Comprehensive Feedback from Vet

[Catbert7]

Having beaten the game on Nightmare, and made repeated attempts to beat it with all custom modifiers active (simultaneously), I now feel confident I have sufficient grasp of the game to provide my full feedback. *Spoilers, I didn't! Hence the edits ;)* I felt it would be useful to have it all in one thread, though some of the more important points have been made separate threads. It's likely an overwhelming amount (evidenced by some being shunted into replies), but I believe it to be as concise as possible, without losing value. There will be much (constructive!) criticism, so let me preface it by saying that the game is fundamentally solid and enjoyable, and has great potential, even if currently marred by some (fixable!) severe bugs and gameplay issues that overshadow this. I provided my best attempt at a solution to all the issues I could.

Section breakdown is thus:
-Issues and Suggestions
-Bugs
-What I Particularly Like

Each section is loosely ordered from most important to least.

Issues and Suggestions

1) Wave Pathing: *Edited* I've softened somewhat on this issue, after experimenting more. It is certainly possible to build your defenses in time, even when waiting until after the Wave spawns. However, I do not find this aspect of the game enjoyable. It is more punishing than difficult. It is most punishing to players who prefer Ballista Towers for defense (which should obviously be a viable strategy), particularly on Waves 2 or 3, where a LOT are needed. The outcome of an hours-long game depending on whether or not you can throw down these buildings fast enough, with a margin of error of a few seconds, is just not fun. And it is punishing one playstyle far more than others, which is also not good.

This aspect of the game is driving a lot of players away. If you're trying to beat Nightmare, using Ballistae (most players never figure out defending with units is viable, FYI), keep building in the wrong place, because the pathing is unpredictable, and having to start over, after half an hour or more, it's insanely frustrating. All the more so if, like me, it takes a very long time before you notice there's a lit path in the Fog. I'm a very patient and stubborn gamer, who enjoys difficulty, and it almost drove me away (especially in combination with bugs). I would still count this as the highest priority issue for the devs to address. To relatively new players, it makes the game feel like a slot machine. To this grizzled vet, it's still quite frustrating.

I would suggest cutting the wave alert down to 2 minutes but showing the path. Im also adding Hayden's suggestion, to make it a modifier option:

Originally posted by hayden_poole2011:

Just add in another difficulty modifier to have direction shown

Given how toxic this issue is to the playerbase, I'd suggest have the path shown be the default and the modifier removes it (to be like it is now). Let it be a special challenge, rather than infuriating most players. Separate thread on this: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1426450/discussions/1/3185740024683722027/

2) If you don't find enough Stone and Iron early on, you lose, on Nightmare difficulty. Two 4+ tile deposits is about the minimum to be able to handle Wave 1 reasonably (if using Ballistae, which needs to be a viable option), and they should be securable within the 1st Day. Yet, half the time I start a run there is only 1 deposit anywhere near my Keep (like, in a radius around the Keep of 25% of the map radius), which means I have to restart. Losing to RNG is not difficulty, it's a waste of the player's time. Map should provide at least two 4+ Stone deposits basically within sight at the start (10+ tiles is needed to get a fast Keep, so that would be even better). This already sometimes happens but should be guaranteed. Separate thread on this: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1426450/discussions/0/3180111158764584536/

Then there's the next resource RNG: Iron. Iron deposits should be guaranteed about 25% map distance out from the Keep, in every direction. Right now, you can sometimes travel to the edge of the map and not find any, if you happen to take wrong turns, and then you're screwed for Wave 3+.

Between Stone and Wood requirements, I often have to restart up to 5 times before getting a viable map START. Then I have to restart 50% of those runs after Wave 1 or 2 because the Wave took some ridiculous path that couldn't be predicted. If I get through all that, I might have to restart because it took way too long to find Iron. And that's all assuming nothing goes wrong that's MY fault.

Put it all together and it's essentially impossible to get through the RNG. At easier difficulties, this can often be overcome, but on Nightmare, especially with additional modifiers, the game is absolutely punishing; not because it's hard, but because it's a slot machine that rarely pays out. This is an absurd waste of the player's time, and saps the will to play. I spend more time starting and abandoning runs, for having crap starting RNG, than I do playing the damn game!

3) Need more zoom out!

