Thanks for the feedback! I think we are heading in the direction your thinking.
I agree that enemies are too weak in the current version. That's because this demo was indended to showcase a bit of the game and get you into the world with a minimum of learning curve and frustration. We are planning for the full game to have a range of difficulty settings. Here's what we're thinking:
- Easy: The difficulty you experianced in the demo. Medkits are everywhere and your health regenerates over time. When your health reaches zero you auto inject yourself with a medkit. So as long as you have medkits you pretty much can't die on easy. Enemies base health is lowered and your base health is raised. Ammo is everywhere. This difficulty is desgined to let you experiacnce the story without the interruption of dying.
- Normal: Fewer medkits and no regenerating health. No auto-inject, medkits must be manually used. Enemies health is decent and your health is a bit less than on easy. Ammo is more scarce and must be used wisely. This will be the baseline standard of difficulty.
- Hard: Same as normal but with everything tilted just a little bit less in your favor: Enemies are just a bit stronger, your just a bit weaker, and medkits and ammo are just a bit harder to find. Hard is for people used to shooters who want a solid challenge.
- Nightmare: This difficulty would have to be unlocked by completing the game on another difficulty. Base health for you and enemies remain the same as on hard but there are no medkits and your health drains constantly over time until it reaches 25. You get a special ax that has life steal abilities. After you get 15 kills you can kill an enemy with the ax to regain your health (and then it starts draining again). Ammo is even more scarce than on hard. There are special Nightmare-only data tapes for you to find. There is different, weirder music and your hands are replaced with skeletons hands. This difficulty is for people who have played DENIZEN before.
We also have some changes in mind for the pistol. We are adding another pistol (the Walther Concealed Carry Pistol) and will probably change the Mauser gameplay to feature a lower fire rate with higher recoil and damage output. The Walther pistol will feature higher capacity and fire rate with lower damage output.
Also the Vahan will make more sense when seen next to the MP44 (which is still in progress). The MP44 will be the serious buisness high damage high accuracy rifle but will suffer from extreme recoil. The idea is you get one shot that's really accurate and powerful but after that the recoil gets out of control. The Vahan (which you got to use in the demo) while technically an assault rifle plays much more like an SMG (spray and pray).
The Shotgun does pretty much what we all expect, I think :)