Feedback on endless mode

[domanz]

Hi, I played the campaign and it was an anbsolute joy. As a they are billions veteran, I wanted to give endless a go. There are some points that make this mode quite unenjoyable for me. I realize this is EA so I'm not complaining, the game is still heavily in development. That's why I'd like to help and point out what I think makes it unenjoyable as of this moment.

As a general disclaimer, I didn't play far into it. All git guds and just give it more time comments aside which I anticipate: if it's not fun in the beginning, many people will quit this mode. So it's a fair critique if it's lackluster at the start.

There are two major points for me which intertwine to make it boring an unmotivating: very slow process of gaining points, and the unavailability of an option to gain points by exploring the map. This means that while the waves keep getting bigger, you are forced to buy into military upgrades first, otherwise you're overwhelmed - or you spam stone wall after stone wall after stone wall so you have enough time to shoot the horrors down.

There is no incentive to explore the map. Because you pile up resources anyway, since you can't build anything new. I hoped that destroying corrupted buildings gives me points so that at least gives me an incentive to sortie out. But no, it just gives you access to the resources around them. So the first 10 waves or so you just wait for them to come, increase your military cap to build 20 of the same unit and build basic wall after wall until you get to the more interesting stuff.

I get that unocking content by surviving waves makes sense in endless. If you were bound to research by investing resources instead, you'd be done quite early since city building is not the major focus of this game and thus rather easy to achieve. So there'd not be any real challenge. I think that, in general, is a good idea. But there needs to be more ways to unlock points in the early game. It's too slow paced right now in my humble opinion.

Anyway, thank you for an awesome game and a great idea combining different genres.

[Olleus]

Entirely agree, and very well put. Having research points dotted around the map (ie, behind broodnests and the like) would both incentivize exploration and speed up the early game.

[Akhorahil]

If you pile up resources, you're probably not building enough. I'm at day 60, and I keep using my stuff, even though I'm using 90% of map resources and at the improved buildings. You need to think big - thick, tall walls; using walls outside your area to funnel the horrors to the right places. You should carpet the map in spikes. My most used blueprint is just a 3x3 wall 12 tall that I slap down like it's candy.

[Deacyde Do'Hurt'in]

We need flying mobs, to make this just insane at higher waves!

[Olleus]

Originally posted by Akhorahil:

If you pile up resources, you're probably not building enough. I'm at day 60, and I keep using my stuff, even though I'm using 90% of map resources and at the improved buildings. You need to think big - thick, tall walls; using walls outside your area to funnel the horrors to the right places. You should carpet the map in spikes. My most used blueprint is just a 3x3 wall 12 tall that I slap down like it's candy.

Traps are an infinite resource dump, but they're kind of boring. Once walls are strong enough that I take negligible damage in a wave, why bother making them thicker? I will gain nothing from it, but will somewhat reduce the visibility of the defenders (especially the ones on the middle floor who will have to look out through multiple layers of windows). So yes, it's always possible to spend resources. But most of the time there's nothing good to spend them on.

Research points are always the bottleneck in endless mode IMO, nothing else (except possibly mist) really comes close, especially for the first 30ish turns when things are at their most interesting. This means that the wood / stone / oxygen gathering part of the game completely disappears in importance. Generally, games are more fun when there are various mechanics of similar importance working together, not when one dominates the others into irrelevance.

IMO, the problem is at least partly the Warehouse though. It's simply way too strong. A single well placed woodcutter / quarry might produce around 20-30 resources per minute - rarely more unless you get lucky with the map, and often less as you expand further out. A warehouse will easily bump those numbers to 150-200, and it's not hard to place a warehouse that can serve two or three gathering buildings at once. That a building on its own can x10 the amount of resources produced is kind of insane, it blows every upgrade completely out of the water, and unbalances everything else in the game. This would be pretty easy to fix: speed up the movement of the carriers while slowing down the raw resource production so that a gathering building produces a max of 150/min which drops to only 30-60/min when not insanely far from the citadel. [Numbers, of course, requiring play testing]

[domanz]

Originally posted by Akhorahil:

If you pile up resources, you're probably not building enough. I'm at day 60, and I keep using my stuff, even though I'm using 90% of map resources and at the improved buildings. You need to think big - thick, tall walls; using walls outside your area to funnel the horrors to the right places. You should carpet the map in spikes. My most used blueprint is just a 3x3 wall 12 tall that I slap down like it's candy.

