Does anyone think we need a difficulty higher than Insanity?

Yes. Call it Pathfinder. Have it be as realistic (or lore-correct) as it can possibly be.

Think ArmA in space with a shitton of sci-fi. Basically enemies would try to suppress and flank you, you could die in as few as four shots (WITH full shields) but so could they, and the difficulty would be in keeping you on your toes and thinking tactically. ArmA. In space.

Sniper rifles are divided into two categories - Marksman rifles, that require headshots on enemies to guarantee a kill, and otherwise face an RNG that will decide whether center mass is instakill. Then Anti-Material rifles (Widow, Isharay) that guarantee instakills on mooks (Chosen, Annoying/Annointed, Destined /to die by my hand/) and shine when engaging large enemies, like Hydra mechs, Fiends, Eirochs, etc. dealing major damage. Also significantly extend their range.

Assault Rifles would have the current SR engagement ranges and would be there because you want to put down a volume of fire somewhat accurately. Subset would be light machine guns (Revenant, Ghost) that would be oriented around just putting projectiles down range and suppressing the enemy.

SMGs and Pistols would have the same amounts of damage, balanced towards the fact that the less damaging would mimic 9x19mm Parabellum rounds, while the more damaging would be along the lines of the .45 ACP (or even .50 AE) rounds. SMGs would be average 2/3rds weight of ARs and would provide fast rate of fire with a range not entirely up to snatch with ARs. Pistols, like all weapons, would keep their lethality (damage) up to extreme ranges, but their accuracy would start to wear down after a max of 50 meters (I often hear that's the maximal range for you to engage with a pistol and not look like a dumbarse) or less, depending on how ranges for other classes are balanced.


...you get the idea.

Basically, this is to emulate the feeling and adrenaline rush of a gunfire. Something I felt playing on Hardcore with Avenger I, storming the third Monolith (the one where you meet Drack).

Well anyone encountered this moment when you got a real problem and the enemy is actually backing off because otherwise he has to kill you. Sometimes it's hilarious to see how they run away from you, so they don't have to take the shot. This happens on any difficulty but only if you spotted the enemies. If there is one left you didn't got once into your field of view that one will gun you down. Just patch that behavior out of the game and you got a new difficulty level.
Anyway NG+ on Insanity now feels like Normal before 1.06.

I would rather see a scaling of enemies abilities than just absorbing more rounds. The higher the difficulty, the more likely they will use biotics early on, grenades against players using cover or in clusters. Moving to higher flanking positions instead of coming directly at me. That sort of stuff. We'll see it in later games. Frostbite ain't easy.

The game was already pretty easy when I used my Vanguard set up. Now that I'm level 96, my playthrough has become a walk in the park.

I would appreciate a difficulty spike, though I'll admit I'm not sure how I'd go about it.

Difficulty modifers might be one way to it, sort of like Inquisiton. Although I would kind of hate it if achievements came with them.

Ugh.

It was easy before the patch, now it has become a joke. Now you have to choose weaker weapons for any real challenge, as usual with more patches brings more problems.

I wouldn't mind. I've been wrecking enemies no matter how much health they had.

Even though a higher difficulty than insanity is probably not gonna happen, I'm very interested to see if it's possible to finish just a regular NG+ level 132 insanity run on patch 1.06 and run with the some random low amount of skill points invested like 20 or 10 and include some other absurd rules to make my insanity run feel it's "Insanity".

Wouldn't be surprised if a guy/gal who mains a build with turbocharge, tactical cloak, charge/invaision with a plasma seeking piranha and with all the weapon damage bonuses you can get in this game, thought he/she felt like was playing on casual and looked at the difficulty option settings and saw it was set to "Insanity".

I do like cats. I don't need higher difficulty levels, but folks who do should ask for it, as they are rebalancing now and if there is enough demand, why not.

Perhaps later in the progress of the game when I reach high character levels with stronger guns and stronger teammates. But as it is, there is a plateau after all the vaults on the three planets are done and all the rewarding side quests are done, and still only level 16 has been reached. That means max level 3 weapons, squishy player and squadmates, only a few powers and skills with points and maybe only one or two at rank six. That makes the player and team really weak, against a lot of really strong enemies in tight quarters at insanity difficulty.

At that point in the game, nothing can happen further until you choose one of the really long and difficult missions. Like Save the Moshae or Attack the Kett Command Center. With such low-level characters on insanity difficulty, those are hugely difficult missions. I finally got through the Command Center after two days of many, many restarts, but could not at all get through the second half to Destroy the Core. Now at level 17, I haven't yet found a way to deal with the Cardinal and save the Moshae.

In my opinion, Bioware misjudged their game mechanics decisions for those two missions, at least on insanity. They made those missions way too frustrating for no good reason at all. They should have made it possible to reach level 20 before taking them on, or allowed liberal manual saves during those missions so dying and restarting were not such a burden. I am going on a full week at level 16-17 trying to finish those two missions so I can move on.

I imagine later, when I get to level 30 or forty, I might want to bump up the difficulty at times, but so far insanity is way too difficult at the low levels.

I seriously doubt any player could start the game at a difficulty above insanity and reach level 20. Without cheating.

As long as it doesn't turn into enemies being bullet sponges and the player having paper shields.

Enemies should use more tactical powers. Bring back flashbangs, smoke grenades, and enemy combat drones!

The problems with the requests to how to make the game harder doesn't mean it is possible. They might seem like easy ideas, but implementing could be a challenge based on how much system resources are left on the consoles, especially if they have to create new animations or effects.