when will it get fun(compared to chasing shadows)

[alleszermalmer]

bought it today and played like 20 maps and i didnt have fun at all. every new map is just hard and close to win . i cant build amps, only few gems to choose from and i cant rage waves( i hope this will be possible in later maps?? ) .
in chasing shadows u started slow as well but there was some kind of progress . for now i feel like playing vision maps all the time.
will it get better later on?

[Mythily]

Honestly if it's too hard start with chilling mode (you can convert your save to chilling). I don't know how it'll be later on (I didn't progress far yet) but I assume the difficulty will be more or less the same.

[Brandon]

It gets pretty easy later on, but you have to get past that first difficult part. Also you shouldn't put all your points into skills. Leave things unassigned as it gives you mana when you start the map and I find that way more important.

[tgm79]

You must have a lot of skill points and upgrade your skills that actually matter. Mana gems, traps, amplifiers, pure color, critical strike. So, basically you'll have to open all maps to at least start feeling a little bit like you're in control. I personally was really disappointed when I realized there are no white gems in this episode. White gems were my favorite.

[Miku]

You can enrage waves, you just have to put a gem in the slot in the top left. You don't enrage them with gem bombs anymore. With that, you can already make it more interesting by trying to get as much xp as you can each map rather than just trying to win without enraging any waves.

You'll also get a lot more gem types and other options as the game progresses. The beginning is simple for those that are new.

[agmdaniel]

I agree that you should start with Chilling. I tried a new save on Frost and then a new one on Chilling and there's no comparison. There's literally no comparison. I got 100 more shadowdrops, 3 more jigsaw puzzles and way more achievements just at the end of the first few levels. Add to that the 3 free amps, free Freeze spell and other goodies, and there's just no comparison.

[jerry jargson]

It's REALLY not that hard at all.

[VaderDFXB]

Honestly it's not as good of a game as Chasing Shadows was. I mean it's usually a decent time but it is overly difficult even on the lowest difficulty setting. I'd say the game does get a bit better later on, but then gets worse again. Yay?...

[jerry jargson]

What are you talking about? Playing it in the harder difficulty had absolutely 0 challenge if not for trial fields. Do you mean extreme lategame? I don't quite understand what you mean.

[VaderDFXB]

Originally posted by jerry jargson:

What are you talking about? Playing it in the harder difficulty had absolutely 0 challenge if not for trial fields. Do you mean extreme lategame? I don't quite understand what you mean.

You're just one of those people that claims to find every game stupidly easy. There's a reason why one of the common complaints for this game was and still is it's excessive difficulty level. Go play CS and compare it with this game and you'll see a huge difference in overall progression and difficulty. CS is clearly the better game that also plays better and has a more reasonable progression.

[Gatebase]

Over-all I agree that FW is not nearly as hard as people claim it is. But I can also see why the start is not as accessible. For reference, I have 120+ hours in CS and every achievement. I think it is the best TD game I ever played. I started FW last week and I'm super into it. It might not turn out to be better than CS, but it's certainly close.
I was actually afraid of all the negative hype surrounding FW and thus didn't buy at launch. When I started last week I seriously considered going Chilled, but figured I could always switch later. I haven't looked back. There were basically zero roadblocks for me. I have so far cleared pretty much the upper half of the map and there were maybe 2 trials that I *really* struggled with.

Just be methodical about it. Use dual-colored gems for the 20% damage boost. Understand that hit level and mana pool level give damage boosts (basically white and black gems from CS are rolled into every gem in FW). Open every wizard stash you come across. Beat a level, then immediately beat it in Trial mode. The challenge is set, your powerlevel does not matter for Trials, but they give you free skill points and XP for the next field. Compared to the Vision Fields in CS, Trial mode in FW is basically a joke. Of the ~45 levels I've beaten like I said only 2-3 were actually hard (one of them insanely imo). Start playing endurance after after you get battle traits, then at least play endurance when it has a wizard stash. Go for easy achievements since they give you skill points.
Now the drawback - FW is amazingly deep, but has a really slow start. It wasn't really hard, more like boring/drawn-out. It took 15 fields to finally unlock the first spell (and with 3 modes that's ~40 levels beaten before you get active skills). Battle Traits also come way too late and infrequently. This is how you customize your game and get ahead of the difficulty curve and I don't really understand why I'm dozens of hours deep and still haven't unlocked half of them.

tl;dr; There are definite balance and progression issues, but for a veteran of CS this is nothing new or hard. After ~10-15 fields you should be well ahead of the curve pretty much like in CS. Go back and replay all 3 modes and fields with more traits like you did in CS. Just impatiently pushing ahead on Journey mode was never easy in either game.