4) *Edit: NOT using Farms - sticking with Huts - dramatically eases this issue, but that just trades for the alternate issue of not enough Population. The point still stands* Gold Mines are so much more important than taxes that the importance of finding one can be game-breaking. Wave 1-2 income is quite stagnant, even if quickly expanding with Farms/Houses, because taxes add so little. It isn't until the first Gold Mine that income starts to really increase, and then it jumps massively. There's too much riding on Gold Mines; it makes the progress awkward and further dependent on RNG. Rebalance for more weight on taxes, and trading through the Bazaar. If not that, then at least ensure the player finds a Gold Vein before Wave 2, by guaranteeing each path has one about halfway out.

5) *Edited* Boomers should make some sort of screech when they get within 2 tiles of player units/buildings, so that player has time to react. Very frustrating to look away for 5 seconds and come back to everyone dead from a Bug that wasn't even visible when you left.

Better yet would be to reduce their damage, so they can't one-shot any unit, and replace it with a heavy, temporary debuff, like a massive move speed, armor, or attack speed reduction, making the player's units far more vulnerable to other enemies. This would keep the bugs' threat, while removing the cancerous phenomenon of losing an hours-long game because you looked away for 5 seconds and your whole army blew up.

It would also help ENORMOUSLY in making melee units more viable for map-clearing and achieving the unit balance the devs want (i.e. not just Arbalests).

6) Units keep teleporting to the far side of building placement, trapping them against walls. It's almost impossible to place 4x4s without the spotting unit getting sucked in like a black hole. At the very least, move the unit directly away from the building's center, so we can control where we get pushed. Even better would be if buildings in construction were just a foundation that could be traversed, and any pushing happens when it's finished.

7) It's way too hard to see enemies (and my own units) on the map. I should be able to glance at the map and see if anything is coming at me but I can't. Only swarms are easily visible but it's that couple of bastards you don't notice in the early game that so often ruin a run and the alerts are both unreliable and easy to miss in the heat of battle. It's clear enough with the expanded map, but that takes up too much screen real-estate to keep open.

I would suggest, first, making everything on the map more distinct, and singular enemies more apparent.

Second, the Map enlargement should come in 3 size variants – the current size, half that size, and full-screen. Holding the map button and using the scroll wheel cycles the sizes. Just pressing the map button brings up whatever size was last selected. Some people would choose to play with the small size always open, as it helps a lot with the problem of things being too hard to see.

Third, the Map should have a zoom option. Early on, half the map space is just black, wasted space. Would be very helpful to be able to zoom in during this part.

8) Need TAB's grid view, but better. Sometimes you can't tell how many tiles a mineral patch has, because trees are obscuring the bottom, or if you're blocking a path when placing a building, which can be a very big deal. TAB has the solution for this. But it could be made even better if it's activated only when you are placing a building. Wherever you hover the building template, it shows a grid-view for a few tiles around the silhouette. That way, there's no need for another button and it happens automatically and seemlessly.

9) For the Final Stand, you sometimes want to move defenses further out but can't recall the path the wave took. You could record each wave and review the tape but that is a waste of the player's time. I would suggest that the ground be marred as the wave passes over it and that this marred land become either barren or entirely unbuildable. This would do 3 things. a) Solve the issue. b) Introduce a risk-reward for how far out you place your first defenses. c) Differentiate the game from TaB.

10) Need to be able to box select buildings, when no units are present.

11) Need to be able to deselect units from a group, from the group selection box.

12) Double-clicking unit portrait should take me to it. An option to cycle focus through each unit in a group would be good too (e.g. tab through).

13) Catalyzing Injuries (buildings blow up on player) is too strong. A single explosion takes out all the basic walls around it, and any Archers around it. This makes Nightmare+ difficulty almost impossible, particularly with the Malice modifier.

14) Static defenses should cost more Iron, and a bit less Stone, as Iron is superfluous in late game, and Stone in too-short supply. Alternatively, remove Braced Wall and add Iron Wall.

15) Wood does not scale. It's no issue at all after the early game. You can almost make it through the whole game with just the initial 3 Camps (definitely, if you upgraded them, which I've never once used). Later buildings should probably cost more Wood.

16) Aelis' Guards should not cost upkeep; it screws up detailed build orders, meaning you'd have to have a different one for each Hero, which is horribly tedious and confusing. Also, this is her ability, which is supposed to be balanced with other heroes' abilities, which do not cost upkeep.

