So I was pondering if it was already discussed but I thought i'd start a topic about difficulty settings. A top difficulty setting shouldn't just increase the time it takes to kill/arrest badguys, but also increase aggression/tactical intelligence. It should also insult people for picking things lower then the "normal" setting, so without further adieu...

Before going to the difficulties, what I mean by ranks is that minions/lieutenants/bosses all have a normal and a harder rank. Harder rank enemies attack faster, debuff more and are a bit tougher, as well as being smarter. Hard ranked enemies are non-existent on the easiest settings, and utterly replace them 100% on the highest(kinda inspired by the game series marathon, "minor" rank enemies automatically upgraded to major rank on higher settings, major downgraded to minor on easier).

Lower difficulties

These are made for those trying to get into the game, but reward on a penalty. Enemies are made to be more predictable, easy to trick into fighting a trinity to plan, and enemies generally give less experience. The easiest setting is given an insulting name as to discourage picking it, additionally it gives very little experience and is meant only as a tutorial mode setting. Normal is a baseline, and is generally harder than the two lowest ones and should be a baseline experience.

Pre-Schooler mode;

Enemies do half damage, have half health, generally only charge and also are especially passive and slow in attacks(even just sitting there). Enemies give only 1/10th exp and all higher rank enemies are downgraded one rank.(in other words, you really, really suck and maybe should up the difficulty, not really being serious but hey, it's called pre-schooler mode for a reason. Yeah I remember those days of insulting names for easiest) Enemies have no debuff effects. Enemies are also stupid enough to ALWAYS attack the tank even if he is only inflicting minimal damage.

Easy Mode:

50% of higher rank enemies are downgraded one rank. Enemies do normal damage but have only 75% durability. Enemies attack at only 75% speeds. Enemies can launch some debuffs. Player takes an exp penalty of 35%(not as harsh as the above, but then you shouldn't be lowering it this much either unless you really need to in order to re-familiarize yourself with the game). Enemies still fall for the holy trinity very, very easily.

Normal: Default setting, enemies are neither downgraded nore upgraded in rank. Normal damage is done and enemies are at full health and attack at normal speeds. Enemies that have debuffs and crowd control have full use of them. No experience penalties or bonuses. Enemies flank around occasionally and make attempts to target non tank players who are in the open if tanks had not established a dangerous enough presence.

Higher difficulties; The two following should generally obliberate the trinity, as enemies are much smarter and far more aggressive and have significantly higher damage capabilities, enough so that healing by itself healing a tank wouldn't work as enemies won't fall for that so easily.

Super powered: Enemies do 50% more damage, have 35% more health and lower ranked enemies have a 50% chance to be increased in rank. Enemies use smarter tactics and try to flank more aggressively, call for reinforcements, as well as attacking while moving(and generally keep moving most the time). Enemies also attack 50% faster. Enemies give 50% more experience.

True Titan: Enemies do double damage, have double health, double attack rates. ALL enemies are upped a rank if they are lower ranks(meaning you won't encounter weaker rank enemies). Enemies use similar tactics to above, but in addition constantly attack when you are in view(and instantly when you come within view). This mode is meant to be suicide for all but the best players, and gives double experience. This mode and the above should also stomp holy trinities with ease if the team is not making good use of buffs/debuffs/crowd control in team settings. The three are important to ensure enemies cannot do what they want, because they will try and hit the weak spots in a team if allowed to(tanks will generally need to keep moving and in the way of the enemies).

Custom difficulties: Since a mission editor will be released later, I think it'd be nice to be able to customize the above difficulties, even rename them temporarily for the duration of the mission string.

So a small chart for the settings differences in damage/attack speed ect. Listed as Pre-schooler/easy/normal/Super Powered/True Titan

Damage: 50%/100%/100%/150%/200%
Attack speed: 50%/75%/100%/135%/200%
Health: 50%/75%/100%/100%/200%
Rankings:-100%/-50%/Unchanged/+50%/+100%(every 50% in either direction means weaker enemies are improved in rank on positive values, or stronger are weakened on negative values)
Intelligence: Excessively predictable/predictable/May change targets/Attempts to change/Moves constantly to change targets while launching attacks at all times.

So that brings up behavior. I'd think that, enemies would try to on higher difficulties move around such that they can get shots at more fragile teammates if a tank is in the way. If a tank is in the way sufficiently they'll focus on him, so ranged will want to keep behind the tank naturally. On higher settings, they'll flank more aggressively to attempt to allow themselves to get clear shots at squishies(enough so on normal to mean the tank has to move), on lower settings they'll generally remain predictable(with pre-schooler the AI always targets the most durable person).

On all difficulties except true titan enemies will not attack constantly when moving. But on True Titans, enemies will also run-and-gun, circle strafing as before but also keep a constant barrage out. Because True Titan and Super Powered enemies do more damage and already strike more often, damage mitigation becomes far more important and crowd control is important to keep enemies from trying to circle strafe/flank to much.