Difficulty/Trials Changes Incoming! Thoughts?

[Lost]

For some reason this isn't stickied. From the store page:

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Hello Everyone,

Thank you for your support with both your purchases and your constructive comments! We are listening, taking notes, and thinking of ways to make GemCraft Frostborn Wrath the game you would enjoy playing more. On top of releasing several updates with bug fixes in the coming days, we plan to make changes to the difficulty of the game and getting all the important loot out of the Trial mode wizard stashes.
We see that right now the challenge aspect of the game is overwhelming, pushing the game towards being a "Dark Souls of TD", the goal is to make the game enjoyable if you want to feel the power and have the edge over the monsters, and make challenges optional, just like how the battle traits, early waves, and enraging mechanics work.
Trial mode will stay but it will be your choice if you want to take on an unforgiving and puzzling challenge; you can get to the end of the game and reign over the waves of Endurance without ever touching Trial mode.

GC Chasing Shadows got a mixed reception back then before all the tweaking, and we didn't walk the long path bringing you Frostborn Wrath to just leave it as a bag of frustration. Working on the game is not over, we'll carry on to make the game have much less errors and a quite different feel to it in a matter of days.

Three bug fix updates have came out in the first 9 hours of the game's online life, and more will arrive tomorrow, thank you again for all the feedback!

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Very happy to see this personally.

[Firellius]

Very happy as well. I refunded last night, but if these changes manage to resolve the issues, or at the very least alleviate them enough, I might re-purchase.

[MP]

Please consider keeping the difficulty - or perhaps rebranding it as "challenges" that are not required for progression but offer bragging rights. So, just move those skills out.

Some of us might actually enjoy the torment challenge, you know.

[Toki]

Smashing.

[ruphus]

Originally posted by MihaP:

Please consider keeping the difficulty - or perhaps rebranding it as "challenges" that are not required for progression but offer bragging rights. So, just move those skills out.

Some of us might actually enjoy the torment challenge, you know.

That's why I kinda want that they make multiple difficulty modes, the rebalanced (tomes in journey mode) being Easy mode and the current one being Normal.

[Roest]

I'm not one to say how the game should be. That is for the developers alone. However I can answer the question if I'm having fun with a game and for the current state it is a definitive NO. Sadly I'm past the point where I can refund because I wanted to like the game and kept pushing.

I wanted a TD game where you gradually get stronger and are able to beat more and more waves. Which is basically how all good TD games work. GC:CS was that. This game with essential parts hidden and locked away in trials is not. If I wanted a super hard puzzle game I would have bought a super hard puzzle game.

[Blattdorf]

Originally posted by MihaP:

Please consider keeping the difficulty - or perhaps rebranding it as "challenges" that are not required for progression but offer bragging rights. So, just move those skills out.

Some of us might actually enjoy the torment challenge, you know.

I haven't reached these contentious challenges yet, so I have no idea what the fuss is about, but definitely don't just neuter Trial Mode into oblivion. My favourite part of a TD is working out the puzzle set before you instead of just playing enough levels to brute force your way with overwhelming numbers - and Trial Mode offers me just that. Hell, perhaps multiple difficulty levels would be even better, but this would be non-trivial, so perhaps something to consider in a future game.

Rebranding the challenges might be the safest and quickest option.

[Kill'em ALL]

I'm very happy about the announcement. Hardcore difficulty should be present as an option for those who want it, not forced down everyone's throat. I'll be making a purchase as soon as the devs deliver on their promise of better accessibility for non-hardcore GC players such as myself.

[wulfster42]

I can easily get behind a harder difficulty level you can play (maybe even with bonuses if you do) that requires you to do the trials and generally makes the game more difficult over all. In fact, I love the idea of having a New Game + like that (finish the game on normal, and you can then play it on Torment level (hehe using the above posters name).

I don't think the current setup is good though as it will frustrate too many people. Taking the skills out of trial mode should fix that fairly well, although, even then, a few of the trials are fairly tight/hard. I would have such trials be late game, and give nice bonuses if you finish them etc.

Of course you have many who would just look up solutions, so that just makes it possible for everyone to get those bonuses, but it's their game if they wanna do that.

