DXMD Difficulty Level Effects Testing

This page documents testing on the effects of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided's difficulty level setting. Unlike previously games in the series, for which the effects of difficulty level are well known through game files or official sources, the specific effects of the difficult level setting in Deus Ex: Mankind Divided are not documented in-game, and are also not directly known from game files. Therefore, the tests described were perform to reveal the effects of the different difficulty level settings.

This blog post is also intended to serve as source information for the Difficulty level (DXMD) article.

Damage taken by the player

Grenade explosion damage

Damage caused by the Grenade Launcher's fragmentation grenade was tested by firing the grenade launcher while standing and directly aiming at the floor (i.e., at the lowest pitch angle). Note that grenades from the Grenade Launcher cause the same amount of damage as hand-thrown fragmentation grenades, but explode at the first surface contact, making them more suitable for testing.

Damage was measured by measuring the number of pixels lost on the health bar (2560x1440p resolution and 100% UI scale was used for all measurements described on this page). Damage was tested at all three upgrade levels of the Sentinel RX Health System augmentation (note that "2x health" corresponds to level 3 of the augmentation). The test was performed in the Blade Plaza metro station, by using the debug menu to add the Grenade Launcher to the inventory.

Difficulty Level	Observed Damage
	Base health	1x health	2x health
Give me a story	110 pixels (-9.8%)	109 pixels (-9.9%)	115 pixels (-10%)
Give me a challenge	122 pixels (base)	121 pixels (base)	128 pixels (base)
Give me Deus Ex	134 pixels (+9.8%)	134 pixels (+9.9%)	140 pixels (+9.4%)
I never asked for this	134 pixels (+9.8%)	134 pixels (+9.9%)	140 pixels (+9.4%)

The following tests were performed with Rhino Dermal Armor upgrades applied

Difficulty Level	Observed Damage
	Base health and 1x armor	2x health and 1x armor	2x health and 2x armor	2x health and 3x armor
Give me a story	100 pixels (-9.1%)	103 pixels (-11%)	91 pixels (-11%)	81 pixels (-10%)
Give me a challenge	110 pixels (base)	116 pixels (base)	102 pixels (base)	90 pixels (base)
Give me Deus Ex	122 pixels (+11%)	126 pixels (+8.6%)	112 pixels (+9.8%)	99 pixels (+10%)
I never asked for this	122 pixels (+11%)	126 pixels (+8.6%)	112 pixels (+9.8%)	99 pixels (+10%)

No difference was observed between the GMDX and INAFT difficulty levels. The small discrepancies in pixel count between the different health upgrade level is unclear. It is also noted that measurement of health bar pixels is inexact due to the display of "partial" pixels.

The relative damage at the above settings, with the damage at the GMAC difficulty normalized to 100%, is shown in parentheses. The test results show that the first and third difficulty levels respectively impose a -10% reduction or a +10% increase in damage taken relative to the second difficulty level.

The results also show that the Rhino Dermal Armor augmentation reduces damage by -10%, -20%, and -30% for upgrade levels 1-3 respectively.

Gunfire damage test 1: Martial law police sniper test

Testing setup, right before the sniper fires

Test results, showing the health loss on the damage bar

To test how difficulty level affects damage taken from hostile gunfire, damage was measured from a single rifle shot from one of the police snipers near the pedestrian bridge during martial law. To achieve the setup (shown in the first screenshot below), all other police units nearby were cleared, and the sniper is allowed to take a position in which she gradually rotates her view from left to right. Under this setup, the player character is able to take position approximately 8.30 meters from the sniper and stand there for a few seconds before being spotted.

The tests were performed with the player having all Sentinel Health System and Rhino Dermal Armor upgrades. The results are summarized in the table below:

Difficulty Level	Observed Damage	Observations Recorded
Give me a story	88 pixels (-11%)	4
Give me a challenge	99 pixels (base)	7
Give me Deus Ex	105 pixels (+6.1%) or 106 pixels (+7.1%)*	10 (5 in each position)*

*If the sniper misses the first shot and repositions slightly to her right before firing the second shot (whose hit is recorded), the damage is 106 pixels rather than 105 pixels. This slight repositioning after the missed first shot did not affect the measured pixel count in the other two difficulty levels.

The INAFT difficulty level was not tested, but it can be assumed from other results on this page that it would have been the same as the GMDX difficult setting.

Gunfire damage test 2: System Rift sniper test

Testing setup, right before the sniper fires

A similar test, but with expanded test conditions that accounted for multiple armor configurations, was performed using the sniper rifle-equipped "anti-aug extremist" NPC in the Blade Plaza of the System Rift DLC. Similar to the above test, the player character was positioned at a location where he is eventually spotted by the sniper and then fired upon.

The observed damage (in pixels) is recorded below, along with the number of observations. In this case, however, the GMAC and GMDX difficulty levels produced a dual-modal distribution. For example, "143 pixels (6), 130 pixels (11)" indicates that in under the same conditions 143 pixels of damage was observed in 6 trials, and 143 pixels of damage was observed in 11 trials. However, the GMAS difficulty level had a uni-modal distribution.

Difficulty Level	Observed Damage (number of observations)
	Base health no armor upgrade	Base health 1x armor upgrade	Base health 3x armor upgrade
Give me a story	119 pixels (25) (-10.5%)	108 pixels (7) (-9.2%)	84 pixels (4) (-9.6%)
Give me a challenge	133 pixels (4), 113 pixels (7) (Base)	119 pixels (7), 102 pixels (3) (Base)	93 pixels (2), 79 pixels (5) (Base)
Give me Deus Ex	143 pixels (6), 130 pixels (11) (+7.5%)	128 pixels (5), 117 pixels (5) (+7.5%)	101 pixels (4), 92 pixels (7) (+8.6%)

The reason for the damage distributions is unclear; it seems to be affected by hidden internal factors. For purpose of comparison, only the "higher" damage value is used, since it appears to be more in-line with expectations, even though it occurs less frequently in some situations. Based on the comparison of the "higher" damage value, GMAS reduces damage by -10%, whereas GMDX increases damage by 7.5% or 8.6%. It is noted that the difference between 7.5% and 8.6% is within the margin of error due to the imprecise nature of measuring the health bar, and it is considered that 7.5% is most likely the true value.

