Beta Discussion - New Endless Mode!

[DigitalMallen]

Fellow Hogardians!

We’ve prepared a beta branch for the new Endless Mode. While it’s still in progress, it offers a revamped experience thanks to rewards between waves, scaling difficulty, a rock-paper-scissors system, and more changes.

Please use this thread to share your thoughts and questions on it.

How to access

1. Open Steam.
   
2. Right-click on Cataclismo in your library.
   
3. Introduce this password: EndlessSavesWontBeCompatible
   
4. Select "ENDLESS BETA" from the drop-down list.
   
5. Wait for the game to update the files (if nothing happens, restart the client).
   
6. Launch the game and enjoy!

Keep in mind that this branch contains nothing but the beta. If you want to access other modes, go back to the main branch. Also, save files from the beta won’t be compatible with the main branch.

[Soviet 苏联]

Critical feedback for endless beta after playing for the past 2 days. I feel like the current implementation is making me play in unintended ways to optimize. I'm currently at the 19th wave on Highlands.

HUGE REQUEST: From Glory to Goo has the best attack-move implementation I've ever seen in an RTS. Please copy this and it should just be standard in the RTS genre from now on. If you attack move somewhere on the map, the unit will head there, attacking/engaging anything on the way, and continue attack moving until it reaches the destination or dies, without the player having to reissue a new attack move because the first engagement caused an interruption / satisfied the attack-move order.

- It is too difficult to figure out where waves will path from when there are 3+ wave directions until you've explored most of the map and seen multiple waves from each point.

- Since you are forced to explore the map and be highly mobile, and you can't figure out which chokepoints to fortify without savescumming, building fortifications is not reliable. Losing any resources to fallen walls is very punishing. Its not worth building them until you have Hunters, and you can guarantee no stone will be lost. Losing wood is ok.

- Without fortifications, my army composition for 3 control groups is: 0 archers, 2+ Lobbers per group to tank when they don't get ignored, 2+ Cannons for aoe damage and slow. Hunters are the first unit obtained with points. Every single engagement is just kiting with cannon slow in order to guarantee not losing any units or stone. Move each cannon individually when they get aggro, issue stop order when they can fire safely. With 3+ spawn directions at once, this is really frustrating to micro with how frail every unit except upgraded Lobber is. I end up pausing and unpausing rapidly in bursts to play through 3+ engagements on the map at once. 2 is manageable without doing this.

- Warehouse is not worth the upfront and maintenance cost. I stockpile resources to avoid hitting the limit by building wood and stone tower "banks" in inaccessible parts of the map, and recycle them when I need the resources.

- It feels way too difficult to get upgrade points after killing all the dens and finishing the easier quests. Each wave should grant you at least 1 point guaranteed in the morning, along with the random reward. You should be able to get points by killing enough enemies without a cap too, like a quest that renews, with increasing kill counts. This is the most frustrating part by far. I don't want to play anymore because I don't see how I'm supposed to get enough points to unlock Partisans.

- It also feels way too difficult to get to Unlock Level 3. Having to kill every non-roaming spawn on the map sucks is frustrating. These enemies should just path to your settlement over time instead of forcing you to find them.

- Expanding on the above, PLEASE get rid of randomly spawning enemies between waves. Its fine if enemies are pathing from the aforementioned camps and they are finite. It is so so frustrating to lose torches, lumbermills, and quarries to units that spawned while you're clearing and exploring the map between days. Its not fun at all and it just delays you clearing the map by having to leave 1 or 2 units behind. While you still have the quests for kills, at least you get credit towards those. If you HAVE to keep this in, at least ensure they always provide some sort of reward for the cost of keeping units behind to counter them, like progress towards a renewing quest.

- The daily rewards feel really bad. You can re-randomize them by loading the Daytime autosave. Even doing this, they are mostly bad. The best by far are: upgrade points, 1 Partisan, 1 Ballista, 1 Hunter, since it is SO hard to get the points to unlock units. Everything else feels inconsequential in regards to helping you win.

