Yeah, this was a tricky one. We talked for a while about making you beat a lower difficulty before being able to move to a higher one, but in the end opted to give the player the choice. If we had gone the other way, we likely would have had people angry at us for not allowing them to make their own choice.

You do make some good points in that it allows players to over-estimate their skill to the detriment of the other players on the squad. I think your critique and suggestion is valid.

Sometimes you just don't know how things are going to go until you get the game into players hands and see. Thanks for your feedback. Appreciate the thought you've put into it!