[Brainy]

i was day 1 player and i beat it a week later with WL 132 (i know this bcuz there was a guy who beat it with WL 72 almost HALF my lvl wtf), back then we had no tourist mode (chilling), all we had was each other giving tips how to go through some probs.

i agree with guys saying this game is harder than cs (i miss chainhit <.<) and on the other side i agree with guys that its rly no prob even on Frostborn diff. (if you know how the different fields work, where to find what gems, how to use the talisman ect)

you newbies have no idea how we struggled in the beginning about those talisman things, once we figured it out the game actually started to get fun and easy. pls dont fight over the difficulty here, some ppls enjoy hard games and would even say kaizo mario is easy.

that was my 2 cents as a returning player bcuz of the new update, happy exp farming.

brain

[jerry jargson]

If the game is difficult, simply adapt to the changes compared to Chasing Shadows and win the game accordingly. The game is only hard in trial mode sometimes, for the rest if a level is hard you can simply go through one of the many other paths that the game gives you. You can just levelup, change your skills as is necessary then continue through the mainline tiles.

[lfindlay]

I am a long time GC player going back to the first one. have played and beaten them all. tons of hours in CS and FW. I can see how someone new to the games struggles in the early parts. As someone mentioned the big key is not spending your skill points early. I basically went through about 20 maps without spending on them. once you figure that out, the game is much easier. There are also some things around tower placement, not bothering with amps and lanterns early. Its also meant to be somewhat challenging, which is why chilling mode exists. Iron Wizard mode though is giving me a struggle lol

[ECE94FSR]

Don't get too fed up with GC:CS. You need to be open-minded and have patience trying and tweaking till you find something that works for you.
I liked GC:FW better than GC:CS given the mechanics etc.
It had some nice curve balls that surprised me along the way.
I converted to chilling since so many said it was too hard.
Hardest part was around the start and some maps close to mid point, after that it really wasnt much of a challenge anymore.

When I had beaten the game I did it again on "normal" and it felt really easy compared to the first time with the new knowledge I had.
Dont get the "its too hard or too easy stuck in your head" its very doable and with knowledge and patience you will get it. It has a higher difficulty curve than GC:CS I would definatley say, there isnt as much cheap tricks or a "straight forward" mana farm.
Some trials though... Are very hard.

[Arevi]

• Be sparing with your skill point usage, having skill points unspent gives you more mana to start a run with.
  
• Dont be afraid to move skill points around, there is no penalty for this.
  
• Go back and do earlier levels to get easy XP for more levels. Endurance Mode is good for this as you still claim XP on a loss, so long as its more than you got before.
  
• Check for any levels that have a Wizard Stash on Endurance Mode, you dont have to beat these to claim the Stash so you can just call tonnes of waves and drop big boy gems on them to open (only early ones, they start getting shields to stop this xD). These will usually contain either a chunk of shadow cores or even a new skill/tower
  
• Same for buildings that you can gem bomb, if you are about to beat the round feel free to sell some towers and start bombing. The shadow cores are always handy and you will unlock achieves as well.
  
• Make sure you keep updating your Talismans, unlock some extra slots when you can. The bonus they give might seem small but they stack up.
  
• Dont be afraid to leak creeps in a round, dont panic and start building to kill them unless you are leaking badly.
  
• The space bar is your friend! Use it all the time, take a minute to survey whats going on, check armor levels and the like.
  
• If a Wraith is on the field (spooky floating white guy) ALL monsters get a defence buff. Kill them ASAP, its worth leaking during this time as you will get a huge mana payout for the kill as well.
  
• Dual gems do much more damage than normal gems do. Use normals more for the special effect and always have at least a dual set up as your main dps.
  
• All Traps ignore armor. Small tip but very useful.
  
• You can add a lower level gem to a higher level gem to boost its effect. Eg a level 1 crit gem added to a level 2 crit gem will increase the chance to crit and the damage the crit will do.
  
• Walls. Walls. Walls. If you are seeing creeps moving in a straight line you need more walls. Make them work for the exit, the longer you keep them moving the longer you have to kill them. You can build mini mazes with towers, walls and traps to make the most use of big empty areas.
  
• Dont be afraid to scum a level. Call the waves and watch how they move then restart. Now you have a better idea where to build so set up and start to make sure they move how you want. If they dont, restart and rebuild.
  
• The first spell you learn, Bolt, is permanent on Traps and can be used to skip the cooldown on putting in or leveling a gem.
  
• If you right click a gem that is inserted you can give it priority. Having a few towers targeting different types helps a lot.

These are all the main tips I can think off that I have picked up while playing. Hope they can help in some way. The game is hard but stick it out and the wins really do feel worth it.