression in order for you to achieve that prestige. Having said that, you read my post on Reddit so you know how I feel about it. This is going to be little for Prestige classes. Also if you want to condition yourself to fight chaos the best way is to run Obelisk solo on ruthless. Just repeat the first 15 minutes of the operation daily and it will force you against every single enemy type in the chaos roster as well as the helbrute. I have been doing it for a couple of weeks now and I am now to the point where I can take it down hand-to-hand only, taking no damage to my Health at all

[@Glorybast84]

A difficulty with timer, modifiers, and other stuff that hamper and gives you bonus dmg of certain types of dmg or resist against melee etc. It also encourages people to get to know each other better and a clan or lobby system or unique battlebarges that you can invite all your friends to and that the group size will be dynamic. I think they could have 4 maybe 5(it would be cool but I think its got something to do with how the game runs with too many players concidering the ai really just change targets randomly and they wait in turn that makes the immersion a little bit. They could have random roll on class and weapons when you log into a game etc if you wanna roll class and weapons

[@DevilHunter236]

I don't think we need a harder difficulty just yet, at least not until the prestige system gets added and we see what it actually does. I'd be happy if the difficulty is a modifier centered thing. Have it be around substantial (preferably ruthless) and have special modifiers so that the missions feel more unique when you're constantly running the same few missions.

[@daftmi9hty327]

The only thing about lethal that annoyed me when it came out was the armour coherency other than that the difficulty was fine but it will be interesting to see how they go about it

[@ft3art]

Difficulty should be modifiers, not just basic implementations of bullet sponge enemies, nerfed guns, and more spawns. Any one that's read the books knows that shit hits the fan fast on the battlefield. All manor of complications come into play and true difficulty should reflect that. I wish they would explore a feature that involves injuries and malfunctions from significant hits. Compromised limbs removing or restricting methods of attacking, reducing mobility, weapon malfunctions, impaired vision and hearing. Also, I am a huge of DMC's Dante Must Die mode. Enemies are easier to kill, but so is the player. I'd like to see how that would work here as well. Maybe armor and weapon degradation/maintenance. Speaking of which, I'm surprised there isn't some kind of "machine spirit" mechanic in the game.

[@AudyBharksuwana]

Custom difficulties could be pretty cool. I feel like the lower levels spawn waaaaaay too little mobs. Kinda makes it feel like the first two difficulties are next to pointless imo. The first two levels just don’t give you that getting over run by Nids/Heretics feel. Like the jump between Substantial, Ruthless and Lethal feel much better than the first two and Substantial.

[@wizzolo]

with prestige classes/level/perks whatever they'll be called, new difficulty is obviously needed. hopefully with new tier of rewards. I'd say the best we can do to be ready is to cap classes and weapons, filling also the ( useless so far) last exp bar for relic tier weapons.

[@joshualap401]

I hadn't thought about this at first but I think you are right. The new difficulty will prob be for the class prestige system because we will be able to be way more powerful.

[@kvernesdotten]

I do think that current gaming culture makes alot of people feel like they must play at a certain difficulty or they will be made to feel like it doesnt count or that they are lesser in some way. Noone wants to tell their friends they play on easy and all that. That being said, as long as adding a new difficulty is not touching existing difficulties, there really is 0 reason to complain. What you can complain about are the stuff that is not 100% on you to choose, like when they change balance globally or implement a stat scaling as their idea of "difficulty".

[@deathbyspeed2]

It's a fact that people move on to other games once there is no more challenge. Like me for example I finished maxing all my classes and weapons. As well as finishing the all the lethal missions atleast once. Upon doing all that I have no reason to play besides PvP. Which is alright but other games do pvp much better. I'm on a break from space marine 2 until the new difficulty drops. So until that patch I will continue to play rivals.

[@ituckerrvbi5189]

I know exactly what you mean referring to skill diff on lethal as someone who beat all the coop ops on lethal the 3rd day lethal was out I still try and play lethal and people play like they haven’t touched ruthless once, and always don’t heal teammates as bulwark or take every execution when an enemy is red. Blows my mind

[@tylermorgan1770]

Maybe it’ll go well with the new prestige rank and whatever ability they’ll rework perks- maybe a lvl 30 cap with a new ult for each class. Me personally I’d want the ability to use weapons on different class, i.e tactical with sword

[@kingjakyl4851]

players being concerned for balance is a legitimate concern! to be fair but lets also be honest with this here, with my time playing space marine 2 ! have yet to get a lethal clear (wanting to max out all classes before I attempt) but I have played up thru ruthless difficulty and I feel so far the balance for the most part is fair! A lot of bad situations where players go down including myself, because I'm not perfect it mostly to do with the following issues, either you got separated from your battle brothers and got chased into a corner by a horde, or you got bold and decided to ego challenge an extreemis or higher on less than a quarter health and your armor is gone, or maybe, just maybe you put yourself into a bad position because of over confidence! There is a massive skill ceiling and it shows but also learn to have your own fun in the game

[@burniejarvis9298]

Good take.