17) Aelis' Guards need better AI. You want them out front tanking hits but everytime I pull Aelis back, her Guards retreat too, and they're hard to select. I spend most of my time micro-managing them, which is not fun, in easier difficulties, and not feasible, in harder difficulties. They should have behavior options. Either stay close to Aelis and mirror her actions or be aggressive and maintain a large defensive perimeter around her. This would also help her, and her squad, survive in the late game, where she is currently a massive liability.

18) Aelis' attack speed ability doesn't make much sense. No one competent is planning to sacrifice units, so her gaining HP off their deaths never comes into play. When you are using melee, you don't want it hitting them, yet the targeting circle has the edge right on her, so you have to pull her back, when you cast it, to avoid targeting other melee, which is annoying. It would be better if it were just a passive attack speed buff, like Edwin's XP buff. Alternatively, a heal ability, based on enemies killed by her and her Guards?

19) Edwin's 2nd ability is useless 99% of the time, because his target is always going to die within a couple seconds. DoT just doesn't make sense for this game. Stuff dies too fast. I would suggest converting it to a raw damage boost, for himself or his allies. Or maybe the fire effect causes the enemy to panic and hesitate in their actions. Or it spreads through contact, though this would probably yield wildly varying results.

20) *Edited* Edwin's 3rd ability starts with such a narrow cone, short range, minor damage, and long execution time, that it's not really worth using. Later, it grows to epic proportion, but it should be worth using at the start as well. I would suggest widening the starting effected area by 50%, and remove the animation lock so he's not bogged down by it, then reduce the scaling to compensate.

21) Attack tells need to be accurate. The Wraith's explosion extends further than the circle shown. The Giant Elite's Cone of Horror is like DOUBLE what's advertised. Worst of all, the Boomer circle is deceptive (*Edit: Boomer has been fixed!*). This is just lying to the player and it's frustrating. Match them up please.

22) Weaken Malice is no big deal in normal play but becomes insane when using the Malice Mayhem modifier.

23) Extremely difficult to load Unit Tower that is behind other Unit Tower.

24) Sentinels should gain XP from taking hits.

25) Nightmare Fuel doesn't help Emboldened units. Emboldened units being immune to horror means they don't get healed by attacks that would have horrified them. This feels like a punishment for leveling up. It also means the perk is largely useless when using Edwin. It should heal Emboldened units too.

26) Income alerts should be more noticeable.

27) Elites are ridiculously unbalanced. Some, like the Lobber, can be easily killed with Archers. Others, like the Giant, require enormous DPS and using Walls to cheese him. The worst is the Javelin Thrower, who one-shots Archers and kills buildings in a few hits. He is impossible to kill until Crossbowmen and needs his damage cut by at least half, or range cut might be better, so he can be kited. Ideally, each Elite should be a fight that requires either careful micro (to avoid losses) or overwhelming force (and accepting a few losses) but should be doable with early-game units and not require buildings exploits.

28) Elites are very hard to deal with at the start (some of them) but pushovers later on. Maybe they should start a bit weaker and scale? Like +5% HP per day?

29) Some of the audio needs major balancing. Final Stand initiation and some other dramatic music is WAYYY too loud.

30) *Edit: This seems fixed! Yay!* Enemies get stuck on terrain when player units/buildings are on the other side of impassable terrain.

31) *Edit: This should be much higher up the list*
Units getting pushed around by friendlies. Archers often get pushed into the enemy by melee behind them, sometimes for comically long distances. At the same time, and confusingly, retreating units are often blocked by friendlies refusing to be moved. They need to account for other units and flow around them.

32) When you run out of both Population and Food the game becomes confusing and difficult, as there is no easy way to rectify the problem. You either have to delete vital defenses, send troops to their death, or play a very awkward and annoying game of taking workers out of lumber camps and mines so you can build a Farm and make houses, which takes a long time. Or you could build a Hut, then a House, only to then tear down the Hut and replace it with a Farm... There should be an easier way to handle this situation, especially as it's easy to end up in. If it happens before a Wave, you're completely boned.

33) The income from Lumber Camps seems... off. When placing against a line of forest, small patches often give more than do longer patches; i.e. less forest tiles sometimes give more than more forest tiles.

