[Beta 12] Too difficult?

[Guest Timberwolf]

I have to say I really don't like how hard "normal" difficulty has suddenly become in beta 11 and 12. I haven't even bothered playing it on hard or very hard because for me there's clearly no point in doing so.

If the game doesn't work well in normal difficulty, it doesn't work well. This is a good general rule for all video games.

There really was nothing wrong at all with the overall strength of the creeps in PB 4.0 for 95% of your overall audience and this really feels like tinkering for the sake of giving a half dozen super-experts on this forum (who are clearly going to slaughter the map no matter what you do because they put in the time to learn how to do so) more of a challenge as opposed to an adjustment for the overall good of the game.

[Cisz]

So who exactly is the target audience for vh rnd now? jolin012 or kirby?

[Guest Timberwolf]

I'm not really concerned with how hard the game is on very hard. If you want to have at it, have at it. Personally I consider it a mode for people that have played the map out and really have nothing else left to do with it, but it's pretty useless for genuine public games. That's true of the hardest setting on pretty much all TD maps, save Gem which is too easy and really only gets worth playing on the "extreme" setting (and even then I wouldn't call that "extreme" more than a realistic "medium").

I'm just saying, on normal it's possible to be a casual player playing on normal that "gets" tower placement strategy, "gets" varying your damage between multiple elements, and you can still be dead by wave 45 or even 40 if you're not as polished at the map as some people. So something is a little out of whack there right now. And there's a lot more people on bnet playing the game on normal than on very hard. In fact seeing someone choose VH on the PB on bnet and actually live to wave 30 (meaning someone that didn't just do it to be a smartass) is quite rare.

So yes I do think the current betas are playing too hard. Normal feels a lot more now like hard was on PB 4.0 and I'm just not sure it's a neccesary step. Is it tinkering for the sake of tinkering, or an actual improvement? Personally I think it's just tinkering, that's just my opinion.

[DDRKirby(ISQ)]

the problem is that most of the people involved in developing the map understand its inner workings and strategies very well and hence, usually play on VH mode. Therefore there is a natural tendency to neglect the easier difficulties. It's only inevitable. The best we can do to avoid that is to stay honest and make sure we don't just think of ourselves, and get good feedback.

I don't really mind "cheese" strategies working in VE. isn't it nice to just be able to mess around and do weird things once in a while? I guess that's not really the objective of VE though; it really should be catered to new players.

also @Cisz, jolin is currently better at VHSR than I am. or at least, he SHOULD be. I am not very good atm. (Or at least, I feel like in the past couple of games I haven't been doing as well as I should be)

As a side note I am upping my standard and playing at 4/5 a lot more often nowadays as opposed to always hanging back at 6/3.

[jolin012]

As a side note I am upping my standard and playing at 4/5 a lot more often nowadays as opposed to always hanging back at 6/3.

Good to hear, cause I guess you know, that is a multiplayer game in multiplayer when fighting for your life, there is no way to lay back at area 6 and interest farm or so Even Cisz, the one who always is so nice, can surprice eveyone with a terrible area 7 and / wrath every now and then, and then you better have shields up!

[DDRKirby(ISQ)]

all i can say is, i just did a VHSR and got FLENDW+ and died at wave 38.

the 10% for slows is definitely making a difference. using all supporters (muck corrosion nova windstorm etc) isn't working like it would have in 4.0pb...

[holepercent]

Pretty common for games to end before 40 now.. The tier1 support triples are comparatively much weaker.

It's hard to find 'casual' beta testers who play at lower difficulties (mainly normal) to stay in the beta test team.. When ETD 4.0 beta first came out, many players signed up. Slowly most disapperared after a few games. The only players who really stayed with the map are now the beta leaders..'

Pros play better because we know how to place our towers and combine the builds properly. It's hard to say 'consider the casual players' who probably do not know everything about the game that we know.

recently i've also been practicing playing at VII (although not very successful as seen from my #180) as well as the usual IV V..

[dvdlesher]

Point VII? Wow...

BTW, the "fixed" ice&electricity is still powerful even though the damage is reduced.

And the flame tower got more damage now, meaning more easier to kill creeps.

This game is getting kinda balanced, but the enemy also got more HP now, eh?

[Guest Vigi-]

Kara talked about resetting the hp boost to what it was before. I personally would like to see how it works out by just halving the increase he added in the lastest beta.

[jolin012]

I was thinking that too.