Expert mode isn't hard - it's unfair

[Flash Hazardous]

Hi all,

Played a fair amount of hours on Normal difficulty and have won 2-3 times already - so tried my hand at Expert.

I love hard games, and hence why I'm often playing RLs on higher difficulty settings - I'm no pro, but can figure out game mechanics well enough usually to succeed. Suffice it to say, I'm comfortable with difficulty, but I think T2T gets that balance wrong and borders on unfair when played on Expert.

The flaws of the game are exposed on higher difficulty:
- Non-existent ability to play defense early on due to benchwarmer stats - especially speed.
- But I should just get better at poke checks? Well forget about doing that with the benchwarmers, as the Titanic had tighter turns and top speeds - and it's just too risky to do anything other than "contain" and block lanes.
- But you should poke with your star players! Yes, but poke checks are really inconsistent - and even more so at Expert, where the AI swivels right back onto the puck, or body checks/ poke checks you back before you can even pass it. This doesn't even take into account that you're likely to be putting star players into C and RW/LW roles to stand any chance of scoring, which means they're stuck halfway up the rink on a counter.
- Body checks are so high risk/ low reward and even with higher stats you either miss (which is catastrophic) due to the small range, or hit and watch the opponent just take it and glide past you.
- All of the above is made even more frustrating with the way player switching is done, it sometimes feels like the game is purposefully putting me on the wrong player
- Enemy goalies (by and large) are far more competent than your own, who seems to rebound shots right back at opponent shooters for an easy rebound score

Then comes the topping on the cake for Expert. The collection of starting teams you play:
- Meatballs: Atrociously bad enemy goalie, but you're going to concede vs. Gravy the cherry-picker far more often than you'll score on Expert. Still somewhat beatable but its a crapshoot.
- Cheese: With two of the best offensive star players - you will get scored on a LOT, from every angle you can imagine, and off of rebounds.
- Lettuce: By far the worst feeling being on the receiving end - you're not getting the puck back because they're too fast. You're spectator until they miss... and Dord doesn't miss that often with high accuracy.

Too often you're 2 goals down early feeling like you had no control over the outcome. No strategy feels consistent enough to work - just the luck of the draw on your opponent's offensive plays.

Loving the game so far, and will keep plugging at Expert to see if I'm just missing something obvious. Also if anyone is having luck at Expert - I'm more than willing to take tips and Git Gud.

TL;DR - title

[Orzeker]

I honestly don't have the same feeling about expert, it's pretty much the same as standard.
After I won my first run of standards I immediately went to expert to see how much harder it was, and won on my first try with a pretty basic build nothing special (got slam puck on angus which idk if it's really good or not be he scored better with it).

My main grief is probably the goalie, I took 7 goals against the cultist for no reason at all (most notable one is 5 in a span of 20/25 seconds, every shot was going in infuriating), managed to score 7 as well and won in overtime though.

Some of your points are true though like i've said our goalie is worse than enemy one, as you stated as well.
Body check aren't consistent, also took 3 goals from the prince on that run when I was literally in front of him pressing my B button like a mad men, and it's usually hard because your team are much slower (that's why I almost always go for training camp or exhibition matches).
Speed is vital to at least have a chance, but it's true in standard and expert.

It honestly feels like you don't score enough, what's your tactics to score? what superstar do you use? angus ability? artefacts?
I know I find speed boost to be the best ability right now, and as artefact there's nothing that beats rigged face-off as every team other than referee is vulnerable to it.

[Flash Hazardous]

Originally posted by Orzeker:

I honestly don't have the same feeling about expert, it's pretty much the same as standard.
After I won my first run of standards I immediately went to expert to see how much harder it was, and won on my first try with a pretty basic build nothing special (got slam puck on angus which idk if it's really good or not be he scored better with it).

My main grief is probably the goalie, I took 7 goals against the cultist for no reason at all (most notable one is 5 in a span of 20/25 seconds, every shot was going in infuriating), managed to score 7 as well and won in overtime though.