34) Treasure Trove rewards are... underwhelming. They delay expansion a lot, given the amount and difficulty of the enemies. There should be a reward commensurate to that cost. The units reward is okay but they should not have any upkeep. First, this is a common way to end up Pop-locked, which is a horrid experience. The Gold upkeep of siege units can also be very straining on an early economy. Call the free upkeep gratitude for being rescued. Second, it would make these units feel more special. They should also be Emboldened.

35) Need numbers on everything, like what does the Keep upgrade do? Storage? How much? Income increase? How much? What does setting enemies on fire do? How much DPS? For how long? Any upfront damage? This goes big time for Skill Tree perks. We need to know the details on everything to make informed decisions.

36) Spearmen should have low damage but more knockback and attack speed than they currently do, and be able to poke enemies through a single wall layer. This would make them useful for prolonging the life of both Walls and ranged units and give them a much more defined role. Right now, they're kinda just harder to make than Swordsmen, while being worse at map-clear.

37) *Edited*
Swordsmen are good in the early game but their usefulness for map-clearing drops significantly once they start having to deal with Lobbers, and to near-zero once you get out to Boomers. They need a way to reasonably survive these, without constant supervision.

I would chiefly suggest the above changes to Boomers and the Retreat Rally Point detailed below, in Suggestions, as solutions.

Other options might be to give them the ability to absorb a hit every few seconds (with their shield, nullifying all, or most, damage)? That would make them useful for engaging heavy hitters. They could also have an auto-ability: Cover. When targeted by a Lobber (and, maybe, Boomers?), they hide under their shield for a couple seconds, absorbing all damage for that time, maybe with a vulnerable, 1-second stand-up period afterward.

Another option (primarily against Boomers) would be a Shield Bash, which can briefly interrupt. Then multiple Swordsmen could prevent a Bomb from exploding, or a Lobber from firing. Any of this could be applied to Sentinels as well.

38) Archers could be given a late-game role by giving them the ability to ground-fire long distance and over walls/buildings, while preventing crossbows from shooting through walls/buildings. Crossbows would have to be in towers and you could have a group of Archers behind the defenses, lobbing Longbow volleys overhead.

39) A way to heal Melee in combat, and to heal Siege units (even just out of combat) faster would be helpful. Maybe a Medic or Field Tent, and a Field Engineer that can repair Siege?

Continued in replies...

[Catbert7]

40) Ground-fire for siege units would be very helpful.

41) Health bars button should be a toggle, not a hold-down.

42) Setting the Wood Walls alight is extremely underwhelming (nowhere near worth using). That said, with some tweaks, I think this could be a super fun mechanic. Instead of the Walls having the ability, make the research for Tar. You pay to coat the Walls in Tar and then any source of Fire sets it ablaze, along with any Tarred Wall adjacent to it. This would combine well with Fire Sconces adding fire to adjacent units/towers.

Together, it would mean you could build a large trap of Tarred Wall and have Archers/etc. target one piece and set the whole thing aflame when the enemy is all over the Wall. Goes without saying that the Fire should do at least double the current DPS and the Walls should last about twice as long. You should be paying for multiple kills per segment (and a spectacular show). As it is, you're lucky if a flaming Wall kills anything at all. These changes would make it both useful and fun, ala Stronghold Tar pits. Separate thread on this: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1426450/discussions/2/3180111158756569756/

I'd also love to see other such trap mechanics to make defense more dynamic, providing many strategies and tactics to try out, which prolongs interest in the game.

43) Wave can officially “end” before Giant is killed, which can take a while sometimes.

44) Can we make Huts and Farms cover the same area? It's a pain in the ass trying to replace the former with the latter. In fact, they should also be upgradable, instead of having to be replaced.

45) Hard to tell what a tower/unit is targeting. Would be helpful if selected units/towers would highlight their target/s in red/yellow.

46) Would be nice if building progress were shown in the selection panel, so you can see how far along a hot-keyed building (like Workshop) is without going to it.

47) Selecting enemies should display stats. *Edit: Fixed! Yay!*

48) Iron Mines taking Iron to upgrade is... not great.

49) Treasury is underwhelming. More efficient to build Houses in gaps between Farms than to concentrate them for a Treasury. Needs a boost.

50) Can't really see water on the map, which makes it hard to find good fishing spots and determine pathing. Make it a more vibrant blue. In fact, can't distinguish much of anything. Make the coloring more distinctive in general, please.

