Summary
This mod reworks the Mayhem difficulty spawngroups to be a bit more interesting. The GenSec Elites now feel more formidable, as they're supposed to. The bullet-sponginess is toned down, to compensate. All of this is done in a serverside way, so only the host needs the mod. My Assault Spawngroups Restored mod is recommended, so shotgunners spawn more often.
Rationale
Mayhem is supposed to be an in-between of Death Wish and Overkill. When it was released, it felt barely easier than Death Wish. Now, it's the opposite. Despite using Death Wish's GenSec elites, their weapon stats are manually edited to be identical to Overkill. The specials aren't changed whatsoever (other than medics being slightly more common). So it ends up just feeling like Overkill if everything had double the health. This mod aims to make things feel a bit more interesting.
Changes
- The main spawngroups are changed. Each spawngroup now contains:
- Two lightly-equipped GenSec (Jackal SMG or Reinfeld 880). Roughly similar damage to Overkill.
- One FBI swat (tan, same enemy as Overkill difficulty). Wields a CAR-4 or Reinfeld 880. Same damage as Overkill.
- One heavily-equipped GenSec (JP36 or M1014). The JP36 does Death Wish damage (3x CAR-4). The M1014 is modified by this mod (on Mayhem only) to fire twice as fast, at the cost of slightly decreased damage. Overall, these guys should be a bit scarier.
- Shield groups have the lightly-equipped gensec accompanying them. Might change this.
- Tasers and bulldozers are now accompanied by two lightly-equipped Gensec, rather than being alone.
- Skulldozers, in all their glory, now spawn on the difficulty, as they should have all this time. Be afraid.
- Health has been toned down. Compared to Overkill, health is only a 50% increase instead of 100%. This is similar to how Overkill has a 50% increase compared to Very Hard.
- FBI swat (Overkill light enemies) is made immune to knockdown from heavy damage, like the GenSec Elites. This is mainly for alternative factions.
Alternative Factions
Obviously, being serverside, I cannot create exact equivalents of some of these enemies, if those factions don't have them. Here is my approach. Note that regardless of faction, skulldozers (or their equivalent) have been added, health is changed, and FBI swat is immune to heavy damage knockdown.
- Russia: No changes (other than the above). In the base game, the AKs used by the russia faction actually deal higher damage on Mayhem than on Overkill (which is already double what CAR-4 rifles deal). I think this is balanced fine enough, plus I wouldn't really have any alternative units to use anyway.
- Zombie: The FBI swat is still immune to heavy damage knockdown, which changes this one's difficulty a bit, but this is only because it would be annoying to code an exception for this faction. This faction was always messed up for any difficulty above Overkill so I don't really care.
- Murkywater and Federales: Federales don't have an equivalent to the Jackal-wielding Elites, and while Murkywater does, they look like heavies which would be confusing. Instead, I use the Overkill-tier light swat enemies that wield CAR-4s. They deal similar damage, and the modification made above means that they function very similarly to Jackal-wielding Gensec Elites. Unfortunately, I cannot make an equivalent of the M1014-wielding shotgunners in a way that is easily telegraphed to the player, so the shotgun groups will be a little easier.
Special Thanks
Thanks to ZeroTheLetter for helping test in a non-singleplayer environment, and rowen/necrolavigne for helping me with the thumbnail <3
