Difficulty Scaling

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Difficulty Scaling is a major set of mechanics that influence the difficulty of Deep Rock Galactic by affecting a variety of numerical values during Missions. The Difficulty Scaling is determined by the Hazard Level and number of players.

Other factors such as Mission Types, Mutators, and random chance also affect the difficulty of each mission, but are separate from the Difficulty Scaling.

Hazard Levels

The Hazard Level is an overall difficulty setting that is selected by the player when choosing a Mission to play.

The selected Hazard Level also contributes to the Hazard Bonus, which determines the amount of rewards at the end of the mission.

Normal Scaling

Depending on the selected Hazard level, the difficulty is dynamically adjusted through multiple factors:

• Increased Damage:
  • Damage dealt by enemies (also affected by number of players)
  • Friendly fire damage
  • Environmental damage
• Enemy properties:
  • Damage resistance (also affected by number of players; see "Resistance Scaling" section below)
  • Movement speed
  • Projectile speed
  • Attack cooldown
  • Enemy Caps (increased with Hazard 5+ More Enemies modifier only)
• Enemy spawns: (see Swarm for details)
  • Number of enemies (overall Enemy Count Modifier as well as Encounter, Stationary Enemy, and Normal Wave Difficulty Points)
  • Enemy pool size (increases variety of enemies that may spawn in one mission)
  • Enemy Diversity (increases variety of enemies that may spawn in one event during the mission)
  • Veteran chance (increases chance for stronger enemy variants)
  • Decreased time between Swarms
    • During Escort refuel swarms, part of the timing is affected by the number of players
  • Decreased time between Normal Waves
  • Increase of Point Extraction enemies over time
  • Chance for a Glyphid Dreadnought to spawn during Point Extraction (requires Hazard 3 or below)
  • Chance for special swarms in general (affected only by number of players)
• Player health:
  • Health granted when revived by another player (does not affect health granted when revived by Bosco)
  • Maximum health regeneration (reduced from 15% to 10% in Hazard 5 and above)

Below is a table listing some specific values for each Hazard Level ( x / x / x / x denotes the amount of players in the game).

1 Player (Solo) / 2 Players / 3 Players / 4 Players
Hazard Icon	Hazard Level	Hazard Bonus	Enemy Damage	Enemy Attack Rate	Enemy Projectile Speed	Enemy Movement Speed	Friendly Fire	Environmental Damage	Revive Health	Max Health Regeneration	Point Extraction Scaler
	1 — Low Risk	+25%	0.50 / 0.50 / 0.50 / 0.50	0.80	1.00	0.80	0.10	0.75	0.60	0.15	0.70
	2 — Challenging	+50%	0.70 / 0.80 / 0.90 / 1.00	0.90	1.00	0.90	0.20	1.00	0.50	0.15	0.80
	3 — Dangerous	+75%	1.20 / 1.30 / 1.40 / 1.50	1.00	1.00	1.00	0.30	1.00	0.40	0.15	0.90
	4 — Extreme	+100%	2.00 / 2.15 / 2.30 / 2.50	1.25	1.30	1.00	0.40	1.33	0.20	0.15	1.00
	5 — Lethal	+133%	2.80 / 3.00 / 3.20 / 3.40	1.50	1.70	1.15	0.70	2.00	0.10	0.10	1.10

Resistance Scaling

Shown below is a table of multipliers for enemy count and enemy damage resistances. There are affected by the amount of players and the Hazard level. The enemy damage resistance is a modifier to all damage taken by enemies. That is,

$DamageDealtToEnemy=\frac{BaseDamage}{EnemyDamageResistance}$

However, it is common to think of this mechanic as increasing the effective health of enemies, rather than decreasing the damage they take:

$EffectiveEnemyHealth=BaseHealth\times EnemyDamageResistance$

Damage resistances depend on the category of each enemy creature:

