Difficulty Scaling

[nvs]

Currently only Extreme difficulty is played with much consistency. However, due to the nature of how difficulty is increased currently in Gem, certain structures scale much better than others. For example, those that deal magic damage or damage in an area of effect buff tend to perform better at higher difficulties. A few examples of these would be Blood Star, Star Ruby, Spell Slate, Poison Slate, Elder Slate, etc.

One solution is adding magical resistance that increases with difficulty levels. Another is removing multiple difficulties entirely, and balancing the map accordingly. A third is to rework all damage to adhere to armor resistance. A fourth is leaving physical and magical resistance constant, and simply increasing hit points. The fourth idea makes a bit of sense in my head currently.

[nvs]

Right now armor values on the creeps are fairly high, at least in Extreme. It would be best to bring these down to lower numbers, and also be a bit more conservative in regards to the sources of armor reduction (e.g. Elder Slate in its current form is immensely broken when leveled up). The key is to keep the feel of Extreme difficulty, while balancing things a bit.

[nvs]

This particular issue can be closed, due to #131.