If you are doing well and not losing soldiers the difficulty after a few missions will raise and after some will raise again.
Do we know the number of those missions?
Do we know how losing a soldier reduces that count?
As far as I know, this was implemented as a dynamic difficulty of sorts. The implementation details have not been detailed, but the devs are not entirely happy on how it works in practise, and it has been tonned down a lot. Afaik they are considering the complete removal of the system.
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Actually, I think the Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment system was totally removed with the introduction of the Human Population Index and the revamping of the Pandoran evolution.
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i don’t think it has been removedd or badly implemented in any case.
the campaign gets harder and harder ( on all levels) which is to expected at some level but it gets just too hard.
When i gets the bosses with the daze ability which is extreme overpowered i just start a new camp.
I hope they fix the scaling
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The Pandoran evolution is faster per difficulty level. I think this was the adjustment the devs made to replace the DDA. I am no longer seeing the affects of DDA in my game play. I don’t lose units in battle.
Are you guys play the same level of difficulty?
The DDA was indeed removed when they implemented the Human Population Index, so there is no dynamic difficulty raising any more.
However, depending on your Difficulty Setting, the speed of Pandoran Evolution increases.
Some of us in the CC have argued for top level Pandas to be removed entirely from Easy Difficulty for precisely the reasons wasp252 has alluded to.
But at the same time, we would also like Reactive Evolution to be implemented on Heroic & Legendary, so that the Pandas really do evolve in response to our tactics.
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well to remove top tier enemies would be a bad move. it needs adjustment to their powers 100%. When i get the sonic boss and the mob that throws explosive every turn i just don’t bother. not my cup of tea to lose my squad.
It would feel like half a game if the enemies are not present in lower difficulties. It need adjustment though.
Another thing that is annoying is the endless enemies in every stage. the purpose of any game is to get an achievement you enter a map and start killing enemies and you are doing well. Whats the result…more enemies and more enemies similar to nests-citadels etc. .
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As ever with this game, there are some who find the scaling too difficult and others who find it ludicrously easy .
My advice on a macro level is to stick to Easy or Veteran difficulty if you are finding the end-Scyllas too hot to handle (and believe me, we’re working hard to persuade SG to make these easier).
On a mission level, try deploying a squad of Sniper/Heavies or Assaults & a Tech in a Vehicle (best for this is the Armadillo) against the Scylla with the Daze Cannon. The Armadillo usually (but not always) protects them from the Daze shot, and they can pop out the back and use Quick Aim to fire back with Sniper Rifles or Heavy Weapons, while the Tech deploys & operates turrets.
Another trick is to concentrate on taking out one of the cannons and then manoeuvring to stay on that side of her. She always centres her cannons, so if she loses one, the blast wave misses anyone on the side that’s no longer firing.
I know other players use Viral Damage and Paralysis to keep the Scylla down.
The thing you need to realise is that for every one of you who is finding this near impossible, there is another player out there who can take down that Scylla in a couple of turns and is finding it boringly easy. So Snapshot has the unenviable task of balancing this game’s difficulty to cater to both ends of that spectrum.
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Just to clarify.
On April 6th, a developer responded in the feedback forum, on a suggestion titled: “Remove dynamic difficulty from Legend / Hero” (currently listed as: Under Review) The response was as follows:
Dynamic difficulty influence was already significantly decreased in Leviathan patch released in March. And we are considering removing dynamic difficulty altogether.
The dev was talking here about Phoenix Point v Leviathan 1.0.56049 - 04/3/2020. In this patch the Pandoran Evolution was Altered, and changes in the ODI meter were done.
Later, the Pandoran Evolution was further altered and the ODI meter was replaced by the the Human Population Index in Phoenix Point v. Cthulhu 1.6 - 30th of July where the patch notes state:
Dynamic difficulty has been changed so that it affects the rate of pandoran evolution, not the amount of enemies deployed.
So unless I am missing something. Dynamic difficulty has not been removed. It affects the rate of pandoran evolution.