Some of your points are true though like i've said our goalie is worse than enemy one, as you stated as well.
Body check aren't consistent, also took 3 goals from the prince on that run when I was literally in front of him pressing my B button like a mad men, and it's usually hard because your team are much slower (that's why I almost always go for training camp or exhibition matches).
Speed is vital to at least have a chance, but it's true in standard and expert.

It honestly feels like you don't score enough, what's your tactics to score? what superstar do you use? angus ability? artefacts?
I know I find speed boost to be the best ability right now, and as artefact there's nothing that beats rigged face-off as every team other than referee is vulnerable to it.

Offense is quite inconsistent for me - In standard I was scoring quite often. But find it much harder on expert due to opponents body checking or intercepting much more effectively.

Scoring on a quick counter-attack is what I find most consistent. Either a 1v1 vs. goalie where I drag from left to right to bait a check before slotting in, or 2v1 where I create enough space for an easy tap in. I rarely build up play slowly as scoring is difficult at range due to the number of bodies in front of goal (and the better defensive skills on Expert as mentioned).

I don't try force any strat - just don't like the really slow star players (Sergei). Angus plays either C or LW depending on who the star is. Really like Gideon (for the ability) or Chloe (solid all-rounder) with a Speed Boost Angus playing up front.

Mostly avoid events - and prioritise training then challenge.

If you have OBS or another recording software on hand - would love to see how you play to consistently score.

Do you skate backwards often? Do you build up slowly? How do you set up goals and where do you take pot-shots from to score regularly if not on counter? Do you ever play your stars in LD/ RD?

Thanks for the response mate.

[freaky]

Yeah i totally feel what you meant.

There's this weird rng sometime also where the enemy goalie turn into a demon and yours let in every single shot. Sometime its the opposite, your goalie is goated and everything you shot goes in.

I don't know, i've had fun for the 15-16 hours i've played.
But after beating the game twice, and for the reason you just stated above i am struggling to see myself come back up until there'S something new or multiplayer.

There's too many frustrating things even if you do all right and nothing really worth trying to get after winning a few times.

[Flash Hazardous]

As if to just illustrate my point - just had a game against Meatballs. Twice the long launch to the cherry-picker went deep left or right of my post allowing Adam Gravy to tap in from an angle as my keeper was too high.

No counter-play possible. I did end up winning 4-3 in OT but who's to say next time I face them I'm not 2-0 down after their first 2 offensive plays?

I think there's something strange going on under the hood in games when you're leading vs. even vs. behind. Too early too say, but looks like enemy BS level is amped up to 9000 when you're leading.

[Orzeker]

Originally posted by Flash Hazardous:

Originally posted by Orzeker:

I honestly don't have the same feeling about expert, it's pretty much the same as standard.
After I won my first run of standards I immediately went to expert to see how much harder it was, and won on my first try with a pretty basic build nothing special (got slam puck on angus which idk if it's really good or not be he scored better with it).

My main grief is probably the goalie, I took 7 goals against the cultist for no reason at all (most notable one is 5 in a span of 20/25 seconds, every shot was going in infuriating), managed to score 7 as well and won in overtime though.

Some of your points are true though like i've said our goalie is worse than enemy one, as you stated as well.
Body check aren't consistent, also took 3 goals from the prince on that run when I was literally in front of him pressing my B button like a mad men, and it's usually hard because your team are much slower (that's why I almost always go for training camp or exhibition matches).
Speed is vital to at least have a chance, but it's true in standard and expert.

It honestly feels like you don't score enough, what's your tactics to score? what superstar do you use? angus ability? artefacts?
I know I find speed boost to be the best ability right now, and as artefact there's nothing that beats rigged face-off as every team other than referee is vulnerable to it.