What Olleaus said. Of course I could cover the entire map with walls. I guess that's kind of the end goal, to build an impenetrable fortress. At day 60, I imagine you have tons of wall pieces already and your walls are more than just mere stone walls with wooden stairs leading on top of them.

You're at a portion of the game again that is different from the beginning, and in the beginning nothing much is happening.

Compared to the flow of the camapign, where you start building up your economy, you're always happy to find resources, to give you that capital you need to buy the next new upgrade, the next important building to beef up your economy.

In endless, all those resources are meaningless because there is no way to get the blueprints to spend them on except waiting for the waves to happen and killing them with boring tactics because I have no tools at my disposal. I can only build thick walls and shoot at the horrors with bowmen for the first couple of hours. My respects if you made it through that slog, but it's just not fun to me.

Now if the devs come here and say, well, in that case domanz didn't get what we were aiming at with endless - fine, I don't have to love all the modes. I just can't imagine, seeing as this is in early access, that they are glad with the current endless mode and don't want to improve on it.

[Morphic]

IMO, I think you need to start with at least 2 Research points. This will allow you some customization and progress right out of the gate; unlock building pieces, army cap, or save it so by wave 2 you can have a 4 cost research.

In addition, I think clearing broodnests should also award 1 point per nest.(I don't mind if that means nests are even stronger/have more guards) Alternatively, have broodnests award the reinforcement units(the ones that don't count towards cap). The overall idea is to let a player either fast track progress or allow more customization with opening playstyle. It's incredibly boring that, basically, you're going to play the same way every time for the first ~10-20 waves... simply because you are going to be dumping points into basic, almost required, unlocks.

I'd also consider changing the point costs for things a bit. E.g. Bomber's Hall is ~6 points and that effectively just lets you recruit Canonneers(love them!) however, Canonneers cost Mistfuel... so you need to also spend 4 points of Mistfuel Condensers. So, effectively, Bomber's Hall/Canonneers cost ~10 points to unlock and use. This feels especially bad because you either spend 4 points on a Condenser unlock that does absolutely nothing for you until you spend another 6 points... or vice versa, you spend 6 points on a building you can't use until you spend another 4 points. Perhaps make Mist Condenser 1 point unlock and make Bomber's Hall 6-8 point unlock?

Another major thing I noticed is that the random map gen can either be awesome or really crappy, especially on Forest biome. One game I had massive 3+ deep sinkholes all over that also had mist at the very bottom. It made building ANYTHING a massive chore and incredibly expensive stone-wise. Add onto to that my stone resource nodes were very small... I was lucky to get 8 stone out of a single quarry. Meanwhile I've had maps that feature such amazing natural chokepoints, I hardly had to actually build a wall/defenses to properly handle most early waves.

TLDR: Basically, we should start with ~2 Research Points and killing Broodnests should award 1 Research point or Reinforcement units. Also the mapgen experience was such a large swing from awesome to "I'mma just quit and reroll.". I think the biggest problem with Endless is the early game experience. The first 10-20 waves are incredibly boring due to low Research points.

[Råttkungen]

I just think the game is too easy once you understand how to play it.
There is not enough interesting things happening in endless for it to be motivating enough to survive 100 days or more. I quit my run out of boredom on wave 55 ish.

[Nex41]

I have an Endless run on extreme difficulty that has gone till wave 46 at this point, I also used the first map I got to not exploit seeds at all.

That being said I whole-heartedly agree the start of the game being slow, even more so in extreme because of the decreased population+oxygen production and Increased O2 consumption. It makes early game about expanding your resources just enough to get all the defenses that you can, and restarting if things don't go right. I didn't mind this and it actually makes the game challenging early game, but it requires you to spend the majority of your time while the timer is paused in order to build/train/produce as much as you can with your resources.