- Please add more veteran levels and maybe even talents like +5% damage, +5 hp, etc. It feels bad having a unit kill hundreds of enemies and not have them get any additional progression.

- Splitting control groups is very frustrating. I can't ctrl-click to select all of 1 type, or shift-click to add or remove individually. I end up having to double-click and issue move orders for each individual unit, because first click on portrait focuses a unit but does not select only that unit.

- Attack-move is unreliable. So is right-click attacking a target. Sometimes units will not attack immediately. I even had Cannons run away when attack-moving. I found it most effective to issue move orders, individually for each unit in different directions if kiting enemies, then issue a stop order so they attack automatically. There shouldn't be a difference in outcome between stop order+auto-attack vs issuing attack order from current position while in range of an enemy.

- Each Barracks should not have oxygen upkeep cost in endless mode, and IMO no population cost either. I guess population is debatable, but I think the oxygen upkeep cost is not. Its so devastating to lose even a single unit because of resource cost and how scarce resources are, its not like you are constantly making new units. And it is hard to expand unit cap while still getting Hunter. I end up recycling the barracks and rebuilding when I need to make a unit. This feels like such a weird way to play.

[Eski]

made it to wave 32 will say it feels impossible to get any points late game, all i do is return to last save and try building different styles of walls and choke points but i found it impossible to transition out of archers and cannons by this time because i just couldn't get enough points from quest and they take 3+ or so waves to complete kill counts to get a total of about 7 points. Hero units ability should scale with the difficulty, makes her ability feel useless at this stage, maybe implementing a leveling system for the hero unit.

maybe changing unit ability purchase with points, give units a 3rd tier after the veteran stat bump that gives access to the unit ability, making keeping units alive for longer more valuable

Also agree with the attack move being a bit weird, i had cannons derping around in the back not attacking while on flat ground with no blocked pathing.

when your also down to the last 100 or so horrors with most of the map discovered it would be nice to have them showed in the fog of war, maybe a upgrade to allow for seeing horrors during the day time (would help counter day time raids)

but enjoyed it! cant wait to see the rest of the game

[DigitalMallen]

Thanks for the feedback! I'll share your comments with the rest of the team so we can keep improving the new survival mode.

[keeperd367]

Originally posted by DigitalMallen:

Thanks for the feedback! I'll share your comments with the rest of the team so we can keep improving the new survival mode.

why not allow the tech to be researched or point based game mode for the endless maps?

[bluegreen1024]

First, after trying the stable Endless mode and the new Beta Endless mode, I will say that the Beta version feels better, especially during the very early game. It's nice that you can get upgrade points early on for things other than just surviving the night, and it's nice to start with a slightly greater variety of troops and wall/stair pieces.

However, the point purchase system for upgrades still feels kind of "unnatural" compared to the campaign and skirmish modes. In particular, because almost everything requires points instead of or in addition to resources, it feels like the "economy" portion of the gameplay has been nerfed into the ground compared to the other modes. It's particularly painful to have to choose between tech advancement vs. raising the military unit cap, whereas in the other modes military unit cap increases as a result of tech advancement.

Overall it feels much more micromanagement-dominant than the other modes, and while I'm sure that some players like that part of the gameplay, it is not my favorite compared to the building/planning/economy part, so I feel like it would be nice to have the option to play endless mode with the standard tech progression. Perhaps the upgrade point system could be used to purchase the abilities which are unlocked by Iris's notebook in the Campaign mode, making this version of Endless mode sort of like a "Campaign" on a single map?

[Okwaho]

I just did a match and the missions you need to complete 0/5 and they cannot be swapped out? Yeah those ones. I have 4/5 that were literally impossible to do and one that was bugged.

Control 35 units.... The max I can have is 20 without the upgrade I need to rank up to have.
Kill x enemies on map... Cool except 32 of those enemies are out of reach completely in dead zones on the map.
Collect 500 stone.. Easy! Oh wait I'm at 1000 and it says 113/500.... Wtf?
I had a 4th impossible one but I forget it and I'm not going back on the game until this nonsense is fixed.