51) Would be helpful to be able to queue commands for more actions, like Siege Mode, Hold Position, etc.

52) Siege units' usefulness is heavily limited by the difficulty of getting them to efficiently use their attacks, as a group. Ideally, it would be good for them to have both a hold fire command and target ground command. That way, you could tell them to target in front of the walls, or whatever, and release them from hold fire piecemeal, so they stagger their shots.

53) Sabotage skill has very underwhelming effect. I was expecting serious fireworks, like spraying napalm all around it and a huge explosion. What I got was... I don't even know. It was literally not noticeable. Definitely not a viable choice, currently.

54) Sale price of buildings should be proportional to remaining HP. Right now, you can sell defenses, right before they die, for as much as you could sell them at full health. This creates a bad state of optimal play, where you are incentivized to micro-sell defenses.

55) While you don't want the player to be able to place a Defense and sell it for full price after using it, it's also not fun to lose half a building's value for having placed it slightly wrong.

A good compromise would be to keep the sale price at 100% for 5 seconds after placement, then decrease it to 50%, and exclude Defenses from this rule (as you don't want people plopping down Walls and Towers to use them for a few seconds and then delete them for free). This way, misplacing normal buildings would be no big deal, but selling can't be abused.

56) Putting all resource production on the same timer would be helpful. Very confusing, especially for newer players, when you're waiting to place a building and you hear the Gold tick over, so you think you're ready, but you're actually limited by some other resource, and then you have to take precious time investigating what the limiting factor is.

I'd suggest a global resource tick. Building the first gatherer for a resource could just give you the income on the next global tick, and income amounts proportionally adjusted, to keep current income rates the same.

57) Could we change the number of icons in the selection row to 10? 11 is just harder to deal with.

58) Flamers would be super useful for dealing with swarms of enemies when clearing the map, except that they die too easily to Lobbers and Boomers. It might be good to have a behavior option for them to stay with the ranged units, where it can push back any swarms that get close while the Crossbows deal with bigger threats.

59) Needs to be easier to see Giant's health.

60) Sentinels say they have 1.2 Armor, compared to everyone else's 1. Sure seems like they have a lot more than 20% extra armor; and, as they should, since, ya know... they're covered in armor. Is the tooltip wrong or does Armor work strangely?

61) I don't know how demanding that steam effect on the timepiece is but it doesn't seem to be adding anything. If the load is at all significant, I'd advise cutting it, given the game is resource-intense.

62) Minor issue, but the Scoring of modifiers seems screwy. The lowest is the Fog, but this is arguably the most punishing, as it dramatically slows your expansion, which is the crux of the game. I noticed Heroless (please give this a better name, btw) adds less Score than Mortal Coil, which makes little sense. With Mortal Coil, you can use your Hero early on, then just leave him safely in your base, which just makes it a partial Heroless.

[Catbert7]

Additional Suggestions
*Edit* 62.5) Retreat Rally Point for Units. You want your units to retreat a bit when their HP gets low, until they heal up, then return to the fight. This is very tedious micro, and often can't be done in No-Pause runs. Add a rally point to units. Once set, the unit will automatically retreat to the rally point when their health drops below 25%. They will not respond to commands given to their control group while in this recovery state; only if selected manually. Once fully recovered, they return to their previous location (probably on attack command). This would go a long way to making melee more viable, make them far more pleasant to use, and allow the player to focus more on tactics and strategy.

63) After surviving each wave, a new Hero emerges from the battle, or a unit is upgraded to Elite. This would make the game a lot more exciting and dynamic. As you get more units, you start to split off multiple groups. This way, each group can have a leader. Separate thread on this: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1426450/discussions/2/3180111158756532995/

64) Units/Towers adjacent to a Fire Sconce get Fire added to their attacks.
Separate thread on this: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1426450/discussions/2/3180111158756569756/

65) Add ladder/stairs and let units mount Stone/Braced Walls and travel along their length. Range of these units (aside from melee) would be increased by 1 but they would be vulnerable to enemy Javelin Throwers.

There could also be a new enemy that scales the walls, which would give good reason to have a few melee up there as well.

Ladder could be tier 1, with slow transit. Stairs can be tier 2, allowing multiple units fast travel.

It would also be super cool if you could use this to put units on top of elevated rock formations.

