Feedback about difficulty

[Tam]

First of all: I have played the tutorial and one more run, so I do not claim to understand every little bit of the game and if I understand something wrong feel free to correct me.

For my first run I got in pretty decently equiped, I found the wiking helmet in the hidden tutorial chest, I managed to make my first upgrade for the pickaxe and the axe (tin I think) and the merchant sold me bronze gloves and tin shoulders.

During my run I not only managed to fullfill all 3 of my choosen quest but I also managed to get almost two full stacks of bronze, which made me think that I would be able to skip the tin equipment and immediatly go one stage higher. I also found additional equipment in a castle like structure: bronze shoulders which replaced my tin shoulders, multiple iron helmets which were equall to the wiking one and most importantly a flamming sword that killed big slimes in 2 strikes and small one in one, in addition it left fires behind that burns enemys but not me.

I was extremely happy with the loot I gathered so the game feels rewarding (maybe even a bit too much).

But here comes what I am not so happy with and that is difficulty:
I might have been better equiped than others on their first run by sheer luck (the merchant having the rigth items) but during my entire run there was no danger at all. Most monsters could be defeated very fast and you could outmaneuver them somewhat easily, not every time of course but often enough, the explosions when mining the wrong tile only took between 33-50% of my life, which means that I can tank up to two explosions before beeing in trouble, as far as I understand it I was supposed to evade them by running away early enough and paying attention, but that was never really necessary.

All of the above might be 100% fine, but then you have healing: healing mushrooms and other things were abundand, any single encounter could not kill me on its own, and mushrooms filled me up rigth after. I never felt in danger at all.

That was before I got the flame sword, after I got it that was even more the case.

Now all of that is true until I called the escape pod.
And then everything changed. The difficulty before I would describe as very easy, you have opposition and when you do not pay attention or simply do not care you will die. But any player that has any wish to not die can very easily survive.
After calling the escape pod that turned into anything between hard and very hard. Multiple enemies appear in waves and every single wave appears faster than I could kill the former one (keep in mind I had the super strong flame sword that killed everything in 1-2 hits before), at the time I died the drop area was filled to roughly 50% maybe 55% and 10 mobs were still swarming around.

It is possible that the situation was easily winable but I can not see how, it is also possible that I triggered the strong increase in difficulty but again I did not see anything implying that (region I was in? how much loot I had?...)

What I can say though is that it felt pretty bad, it felt a bit as if the game was specifically designed to trick me.
First the game is super easy, and gives you lots of rewards, and then when you want to take these rewards home it pulls out a massive club, hits you over the head and you wake up with nothing but your underwear. And worse is you do not even know why it happend. Will that happen every time? did you do something to make it happen?

If what I described here was indeed how the normal run goes and was not triggered by me doing something weird then I have two advises:
1. Either make the beginning of the game harder or make the escape easier, this suden change in difficulty is to crass
2. If the change in difficulty is controlled by the player then communicate that with them if extracion gets harder depending how deep you have gotten or how much loot you carry than the game should at least give some hints in that direction.

For me at the very least that was a quit moment, I will probably not try your game again.

[maximustrajan23]

SAME.

[maximustrajan23]

is it possible we chose three quests that the enemies at the escape pod were overwhelming. i just doint know. now im too annoyed to try it again after only picking one quest lol

[Gae'g]

I died while waiting the escape pod too. I tried 3 times, nope, I died 3 times. Now I don't want to try again. Too difficult to escape. And I tried to do only one quest and got the same difficulty.

[teebodk]

Same here. Picked just one quest and it went fine, until calling the escape pod. Not even close to surviving, I was mercilessly slaughtered while frantically running around, trying to escape the mayhem.

[General Bubbles]

So far, after almost 3 hours of playing, I've found the difficulty quite fun. It took a few good whacks to get the hang of each type of enemy and how they operate, but they're fun.
However, the gorram Ogre/Troll was an absolute unit of destruction, the first one I found, folded me like laundry, so I resorted to peek-a-boo shooting him with a crossbow, to put the monstrosity down.

And that's how i found out where to get golden keys XD

The escape Pod, I found was okay, but I resort to kiting them all in a circle around the perimeter, and attacking when I graze them enough to reach, as they almost all die as soon as the escape pod lands. Just gotta keep them running in circles while you wait.

[Misguided]

Do you guys run around inside the drop pod area while it is counting down? I’ve seen this complaint before, but I haven’t found it to be a problem. You do have to be careful about letting the spear guys or spiders limit your mobility, but you can just run in a circle swinging at stuff until the pod drops (as general bubbles said).

[General Bubbles]

Originally posted by Misguided:

Do you guys run around inside the drop pod area while it is counting down? I’ve seen this complaint before, but I haven’t found it to be a problem. You do have to be careful about letting the spear guys or spiders limit your mobility, but you can just run in a circle swinging at stuff until the pod drops (as general bubbles said).

That's what I do. Kite them in circles, and take a swing or two when they get within range, or just shoot them with the crossbow while circle-strafing

[disPIGGIEgotHIGH]

So I've put in about 2 hours now, I can say from the multiple extractions that it does not seem to matter what you do, where you extract from, how much loot you have, etc. the final wave during extract is always crazy. Now that being said, i still (in my 2 hours) have not died even a single time. I'll agree that overall the difficulty is super low, it's way too easy to kill enemies, especially since there's knockback with your attacks which make even the largest groups a cakewalk. And with the extraction wave, just kite them around and they're a breeze. I will agree it's the hardest part, as it's the only time I've been close to dying, but it's still really easy as long as you kite and focus on the ranged enemies.
All things considered I do enjoy this game a lot so far, but the game is too damn simple for what it's trying to be.

Also if you break line of sight with enemies, they just forget you exist, which makes backing up and healing a super strong strategy if you're in those tighter areas.

[General Bubbles]

The only, even slight, two issues I have ever had, were when I underestimated what the Ogre/Troll could do on my first encounter, and the buildings with multiple spawners in them, popping out ranged enemies, but once you get you footing and make a note of the spawners, they become a non-issue. And that's after 3.3 hours of explorin'.

[Kurdain]

Mimics kinda suck. Open chests at a distance....

[RimeScales]

Don't underestimate the torch as a weapon. Found it does really good damage early in the demo and you can swing it quickly

[Azrael245]

Tip: When you extract, if you are within the Square where the Machine will come down a timer will start ticking and mobs will start to spawn. If you are getting overwhelmed, step OUT of the extraction square, the timer pauses at whatever time it was at, mobs also stop spawning and give you time to clean them up. Step back into the radius, timer resumes counting from where it left off, mobs begin again.

[CHA0S_G0BLIN]

Flame sword made it a breeze haha. I went to one side and hugged the wall after I called the escape pod and mobs stopped spawning or got stuck.
I just made 8 gold ingots and since they're not used for anything I went to sell them for a whole... $3... 2 arrows got me $4, all the gear like rare weapons and stuff like the flame sword sell for <$1 wut?
Trolls and I can attack through 1 wall.
Inverted scroll option doesn't save your choice between areas.
Buuuut was fun, looking forward to what it becomes.
Diggy diggy hole