A question about the Ecco 2 password generator
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The Entity
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A question about the Ecco 2 password generator
I've asked this before, but I've never gotten a satisfactory answer. Since we've finally got a proper forum, figured I'd ask it again. What exactly is the "3D stage point system"?
Re: A question about the Ecco 2 password generator
An excellent question, thank you!
Tides of Time has a fairly complicated dynamic difficulty system where it will award the player a few points for progressing through levels and switch into Hard mode once enough are accumulated. Similarly, dying on a level subtracts points.
The 3D stages are unique in this regard because they penalty you less to make them more forgiving: missing a ring subtracts only one point, so does dying during a 3D stage. Password generator by default ignores that and generates a password as if you've passed any previous 3D stages flawlessly, but you will note how when enabled, there will be more ticks on the slider, allowing it to be more granular. This wasn't really required but was eventually added as a feature once figured out and if I remember correctly this was done to make them more "realistic".
Tides of Time has a fairly complicated dynamic difficulty system where it will award the player a few points for progressing through levels and switch into Hard mode once enough are accumulated. Similarly, dying on a level subtracts points.
The 3D stages are unique in this regard because they penalty you less to make them more forgiving: missing a ring subtracts only one point, so does dying during a 3D stage. Password generator by default ignores that and generates a password as if you've passed any previous 3D stages flawlessly, but you will note how when enabled, there will be more ticks on the slider, allowing it to be more granular. This wasn't really required but was eventually added as a feature once figured out and if I remember correctly this was done to make them more "realistic".
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The Entity
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- Joined: 19 Jan 2026, 23:45
Re: A question about the Ecco 2 password generator
Ah! I had a feeling this was the case. I'd love to see more about this dynamic difficulty system!
Re: A question about the Ecco 2 password generator
Appreciate your interest in this! I hope to produce a short article of sorts to better describe how that works. There weren't many games in 1994 that would have dynamic difficulty like that either!