66) Let units continue leveling, beyond just Emboldening. Levels can give Horror immunity, Damage, Move speed, Fire Rate, AoE, etc. It would be rewarding to see units that you keep alive become increasingly powerful. It would also create extra tension to continue keeping them alive. Then you can choose those to place in towers and take down the Giants, or make elite hit squads, etc. It gives the player something besides the hero to get attached to; helps build a story. It would also give more purpose to Edwin's XP boost. Separate thread on this: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1426450/discussions/2/3180111158756578553/

67) Archer Towers should add 1/2/3 (for tiers 1/2/3) more range to garrisoned units.


Bugs
1) Consistent crash that happens randomly during a run and then happens at the same point in the run, regardless of reloads. Seems to be fixed by restarting PC, though it obviously still needs to be fixed.

2) Units sometimes stop responding to player completely, especially Hero, for anywhere between a few seconds to permanent. Sometimes they mill around, moving aimlessly like they're mingling at a party.

3) Autosaves not working on Nightmare difficulty. They just don't show up.

4) Saves sometimes don't show up.

5) Sometimes loads a new run extremely slowly (like 1 minute). If tabbed out during that time, units cannot be selected.

6) If production building has no outlet, it continues to show unit production but nothing comes out.

7) Farms/Huts don't always show when placing a building will reduce their food production (if only by 1)

8) Edwin provides XP bonus before he unlocks the skill (level 1).

9) Income from mines varies based on where you place it, even between positions where the radius encloses all the mineral tiles. This is not intuitive. All that should matter is that the radius covers the tiles.

10) When a building is placed on the destination of a unit, the unit stops, rather than re-routing.

11) *This one is fixed! Yay!* Catapults will move while sieged, if given move command immediately after unsiege command.


Like
1) Smart targeting by units to avoid overkill.
2) No illogical noise mechanic, unlike TAB.
3) No restrictions on placing buildings next to each other, unlike TAB.
4) Getting to see wave paths before the final stand.
5) Having a hero.
6) Unit skill tree (though needs balancing).
7) Targeting priorities for Unit Towers.
8) Custom Modifiers, like the Rift, Fog, and Malice, significantly changing the gameplay.
9) Being able to build anywhere you can see, unlike TAB.
10) Enemy remaining counter.
11) Unit counter, by type, in top left.
12) Elites dropping special resources.
13) Mines can be built on top of minerals, unlike TAB.
14) Farms show when placing building will reduce production.

That's it! It's finally over! Hope it helps. This could become something very special, distinct and even better than TAB. Looking forward to what you do with it.

[GoosebumpsBeforeXmas]

I take my hat off to you, love it!

[Catbert7]

Originally posted by GoosebumpsBeforeXmas:

I take my hat off to you, love it!

Thanks! =)

[o_siyeza]

Originally posted by Catbert7:

20) Edwin's 3rd ability has such a narrow cone, short range, minor damage, and long execution time, that I rarely use it. I would suggest widening the effected area by at least 50%, and remove the animation lock so he's not bogged down by it.

The cone of the ability and its range and damage scales with level. Once you reach level 10, you can put Edwin in front of a wave and single handedly clean the horde in front of you up to 50 or 60 enemies.

It works exactly as the Aelis' Guards ability, being much stronger the more you level up your hero. It is a insanely powerful ability, Im actually surprissed people does not complain of being OP.

[o_siyeza]

Originally posted by Catbert7:

A good compromise would be to keep the sale price at 100% for 5 seconds after placement, then decrease it to 50%, and exclude Defenses from this rule (as you don't want people plopping down Walls and Towers to use them for a few seconds and then delete them for free). This way, misplacing normal buildings would be no big deal, but selling can't be abused.

The rule should just be that you can keep the sale price at 100% till the building is finished (as well as being able to traverse it).

[o_siyeza]

Originally posted by Catbert7:

27) Elites are ridiculously unbalanced. Some, like the Lobber, can be easily killed with Archers. Others, like the Giant, require enormous DPS and using Walls to cheese him. The worst is the Javelin Thrower, who one-shots Archers and kills buildings in a few hits. He is impossible to kill until Crossbowmen and needs his damage cut by at least half.

The issue is that you can cheese everything with Crossbowmen, and you don't get them so late on, so Elites have cero challenge once you get Crossbowmen, and some are impossible to beat before them.

