The campaign’s difficulty trick is that raising it does not make a Drone tougher. It makes you worse: less health, less damage, fewer lives, faster bleed-out. The enemy is untouched. The difficulty explained page has the table.
People have run that straight into Horde Siege, where it is not true.
Two systems that are both called difficulty
Horde Siege runs four difficulty levels, easiest to hardest: Rookie, Infantry, Commander, Allfather. Underneath them is a pool of named mission modifiers the campaign has no equivalent of. A mission carries some. An Invasion brings more of its own while it runs, which the game flags on screen as Invasion Modifiers Active.
There are 93 modifier names, in five kinds.
The ones that buff the enemy
This group settles the argument. The game names enemy health increases for Bosses, Grinders, Grenadiers, Large Locusts, Reavers, Spore Matrons, Tickers and Wretches; damage increases for Boomers, Bosses, Grinders, Large Locusts, Reavers, Enemy Snipers, Wretches and Flooders; and health regeneration for Drones, Large Locusts, Enemy Snipers and one blanket Enemy Health Regeneration.
One makes Grenadiers throw more grenades. Enemy Damage Increase, Health Decrease trades the two against each other and turns a mission into a knife fight.
One enemy in that list turns up nowhere else: the Flooder. Every other creature named above is called out, targeted and shouted at all over the game. The Flooder has a modifier with its name on it and not one other line, and an enemy cannot be described from the title of a modifier.
The ones that give the enemy a new trick
The second group scales nothing. It bolts a property onto an enemy type, and the naming is a grid: Exploding, Fiery, Incendiary, Caustic and Concussive versions of Drones, Grenadiers, Enemy Snipers, Wretches, Tickers and Grinders, in most of the combinations you would expect.
Two sit apart from the grid. Jammer Large Locusts and Jammer Large Creatures put a jamming effect on the big ones. And Exploding COG does it to your own side: your teammates detonate when they die.
The ones aimed at you
These do not touch the Locust at all. They take something away from the way you play.
| Modifier | What it takes away |
|---|---|
| Only Perfect Reloads | The ordinary active window. Miss it and you are reloading the slow way |
| Regeneration Only In Cover | Healing anywhere except behind something |
| Regen Only On Kill | Healing that does not have to be earned |
| Delayed Health Regeneration | The short wait before healing starts |
| Longer Tactical Gear Cooldown | How often your class gadget is available |
| Decreased Ammo Supplies | Ammo from pickups |
| Caustic Resistance Decrease | Your tolerance for standing in the bad stuff |
| Squad Friendly Fire | The assumption that your line of fire is free |
| Jammer Effect | Named, and not described any further |
The expensive ones
The group people underestimate, because none of it shows up in a firefight. Supply Caches Disabled shuts the shop. Raised Supply Cache Prices leaves it open and makes it expensive. Decreased Energy and Limited Supply cut what you take in. High Starting Energy, Low Pickup Rate front-loads your wallet and then starves it. That is a different mission, not a harder one.
And Extraction Disabled removes the exit. Everything you carry is only yours once the Raven lifts, which is its own article. A modifier that turns the exit off is the most expensive card in the deck.
The ones that change which weapons are best
Change your loadout for this group. Several raise one weapon class and lower everything else at the same time:
Heavy Weapons Damage Up, Other Weapons Down · Pistols Damage Up, Other Weapons Damage Down · Precision Weapons Damage Up, Other Weapons Damage Down · Shotgun Weapons Damage Up, Other Weapons Damage Down · Sniper Weapons Damage Up, Other Weapons Damage Down · Explosive Damage Up, Others Down · Critical Damage Up, Others Down · Equipment Damage Up, Weapon Damage Down.
Two more belong with them. Locust Weapon Damage Up, COG Weapon Damage Down does it along faction lines instead of weapon class, so the Locust guns off the floor become the good ones. And Enemy Damage Increase, Health Decrease rewards whatever kills fastest rather than whatever survives longest.
If one of these is on your mission, open the weapon database before you pick a gun.
None of them says how much
Bosses Increased Health does not say by how much. Precision Weapons Damage Up does not say what “up” is worth or what “down” costs. The game shows no amount for any of them.
That is the difference between this mode and the campaign. The campaign has five settings with published multipliers on your health and your damage, so you can work out what a tier costs you. Horde Siege has a deck of named cards and no prices on any of them. You find out what Bosses Increased Health is worth by shooting a boss.
A promotion in the class system raises class stats specifically for Allfather difficulty. So the hardest level is not the same mission with worse cards. The game expects you to have brought something to it. The class side is in every class ranked.