Saying that you don't need to explore the map doesn't entirely account for the late game of endless (extreme) because the scarcity of mist-fuel forces you to expand. There is only so much mist-fuel that is spread over the map meaning if you want an effective defense with Cannoneers, Ballistas, Tactician's Nooks, and Hell Spark, you need to get as much mist-fuel as you can.

Also later waves that I have faced started to take more unorthodox pathways requiring me to put up more defenses along different routes meaning more map exploration.

knock-knock the US has found mist-fuel in your territory.

[Nex41]

Originally posted by Råttkungen:

I just think the game is too easy once you understand how to play it.
There is not enough interesting things happening in endless for it to be motivating enough to survive 100 days or more. I quit my run out of boredom on wave 55 ish.

There is an extreme difficulty. I quite enjoyed it.

Also "Endless" doesn't mean it's going to be fun for eternity.

[Twelve]

The Extreme difficulty doesnt seem balanced enough for me, my first run i had literally no wood harvest closer than 100meters.. quite impossible to have a decent start with some maps..
tho i didn't want to seed exploit so i lowered difficulty and got to 100th wave in easy mode.
that being said i totally agree after wave 30 ish it's getting really repetitive and not as exciting.

[Flavalicious]

I think it needs more things to do outside of the base. With rewards beyond just normal resources. I found some of the most engaging and enjoyable moments was when I was trying to explore the map but still get back in time to defend depending on what direction they would spawn from. If there was a difficult, unit intensive challenge outside of your walls that you had an incentive to go for, could help fill the time between waves. This is how other games in the genre fill the void between waves.

Personally once I got my economy up and running, I'd still run dry on stone and wood from time to time, despite maxing out collection rates. These things happen when you build tall and spend a bit of time making cool looking designs. It wastes tons of resources but half the point of the game is building something cool.

[DigitalMallen]

Honestly, the Endless mode is probably the most Early-Access-ish (?) thing in our game and one of the main reasons why we opted to launch Cataclismo as an Early Access. The campaign is already fairly advanced, and I believe it shows. Skirmishes are hand-crafted levels, and each one we release will be very polished. As for the Sandbox Mode, it's kind of a "play the campaign with cheats and no story" thing.

On the other hand, the Endless mode and the Level Editor are different beasts. Especially the first one, with procedural levels and virtually infinite gameplay making it tough to balance. I'd say the current version is okay, but we aim for the same level of perfection as in the campaign. After all, this should be the mode people spend the most time with in the long run.

Making exploration more meaningful and upgrades quicker and funnier are our top priorities, along with a better progression (especially in the early game). That's something we're already working on, but feedback like this helps us immensely.

I can't make any promises on how cool the definitive Endless mode will be. What I can promise is that we're listening to you and improving your game upon your suggestions.

[Shadow Wizard Money Gang]

Originally posted by DigitalMallen:

Honestly, the Endless mode is probably the most Early-Access-ish (?) thing in our game and one of the main reasons why we opted to launch Cataclismo as an Early Access. The campaign is already fairly advanced, and I believe it shows. Skirmishes are hand-crafted levels, and each one we release will be very polished. As for the Sandbox Mode, it's kind of a "play the campaign with cheats and no story" thing.

On the other hand, the Endless mode and the Level Editor are different beasts. Especially the first one, with procedural levels and virtually infinite gameplay making it tough to balance. I'd say the current version is okay, but we aim for the same level of perfection as in the campaign. After all, this should be the mode people spend the most time with in the long run.

Making exploration more meaningful and upgrades quicker and funnier are our top priorities, along with a better progression (especially in the early game). That's something we're already working on, but feedback like this helps us immensely.

I can't make any promises on how cool the definitive Endless mode will be. What I can promise is that we're listening to you and improving your game upon your suggestions.

Hearing that you are aiming for the same level of perfection as the campaign is incredible to hear.
The campaign is a lovingly crafted work of art and truly I hope you feel immense pride for what you have accomplished so far.
I was absolutely blown away by the last patch you guys released for the game, you have done a wonderful job of incorporating player feedback, it's amazing to see.

