Event Difficulty Explained

If this is your first event, pick 丁 (Casual) or 丙 (Easy) for every map. The ship you get for clearing a map is the same on every difficulty, so you lose nothing that matters for your fleet.

Higher difficulties mainly add better equipment rewards and fancier clear medals — at the cost of much tougher enemies, harder gauges and the tag restrictions that can lock your best ships out of later maps.

You choose difficulty per map, and once you clear a map that choice is locked in.

• You can switch difficulty any time before you break the map's final gauge.
• Raising difficulty resets all of that map's gauges and gimmicks.
• Lowering it keeps most progress: the gauge recovers about 25% (usually one more boss kill), and completed map-expansion gimmicks stay done. Armor-break gimmicks do reset.
• After the final gauge breaks, the difficulty is fixed for that map.

1. 1First event, or a small fleet? Casual or Easy on every map. Your goal is the clear rewards and the new ships, and those don't depend on difficulty.
2. 2Some experience and a healthy resource stockpile? Normal on the early maps, then decide map by map. Remember tags start to matter on Normal.
3. 3Going for Hard? You need HQ level 80, and Normal or better on the previous map. Plan your tags before the first sortie — see Event Ship Locks.
4. 4Either way, read the event's own guide for which maps are the hardest and spend your strongest ships there.

Do I get a worse ship reward on Casual?

No. The ship reward for clearing a map is the same on every difficulty. Equipment, medals and material rewards are what scale with difficulty.

Does my HQ level change the enemies?

No — enemies depend only on the difficulty you pick. A level-120 admiral on Easy fights the same fleets as a level-30 one.

Can I clear a map on Easy and then replay it on Hard?

No. Once a map is cleared, its difficulty is locked.

Why can't I select Hard?

You need HQ level 80, and (for maps after E-1) the previous map cleared on Normal or higher.