Insane Difficulty: Difficulty Ranking and Discussion - Insane Difficulty

Part of my goals for this game is to create a more consistent difficulty curve, while still retaining variety in encounter types. This is something I can't do without your help! I can test my own battles as much as I want to, however I'm not a blind runner and can't replicate how another player who thinks differently from myself will approach a battle. There are some battles that still seem out of place in my opinion, but I'm also not sure if anyone else finds them troublesome or not.

Anyone who has played through a good portion of the game can write their own rankings. Use whatever scale you want, but please explain it if it's not the same one I'm using. Keep in mind some of the differences within versions - if a battle has changed drastically since you last played it, such as Goland Coal City when you still had to save Olan vs. the new version where you don't, please note that. All of my rankings are based on battles in the newest version (2.51a as of this post)

All newly added battles that didn't exist in vanilla are now in italics. No longer relevant notes removed.

Note: Rankings in story battles are based off of not using sidequest equipment or characters. They assume a "normal" party (Ramza, Agrias, and whatever monsters are available at that point in the game; with reasonable stats/equipment/jobs and abilities available). They do not assume excessive amounts of grinding (i.e, Bard in ch 1) or unreasonable recruitment (all 74/74 units).

End sequence ranking assumes lv 99 party (since reaching it at low levels in current versions is an unreasonable assumption). Extra battles ranking assumes a ch 4 party (but you are free to attempt those as soon as it opens for you for the extra challenge).

Note on DD/Extra Battles: Since I have more battles now than I've had the chance to try to figure out myself, and I'm currently in the process of porting failed DD ideas to Extra Battles (along with whatever else seems like it'd be interesting); DD/Extra battles now have an estimated rank if I personally haven't beaten them yet. This rank is estimated based on how hard it feels in attempts and with my own modding experience comparing things such as synergy and complexity with other things in the mod. If I have no clue as to an estimation, it's written as untested. Anyone who has beaten these, feel free to chime in.

Scale: between 0-10, where 0 is "must actively try to lose" and 10 is "evil" Note that the battles are ranked as compared with each other - it's not necessarily an even difference between a 1 and 2 vs. a 7 and 8.

Added: Current average to each chapter, battle count.

Chapter 1:



Chapter 2:



Chapter 3:



Chapter 4:



Chapter 5 (work in progress):



Optional Battles:



Deep Dungeon:



Extra Battles:

So, here's my ranking of chapter 1:



I'll update it with the other ones later (or at least ch2 and half of ch3).

As for rules, i'll use the same ranking system + only monsters you get on story and not grinding

Edit:

Chapter 2 (in progress)



Edit: This ranking is now obsolete with the release of version 2.0.

Just finished Goland and Zalmo on this run. I'll let you know if I find any battles that I think are way easier/harder than you have ranked. So far the rankings you gave have been pretty accurate.

Updated rankings for the 2.xx versions through North/South wall, current as of 2.04 version. Currently in the works for rewriting is the now out of place easy South Wall, possibly also Doguola Pass (which I'm iffy on - on one hand it's pretty abuseable if you know what you're doing, on the other hand it's tough if you try to beat it normally). Rooftop will be changed when the Limberry sequence is worked on, since any changes in those enemies affect both battles.

Rankings for all story battles in the mod completed for the 2.xx versions.