Offense is quite inconsistent for me - In standard I was scoring quite often. But find it much harder on expert due to opponents body checking or intercepting much more effectively.

Scoring on a quick counter-attack is what I find most consistent. Either a 1v1 vs. goalie where I drag from left to right to bait a check before slotting in, or 2v1 where I create enough space for an easy tap in. I rarely build up play slowly as scoring is difficult at range due to the number of bodies in front of goal (and the better defensive skills on Expert as mentioned).

I don't try force any strat - just don't like the really slow star players (Sergei). Angus plays either C or LW depending on who the star is. Really like Gideon (for the ability) or Chloe (solid all-rounder) with a Speed Boost Angus playing up front.

Mostly avoid events - and prioritise training then challenge.

If you have OBS or another recording software on hand - would love to see how you play to consistently score.

Do you skate backwards often? Do you build up slowly? How do you set up goals and where do you take pot-shots from to score regularly if not on counter? Do you ever play your stars in LD/ RD?

Thanks for the response mate.

The majority of my goals are counter attack situation, it's by far the most consistent way to score right now imo, either a left>right pass or I go being the net when support takes longer to come.
For long shot I really like to have one of the innate perks of rory macshaggy (the x ray chest one don't remember the name) that makes shots go through players, it gives a lot more success to them and I had it on my win in expert on my angus. That+slam puck was kind of disgusting not gonna lie and even with an average shot power I had a decent success rate on those. I usually try to stay in the middle for those but a little tilted to the left/right to open one side and shoot on the other one

I usually don't skate backwards, I mostly only go for training in the hopes of raising my team speed and take the ovr +4 if the upgrade isn't worth (like when it's checking or shot power, took 2/3 accuracy ones on the expert run though and goals were decent).
With higher speed only golfers were a pain to deal with because they lower yours, other than that I try to body check A LOT even if it's not consistent, I end up taking goals for sure but going backwards is really hard because our players have a lot less agility to go in every direction like AI does.

I have never tried to remove angus from center position aswell, he's such a jack of all trades that he's pretty much mandatory there, and like i've said the speed boost ability is the best imo, you can use it both in offense and in defense and recover pretty fast.
The fun part is that on my expert win I was using the yo yo guy as superstar, i wasn't going for the win and only tried to do the yo yo achievements (but it's honestly really hard on expert), and overall I don't really like him, he scored for sure but less than angus and was pretty on par with the other forward benchwarmers.
Gideon is very nice otherwise (that ability is insane), other than that I find rory to be really consistent.

I don't use my stars in defense at all, but it would be possible if you get a good benchwarmers run with the rubber idol that double training gain on them or the other upgrades that give +20 in a stat to everyone of them.

And to be fair, sometimes your goalie will just ruin your playthrough so i guess there's a huge luck part in the process for expert, I was furious when he let 5 shots in a row against the cultist and some of them were ridiculous but luckily for me it was 5/2 before that and only had to score 2 to go on overtime.

[Flash Hazardous]

Originally posted by Orzeker:

The majority of my goals are counter attack situation, it's by far the most consistent way to score right now imo, either a left>right pass or I go being the net when support takes longer to come.
For long shot I really like to have one of the innate perks of rory macshaggy (the x ray chest one don't remember the name) that makes shots go through players, it gives a lot more success to them and I had it on my win in expert on my angus. That+slam puck was kind of disgusting not gonna lie and even with an average shot power I had a decent success rate on those. I usually try to stay in the middle for those but a little tilted to the left/right to open one side and shoot on the other one

I usually don't skate backwards, I mostly only go for training in the hopes of raising my team speed and take the ovr +4 if the upgrade isn't worth (like when it's checking or shot power, took 2/3 accuracy ones on the expert run though and goals were decent).
With higher speed only golfers were a pain to deal with because they lower yours, other than that I try to body check A LOT even if it's not consistent, I end up taking goals for sure but going backwards is really hard because our players have a lot less agility to go in every direction like AI does.

