Clearing Up Misconceptions
I think there are a few interesting things to say about Witchfire's difficulty, but let's get this out of the way first:
- The player's level does not affect the difficulty. You can Ascend (level up) and grow in power as many times as you want, and the difficulty will stay the same.
- Only the player's Gnosis level affects the difficulty. Each time you increase the Gnosis level, the game becomes more difficult. New enemies, new traps, and other dangers are added to the pool.
Are you sure?
Yes, we are sure. There is one very tiny exception to this, which is that the Drowned Captain mini-boss (a Faithful) appears after reaching level 10 instead of reaching a certain Gnosis level, but this will be changed in the next patch. Other than this, only Gnosis affects difficulty.
So why do I feel like the game got more difficult after a simple level up?
Because each time you level up, the witch reorganizes her defenses. It basically means that we re-roll each map. So the new layout (enemy placement, trap placement, the Warden route, etc.) might be a bigger challenge, even if simply by the fact that it's new and you need to adapt to it.
Also, the presence of some enemies or traps is not guaranteed. So you might have played without ever seeing enemy X or trap Y, but the level-up re-roll finally put them on the map.
But wait, why would anyone want to increase Gnosis then?!
It is impossible to finish the game without increasing Gnosis. For example, some areas are locked by the witch with a spell so advanced that it requires you to have a deeper knowledge of all things occult and esoteric. Meaning: higher Gnosis level.
Another example: each level-up costs more and more, and you might want to increase Gnosis because with each increase you get more witchfire off enemies.
So yeah, sooner or later, you will have to increase Gnosis. But -- it's 100% up to you when you want to do it. There are players who do it as soon as possible, and there are players who spend dozens of hours leveling up before they increase Gnosis. So you have to do it, but it is 100% your choice when.
Diving Deeper into Witchfire's Difficulty
Now that we've cleared up those misconceptions, let's talk more about how difficulty works in Witchfire.
Static Enemy HP
Here's a fun fact about the game: the HP of our enemies is static and unrelated to the player level.
The vast majority of RPGs, action or not, increase the HP of enemies with the player level. This is why some Skyrim players first visit all the caves to trigger setting their difficulty level at their current level, and only then level up.
From Soft games do it too, in a way. A late-game skeleton looking slightly different than the early-game skeleton will have way more HP. Because the game knows you have made significant progress and compensates for your ever-growing powers with the ever-growing HP of enemies.
Witchfire's enemies have the exact same HP -- each their own, of course -- throughout the entire game.
Balancing Act: Player Growth vs. Game Difficulty
And yet, the player grows in power through leveling up. Your health increases, you have more stamina, and you can cast spells more often...
So... the game should get easier with each level up, right? Enemy HP stays the same, the player grows in power; it's simple math.
The thing is, HP is just one of many factors that can increase the difficulty. Here are a few more:
- Indirect/hidden HP increase: Elite versions of Witchfire enemies have a witchfire shield that absorbs some of the damage. This effectively increases their HP.
- More enemies: Increasing the number of enemies directly impacts difficulty. Imagine fighting a challenging enemy—a sweaty but fair fight. Now imagine fighting five of them simultaneously. The mental load and complexity escalate significantly.
- New enemies: These are difficult because you need to figure them out and understand their patterns. As Thomas Fuller said, "All things are difficult before they are easy."
- New, harder enemies: They move faster, their attacks are harder to avoid, or they have more HP than average. This way or another, they require more effort from the player.
- Limited resources: Imagine we do all of the above... but we don't give you more ammo.
We have even more tools at our disposal, but this shows how we achieve the increase in difficulty without scaling the enemy HP to the player level.
The Tug of War
New and more challenging enemies appear, sometimes in larger groups; old enemies get enhanced, and resources stay limited. This is what you are fighting against, but you have your own tricks. You grow your powers, find or research and enhance your gear, gain allies, and use [redacted] to affect your combat style.
In the end, Witchfire's difficulty system creates a dynamic tug of war between you and the witch. As you grow stronger, so do the challenges you face, creating a constantly evolving and (hopefully) engaging gameplay experience.