Difficulty

General Information
The default difficulty levels in Neon Abyss are Easy, Normal and Hard. The last (and hardest) difficulty Abyssal has to be unlocked. Each difficulty has five sub-difficulty levels represented by the corresponding number of dots above the difficulty selected at the Bar. The higher the sub-difficulty level is, the harder the run gets, while lower dot numbers indicate an easier experience. Winning a run will add one level to the sub-difficulty until five dots are reached, losing a run will subtract dots until one dot is reached. For example: A run on Normal(five dots) will be very close in difficulty to a run on Hard (one dot). The main differences in increasing the difficulty are:

To unlock Abyssal difficulty, the player has to win a hard(5) run. ''Note: Abyssal difficulty has been a non-permanent unlock in the past. If a player lost an abyssal run, they were thrown back to hard(5) and had to complete that before they could play on Abyssal difficulty again.''
 * increased monster + boss hitpoints
 * increased monster + boss movement and attack speed
 * decreased drop rate of consumables/items in general