[Beta 12] Too difficult?

[holepercent]

Is the creep hp boost necessary? It appears that we are getting schooled much earlier compared to 4.0pb. Games are ending before wave 40 quite frequently.

Maybe we are not used to the creep hp increase yet. Feels much harder than 4.0. More importantly, are the towers balanced with respect to the creep hp? Towers are cheaper but do less damage, making more towers necessary.

"There are two overpowered towers in the game. Ice and electricity"

[Cisz]

I have a feeling the map is to hard now, but I agree, it's to early to tell for sure.

But isn't it to early to ballance overall difficulty? Once the builds/towers are equal enough we can start to adjust the game diff. Right now our mayor concern should be elsewhere.

[Twilice]

True, first towers builds, then general gameplay.

But I think composite is to hard. 85% would be better

[jolin012]

"There are two overpowered towers in the game. Ice and electricity"

Not cause it's you that think so but i must add my oppinion here and disagree. kindle is almost as good as electricity. and so is probably gunpowder too. flame aswell. quark mush and magic are meant to be a bit weaker as they are the only who can touch bosses. and killing bosses is important for duals. Although those 3 might be a bit too weak. (beeing at 1666dps while electricity for exampl is at 2500.) However, I will wait a bit before I am sure of what I find to be imbalanced and so. I yet have too little experience with b11 i think.

about the map, it is currently perhaps a bit too hard. and I might agree with 13est that composite should be reduced to 85% now that we also buffed fast and healing.

[Twilice]

I cannot agree that kindle is good.... at least not at tier 1.

I leaked alot of nature healing with lots of kindle...

[jolin012]

replay or it didn't happen.

kindle is great vs nature and not too bad vs healing. electricity at 3 for example gives the creeps 30 sec to regen. kindle puts out all damage withiin only 12 sec. also kindle has 2400dps(200dmg*12sec) while electricity has 2500dps(550+600+650+700).

[DDRKirby(ISQ)]

flame might be good--just don't make the mistake I did and try to solo a nature wave with 10 solars =PPP

I had forgotten that there's no ST damage anymore.

wait, the AoE damage doesn't stack, right? =X

[Cisz]

Flams should stack imo.

[DDRKirby(ISQ)]

then i just sucked

[Cisz]

Nono, maybe the tower doesn't stack, havn't tried that yet. Maybe it's a bug. And you don't suck.

[DDRKirby(ISQ)]

hm i tried again and it does seem to stack. though i'm not 100% certain.

i =sucked=. past tense

the question now is HOW does it stack? Does multiple shots from a single tower stack? or is it like a debuff and it only matters that more creeps have the debuff on them. (the latter seems unlikely)

edit: actually the latter still seems possible. I'm not really sure what it's doing.

edit 2: nah I don't think it's the latter. I think it's just simple, everything stacks.

[jolin012]

ya, I'd like to know wether how this stacks too. I guess the effect of a creep beeing burning isn't stackable, but that if several creeps close to one are burning it suffers more damage/sec.

[Karawasa]

ya, I'd like to know wether how this stacks too. I guess the effect of a creep beeing burning isn't stackable, but that if several creeps close to one are burning it suffers more damage/sec.

That is exactly it. It cannot stack on the same creep, otherwise it stacks.

As for the topic, it may very well be that the game is too difficult now. The build rebalance made the game easier, but the creep hp buff could have perhaps overcompensated.

That being said, I agree with others that we should focus on balancing the towers/builds first. If the creeps still feel too hard afterward, then we can nerf them.

[Cisz]

Um, karawasa, afaik the game is not easier now. You nerfed the only build it ever was easy with (6 ele), and the others did not get up to the power of the former 6 ele. Or did I miss something here?

[holepercent]

Maybe the 6-ele build was brought down to the level of the 4-ele build but the creeps are now overpowered with respect to the towers?

The new ice, new flame, corpse explosion as well as the other new/remade towers need their round of balancing against the existing towers. Also, adjustments probably need to be made to towers that were previously unbuffable by well and smith that gain the boosts now. This also contributes to build imbalance.

Towers can be balanced as long as all towers can be boosted properly. Numbers can be adjusted after that.

just a guess.. we may need to refine our builds with more experience..

[Karawasa]

Um, karawasa, afaik the game is not easier now. You nerfed the only build it ever was easy with (6 ele), and the others did not get up to the power of the former 6 ele. Or did I miss something here?

Think of it like this, all the builds are now in an area of power between the old 6 element and the old 4 element.

Old:

30/50/130

New:

60/65/70

The 6 element build certainly got nerfed, but the 4 and 5 element builds got buffed overall. Since the vast majority of builds are more powerful than before, I felt an increase in creep hp was needed.

[dvdlesher]

"There are two overpowered towers in the game. Ice and electricity"

Agreed, they are so very2 powerful.. Althrough I massed on wave 60 using lvl3 ice tower, I still leaks

[Cisz]

So the 6 ele strengh dropped by 50 and you say it's easier? I feel lost when playing now. Healing is too strong for me (and I can imagine what it does to ve), while fast seems to doable.

[dvdlesher]

I think periodic is weaker now, so I have to change strategy...

[Karawasa]

So the 6 ele strengh dropped by 50 and you say it's easier? I feel lost when playing now. Healing is too strong for me (and I can imagine what it does to ve), while fast seems to doable.

The 6 ele build is quite a minority by itself. The vast majority of builds should be more powerful now.

Healing may very well be too strong. As for VE and healing, I have an idea to fix that problem once and for all.

Fast is too doable? Does that mean too easy?

[Guest Timberwolf]

I find both fast and healing really tough now. Fast rounds without at least a couple slowing towers are just ugly.

I think maybe there could be an adjustment to creep hitpoints *or* a buff relative to 4.0 PB for the special skills like fast/healing, but maybe not both.

[Cisz]

Sorry, I meant doable, not to doable.

[Karawasa]

I should note that Very Hard should be just that. There have been a lot of changes to the towers and builds, and it will take time to balance them and get used to them. Perhaps playing on Hard for now is justified, and as things stabilize master Very Hard.

I have something planned that will allow us to balance the towers and builds far easier and more rapidly. Trust me when I say that if you like useful numbers, you should be excited. There has been good activity so far with Beta 11, and I hope to see more for Beta 12(skipping 11b). Good tools and great testers will result in a stable and exciting 4.0 release sooner.

[DDRKirby(ISQ)]

true, maybe the upper limit of difficulty being higher is not so bad. After all, better to have something to strive for, no?

maybe rename to "impossible" =ppp (not serious)

[holepercent]

It's a big challenge to master both the rebalanced builds AND creep difficulty (hp increase and 2% healing) at the same time.

Personally, i feel that the game will be closer to balanced with the revised tower balance and 4.0pb creep settings.

Focus on doing the towers right first. After we have a fully working set of towers then adjust for overall difficulty.. It's difficult to pinpoint real balance issues if all the factors are changed at the same time.

About VH.. it should be a mode to challenge seasoned players. It should be challenging for the best players but not impossible. VHX will be the close to impossible mode. I click VH automatically now. Start with the hardest difficulty and learn from there. It can be seen easily what works and what doesn't. VE can lure players into a false sense and get a shock when they progress to higher difficulties as their builds work in VE but not VH.