This is not an incremental game, it's a tower defense game.

[PeaceShot]

In Gemcraft Chasing Shadows you could beat every map with the same strategy if you had amplifiers, yellow gems and red gems. Every field played the same and you could largely ignore the layout of the maps unless something was blocking your desired spot to place your tower surrounded by 8 Amplifiers. Sure it was a nice feeling to rack the wizard levels up higher and higher and feel more and more powerful. But this game tries to bring back the strategy to the tower defense genre. I'm pretty sure that if you progress far enough into the game you can get that exact same feeling of incremental gameplay Gemcraft:CS had. But I love about this game that it actually requires to think a little bit to solve the trials. It makes me sad that people are spending time complaining about that this game is too hard instead of just trying to think a little bit about how to solve the trials. I already played the first 13 levels including their trial version. Some people say that you have to grind for experience and replay levels over and over to progress in this game. This is simply not true, because I didn't do this and had no problem with the story fields so far. I had to restart sometimes in trial mode but that was mostly when I tried to brute force my way through the level without any strategic planning. It is actually pretty fun for me to be required to think about how to spend my mana best or when to use a gem bomb. Please try to remind yourself what you are loving about tower defense games. If you decide for yourself that you would much rather play an incremental game where you just see numbers rise and get satisfaction of that, then by all means return to play Gemcraft:CS. If you like incremental games but also like to think about strategies and not doing the same thing over and over then please give Gemcraft Frostborn Wrath a chance.

[Ellye]

Yeah, I'm seeing a lot of complaints that seem to boil down to "I don't like strategy in my tower defense games, I just want to beat everything by grinding".

That's weird for me, because it's the exact opposite of what I want from this genre.

[Inuyaki]

Yeah, good point. Now I know what felt off about most of the criticism.
:thumps up:

[CuAnnan]

It's such a pity that there's no way for you to get that itch scratched without locking progress behind the Trials mode.
You are 100% percent correct, and the only way that Trials mode can exist is if only players who enjoy Trials mode can progress.
Because it's not possible, at all, in any way shape or form to have the game without Trials mode being mandatory.

[tayzyboy]

OK I'm asking for a git good reply here - but V1 trial for example. Only purple gems. I've tried using G2 in towers, one G3 and whatever else I can afford. A trap at the start.. Nothing works so far, and nothing is pointing me in a direction to improve. I know there will be "some" solution, I just need to get into the head of the developer.
I'm getting to the "meh" stage with it now.
Rather than a puzzle, this is feeling more like - "I'm thinking of a specific number -if you guess it you win" type thing.

Seriously though - whats the solution.....

[Zaflis]

Publicado originalmente por PeaceShot:

I had to restart sometimes in trial mode but that was mostly when I tried to brute force my way through the level without any strategic planning.

Yeah you haven't played long enough yet. It's when you start thinking actual strategies and they keep failing that the frustration starts to really kick in, the feeling of wasting time while you're not getting anything out of it. 3 shadow fragments maybe... whoop. Now i'm at a point where 2 simple journey levels (R3 and T1 if i recall) form similar obstacles. I have done endurance on every single played field and trial on many. So there's not alot of xp i can gain to add more skills. You were never stuck this way in CS.

[FeniEnt]

But it isn't always about strategy. When there is only 1 solution to a level it stops being about strategy and start to become a puzzle game where you have to guess the correct answer. And good puzzle games show you why your idea failed so you know what you need to tweak to solve the puzzle. Trial fields don't do that. It's a guessing game where you have to guess a number form 1 to 100. 100 times in a row.

[CuAnnan]

Publicado originalmente por Zaflis:

It's when you start thinking actual strategies and they keep failing that the frustration starts to really kick in

Or worse.
Where you have the strategy. You know you have the strategy. But the RNG lets you down.
So you have to restart.
Six waves in.
And then ten waves in.
And you know you have it right, because you've done it before but for some reason the trait box didn't register as being open.
But one mob gets through and costs you that mana so you may as well just restart.
For the eleventh time.
So that you can NOT play in Trial mode.
Because you hate it.

