Act 3 mission 9 difficulty problem

[MrTommoose]

This difficulty leap is ridiculous, not only is it time based, but youre going against late tier units from the start with insane armour, while you are using basic tier infantry with barely a base to start with, all the while being rushed from objective to objective with barely time to build the economy to sustain this.

This would all be fine of course without the more worse part of this mission being time based, giving little time to prepare, and after you beat the time based part you get given the false hope of believing you can now build up to fight the boss but no, some time into this build phase another timer starts with no trigger just a set time into the level. forcing you to throw yourself deeper into the enemy fort while also being attacked with massive waves of armoured enemies on your other side.

you now have to kill this boss thats constantly regenerating unless you destroy it heavily armoured garrisons and men around it, while also defending your base from fast spawning waves that you dont have time to destroy the source of since youre forced to focus on the bosses area of the fort and while also trying to build an economy to sustain all of this.

And then! the nightmare waves on top of all that!

i think this level would benefit greatly from having the build up phase once beating the first timer be unlimited and then once you start attacking the boss, then comence the other timer.

[Crypto Gamer]

I think last 2 missions are about veteran survival difficulty.

Edwin's timer is fairly generous you can clear many optional stuff before rescuing him in fact you should.

And once he is freed set up ballista chokepoint to places enemies will come from to attack once timer starts.

Usually having 2 gates guarded will be enough for the whole mission and behind them full of eco buildings
.So you need to push and bottleneck those 2 gates so your army never need to defend as the wastes time.

You need to set up eco and the army clears at least 2 keeps.

Clearing the third keep is harder as it has grand ballistas.
One route has only 1 near it base.

As always triage center push forward regen after combat,once not need delete it(refund 100% cost unlike other buildings)and move it forward.

Also useful you can place it so some of its radius reach the boss arena and you can stay there for enhanced healing.

You do not need to clear the whole map likely not enough time for it either.
But killing most camps thant send attack waves is good.

Maybe you can kill final boss with having 1 keep alive never tried killed them all.
You likely need 5-7 mins to kill boss.

Maybe hidden timer could increase by 5-10 mins or there could be an optional objective where you can rescue a few catapults or other siege units.

[MrTommoose]

Originally posted by Crypto Gamer:

I think last 2 missions are about veteran survival difficulty.

Edwin's timer is fairly generous you can clear many optional stuff before rescuing him in fact you should.

And once he is freed set up ballista chokepoint to places enemies will come from to attack once timer starts.

Usually having 2 gates guarded will be enough for the whole mission and behind them full of eco buildings
.So you need to push and bottleneck those 2 gates so your army never need to defend as the wastes time.

You need to set up eco and the army clears at least 2 keeps.

Clearing the third keep is harder as it has grand ballistas.
One route has only 1 near it base.

As always triage center push forward regen after combat,once not need delete it(refund 100% cost unlike other buildings)and move it forward.

Also useful you can place it so some of its radius reach the boss arena and you can stay there for enhanced healing.

You do not need to clear the whole map likely not enough time for it either.
But killing most camps thant send attack waves is good.

Maybe you can kill final boss with having 1 keep alive never tried killed them all.
You likely need 5-7 mins to kill boss.

Maybe hidden timer could increase by 5-10 mins or there could be an optional objective where you can rescue a few catapults or other siege units.

I agree Edwins timer is easily the most sane part and forgiving its the second half of the mission thats the real struggle, i used choke points and three ballista towers but would have to micro some units there too, as the enemy siege weapons and arbalests would outrange my towers forcing me to step in. but its hard to find the time while also pushing the boss and his keeps.

[Rockenheim]

even with cheats for instant unit building, food, villagers -veeery hard to beat,- please devs, play your game

[cptawesome17]

i just beat the campaign after dling the beta yesterday.

Yes the 2 last scenarios are hard(the final one is way harder than the hector one btw),but i didnt have to load(i save all the time) once.The thing is you can't turtle and build up forever AND you need to do 3 things:utilise all the available land to you(especially in last one this is initially very little), you need to be aggressive and take more and you need to identify the best chokepoints(for both scenarios but especially last).

All in all this was a really fun+demanding addition to the campaign if a bit short and i hope they do more with campaign -no spoilers- (dlc maybe?).Also hopefully more heroes(theda for sure maybe bishop) and more factions(alderin are basically there just need 1 or 2 hero representatives,maybe iron talon?)

//Oh and for last scenario rush grand ballistas/impalers they make everything a breeze(arbalests can tide you over for a while though)

[Baitlyn]

It is a tad too unforgiving. Gave it two tries today and it is a shame that I won't get to see the entire story of the game due to the last missions being too hard. I do not want to waste more hours on trying this when I could just go and enjoy another game which is better tuned. One shouldn't need to be great at a game to be able to finish the campaign story, at the very least this is my opinion. (Might be why different difficulties should be a thing?)

