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Discussions Rules and Guidelines
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When you unlock several upgrades for the main menu area, the screen won't tell you about them either, you gotta run around and find em.
Stick with small, medium tops until you unlock a lot more options.
Huge is absurdly long. As a test to make sure that wasn't my imagination, one of my huge runs I used the unlocked "No Monsters peace run modifier" and it still took 93 minutes... brick hardness scaling so hard even 7,000+ drill power need multiple taps didn't help there (yes I have assessor. I love my drill boy and wanted to test if brick hardness was overtuned in huge or just my imagination).
Sword dome is the most fussy, "survive the final wave" attempts feel bad with it because of how many things are designed to ignore deflection and stay out of melee range (Oh look, angled projectiles that won't bounce back at the enemy. Oh look a giant beam weapon that bypasses my guard shield *spams javelins*). Winning with sword dome feels less satisfying than a close loss with other domes.
So save sword dome for last to sink your teeth into if you unlock it early. It might turn you off of the game because of how many enemies are designed to bypass all the coolest mechanics of sword dome.
The rest are also far more intuitive, instead of being heavily reliant on wacky videogame logic. like a kamikaze doing a flip onto your sword point, does not hurt them unless you are mid big swing. "Well at least I have a big sword guard... oh right kamikazes are not projectiles. sure no-clip right on through guys you earned it I guess"
Shield defense might seem weak (can't blame anyone thinking that) but being able to survive 1 second/1 big hit from proper enemies will save you on repair costs over time. And once you have access to lightning shield active power that is a real no fuss life saver. I rank that up faster than I rank up actual shield (or water fueled overshield). Again, because minimum shield power does not last much longer than maximum shield power once any enemy larger than a pixel hits your dome. But that soaked hit is still less repairs you need. temporary lightning barrier will save you a lot of damage from swarms of mini kamikazes you don't have time to clear, or if anything else latches onto your dome like an angry gorilla while you are busy shooting sky monsters.
Probably the weakest is the spray defense. A mindset reinforced when winning with it and noticing the amount of people who have unlocked all the spray options is under 8%. My wins with that were in spite of having the spray rather than because I had the spray.
Drone defense STARTS lackluster offense wise. Becomes satisfying with more grind. The default combat drones SUCK because while their attack stats are high, they deploy so slow either the fight is over before the finish deploying, or you are dead.
But the unlocked active drain leech drones, or quick deploy drones, are much more satisfying. quick drones are still stupid, and so weak they can't even one shot the 1 pixel tall kamikazes. But at least they will be THERE, ASAP. Which really helps with weak air enemy clear.
Back to dome types. Tesla dome is super cool but don't forget it is tied with laser for lowest health, and ALSO tied with artillery for most EXPENSIVE help upgrades. So it does have big drawbacks. you really, really want the lingering damage field upgrade. double tap is also a godsend.
The most straightforward unlocked variant dome is the artillery dome. Most health (starts with a lot compared to laser/tesla) has a weak AA machinegun strapped to the mortar. And has two satisfying main shot paths, though the wide blast/double tap can't hold up for super long runs/winning the final wave. ("I have 15+ spare cobalt, I will finish these last two drill face monsters no problem... okay i've hit them with a dozen shells why am I getting the pity win!?")
It also helps that while most angles you have to choose between attacking an air target or ground target, the other half of the time you can attack both at once with angles. Or nail a low flying mega flying enemy with the mortar shell directly to make up for the weak machinegun.
direct hit mortar even with big direct hit upgrades still needs to spam shots to take out the bigger super monsters, but hey at least it will kill them!
Also. as far as I know? The only time getting a "kill the final wave" clear vs "Relic saves you" win matters in relic hunt. Is to unlock the second costume on miner. It does not seem to get you anything for the assessor. My emphasis on full clears is more a case for "Why this is good enough to be appealing to a new guy" vs "Why this is gonna be a rough time even with experience" options.
- Some enemies just divebomb you as living projectiles (can't be reflected)
- The most common ranged enemy turns into a gas cloud as soon as it finishes attacking, completely negating any chance of reflections hitting them
- Half the other ranged enemies either spawn other enemies (can't be reflected, should have picked the other shield loool) OR shoot lasers (can't be reflected)
The problems with default shield are its lack of piercing (so a single tanky enemy runs infront of the little suicide guys and you can't do much of anything) and its max power still being pretty underwhelming for something that can hit 1 enemy most
Sword is a poorly designed, overly expensive to pretend its good mess
AA Gun/mortar is easily the most practical of these 3. Starts with multiple weapons instead of taxing you to be able to deal with more than 1 type of enemy/always being bad at it, good v everything, easy to use, tanky.
Tesla still need to try more. For some reason you can spawn enemies above the start area, but not enter the menu to upgrade dome, so you can't actually check out its upgrade mechanics in safety.
What seems like it'd be the most fun mechanic on any dome literally does nothing the majority of times you try to use it.
See, there is a reason I prefaced it with "I win with sword" instead of "Whaa whaa sword too hard. Can't win so must be bad" for the new guys.
Bragging about leaderboard scores doesn't help new players. Also a new player already has access to laser so skipping laser is not some conspiracy, wow.
Nah man, every time a giant monster fires a swarm of deflect projectiles in an arc so it you can only deflect some of them, and they can't bounce back towards the monster, that is a skill issue. If you were a better gamer you could hack the game with your mind to force all deflections to go back to their source!!!!
Good to see some players understand the big curse of sword is "Man, it would be the MOST FUN dome if the game actually let parry o'clock breathe"
Turns out "No projectile defense" is not as frustrating as BAD projectile defense.
Which leads to the lesson, "Better anti-air combat" is far more important, and satisfying, than "I just need to try harder spamming max rank stab/javelin harder. 100% hit rate still being a slog is still a skill issue! honest!" as your dome cracks from an enemy any other dome would have killed by now.
Big sword/fast sword might have good DPS for big melee monsters, but as I already warned. That means nothing when a guyver megasmasher chest beam is loitering outside of swing range and taking away a "wave survived" finale you would have easily had with any other dome.
Every other dome I would suggest to a new player blind and trust they can work any minor flaws it has out for themselves.
Sword is a mountain of disclaimers and dithering.
"Nuh uh, it's great once you get deflect!...
Well of course the weakest ranged attacker flies out of the way half the time, you were too casual to buy the faster deflect upgrade too already...
Now, kamikazes? Remember, those are not projectiles so it is very fair they no-clip through your block attempts once you GIT GUD you will be able to kill at least 3/4 of the suicide swarm with your swing-
*distant sounds of firing a laser or artillery shell up a flying monster's tailpipe*
why are you playing a dome that can be sure to kill them before they reach your dome, with less upgrades, instead? Guess you just didn't give sword a chance, some people."
I wasn't trying to brag (especially that I'm not the best player with Sword, so I have nothing to brag about in that regard). I was just trying to give same background and proof about what I'm writing about Sword, that is it.
Please make a lot of artifacts.
I've started the game. I've killed the same two types of enemies for 10 minutes and at no point do I get to do anything else except pan left and click pan right and click.
Am I missing something? Is it because I've chosen the non-brutal difficulties?
I'm guessing you did not started a run, you just entered test dome in the main menu. This dome is for new players to see how domes works, it is not the actual game. Select dome, starting gadget and game mode (you probably have only Relic Hunt unlocked). And then press the button "Start Run")