I have never tried to remove angus from center position aswell, he's such a jack of all trades that he's pretty much mandatory there, and like i've said the speed boost ability is the best imo, you can use it both in offense and in defense and recover pretty fast.
The fun part is that on my expert win I was using the yo yo guy as superstar, i wasn't going for the win and only tried to do the yo yo achievements (but it's honestly really hard on expert), and overall I don't really like him, he scored for sure but less than angus and was pretty on par with the other forward benchwarmers.
Gideon is very nice otherwise (that ability is insane), other than that I find rory to be really consistent.

I don't use my stars in defense at all, but it would be possible if you get a good benchwarmers run with the rubber idol that double training gain on them or the other upgrades that give +20 in a stat to everyone of them.

And to be fair, sometimes your goalie will just ruin your playthrough so i guess there's a huge luck part in the process for expert, I was furious when he let 5 shots in a row against the cultist and some of them were ridiculous but luckily for me it was 5/2 before that and only had to score 2 to go on overtime.

Thanks for the tips! I'm incorporating a lot of what you're suggesting already - So the gap is probably skill-related. I need to get better at scoring more consistently, and mixing in body checks with pokes on D.

How do you manage on defense? Are you consistently switching between defenders or do you just pick one and stick with them for the defensive play? I find it difficult to chase the puck with all of the passing, and the issues with player switching. So usually end up sticking to one defender and marking the star player, or going for the poke check if the puck comes close enough.

[Orzeker]

Originally posted by Flash Hazardous:

Originally posted by Orzeker:

The majority of my goals are counter attack situation, it's by far the most consistent way to score right now imo, either a left>right pass or I go being the net when support takes longer to come.
For long shot I really like to have one of the innate perks of rory macshaggy (the x ray chest one don't remember the name) that makes shots go through players, it gives a lot more success to them and I had it on my win in expert on my angus. That+slam puck was kind of disgusting not gonna lie and even with an average shot power I had a decent success rate on those. I usually try to stay in the middle for those but a little tilted to the left/right to open one side and shoot on the other one

I usually don't skate backwards, I mostly only go for training in the hopes of raising my team speed and take the ovr +4 if the upgrade isn't worth (like when it's checking or shot power, took 2/3 accuracy ones on the expert run though and goals were decent).
With higher speed only golfers were a pain to deal with because they lower yours, other than that I try to body check A LOT even if it's not consistent, I end up taking goals for sure but going backwards is really hard because our players have a lot less agility to go in every direction like AI does.

I have never tried to remove angus from center position aswell, he's such a jack of all trades that he's pretty much mandatory there, and like i've said the speed boost ability is the best imo, you can use it both in offense and in defense and recover pretty fast.
The fun part is that on my expert win I was using the yo yo guy as superstar, i wasn't going for the win and only tried to do the yo yo achievements (but it's honestly really hard on expert), and overall I don't really like him, he scored for sure but less than angus and was pretty on par with the other forward benchwarmers.
Gideon is very nice otherwise (that ability is insane), other than that I find rory to be really consistent.

I don't use my stars in defense at all, but it would be possible if you get a good benchwarmers run with the rubber idol that double training gain on them or the other upgrades that give +20 in a stat to everyone of them.

And to be fair, sometimes your goalie will just ruin your playthrough so i guess there's a huge luck part in the process for expert, I was furious when he let 5 shots in a row against the cultist and some of them were ridiculous but luckily for me it was 5/2 before that and only had to score 2 to go on overtime.

Thanks for the tips! I'm incorporating a lot of what you're suggesting already - So the gap is probably skill-related. I need to get better at scoring more consistently, and mixing in body checks with pokes on D.

How do you manage on defense? Are you consistently switching between defenders or do you just pick one and stick with them for the defensive play? I find it difficult to chase the puck with all of the passing, and the issues with player switching. So usually end up sticking to one defender and marking the star player, or going for the poke check if the puck comes close enough.