[@volcano3493]

People want a challenge. That´s why they pick the hardest difficulty. It´s the same with mountaineering. People try to climb it because it is simply there. On the plus side for gaming your toon is immortal so dying in an operation has zero consequences as opposed to falling into a chasm in real life.

[@Monotony619]

What are the release dates? Anyone know. For horde and new difficulty

[@matheusyash3691]

Is kinda wild, a new difficulty, most pp struggle to substantial, die at least 2 times on ruth and totally wipe on the first wave on lethal, with is funny to watch ngl. It might be better to play with bots, they dont die, dont steal execution, usually agro 3 to 4 majors, res you asap

[@MiaHurricanes3]

I think the problem here is casual gamers thinking all content should be easily accessible. Whether it’s just having that check next to each difficulty for each operation or having all of the cosmetics unlocked. They want easy/instant gratification. Just as they claim it’s not fair to hide content behind a difficulty wall, it’s not fair that people who actually learn the game mechanics don’t have something to show for it. This isn’t a Dark Souls “get good” post but if you want it to be easy but don’t want to learn the game, you shouldn’t be playing in the more mechanic driven difficulties. You need to have good aim. You need to dodge/parry/block. You need to know how the other classes work so you can compliment your team, not drag them down. You’ve still got people soloing lethal. It’s not that hard if you know what you’re doing.

[@jamesestrada3660]

I think there should be an in-between difficulty from ruthless and lethal. Ruthless is just plain too easy for me even when 5 levels under level. However, lethal completions required me to master my bulwark, my banner timing, and cautiously watching my teammates that don't understand I can fully heal you just to attempt it with my duo and a random 3rd. I would definitely attempt the harder difficulty when released but people complaining that Lethal is too tuff STOP DOING LETHAL. It's an incredibly effective solution to what is not currently a problem.

[@el-low6663]

The most annoying part of the updates so far is that they only make new operations that take a lot of time to make but it barely adds replayability. Horde mode is gonna come middle to end of 2025 which makes no sense, it should've came at the beginning of 2025 and could've added a lot of replayability like in SM1. Low effort, high replayability like prestige system, new gun, new class (even if it would probably take a bit more time), and new rewards as a whole. But nah, let's push the new operation that will get played on average 1 to 2 times per players.

[@italianspiderman5012]

I think that new difficulty is not a new content, it’s literally moving numbers around, and that’s fine, but I’m really tired of studio’s pretending like it’s some sort of “new content”, it isn’t.

[@lankyeric]

I find that Rutheless is harder than Leathal. in Ruthless you get ppl that belong in substantial or lower.. Lethal you get ppl that worked their way up, or that you can rely on.. rarely do i get the ppl that clearly do not belong

[@elmarto4743]

In my experience as a sweat playing nothing but lethal with all my classes are maxed aswell as all the weapons, to me, playing it solo is really fun, or helping my friends who just started playing to help them level up faster in private lobbies. HOWEVER, when i play with other lvl 25 players, i find that, unless one player is noticably screwing the team (stealing executions or constant deaths), the gamemode gets a bit stale as there's 3 sweats obliterating everything really quick and the gamemode becomes easy-er once again, which is fine, but the magic of lethal (with other players) kinda died down for me. I would really enjoy a new difficulty BUT i dont want it to be just (less health for you and more for your enemies). I'd like a mode that behaves like lethal with its damage settings, maybe adding new mechanics that makes you play differently like maybe hidden parry indicators or a reworked squad cohesion that rewards sticking together but dosent murder you for moving 5 meters away from your buddy. Just something new that makes it stick out from the other difficulties.

[@joshwhite557]

The game AI director needs some major work before they even think about adding a new difficulty. Some lower difficulty missions I've ran with friends have had an ABSURD amount of enemies but then we breeze through a ruthless.

