Difficulty

For the difficulty categories of maps, see Map Difficulty.

Difficulty modes on extreme tracks in BTD5 Deluxe

Difficulty, also referred to as Game Difficulty to distinguish it from Map Difficulty, is a game mechanic in the Bloons TD series. It is a set of game modes that control how easy or how hard a game is to complete, mainly by altering the costs of towers and upgrades, the number of lives the player starts with, the movement speeds of the Bloons, and the number of rounds that must be cleared to complete the game.

History

Bloons TD series

Bloons Tower Defense 2

All difficulties with all medals earned

Difficulty debuts in Bloons Tower Defense 2, with three difficulty modes: Easy, Medium, and Hard. It determines the cost of towers, upgrades, and road items, the number of lives the player starts with, and, in this game only, the track the game is played on, but does not change the speed of the Bloons or the number of rounds played. Medium is the most similar to the gameplay of Bloons Tower Defense. After completing a difficulty mode, a corresponding medal is earned, which is displayed on the main menu.

Oddly, none of the difficulty modes use the base prices of towers and upgrades.

Difficulty	Description	Properties	Medal
Easy	Welcome to Bloons Tower Defense 2! Stop the bloons escaping by building stuff in and around the maze.	Tower and upgrade costs are reduced from their base prices by 10% 100 starting lives	File:BTD2-Medal-Bronze.svg
Medium	In medium mode, you have 75 lives and stuff costs a bit more.	Tower and upgrade costs are increased from their base prices by 2% 75 starting lives	File:BTD2-Medal-Silver.svg
Hard	In hard mode you only have 50 lives so be extra careful.	Tower and upgrade costs are increased from their base prices by 4% 50 starting lives	File:BTD2-Medal-Gold.svg

Bloons Tower Defense 3

Difficulty selection menu

In Bloons Tower Defense 3 and its derived games, tracks are no longer tied to the difficulty, with the player now being able to choose any difficulty on any track. Medals are now awarded per track based on the difficulty.

Difficulty now alters the ranks of the Bloons spawned in Freeplay after round 50, and affects the movement speeds of the Bloons. The latter is applied after Freeplay scaling.

Difficulty	Description	Properties	Medal
Easy	On easy, stuff is quite cheap to buy and you have 100 lives.	Tower and upgrade costs are reduced from their base prices by 15% 100 starting lives Bloons move at their base speeds
Medium	On medium, stuff is fairly priced and you have 75 lives.	Tower and upgrade costs are increased from their base prices by 2% 75 starting lives Bloon speeds are increased by a flat 0.1 Freeplay has stronger Bloons
Hard	On hard, stuff is expensive and you only have 50 lives.	Tower and upgrade costs are increased from their base prices by 8% 50 starting lives Bloon speeds are increased by a flat 0.25 Freeplay has even stronger Bloons

Bloons TD 4

Game mode selection menu

Bloons TD 4 introduces new game modes in the form of Apopalypse, Sandbox, and, in Bloons TD 4 Expansion, Deflation, all of which use Medium difficulty. Also, tracks now have their own difficulty labels, somewhat akin to BTD2, though this has no effect on gameplay and simply gives a rough indication of the difficulty of the map itself.

Difficulty no longer alters the rounds generated in Freeplay. However, Medium and Hard now require more rounds to be cleared. Additionally, due to alterations to the mechanics of Bloon speed in BTD4, the speed modifier has only half as much of an effect on Bloon speed compared to previous titles.

Difficulty	Description	Properties	Medal
Easy	On easy, stuff is quite cheap to buy and you have 200 lives. There are 50 rounds to pass.	Tower and upgrade costs are reduced by 15% 200 starting lives Bloons move at their base speeds Rounds 1-50
Medium	On medium, stuff is fairly priced and you have 150 lives. There are 60 rounds to pass.	Tower and upgrade costs use their base prices 150 starting lives Bloon speeds are increased by a flat 0.1 Rounds 1-60
Hard	On hard, stuff is expensive and you only have 100 lives, and you have to pass 75 gruelling rounds.	Tower and upgrade costs are increased by 8% 100 starting lives Bloon speeds are increased by a flat 0.25 Rounds 1-75

Bloons TD 5

See also: Mastery Mode

Mode selection menu

In Bloons TD 5, difficulty is mostly the same as in BTD4, with minor changes. The mobile, PC, and console versions would later introduce Impoppable, a new difficulty mode, and Mastery Mode, a mode that further increases difficulty. Neither of these features are available in the Flash version.

Despite the difference in units, difficulty affects Bloon speed to roughly the same degree as in BTD4, except it now applies before Freeplay scaling, meaning Bloon speed now ramps up more when playing Freeplay on harder modes.

Due to a bug, Impoppable does not grant MOAB-Class Bloons extra health if any level of Big Bloon Sabotage is enabled in the Monkey Lab.

Difficulty	Description	Properties	Medal
Easy	On Easy towers cost less than normal, the Bloons move a little slower and you have 200 lives. Beating round 50 in Easy awards you a bronze medal for that track.	Tower and upgrade costs are reduced by 15% 200 starting lives Bloons move at their base speeds Rounds 1-50
Medium	On Medium your towers cost the normal amount and you have 150 lives. Beating round 65 in Medium difficulty awards you a silver medal for that track.	Tower and upgrade costs use their base prices 150 starting lives Bloon speeds are increased by a flat 3.5 Rounds 1-65
Hard	On Hard your towers cost more than normal, the Bloons move faster and you have 100 lives only. Beating round 85 in hard difficulty awards you a gold medal for that track.	Tower and upgrade costs are increased by 8% 100 starting lives Bloon speeds are increased by a flat 8.75 Rounds 1-85
Impoppable	On Impoppable towers cost more than hard. The Bloons move faster, are stronger than ever and you can't lose a single life. Beating round 85 awards you the impoppable medal.	Tower and upgrade costs are increased by 20% 1 starting life Cannot gain lives Bloon speeds are increased by a flat 17.5 Ceramic Bloons have 50% more health MOAB-Class Bloons have double health Rounds 1-85 Round 85 has five ZOMGs instead of one

Bloons Monkey City

Main articles: Difficulty (BMC), Hardcore Mode

In Bloons Monkey City, difficulty is a property of a tile that is determined by a number of factors, including the internal difficulty of the type of terrain, the internal difficulty of the track, the distance of the tile from the center of the player's city, and whether or not the tile has a special modifier. This difficulty is compared to the player's current City Level to determine the "difficulty level" to display; as the player's city levels up, the displayed difficulty gradually decreases accordingly.

