Difficulty

In short

Every map is played at Normal, Medium or Hard. Higher difficulties raise inning goals, pitch speed, special-ball odds and shop prices, and Hard takes one out away. In return they multiply meta points and XP. All of it lives in Data/Difficulty.cs (Difficulties).

How it works

• The difficulty is picked on map select and fixed for the run (RunState.Difficulty).
• Each change is applied where it matters:
  • Goals: RunState.InningGoal multiplies every goal by GoalMultiplier.
  • Pitch speed: RunManager.InningContext sets pitchSpeedScale = RunConfig.pitchSpeedScale x PitchSpeed.
  • Special balls: InningContext sets ballChanceScale = BallChance, which multiplies the park’s special-ball chance on each eligible pitch. See Special Balls.
  • Shop: RunState.PriceOf multiplies item prices and reroll costs by ShopPrice, rounding up.
  • Outs: RunManager.OutsPerInning = max(1, outsPerInning + OutsDelta), before Extra Outs.
  • Rewards: MetaProgression.AwardRun and Leveling.RunXp multiply by MetaPoints.
• The map select screen prints Difficulties.Describe, for example Medium: “Inning goals x1.4, pitches +8%, special balls x1.5, shop +25%. Points x1.5.” Normal says “The map as it comes.”

Numbers

What	Normal	Medium	Hard	Where to tune
Inning goals	x1	x1.4	x1.9	Difficulties.GoalMultiplier
Pitch speed	x1	x1.08	x1.15	Difficulties.PitchSpeed
Special-ball chance	x1	x1.5	x2	Difficulties.BallChance
Shop prices and rerolls	x1	x1.25	x1.5	Difficulties.ShopPrice
Outs per inning	+0 (3)	+0 (3)	-1 (2)	Difficulties.OutsDelta
Meta points and XP	x1	x1.5	x2.5	Difficulties.MetaPoints
Colour	green	orange	red	Difficulties.Tint

Examples from the code and its test: first inning of the first map is 500 / 700 / 950; an item costing 8 is 10 on Medium (ceil(8 x 1.25)); the base pitch speed scale is RunConfig.pitchSpeedScale = 0.6, so Hard pitches at 0.6 x 1.15 = 0.69 of real speed.

In the code

File	What it does
Assets/_Project/Scripts/Data/Difficulty.cs	Difficulty enum and Difficulties: every multiplier, Label, Tint, Describe
Assets/_Project/Scripts/Run/RunManager.cs	OutsPerInning, InningContext (pitch speed, ball chance)
Assets/_Project/Scripts/Run/RunState.cs	InningGoal, PriceOf
Assets/_Project/Scripts/Progression/MetaProgression.cs	AwardRun points multiplier
Assets/_Project/Scripts/Progression/Leveling.cs	RunXp uses the same multiplier

Gotchas

• The special-ball multiplier is capped at every eligible pitch (a chance can’t go past 100%).
• Outs never go below 1, whatever the delta.
• Extra Outs from upgrades or Pinto are added after the Hard penalty, so Pinto on Hard still has 4 outs.
• The daily run is always Normal.
• The map select carousel prints Difficulties.Describe for the picked difficulty under the NORMAL / MEDIUM / HARD buttons (Map Select and Unlocks).
• XP uses the meta point multiplier too, so a Hard run levels you 2.5x faster for the same innings and home runs.

Related

• Map Select and Unlocks: how each difficulty opens
• Run Structure: the goal formula
• Shop and Economy: prices and rerolls
• Meta Progression: meta points per run
• XP and Levels: XP per run
• Pitching: what the pitch speed scale feeds