[@MisterSinister47]

They're going to need to give us more data armory points to beef up the gear.

[@khorne133]

I mean, in my eyes, there is no real sense to add another. Specially with how they choose to do difficulty in this game. Enemies get more hp, do more damage, stimms heal less and they simply strangulate resources more to pigeon hole you into using specific stuff. Enemies with slightly more hp makes a bit of sense as our gear also goes up a bit. But as is, they only go up to a certain point. Resources will be non-existent on the map, enemies (ranged included) will one shot you, stimms heal even less than they do now, and you can now only re-arm once from all ammo boxes. Fun indeed. We will have to also see though how they shake up character and weapon perks with the upcoming reworks. The prestige perks we will also have to see if they are a choice, or if they are a straight up upgrade. Cause as is, some are just flat out useless. Like, why would I ever take getting 10 kills to get equipment back on a 180 second cooldown, over expending all of my shield to give the whole squad an armour segment as an example.

[@HUGEEGO11]

So this progress lose bug? Really prevalent? Nervous to get back into space marine cuz it, was going back for the chain sword skin

[@PaddleTales24]

Lethal is a cakewalk with randoms (provided they don’t suck). We have plenty of room left to increase difficulty. The highest difficulty should be impossible unless you have a premade team of highly skilled and coordinated players. Think destiny raid level difficulty.

[@sentinelslayer8328]

Hopfully they don’t nerf this new difficulty

[@Wbrosco]

So didn’t they say the new difficulty would have stuff for us to unlock also didn’t they confirm that the PVE prestige ranks would allow us to make our classes even stronger I’m assuming the prestige system will help us against the new difficulty. I personally don’t find the hardest difficulty even hard either so I am looking forward to it anyway

[@TheBenjaman]

Instead of yet another difficulty i would much rather get a daily or weekly challenge mode. Exactly like what saber did with wwz.

[@KielCrassus]

I want difficulty that puts me in the grimdark world and not have my weapons shooting peas. My problem is that enemies on lethal become bullet sponges especially when they're buffed. More so the Thousand Sons and Tzaangors. Tzaangors take an unnecessary amount of damage and the rubric marines are absolute bullet sponges and getting swarmed is frustrating and having constant extremis enemies flooding in. I'm trying to get good at lethal with all the classes so it's either I'm not building probably or the bastards take too long to kill.

[@A-1-Sawce]

I only play co-op online solo, my buddy doesn't play. I haven't even been able to find a cohesive enough random group to play lethal with letalone a new difficulty lol.

[@TaurusTheCrazyBull]

We need to attain Primarch levels somehow, just like Malum Caedo. We are still reaching Chapter Master levels of skill.

[@servalkorion686]

Malum Caedo is no where near a primarch 😂. The game is called space marine not the primarch

[@TaurusTheCrazyBull]

@@servalkorion686 To quote the difficulty Exterminatus "Not even a Primarch could survive!"

[@Overanalyse_This]

Another difficulty? Bro, I literally just got my first two purple armoury data things!!!!

[@richiemorissette4092]

I wonder what the new rewards will be? Probably just more decals and skins

[@RazicTheHyaena]

I love bolters. Which is why I both love and absolutely HATE this game. A regular bolter round is a 0.75 caliber rocket propelled grenade. It hits with more force than a .50 BMG round which itself is known for punching THROUGH engine blocks. Then, it FUCKING EXPLODES INSIDE OF THE TARGET. So not only would it liquify a human sized target (like any minoris enemy) it would then blast them apart like a huge bloody waterballoon, showering anything in the proximity with vicera, bone shards, and shrapnel. The heavy bolter fires a LARGER, 0.998 caliber version of the bolt round. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever, balance wise or not, that a bolt round doesn't one shot minoris, or that it takes more than one headshot to kill a majoris (tyranid warrior.) Sabre has no excuse. It is not lore accurate, AT ALL.

[@jcpassafist]

As a solo player I just wish there was another way to max out the weapons as completing Ruthless seems to be a struggle, for me at least.

[@BleedingMem0ry]

Same. As a solo player the difficulty bump is quite big (before you get better at the game). So to get better weapons, you need to spend more time getting the perks and learning the game, and only then you can upgrade your weapons. This is normal progression in general, the problem is that in SM2 in particular the bump in difficulty is higher on average compared to a lot of games so going from "average" to "substantial" is quite substantial. Most people (especially if you don't have friends or maybe your internet is unstable) will not have a good time and likely move onto another game.