The results also confirm that the Rhino Dermal Armor augmentation reduces damage by -10%, -20%, and -30% for upgrade levels 1-3 respectively. While the second level was not tested, the first and third levels consistently provide 10% and 30% damage reduction in this sniper rifle test, while the grenade damage test described above corroborate these results for the first and third levels, and further indicate that the second level provides a 20% reduction.

Electrical floor

Damage taken by the player at the electrical hazard in the Blade Plaza was tested by measuring the amount of time (using a video recording) it took for the electrical hazard to fully drain the player's health (without any health upgrades).

Difficulty Level	Time to drain health
Give me a story	4:43 seconds (same as base)
Give me a challenge	4:42 seconds (base)
Give me Deus Ex	3:17 seconds (+43%)
I never asked for this	3:17 seconds (+43%)

Falling damage

Damage taken from falling from heights is not affected by difficulty level.

Health and energy regeneration

Health regeneration

Health regen was tested by jumping off of the tables on the east side of the topmost balcony floor of the Konverz Cafe building in the Blade Plaza. This jump resulted in the same damage on all difficulty levels. Video footage of the healing process was then analyzed. The health, health regen, and health regen augs were all at the base level.

Health regen delay is the timestamp difference from when the health bar appears (due to taking falling damage) to when the health bar first "flashes" (indicating healing). The time to heal to full is the difference from that timestamp to when the health bar has fully recovered (when the center of the health bar touches the white vertical line). Note that the notation format of "1:23 seconds" indicates a 1 + 23/60 seconds.

Difficulty Level	Health regen delay	Time to heal to full
Give me a story	5:58 seconds ≈ 6 seconds (-1 sec)	25:49 seconds (-10%)
Give me a challenge	7:01 seconds ≈ 7 seconds (base)	28:41 seconds (base)
Give me Deus Ex	8:04 seconds ≈ 8 seconds (+1 sec)	34:25 seconds (+20%)
I never asked for this	8:03 seconds ≈ 8 seconds	35:04 seconds (+20%)

Energy regeneration

Energy regeneration was tested by activating the level 1 Glass-Shield Cloaking System augmentation, with no aug upgrades in the energy tree. The aug was activated and allowed to drain the entire energy pool; then, the energy pool was allowed to recharge. Video footage of the healing process was then analyzed.

Difficulty level does not affect the energy consumption rate when the cloaking augmentation is active, but it affects the regeneration delay (measured as the time from the first frame of the appearance of the "not enough energy" flashing sign to the first frame in which the energy bar regains its first pixel), and the regeneration rate (measured as subsequent time duration until the time regeneration stops, which is when the white vertical bar reaches full opacity and the flashing regeneration effect on the energy bar is no longer playing).

Difficulty Level	Energy regen delay	Time to regen to full
Give me a story	1:49 seconds ≈ 2 seconds	33:33 seconds (-13%)
Give me a challenge	3:36 seconds ≈ 3.5 seconds	38:39 seconds (base)
Give me Deus Ex	7:06 seconds ≈ 7 seconds	33:33 seconds (+13%)
I never asked for this	7:03 seconds ≈ 7 seconds	(Not tested)*

*The INAFT difficulty level was not tested for the regen time, but it can be assumed from other results on this page that it would have been the same as the GMDX difficult setting.

Damage to devices and enemy NPCs

The difficulty level was tested as having no effect on the durability of the following objects/NPCs against the player's weapons. Damage was measured using the method described in the "DXMD Weapon Damage Testing" article (i.e., by measuring the pixel size of the health bar shown in Smart Vision, where a full health bar is 266 pixels). For all targets tested, the percentage damage against the target's health bar was the same regardless of the difficulty level, indicating that neither the health of these targets nor the player's damage against them is not affected by difficulty level.

• Turrets and doors
  • As previously reported in the "DXMD Weapon Damage Testing" article, the difficulty level has no effect on the durability of turrets and doors and the damage of the player's weapons against these objects.
• EXO-suits
  • The Grenade Launcher's fragmentation grenade was tested to deal the same damage (188 pixels) to EXO suits under each of the four difficulty levels. The damage was recorded by firing against the front of the EXO suit at point blank range (standing adjacent to the EXO suit).
  • The revolver, with maximum damage upgrades and AP rounds, was tested to deal the same damage (183 pixels) to the same EXO suit under each of the three main difficulty levels when fired at point blank range.
• Armored police
  • The revolver, with maximum damage upgrades and AP rounds, was tested to deal the same damage (200 pixels) to an armored police personnel at close range at each of the three main difficulty levels. The same damage was also observed (136 pixels) at each of the three main difficulty levels when firing using regular rounds in otherwise the same conditions. The revolver was fired at upper chest at about 2.15 meters.
• Shadow Operatives (terrorist type)
  • The Elite Edition 10mm pistol, without any upgrades, was tested to deal the same damage (88 pixels) to the terrorist-type Shadow Operative at each of the three main difficulty levels, from a range of 5 meters.

Although not all types of NPCs/objects have been tested, the data described above suggests that the same result would be observed for other types of enemy NPCs and objects.

This is in contrast with Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Deus Ex: Invisible War, in which the difficulty level of those games did have an effect on the durability of enemy targets.