Sometimes its easy to forget that this game has just entered early access given the level of polish already present, but I do agree that Endless needs love, and its a different kind of love than Campaign. It certainly presents unique challenges in design compared to the campaign.

Endless provides a challenge by the very nature of having random maps that I think should be embraced. Currently, the sentiment that the game starts to feel stale at some point is one that I have seen across Discord, Reddit and on Steam.

I believe that a big part of the fun that people enjoy in this game mode comes down to being challenged by the demands of a random map, the novelty in never knowing what to expect, and finding ways to create your own fun. At a certain point however, this novelty runs out, resources are no longer a concern, and waves become trivial. I do think resource economy is something that needs to be addressed, but I have struggled with having what I feel like are meaningful suggestions. I would like to humbly propose a couple of ideas that attempt to address novelty between runs and player satisfaction during waves. Namely, the introduction of small immutable choices, map specific goals, map and wave modifiers, new enemy types that require the players to make active decisions during a wave and a definitive "end" to endless mode. I had intended to follow up with the explanation of my points, but I believe I should just make a separate post.

Thank you for working on something that brings so much joy to others.

[Morphic]

Originally posted by DigitalMallen:

Making exploration more meaningful and upgrades quicker and funnier are our top priorities, along with a better progression (especially in the early game). That's something we're already working on, but feedback like this helps us immensely.

I can't make any promises on how cool the definitive Endless mode will be. What I can promise is that we're listening to you and improving your game upon your suggestions.

That's awesome to hear. Honestly, I'd rather have a focused/polished Campaign and Skirmish modes than a polished Endless mode. While Endless would be great to have... I think Campaign and Skirmish are far more important modes relatively speaking.

IMO, I think it'd be okay if you cut Endless and moved it to Post-Release provided that time and effort was put into Campaign and Skirmish. Sure, it'd be a bit disappointing but I think most players naturally gravitate to Campaign and Skirmish in these kinds of games over Endless. E.g. They Are Billions and Age of Darkness: Final Stand are great examples of the Devs trying to please Skirmish and Campaign preferences and dropping the ball for both. So please don't overextend, just be sure to openly communicate about it.

Anyway, I think Cataclismo is great so far! I'm quite excited to see how it develops, just be sure not to overwork yourselves!

[SylSeries]

I am nearly 200 hours deep into this game - where the bulk of it has been spent on endless extremes. The enjoyment and challenge factor completely ends when you start employing entire battalions of ballistae and also when horrors start dropping FPS + get stuck. I usually end my extreme sessions around waves 40-50.

I also agree that the early game upgrades points are terribly slow and boring.
Especially certain upgrades like wood & stone locked behind 3 different packs are beyond me. It shatters the enjoyment value. Maybe try reducing them down to 2 packs instead.

The controversial roofs require some major overhaul as they are useless - unless you are forced to use it (rain). If roofs provided extra range to the units covered by em, that would be another great tactical piece to take advantage of. Heck, it could even provide slight attack speed increase. Right now their applications are just a meme - using it as a pseudo ramp/bridge (kekw) outside of the maps that employ rain mechanics.

We also require horizontal wall stacking to be a thing and not just vertical stacking. Perhaps, horizontal thickness stacking can increase the toughness by 1/2 of vertical stacking? Also terrain can be a nightmare for low ground units because even if u build a 3m or 4m low wall, the uneven (depressed) terrain can ruin the height advantage on multiple fronts. Just building only high 9-12m vertical walls all the time can be stale.

If employing horizontal wall toughness proves to be a big hurdle to overcome, then perhaps adding reinforced stones upgrade (mentioned in discord) can really be the solution. This way you can find more ways to design all sorts of walls while maintaining the maximum toughness without spamming the boring 4m foundation stone + windows + merlon combo.

It is crazy how I managed to spend so much time in this game even when in Early Access.
Game is decent overall and managed to revive my kiddo days of playing with legos to my recent hobby of building model kits and customizing dioramas. With just a bit more of polish and time, this game will be fire - no perhaps nuclear.