• The following are neutral or non-scaling creatures and don't scale at all: Loot Bug, Golden Loot Bug, Maggot, Silicate Harvester, Cave Vine, Naedocyte Cave Cruiser, Stabber Vine, Bha Barnacle
• The following scale as normal enemies: Glyphid Spawn, Glyphid Swarmer (Frost Glyphid Swarmer, Radioactive Glyphid Swarmer), Glyphid Grunt (Frost Glyphid Grunt, Radioactive Glyphid Grunt, Glyphid Rockpox Grunt), Glyphid Grunt Slasher (Frost Glyphid Grunt Slasher, Radioactive Glyphid Grunt Slasher), Glyphid Grunt Guard (Frost Glyphid Grunt Guard, Radioactive Glyphid Grunt Guard), Glyphid Exploder (Radioactive Glyphid Exploder, Rockpox Exploder), Glyphid Web Spitter, Glyphid Acid Spitter (Rockpox Spitter), Glyphid Stingtail, Glyphid Septic Spreader, Glyphid Stalker, Carnivorous Larva, Rockpox Larvae, Nayaka Trawler, Mactera Spawn, Mactera Tri-Jaw, Mactera Brundle, Naedocyte Shocker, Naedocyte Hatchling, Naedocyte Roe, Cave Leech, Deeptora Honeycomb, Deeptora Bough Wasp Nest, Fester Flea, Hexawing Gniffer, Mobula Cave Angel, Vartok Scalebramble, Flying Rock, Rival Shredder, Rival Sniper Turret, Rival Robotic Appendage & Core Spawn Crawler.
• The following scale as large enemies: Glyphid Praetorian (Glyphid Frost Praetorian,Radioactive Glyphid Praetorian, Rockpox Praetorian*), Glyphid Warden, Glyphid Oppressor, Glyphid Bulk Detonator (Glyphid Crassus Detonator), Glyphid Menace, Q'ronar Youngling, Q'ronar Shellback, Korlok Sprout, Korlok Healing Pod, Mactera Grabber, Mactera Goo Bomber (Mactera Frost Bomber, Rockpox Goo Bomber*), Naedocyte Breeder (Rockpox Naedocyte Breeder*), Glyphid Brood Nexus, Spitball Infector, Barrage Infector, Rival Repulsion Turret, Rival Burst Turret, Rival Patrol Bot, Rival Nemesis, Rival Caretaker (intakes), Rockpox Corruptor & Huuli Hoarder.
• The following scale as extra large enemies: Dreadnought, BET-C (Xynarch Charge-Sucker), Rival Prospector Drone & Rival Caretaker (eye).
• The following scale as extra large 2 enemies: Korlok Tyrant-Weed.
• The following scale as extra large 3 enemies: OMEN Modular Exterminator, Core Stone.
• The following scale as elite enemies**: Elite variants of Glyphid Grunt Guard, Glyphid Grunt Slasher, Glyphid Praetorian, Glyphid Acid Spitter, Glyphid Menace, Mactera Spawn, Mactera Brundle, Mactera Tri-Jaw, Mactera Grabber & Glyphid Bulk Detonator.

Sometimes alternative names are used for these categories: "Common" for normal scaling, "Special" for large scaling, "Boss" for extra large scaling, "Korlok" for extra large 2, and "Omen" for extra large 3.

*The boils on Rockpox enemies have their own separate resistance scaling which is based on normal enemy scaling, even if the creature itself follows large enemy scaling.

**Elite enemies often have an additional Elite Resistance which is independent of hazard and multiplies with the Hazard Resistance scaling. This Elite Resistance varies with the specific Elite enemy.

1 Player (Solo) / 2 Players / 3 Players / 4 Players
Hazard Level	Enemy Count	Normal Enemy Resistance	Large Enemy Resistance	Extra Large Enemy Resistance	Extra Large 2 Enemy Resistance	Extra Large 3 Enemy Resistance	Elite Enemy Resistance
1 — Low Risk	0.15 / 0.25 / 0.45 / 0.65	0.70	0.45 / 0.55 / 0.70 / 0.85	0.20 / 0.40 / 0.60 / 0.80	0.20 / 0.40 / 0.60 / 0.80	0.20 / 0.40 / 0.60 / 0.80	0.60 / 0.75 / 0.85 / 1.10
2 — Challenging	0.25 / 0.35 / 0.65 / 0.80	1.00	0.65 / 0.75 / 0.90 / 1.00	0.30 / 0.40 / 0.70 / 1.00	0.30 / 0.40 / 0.70 / 1.00	0.30 / 0.40 / 0.70 / 0.90	0.90 / 1.10 / 1.10 / 1.30
3 — Dangerous	0.50 / 0.50 / 0.80 / 1.10	1.10	0.80 / 0.90 / 1.00 / 1.10	0.50 / 0.55 / 0.90 / 1.20	0.50 / 0.50 / 0.90 / 1.10	0.40 / 0.50 / 0.90 / 1.20	0.90 / 1.10 / 1.30 / 1.30
4 — Extreme	0.75 / 0.75 / 1.15 / 1.35	1.20	1.00 / 1.00 / 1.20 / 1.30	0.70 / 0.75 / 1.00 / 1.60	0.70 / 0.70 / 1.00 / 1.30	0.60 / 0.70 / 0.90 / 1.60	1.10 / 1.10 / 1.30 / 1.50
5 — Lethal	0.85 / 0.85 / 1.25 / 1.50	1.20	1.20 / 1.20 / 1.40 / 1.50	0.75 / 0.80 / 1.20 / 1.70	0.70 / 0.70 / 1.00 / 1.30	0.60 / 0.70 / 1.00 / 1.60	1.30 / 1.30 / 1.50 / 1.65
— Tough Enemies 1	0.85 / 0.85 / 1.25 / 1.50	1.20	1.80 / 1.80 / 2.10 / 2.25	1.125 / 1.20 / 1.80 / 2.55	1.05 / 1.05 / 1.50 / 1.95	0.90 / 0.70 / 1.50 / 2.40	1.95 / 1.95 / 2.25 / 2.475
— Tough Enemies 2	0.85 / 0.85 / 1.25 / 1.50	1.596	2.10 / 2.10 / 2.45 / 2.625	1.3125 / 1.49 / 2.10 / 2.975	1.225 / 1.225 / 1.75 / 2.275	1.05 / 0.70 / 1.75 / 2.80	2.275 / 2.275 / 2.625 / 2.8875