[Inuyaki]

Trials are not that tight, that 1 or 2 mobs ruin your run...

[Ellye]

Publicado originalmente por CuAnnan:

Where you have the strategy. You know you have the strategy. But the RNG lets you down.

That would be a deeper issue with the game instead of just an issue exclusive to Trials mode, though.

[CuAnnan]

Publicado originalmente por Inuyaki:

Trials are not that tight, that 1 or 2 mobs ruin your run...

Literally one mob.
Not one or two.
One mob and you don't have the mana.

[FeniEnt]

Publicado originalmente por Ellye:

Publicado originalmente por CuAnnan:

Where you have the strategy. You know you have the strategy. But the RNG lets you down.

That would be a deeper issue with the game instead of just an issue exclusive to Trials mode, though.

Outside of trials you can get that 1 more wizard level that will give you enough mana to negate RNG. In trials that's not possible. Maybe I'm missing something, but V1 seems really dependant on RNG.

[wulfster42]

I have seen a few other games go that way. Trials in chasing shadows for instance were not regulated to only 1 way to pass them, but they were still my least favorite part.

Also while late game ended up being just go with yellow with a bit of red and beat everything (and use amps for orange traps to get tons of mana as well), the whole start of the game was a blast, even though you didn't have access to super mega over powered yellow/amp combos.

The solution (in my opinion) is to NOT allow any gems to be used, even if you boost the skill for it...so you can't always use yellow/red etc (though you can always use amps once you unlock them...excepting a few maps that might restrict things a bit.

There should never be only 1 way to win a map, and I really don't think there should ever be a map that is so tight that a tiny mistake or just not having everything set up right, makes you lose it (other then totally optional ones...like the trails were in CS.

Someone mentioned making it into a puzzle game. Rain slick precipice 3 for instance kinda switched over almost into a puzzle game for me (as an example), and there were others like that in the past, where you basically just need to find the 1 way to win.

Tower defense games are fun because you should have tons of ways to win and be creative, you decide where to place your towers, what towers, what strategies etc, if you do a bad job you lose, but you shouldn't have only one way to win, that isn't fun, nor is it creative at all.

[V38]

+1
Nice to need skill to beat a strategy game this time around.

[Smeester]

Publicado originalmente por tayzyboy:

OK I'm asking for a git good reply here - but V1 trial for example. Only purple gems. I've tried using G2 in towers, one G3 and whatever else I can afford. A trap at the start.. Nothing works so far, and nothing is pointing me in a direction to improve. I know there will be "some" solution, I just need to get into the head of the developer.
I'm getting to the "meh" stage with it now.
Rather than a puzzle, this is feeling more like - "I'm thinking of a specific number -if you guess it you win" type thing.

Seriously though - whats the solution.....

Lol - I've just tried about 30 times.... spamming G1s, a single G3, a bunch o' G2s .... beginning of map, end of map, middle of map...

Closest was making it to the final wave, with about 20 mobs left, when I ran out of mana. Not had anything spare to bomb the wizard trove though.

Not found the magic solution yet :)

[Shadolance]

Publicado originalmente por Zaflis:

Publicado originalmente por PeaceShot:

I had to restart sometimes in trial mode but that was mostly when I tried to brute force my way through the level without any strategic planning.

Yeah you haven't played long enough yet. It's when you start thinking actual strategies and they keep failing that the frustration starts to really kick in, the feeling of wasting time while you're not getting anything out of it. 3 shadow fragments maybe... whoop. Now i'm at a point where 2 simple journey levels (R3 and T1 if i recall) form similar obstacles. I have done endurance on every single played field and trial on many. So there's not alot of xp i can gain to add more skills. You were never stuck this way in CS.

You can still redo story missions with maxed out traits. I avoided doing any endurance at all so far (am now in the O, N and T areas) because I want to do only the ones with stashes before I add new waves.