Melee units need some serious rebalance. And crossbowmen need some tuning, like for example requiring direct LoS to shoot. Which could help to make archers more viable if givin them more range and the ability to use fire arrows (instead of it being an upgrade for all range units, you could unlock unit upgrades via research to make early units not useless), and shoot above walls.

To make Elites more interesting, some of them should be faster and prioritice ranged units. also they need to deal less damage and melee units need to be far more resilient in general. Different Elites (and different enemy units) should require different optimal strategies.

Now the one counter for all enemy units is crossbowmen.

[Catbert7]

Originally posted by o_siyeza:

The cone of the ability and its range and damage scales with level. Once you reach level 10, you can put Edwin in front of a wave and single handedly clean the horde in front of you up to 50 or 60 enemies.

It works exactly as the Aelis' Guards ability, being much stronger the more you level up your hero. It is a insanely powerful ability, Im actually surprissed people does not complain of being OP.

You are correct, and my criticism of it has since mellowed. That said, I do think the spectrum should be reduced, so that it is both weaker at the end and stronger at the start. When he first gets it it's so small it's barely visible.

Originally posted by o_siyeza:

The rule should just be that you can keep the sale price at 100% till the building is finished (as well as being able to traverse it).

That works too.

Originally posted by o_siyeza:

The issue is that you can cheese everything with Crossbowmen, and you don't get them so late on, so Elites have cero challenge once you get Crossbowmen, and some are impossible to beat before them.

Yes. Right now, Elites must be cheesed with Towers and/or Walls, which is not ideal. They should be hard fights, requiring micro or overwhelming force, not exploits. I wouldn't say the Giant is zero challenge with Crossbows, though. He can easily kill droves of them, if you're not careful.

Originally posted by o_siyeza:

Different Elites (and different enemy units) should require different optimal strategies.

This should be the goal.

[`Creative]

Nice write up mate :) Looking forward to reading & responding to this in a few hours when I don't have a baby in my arms xD Like you, I've done multiple Nightmare playthroughs, will be interested to see what your pain points are.

[Catbert7]

Originally posted by `Creative:

Nice write up mate :) Looking forward to reading & responding to this in a few hours when I don't have a baby in my arms xD Like you, I've done multiple Nightmare playthroughs, will be interested to see what your pain points are.

Might take multiple sittings! xD
Look forward to your feedback feedback ;)

[Catbert7]

Additional Suggestion: Retreat Rally Point for Units. You want your units to retreat a bit when their HP gets low, until they heal up, then return to the fight. This is very tedious micro, and often can't be done in No-Pause runs. Add a rally point to units. Once set, the unit will automatically retreat to the rally point when their health drops below 25%. They will not respond to commands given to their control group, while in this recovery state; only if selected manually. Once fully recovered, they return to their previous location (site of injury). This would go a long way to making melee more viable and make them far more pleasant to use.

Additional Issue: Farms are supposed to show you when placing a building on farmland will reduce Food output, but sometimes it doesn't; seems like when the reduction is only 1.

[`Creative]

I've read over them all :D Just responding to the ones of particular interest to me. The others I don't have much preference for either way :P But generally speaking I like your ideas.

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Issue/Sugg 1 - Wave Pathing
Curious, which wave(s) are you referring to having this trouble (you mentioned 'hours of time')? The only time I've personally found this challenging is with the first wave (depending on the map) - 'worst case scenario's being that there were 2-3 potential entrances to my base so I had to be ready to build at each entrance when they spawned. To help bide me some time, I would place lone T1 walls in a breadcrumb trail and light them on fire to delay the wave so that my defences/walls could finish building.

I haven't had this trouble so far on later waves (perhaps just luck), after exploring the map, I find it relatively easy to identify(sometimes only partially) the route they will take - and will either set up defences at a choke point close to my base or close to the crystal, depending where I 'know' they will go through.

I generally don't mind not having a clear indication of which path they will take (until the cloud appears) - I would perhaps say if there were to be a clear indicator, that it's restricted to easier modes of play. I'm all for game difficulties actively reflecting their name essentially :D

Not discounting your experiences ^^ As you've repeat-completed Nightmare, safe to say there's merit to your p.o.v

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Issue/Sugg 2 - Stone/Iron Resourcing
The occasional shortage of stone/iron is alright to overcome on Veteran/Horrific, but I agree it can spell defeat on Nightmare if the lack of resources holds you back too long. A slight increase in resources within the starting radius would be ideal.