There is only a small increase of enemy spawns between Solo and 2 Player to compensate for the loss of Bosco.

Hazard 5+ modifiers

The stats listed here for Hazard 5+ modifiers are relative to Hazard 5, not relative to the base values. For example, Aggressive Enemies level 1 adds x1.1 Enemy Projectile Speed on top of the x1.7 of Hazard 5, resulting in a total of x1.87 relative to base.

Aggressive Enemies	Enemy Attack Rate	Enemy Movement Speed	Enemy Projectile Speed
	x1.33	x1.23	x1.1
	x2	x1.32	x1.2

More Enemies	Enemy Count	Max Active Enemies	Max Active Swarmers	Special enemy pool	Disruptive enemy pool	Veteran Chance
	x1.2	x1.2	x1.2	-	+1	-
	x1.5	x1.5	x1.5	+1	+2	x1.15

Player Vulnerability	Enemy Damage	Friendly Fire	Environmental Damage
	x1.5	x1.43	x1.25
	x2	x2.14	x1.5

Tough Enemies	Normal Enemy Resistance	Large / Extra Large / Extra Large 2 / Extra Large 3 / Elite Enemy Resistance
	-	x1.5
	x1.33	x1.75

Deep Dive Scaling

Deep Dives include three additional Hazard difficulties custom-tailored for Deep Dives.

The numbers 3.5, 4.5 and 5.5 are loose shorthands meant to give a general idea of where the difficulties are relative to the options for regular missions. They are not "real" difficulties in the sense that the developers at GSG do not refer to them by those numbers internally.

1 Player (Solo) / 2 Players / 3 Players / 4 Players
Hazard Icon	Hazard Level	Enemy Damage	Enemy Attack Rate	Enemy Projectile Speed	Enemy Movement Speed	Friendly Fire	Environmental Damage	Revive Health	Max Health Regeneration	Point Extraction Scaler
	3.5 — DD Hazard	1.50 / 1.60 / 1.70 / 1.80	1.15	1.15	1.00	0.30	1.15	0.40	0.15	0.95
	4.5 — DD Hazard	2.30 / 2.45 / 2.60 / 2.80	1.35	1.50	1.10	0.55	1.66	0.20	0.15	1.05
	5.5 — DD Hazard	3.00 / 3.20 / 3.40 / 3.60	1.50	1.70	1.20	0.70	2.20	0.10	0.10	1.15

Deep Dive Resistance Scaling

1 Player (Solo) / 2 Players / 3 Players / 4 Players
Hazard Level	Enemy Count	Normal Enemy Resistance	Large Enemy Resistance	Extra Large Enemy Resistance	Extra Large 2 Enemy Resistance	Elite Enemy Resistance
3.5 — DD Hazard	0.60 / 0.60 / 0.90 / 1.20	1.10	0.85 / 0.95 / 1.10 / 1.20	0.60 / 0.65 / 0.95 / 1.40	0.60 / 0.60 / 1.00 / 1.20	0.95 / 1.15 / 1.35 / 1.35
4.5 — DD Hazard	0.80 / 0.80 / 1.20 / 1.40	1.20	1.10 / 1.10 / 1.30 / 1.40	0.70 / 0.75 / 1.10 / 1.60	0.70 / 0.70 / 1.10 / 1.30	1.15 / 1.15 / 1.35 / 1.55
5.5 — DD Hazard	0.85 / 0.85 / 1.25 / 1.50	1.20	1.30 / 1.30 / 1.50 / 1.60	0.75 / 0.80 / 1.20 / 1.70	0.70 / 0.70 / 1.10 / 1.30	1.35 / 1.35 / 1.55 / 1.70

See Also

• Creatures
• Hazard Bonus