Considering you can already clear standard i'm sure you'll be able to get through expert in a few runs.

Defense I mostly try to switch whoever is the closest, but like you said with the switching system it can be a nightmare at times and there's a few team that move around pretty quickly (golfers, lettuce). What I was considering for future playthrough is taking the fart ability and put my angus in the net with the goalie and try to fart the shots away, havent tried but it may be to hard on reflexes.
So yeah i'm trying to follow the puck around even though it's not easy, what I try to prevent is slide in kind of goals, long shot i'm ok with it since they have less chances to go in and there's usually a lot of my players in the way when they do try it.

Worth noting you can switch players with right stick (if you play on controller), tried it and it's honestly even more confusing.

[vintaGe]

There is a large jump in difficulty from standard to expert for sure. I comfortably beat the golfers 5-0 on standard, then switched to expert mode and I can't even get past the first team. The meatballs always sneak by at least one or two goals on cherry picks and cam amber turns into wayne gretzky against me any time I face them. Biggest issue for me is I can't score anymore, the AI is really good at cutting off passing lanes and shooting angles. My main way of scoring was abusing Chloe Crocketts passing ability to play passes to the other wing for easy scores, however the goalies are not falling for that anymore.

Even on standard I felt like checking was the least useful attribute because it's too committal,I ended up only poke checking for defense and checking in obvious cases (like the prince setting up a slap shot). Speed and accuracy are king, shot power is nice to have but not necessary. And dashing is so strong, non of the other actives compare.

[Tore]

Expert is literally too easy. If they make it any easier it would be even closer to normal, and it's already BARELY harder than normal.

Skill issue, learn the game better it's actually too easy.

[Flash Hazardous]

Originally posted by vintaGe:

There is a large jump in difficulty from standard to expert for sure. I comfortably beat the golfers 5-0 on standard, then switched to expert mode and I can't even get past the first team. The meatballs always sneak by at least one or two goals on cherry picks and cam amber turns into wayne gretzky against me any time I face them. Biggest issue for me is I can't score anymore, the AI is really good at cutting off passing lanes and shooting angles. My main way of scoring was abusing Chloe Crocketts passing ability to play passes to the other wing for easy scores, however the goalies are not falling for that anymore.

Even on standard I felt like checking was the least useful attribute because it's too committal,I ended up only poke checking for defense and checking in obvious cases (like the prince setting up a slap shot). Speed and accuracy are king, shot power is nice to have but not necessary. And dashing is so strong, non of the other actives compare.

Have to agree on Dash being above and beyond the best starting skill for Angus. Almost a guaranteed 1v1 or 2v1 if you can get the puck to him quickly on the break. Passing it around into an opening for a shot gets a lot harder and so going for the quick break seems correct even though it feels limiting in terms of playstyle.

I'm also convinced there is some form of rubber banding going on which makes it harder to score when level, or ahead - and makes it significantly easier for the opponent to do so. But could be my own confirmation bias.

[Flash Hazardous]

Originally posted by Suicyde:

Expert is literally too easy. If they make it any easier it would be even closer to normal, and it's already BARELY harder than normal.

Skill issue, learn the game better it's actually too easy.

Would love to see how you crush Expert mate - post a link to a vid or write a guide to help others out!

[Hastan]

Originally posted by Flash Hazardous:

Hi all,

Played a fair amount of hours on Normal difficulty and have won 2-3 times already - so tried my hand at Expert.

I love hard games, and hence why I'm often playing RLs on higher difficulty settings - I'm no pro, but can figure out game mechanics well enough usually to succeed. Suffice it to say, I'm comfortable with difficulty, but I think T2T gets that balance wrong and borders on unfair when played on Expert.