In the Flash version, the player has the option to enable Hardcore Mode on some tiles, which functions much like a traditional difficulty option. Additionally, in the Flash version-exclusive city Bloon Dunes, tile difficulty scales with distance more than in Grassy Pass.

Bloons TD 6

Difficulty selection menu

In Bloons TD 6, difficulty is now considered a separate mechanic from game modes, though they can still be played on their own under "Standard" mode. In standard play, game modes are tied to specific difficulty modes, much like in previous games, while in other forms of play, such as the Challenge Editor, any difficulty can be paired with any game mode. Sandbox mode can also be played on any difficulty. On the other hand, Impoppable is still considered a game mode rather than a difficulty, and is paired with Hard mode in standard play, though it does behave like its own difficulty in some ways. Its properties are included below for the sake of completeness.

The effect that difficulty has on Bloon speed is now multiplicative, rather than additive, meaning it affects all Bloons to the same degree rather than being disproportionately less effective on fast Bloons, such as Pink Bloons and DDTs. Additionally, some difficulty modes now change the starting round in addition to the number of rounds.

Difficulty	Description	Base properties	Modes	Medal
Easy	On Easy Monkeys cost less than normal, the Bloons move a little slower and you have 200 lives. Beating round 40 in Easy awards you a bronze medal for that track.	Tower and upgrade costs are reduced by 15% 200 starting lives Bloons move at base speeds Rounds 1-40 The MOAB on Round 40 has ⅔rds health	Standard Sandbox Primary Only Deflation
Medium	On Medium Monkeys cost normal, the Bloons move normal and you have 150 lives. Beating round 60 in Medium awards you a silver medal for that track.	Tower and upgrade costs use their base prices 150 starting lives Bloons move 10% faster than on Easy Rounds 1-60	Standard Military Only Apopalypse Reverse Sandbox
Hard	On Hard Monkeys cost more than normal, you start at round 3, the Bloons move a little faster and you have 100 lives. Beating round 80 in Hard awards you a gold medal for that track.	Tower and upgrade costs are increased by 8% 100 starting lives Bloons move 25% faster than on Easy Rounds 3-80	Standard Sandbox Magic Monkeys Only Double HP MOABs Half Cash Alternate Bloons Rounds Impoppable C.H.I.M.P.S.
Impoppable	Impoppable will test your Bloon popping skills to the max. Some freeplay rules and difficulty will apply at later rounds. Good luck!	The speed of the Bloons and the health of the MOAB on Round 40 are determined by the difficulty this mode is paired with. Tower and upgrade costs are increased by 20% 1 starting life Cannot gain lives Cannot use Mana Shield Rounds 6-100	N/A

Bloons Adventure Time TD

Difficulty modifiers on Candy Graveyard

In Bloons Adventure Time TD, difficulty determines the number of starting lives, the number of rounds played, and the health of MOAB-Class Bloons (the latter not being mentioned anywhere in-game), as well as the rewards. In addition, most maps have secondary modifiers, referred to as difficulty modifiers, which alter certain properties of Bloons to make them more difficult. Every map has custom set of modifiers for each difficulty.

Generally speaking, Normal almost always has no modifiers, Hard only has modifiers on more difficult maps, Extreme always has at least one modifier, and Impoppable always has multiple modifiers.

For a list of difficulty modifiers, see adventures.

Difficulty	Properties	Rewards	Medal
Normal	200 starting lives Rounds 1-30	Bronze medal Bronze chest 300 Coins
Hard	150 starting lives Rounds 1-45 MOABs have 1.1x health MOABs are unable to have ghost properties when ghost bloon modifier applies on	Silver medal Silver chest 500 Coins
Extreme	100 starting lives Rounds 1-60 MOABs, BFBs, and ZOMGs have 1.5x health Up to BFBs are able to have ghost properties when ghost bloon modifier applies on	Gold medal Gold chest 700 Coins
Impoppable	1 starting life Rounds 1-75 MOABs, BFBs, ZOMGs, and BADs have 2x health DDTs have 1.5x health All MOAB-Class Bloons get 5% extra health every round on rounds 61 and above All Bloons get 3% extra speed every round on rounds 61 and above	Diamond medal Diamond chest 1000 Coins

Other games

Bloons Pop!

Preview of an "Extreme" level

In Bloons Pop!, standard levels can be of one of three difficulty levels: Normal, Hard, or Extreme. (There is an Easy difficulty used internally, but it is not distinguished from Normal when displayed to the player. The names "Normal" and "Easy" are also not displayed in-game, but are given in the language files.) The difficulty simply gives a general indication of how challenging a level is and has no direct effect on gameplay, unlike in the Bloons TD series.

Trivia

• In early footage of Bloons TD 5 Flash, the part of the UI that displays the current game mode originally used the label "Difficulty", even in Sandbox mode. This was changed to "Mode" in the final game.

See also

• Medals
• Rounds