I like playing a game myself and figuring out solutions etc, I just don't have the patience anymore to lose a map 10+ times in order to do that.

[SuuperW]

I think it's nice to have some loot in Trial Mode; it can make some levels have an extra level of difficulty in Trial, or even just an extra puzzle piece. However I do agree with getting important loot (traits, skills) out of them. Or perhaps instead tell the user which ones are important, and make sure they are on the easier side? Just because some of them are crazy hard, and it's frustrating to think that an unlockable game mechanic is hiding there.

My first impression was that Trial was an optional challenge mode that gives a small bonus of XP + skill points, not as a critical part of the game.

Also please don't make the game un-challenging.

[Lain½]

I hate challenges on this game but they should not disappear. The aspect that most the players hate is that traits and skills, so in a way overall progression is walled behind those challenges that should be optional, and should be played only if you want to challenge yourself. The game is very young, there is place for change and I am happy to see that the developer cares about the players' opinions -that I never doubted having played all games since the first one came out as a flash web game

[sammomy]

Originally posted by Roest:

I wanted a TD game where you gradually get stronger and are able to beat more and more waves. Which is basically how all good TD games work. GC:CS was that. This game with essential parts hidden and locked away in trials is not. If I wanted a super hard puzzle game I would have bought a super hard puzzle game.

This is where I'm standing atm, it made GC a game I could turn back to again and again.
Once you solve a puzzle and there's no room for experimentation, it's done.
By all means, keep the challenge for those hungry for it, but don't wall off traits and skills. I still have a positive view on the game, but it can go either way atm.

[Chicão do Blender]

I played for 7 hours yesterday and had a great time, i failed at some missions, of course, but that's because the game has a lot of different mechanics and i was used to my other build in GC:CS.

I might buy that the trials are a little hard, even though i manage to go through all of the ones that i already passed by, they made me rethink my actions, remake plans and try again.

For example i noticed that the orblet skill (can't remember the name) would be sometimes bad (even though on the other game it was broken strong and determined when you could not gain mana anymore and had to end a endurance run) because on maps where you didn't have a lot of damaging gems you had to rely on mana gems and increase their power in some way letting the monster be banished for a round or two(if you had any orblets you would lose a lot of mana)

Other lesson i learned was that since i have no beam spell yet, i need to have at least two DPS towers(for swarmlings, instead of one grade 4, two grade 3 gems), that i can move my gems from the start to the end of the route so that the same gem can damage every other enemy again increasing my overall dps to the wave.

I think that the game is crafted to a very beautiful point and if the devs were to change anything would it be to make the trials easier (but not optional)

If the devs end up making these changes i would be confortable if the easy mode was labeled as a "learning experience for people who are new to tower defense and/or GemCraft" and the normal current mode to be " a fair challenge for people who played at least one gemcraft" because that's how i fell about it. The word "challenge" pushes away the people not looking for frustration in a game and newcomers don't get frustraded, win-win

Edit: I would advise a more in-depth guide in-game, or even hints in each trial stage on how am i supposed to abuse which mechanic to pass that, or even just which mechanic (for example, i don't know which spell scrolls i have activated at which level on trial mode, none?)

Final: thank you guys i love his game, i will probably beat my other gemcraft time with this, it's amazing.

[eytanzweig]

For me, the only two things I don't like about the game are:

- Gating the skills/traits behind the trials. I actually like the trials, but I don't like that it's necessary for the other two modes. I want them to be truly optional.
- The fact that you can't tell what's in a stash before beating it, unless it's a skill. I'd rather know if I'm going for a trait or just bonus shadow cores when deciding which map to go for next. This is regardless of what mode the stash is in. (And sure, I can look for answers online, but why should I have to? The game should tell me).

Since they're fixing the first, and the second thing is an annoyance rather than a real issue, I'm quite happy now.

[Ashenzarea]

9 hours in, I'm having fun experimenting and figuring things out.
Good to see more levels needing thinking, and not being able to steamroll most maps like in the average TD game.

A tutorial pointing out the mechanisms would avoid a lot of comments from more casual players.