The flaws of the game are exposed on higher difficulty:
- Non-existent ability to play defense early on due to benchwarmer stats - especially speed.
- But I should just get better at poke checks? Well forget about doing that with the benchwarmers, as the Titanic had tighter turns and top speeds - and it's just too risky to do anything other than "contain" and block lanes.
- But you should poke with your star players! Yes, but poke checks are really inconsistent - and even more so at Expert, where the AI swivels right back onto the puck, or body checks/ poke checks you back before you can even pass it. This doesn't even take into account that you're likely to be putting star players into C and RW/LW roles to stand any chance of scoring, which means they're stuck halfway up the rink on a counter.
- Body checks are so high risk/ low reward and even with higher stats you either miss (which is catastrophic) due to the small range, or hit and watch the opponent just take it and glide past you.
- All of the above is made even more frustrating with the way player switching is done, it sometimes feels like the game is purposefully putting me on the wrong player
- Enemy goalies (by and large) are far more competent than your own, who seems to rebound shots right back at opponent shooters for an easy rebound score

Then comes the topping on the cake for Expert. The collection of starting teams you play:
- Meatballs: Atrociously bad enemy goalie, but you're going to concede vs. Gravy the cherry-picker far more often than you'll score on Expert. Still somewhat beatable but its a crapshoot.
- Cheese: With two of the best offensive star players - you will get scored on a LOT, from every angle you can imagine, and off of rebounds.
- Lettuce: By far the worst feeling being on the receiving end - you're not getting the puck back because they're too fast. You're spectator until they miss... and Dord doesn't miss that often with high accuracy.

Too often you're 2 goals down early feeling like you had no control over the outcome. No strategy feels consistent enough to work - just the luck of the draw on your opponent's offensive plays.

Loving the game so far, and will keep plugging at Expert to see if I'm just missing something obvious. Also if anyone is having luck at Expert - I'm more than willing to take tips and Git Gud.

TL;DR - title

It's all about balancing, we receive feedback daily and we are definitely committed to balancing all aspects/difficulty of the game to not only feel fair, but respectively challenging.

The game will be constantly updated throughout the Early Access period and that's all based on player feedback. You are heard!

Thanks for sharing your thoughts! We really appreciate!

[Tore]

Originally posted by Flash Hazardous:

Originally posted by Suicyde:

Expert is literally too easy. If they make it any easier it would be even closer to normal, and it's already BARELY harder than normal.

Skill issue, learn the game better it's actually too easy.

Would love to see how you crush Expert mate - post a link to a vid or write a guide to help others out!

Well that's the thing, the fun is figuring out what works and what doesn't. I'll say there's ALOT of attention to VERY minor details in this game that you might not really expect. There's also alot of RiskVs.Reward situations

The more you play the easier it gets and you'll see people talking about how this game becomes far too easy far too quickly once you put in the time. The real trouble IMO will be making sure the players who do figure out all these tricks can play a different mode or have some other challenges to move on to.

[chetwow]

For those who think expert is too easy: there is a bug that causes your first run on expert to not actually be on expert difficulty. I, too, cruised through my first expert run. Then I got up the next morning to do it again and spent 3 hours stuck in act 1. It is MUCH tougher.

I don't have a problem with expert being REALLY hard, but it'd be nice to have a difficulty in between normal and expert.

[Orzeker]

Originally posted by chetwow:

For those who think expert is too easy: there is a bug that causes your first run on expert to not actually be on expert difficulty. I, too, cruised through my first expert run. Then I got up the next morning to do it again and spent 3 hours stuck in act 1. It is MUCH tougher.

I don't have a problem with expert being REALLY hard, but it'd be nice to have a difficulty in between normal and expert.

I have an hard time believing that one, since I barely got scored in standard and a few teams were able to score 4/5 or even 7 goals against me on my first expert run.

And personally I hate that there's multiple different difficulties, it's actually the first time i'm seeing this in a roguelike/lite and would rather have just 1 and later on maybe add something to spice things up but not through difficulty settings, kinda like the pact of punishment from hades.