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Issue/Sugg 7 - Grid View
Personally I'm fine without a gridview - perhaps due to having played Starcraft & AoE, I'm used to moving structures I'm about to place, around - so I can see if there is an 'extra tile' that units will be able to path through or not.

But perhaps implementing the grid view as they do with walls - where it perhaps shows 1 tile out from the structure you want to place, could be good.

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Issue/Sugg 8 - Final Stand Path
I like the idea of a 'marred path' after literally thousands of nightmares have walked the terrain. Personally I haven't forgotten a path they've taken yet, but I like this idea. Adds a lil something-something to the game.

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Issue/Sugg 40 - Health bar Toggle/Hold
They should have the option for both yea. Games with these options, (e.g. crouching in a FPS) - I always bind & use the hold down version. Just how I've learned to play really.

I've enjoyed this mechanic during the first wave - as it helps delay the nightmares if I need a tiny bit more time to build my defences, while thinning them out (particularly on Nightmare). But yea it becomes pretty redundant later on, especially since it cannot be used on T2/3 walls..

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Issue/Sugg 54 - Building Sale Price
Agreed. I'm guilty of selling buildings at their sale value right before death.. The cost of repair should be subtracted from their sale value..

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Issue/Sugg 55 - Incorrect building placement
Yea, couldn't hurt to have a e.g. ~15s cooldown on building placement before the resale value is reduced.

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Issue/Sugg 56 - Resource Timers
Yea it has been mildly annoying to e.g. be maxed out on gold, waiting for just a little bit more of another resource.. Obviously if it's gold I have an abundance of I'd perhaps just build more houses while I wait but yea.

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Just two of my own things I'd be interested to see happen:

• Unless they've recently patched it, the monsters need to be 'layered' based on their size/deadliness. For example if a wave is piled up on my walls, I want to be able to select my Archer Towers & easily select the giant fisting my walls.. Currently it's a bit hit & miss if I select the giant, or the common Nightmares "underneath" it. Generally I have to wait for the Bellow Towers to clean up the commons before I can safely select a giant. Similarly, if I want to target the Spider Nightmares further back.. it can be a bit hit & miss.
  
  
• I'd be interested to see the the wave nightmares prioritise units within range. For example, if I create a narrow funnel of walls, with some sentinels inside & backed up by arablests or seige - the nightmares currently just attack/destroy the walls until they get to my units. It would be nice to create a funnel to bait the nightmares in with - so that you're not solely relying on terrain to create your funnels. Obviously if nightmares are physically incapable of getting to the units they could perhaps turn to the walls but yea.
  
  
  Just my thoughts :D

[Dumbledood]

Nice write up! hope this gets some attention from devs

[Morphix]

This is an exceptionally well written and comprehensive list of suggestions and grievances about an early access game.
I agree with literally every point made on here, and especially your earlier points really strike a nerve with me.
Losing to RNG on the higher difficulties through no fault of your own is just rubbish, Its been some time since I played the game simply due to the very high percentage of games on nightmare difficulty where RNG ruins my game and simply makes me not interested in playing.

Unfortunately it seems the devs really aren't that interested in listening to their community on the forums... which is disappointing when you see player engagement like what you have just demonstrated.
Wave direction has been an issue bought up again and again and again for months and months now and it STILL has not been addressed.
Just add in another difficulty modifier to have direction shown for christ-sake at least that means I wouldn't lose to RNG and could actually enjoy the game, even if it meant having a slightly lower end game score.

[Scuzzer]

Very nice summary! Had been starting to give up on the game, really hoping some of your comments get reflected in future updates - personally a fan of macro over micro and quite liked much of the way They Are Billions handled the balance (which let's be honest this game still feels like a mod of).

Really feeling like it's still tethered to mimicking that game but that the unique changes being added are throwing the whole formula out of whack. Specifically the economy side of the game as I'm finding you need a much greater roving army rather than static defenders to fend off enemies due to your units being more on level with the enemy, however upkeep costs actually being higher. Misdirection of waves, cripplingly slow move speeds for your heavy units all become quite frustrating later on as a result because your more precious handful of troops feel less able to redeploy!

More elite troops for that heroic vibe or fielding genuine armies would be nice.