[@jamesmclemore9123]

You know what? Fuck it. Double the enemies health and damage, triple their numbers, at least one extremis spawns every encounter, and a terminus spawns every time you enter a new area. Let's see just how much the Emperor *really* protects.

[@Yeertski]

Lmao!

[@servalkorion686]

No

[@ragnarphillips1957]

Yeah it might be too much but on the other hand they said that you will get prestige perks I'll have to see what that's like first before I can really comment on it but on surface level another higher difficulty lethal is already really tough

[@Ragnarakk187]

They need to fix the existing issues before they add a new difficulty

[@myster_ink8115]

The new difficulty is fine not needed but fine. People that are mad about a new difficulty are the same people that were mad about the helmet cosmetics "locked' behind a OPTIONAL difficulty. Because not being able to clear it keeps them from having access to cosmetic rewards its the same complaint nothing more. people don't understand what OPTIONAL means and they expect everyone to play the game how they want it to be played. If you want harder play the new difficulty if you don't then DONT and accept that you wont have some "rule of cool cosmetics" not complicated not the end of the world

[@LOWKEYDANGER]

Can't imagine a space marine complaining about the difficulty of anything

[@MrHurst-lb1rn]

Fix the stun lock. Seems to be the leading cause of battle brothers getting wrecked. Parrying isn't an issue, it's the 6 snipers that always seem to tag you regardless of what you do.

[@Shenp-ef3yg]

Prepare for Reddit to cry about how hard the new difficulty is and have saber bend over backwards for them

[@mrluckduck1558]

I really just want more weps for all classes!!

[@HiThereFaceHere]

Im just sick of relying on luck in a skill based game. "Is the ammo crate gonna be there or not." Also, gene seeds are nowhere on difficulties under lethal but once youre maxed out playing lethal they are everywhere

[@notthistime9290]

Lethal is not a lot of fun as is, every other difficulty is fun to play including ruthless. Lethal just seems like chore. Let me guess in the new difficulty you have to play without armor and you get no ammo refills.

[@stephenbennett6108]

I struggle on lethal & don't think I'll get all the missions done, I won't be trying the new difficulty but I'm not going to complain about it either.

[@TheDawg1212]

New difficulty will throw TWO neurothropes and a carnifex at you at the same time 🙃and fuck it have a lictor while you’re at it

[@freed991]

My biggest complaint with lethal was sniper spam. Everything else was tolerable. I did 4 games in a row where there was 8 snipers all aiming at me, shoot me. It didn't matter if a team mate was hitting them or not they would just turn and hit me. I beat all but 2 missions on lethal lol it's not that bad of a difficulty it just isn't fun for me.

[@N8Dogg7]

They don’t need another new difficulty it’s already stupidly rediculous

[@Phan_the_Mighty]

Running away from a game cuz they are adding more difficulty for people who want it is insane. Just play a lower difficulty brother

[@Leospedd]

Just excited to solo the new difficulty 👊👊

[@sirsilco]

People don't want higher difficulties because there will be cosmetics locked behind it they will never earn. That's all it is.

[@isnobodyreally102]

I cleared all level 5 content. But even I'm like why do we need stuff locked behind difficulty. We don't need it hard we just want more stuff. Not increase in difficulty

[@forgottenone9879]

I think a harder difficulty will be great. But we need some new weapons first. And why can't you use every melee weapon and every pistol on every class. I think that's complete nonsense.

[@patrickhandy1985]

Give us the apothecary then I’ll be down. We need more ways to heal

[@polskipolak9073]

So, enemies will have even more HP deal way more damage but in return we will have even less ammo and meds will heal even less.... Yeah XD

[@perry3366]

Better bust out the fencing weapons again 😅

[@Tookieslam]

Probably gonna be called Absolute. Cause of Secret Level.

[@silasginell9251]

I think the should add a difficulty level (as long as they dont reduce ammo drops). People will still play lethal. Whats wrong with wanting more of a challenge? For me breezing through a game is not enjoyable. Challenge is why i play! I dont understand people not wanting it, it will never effect the other dificulties.

[@ericharris4059]

Dude me and my guys jammed this game when it came out, yeah ruthless could be rough but was definitely doable without being a try hard. Now even with the recent fixes it’s just not as fun.

[@roderick5597]

"Im tired boss" 😂