I generally do like the game and its story, both having few issues here and there but generally it is a good game.

[Crypto Gamer]

Maybe they can slightly nerf difficulty like they did with mission 5 based on feedback.

Still campaign seem to max at around"veteran"survival difficulty.

While"horrific"survival is not timed but you are on a race to get eco and defences up for the coming nightmares harsher than in the campaign.

So in that sense timed objectives are not that different from survival.

TAB was also basically time based in fact all of this wave defence games in certain sense are timed.

You can also play survival and that likely makes you a better player so campaign will not be a big issue.

[Baitlyn]

Since I did manage to do it today due to giving it a go while streaming it for my friends, my play through went something like this:

1. Expand quickly to the east as you only go east to clear up space for you to get enough land to keep growing.
2. Move north, kill off everything there in the small pocket since the gate is still closed.
3. Move west to claim as much land as possible to time the objective of saving Edwin.
4. DO NOT UNLOCK HIS CELL ONLY TRIGGER THE TIMER TO GO AWAY.

This seems to give you more time, as gates which opens during the campaign takes longer to open and thus less enemy waves to worry about.
5. KEEP BUILDING & Upgrading, build ballista towers and keep a small defence force at home(by the first gate to the east)
6. Something something about the air growing thicker, at this point - is where I moved to Hector with his ritual, had enough troops to push in to him as well as getting myself to the very first keep which heals the shield.
7. Siege engines, get those - especially the impalers. I used about 3 when I pushed for the second keep.
8. Move back and start attacking the bubble, build up barracks near-by to Hector and keep spamming units out those out. I built 4, since siege workshops are sadly a bit too expensive to spam out in the same way.

I had about 8 impalers firing upon the bubble with 2 min left to spare. With a lot of Spearmen, Archers and footmen(I have no idea if they are called that, but they are cheap).

Use EDWIN'S golden bubble to quickly clear out one wave of nightmares which spawns at the ritual. (And use it in general to get a lot of enemies slain in one go whenever you have taken him out of prison)

I still find the mission to be -very- overtuned, due to the fact that the third keep is heavily guarded in comparison to the other 2. And trying to do all 3 would almost leave you with no time for the ritual itself. (At least from my experience).

[PhoenixPan]

Completed all objects, wiped 3 keeps and the map with 5 mins left.

Expand to the west as you go from the beginning, expanding into the Order regions, wait until the last minute to free Ed, then you go expanding to the east. Meanwhile, focusing on getting hunters out, then just spam hunters. You need to be careful with your hunter groups in late game though. Don't let them die.

It is a healthy difficulty imo, but I play Horrific for fun, so may not be healthy for others...

[Crypto Gamer]

Last patch made mission 9 and 10 easier.

And if you are already playing on horrific campaign likely will be not a big issue.

For new to RTS players likely much harder.

[Wildcat™]

I historically hate timed missions. Wish there was a way to delay the timer (or add in additional 10 minutes) indefinitely. Definitely ruined my fun.

[Crypto Gamer]

I had like 10 mins before the boss fight pre nerf.

But likely this is the harder missions for players who are not seasoned at nightmare difficulty in this genre.

So Imo they could add a 2 optional objectives to mission 9 both takes places after the portal and likely takes 1-2 minutes to clear objective guards with a strong army.

1: Order has a second prison where they keep some prisoners as slave labor for siege engines.

If you free them you get 2 catapults or maybe a free siege research or anything of value.
B
2:There is a spot with strong energies where 5 light bearers can do a counter ritual adding 5 minutes to the timer but all 5 will become friendly unsuable NPCs.

And of course clearing the guards would take like 1 min.

If player does both they likely get a net time of +1-2 mins and some free siege units.

Maybe they could add a second anti ritual spot for additonal 5 mins which would need to be cleared from guards+some light bearers.

[𒀭 Enki 𒀭]

I just finished this mission on my first try a few minutes ago. I will say that I definitely agree that there is a difficulty spike, but I also don't think it needs to be fixed. I cleared the mission almost entirely on the tier I units through mass spam of archers and soldiers. The order knights are extremely tough, but Edwin can make short work of them if you use his abilities right. I will say though, my approach is not recommended. I cleared the timer with literally 10 seconds to spare. Anyone who plans to do the same spam approach, highly recommend investing in siege weapons. I didn't, and I regret that choice

[rascal]

i finished this mission, there seems to be secret to the right of the map, there seems to be a crystal and a gate that never opens. also I only get 10/12 objectives. Does any one have any idea?