Correct me if Im wrong of if I am missing something.
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I understand and i never said my strategy level is high. Maybe i am getting older and don’t have patience any more. Who knows.
I play with heavy/soldier and sniper /soldier and maybe those are not the best combination for these kinds of missions.
When you have 5 snipers =10 shots ( when not 100000 mobs coming to you- ideal scenario and a rage burst ( hope it gets fixed soon as the aim is horrible) plus the +50% extra damage ( god i miss the multiple +50% damage bug so so so much). of course with limited movement as the citadel do not provide any of tht or even cover-yes the sonic gets you behind cover also and the range is… plus the jumping of the mob and running there is no way you can keep a distance. I tried doing that on my last playthrough. every (because you need to take out 2) hand has 1500+ HP you get 120-130 damage in an ideal scenario . So what happens is the mob jumps and runs to you- daze half or more of the squad and you are left with 2 max 3. adding the infinite mobs coming to you… oo yes thats on easy dif 
I am not keen to play stealth soldiers or mechanics as they are very slow. The vehicles 3 shots before empty is not worth the space in the aircraft for me. Priests maybe be good because of the MC but never tried them. Again maybe the comb of the soldiers is not optimal.
there are a lot of good ideas throughout the forums to discuss and some may elevate the game into the level we all want.
i would look again for the infinite reinforcements thingy because it does not add value. maybe add a countdown every lets say 2-3-4-5 turns to get some not every turn.
i made some suggestions also myself.
please-please fix the save bug
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I don’t understand what the difficulty is? Skila is destroyed in one or two moves.
- Acid Cannon with Berserker perk superimposes 1200-1600 units of acid. In two or three moves, it will die on its own.
- The Stormtrooper fires Anu’s explosive shotgun 2 times at the incubator.
a) A couple of shots from the viral weapon will make her run in fear the entire fight.
b) a few sniper shots from the shadows, and she’s dead.
There are a lot of such options, this is a very simple opponent, the main thing is to focus the fire on the largest part of the body.
Sometimes I didn’t even notice how she died))))) because she was dying somewhere in the corner in fear of acid.
In my experience this is the case. Once I reloaded a campaign start save and simply only trigger the timer without doing anything and the milestones Lair and Citadels comes roughly 2-3 weeks later as usual. I’m pretty sure that the amount of missions and maybe also some other points (story and faction progress, own bases …?) influences the Pandoran evolution.
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Most of the time the Scylla never really uses its Cannon effectively (or at all). It’s not the cannon that is the wicked weapon, it’s the Daze Head. For the latter one needs to not bunch their units and work to disable the head before anything else.
I’m talking about the Daze Cannons on the late game Scylla whose name I can never remember.
She fires a sonic cone with 2 cannons - but if you take one of them out, the cone on that side completely misses you.
It’s quite fun leading her on, then hugging the wall on the disabled side and watching the cone skate on by without touching any of your guys at all.
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Technically, you are not wrong. However, this version of the DDA is nothing akin to the first and 2nd versions. Not only did the earlier ones throw tougher enemies, but it highly increased their number as well. In it’s current version, it’s a manageable and reasonable approach. The enemy has a credit quota for each difficulty level. It allocates enemy type/strength based on that quota. The more advanced/deadly Pandorans in a mission decreases the number of lesser foes. The reverse also applies.
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Actually, (s)he is wrong, because it’s not dynamic - it’s linear.
Pandoran Evolution doesn’t respond to how well or badly you play, it simply ramps up the Pandoran threat on a linear scale which runs faster the higher the Difficulty Setting is.
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Are you sure?
I have seen in the patch notes:
We are adding a difficulty component to evolution progression effectively slowing down Pandoran evolution (encountering elite units) for easier difficulties.
This implies there is a linear component concerning difficulty, but there are probably other components that affect evolution too. Granted the patch notes may have skipped the removal of any performance based component. But I have no reason to assume that is the case.
That simply says in 20 words rather than 10: “We are slowing down Pandoran Evolution on lower Difficulty Settings.”
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