Very first level sucks

[Akboris]

The first level needs to be reworked honestly and it might be one of the hardest scenarios, far harder than the few that proceed it, which makes me wonder why its the first.

The first level that a new player is likely to begin, as its the first... and the level demands engine/track/suspension/torque levels to be optimized for climbing hills and manoeuvring through tricky terrain which is somewhat more advanced than just making a gun platform and shooting the enemy like some of the others.

Holes, trenches, AT guns, artillery, hills and terrible allied AI make this one of the hardest levels and a poorly balanced introduction to the game.

Tanks also cant cross trenches as well as I feel they should. I think that tank roadwheels are responsible for all the traction, not the tracks, so this means that tanks in this game seems to suck at crossing trenches in general.

EDIT: I also neglected to mention that the level misinforms you of your tanks mobility. It made me believe that my tank was super slow when it wasnt, it was just the specific wet mud terrain.

[Enderspoons]

Цитата допису ososatellabute:

My number one goes to Taiga since the tonnage limit is pretty low for allied tanks especially since it seems you need your armor, mobility, and cannon to be pushing the upper limits of whats possible to beat it so making a light enough tank to get more than 1 or 2 allies is rough and even though i've beaten it a few times now it's basically been from luck since I can't for the life of me figure out a good, consistent tank design for it

I think I've only beaten Taiga once, and that was by making the most absolute bargain-bin minitanks possible so I could field as many as the game would allow. With that many effective extra lives per attempt, it gives me that much more time to line up point-blank rear shots on each enemy tank.

[calembredaine]

make a small design, reach 200mm effective armour on the front only (angle hard), then mount a decent gun instead of a heavier lolpen machine. that's how you save up enough to beat taiga consistently.

at worst you meet super heavies but they can't pen you either. in which case you micro manage them by having a decoy tanking all shots eternally, then you sneak in a flanking tank.

if you still find your tanks to be too few, increase budget in the options. it also affects the enemy number but it seems to even the odds, actually.

[Akboris]

Цитата допису bru98 / bru98IT:

that's why i like it, you can't beat that scenario with a tank you made in 2 minutes
you can't slap tons of armour because the engine and gearbox limitation and the cannons aren't accurate on both sides so it's not just point and click to oneshot

Introductory levels should be just that. This level is too difficult for a new player.

[Akboris]

Цитата допису Enderspoons:

Цитата допису ososatellabute:

My number one goes to Taiga since the tonnage limit is pretty low for allied tanks especially since it seems you need your armor, mobility, and cannon to be pushing the upper limits of whats possible to beat it so making a light enough tank to get more than 1 or 2 allies is rough and even though i've beaten it a few times now it's basically been from luck since I can't for the life of me figure out a good, consistent tank design for it

I think I've only beaten Taiga once, and that was by making the most absolute bargain-bin minitanks possible so I could field as many as the game would allow. With that many effective extra lives per attempt, it gives me that much more time to line up point-blank rear shots on each enemy tank.

You can win Taiga by making an MBT beast with lots of armor and immediately camping the bottom right corner of the map.

[AMURKA]

I disagree. It teaches you everything you need to know. About damage, traction, engine power and how hard it is to climb hills (so avoid falling in craters, etc). It teaches you that design MATTERS for both you AND the AI who pilot the tank (so make it good enough so your whole team doesn't get stuck) and finally. It teaches you about how positioning and penetration work, to defeat the heavy tank defending the guns.

[Akboris]

Цитата допису AMURKA:

I disagree. It teaches you everything you need to know. About damage, traction, engine power and how hard it is to climb hills (so avoid falling in craters, etc). It teaches you that design MATTERS for both you AND the AI who pilot the tank (so make it good enough so your whole team doesn't get stuck) and finally. It teaches you about how positioning and penetration work, to defeat the heavy tank defending the guns.

It doesnt teach you exactly how to accomplish these things though.

[AMURKA]

That's kind of the point. If it were easy, the game wouldn't be fun.

[Slim Pickens]

Цитата допису ososatellabute:

NML is certainly a giant pain partially from all the environmental issues but also the fact that you are so slow and the level is so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ big that lost progress is a giant issue. I think if it were a little smaller and the environment a little more forgiving it'd certainly be significantly better.

Crossroads seems to be very RNG based on whether that first shot melts you or not but provided you survive that first shot it's kind of a pain setting up an angle but I wouldn't call it exceptionally difficult.

My number one goes to Taiga since the tonnage limit is pretty low for allied tanks especially since it seems you need your armor, mobility, and cannon to be pushing the upper limits of whats possible to beat it so making a light enough tank to get more than 1 or 2 allies is rough and even though i've beaten it a few times now it's basically been from luck since I can't for the life of me figure out a good, consistent tank design for it

I've beat Taiga through three different approaches, neither was perfect or consistent. Rating worst to best:

1) a medium tank. 3 or 4 of slightly up-gunned and up-armored midwar machines can do the job, but mostly through dumb luck. The most inconsistent approach and one I fealt most powerless trying, but did beat it a couple times.

2) a sole supertank. Made a thing with maxed out front and 150mm+screens on the sides, minimized the scale of the mantlet since you can't get it above 150mm and a flat vertical 150 on the front is not good, took a 105mm cannon with very good pen and decent reload and a monster of an engine to push this gal 35+km/h uphill almost instantly. The tactic is to take to the far right ASAP, hope you don't encounter the french tank destroyers, and use the hill there as cover to take on the enemies one by one, angling to ignore the fire from the two that push far to the left flank. Fun to try, but nowhere near reliable, and getting tracked is a death sentence.

3) the most reliable: a defensive turreted tank destroyer build, something like a waffentrager with heavily sloped armor that only has any thickness on the front, slow turret rotation as a compromise for internal space (and for realism), but very low profile and a beast of a gun. You should also get a total of 3 of those, but it's usually enough, it's my most consistent approach with a winrate of about 60%.

[Akboris]

Цитата допису AMURKA:

That's kind of the point. If it were easy, the game wouldn't be fun.

So this mf thinks the hardest level in a video game should be the first? No. You dont get the point, and you have the process completely backward. The game is less fun after you have practically conquered it. Once you have mastered effectively this tutorial level, the subsequent ones are a breeze. Its not well thought out.

[AMURKA]

Lol. Calling people "MFrs" just because they think differently. I'm surprised you don't seem to realize that the only reason those later levels FEEL easier was because what you learned during the first level made all those other (actually more difficult) missions easier to master..... Imagine if it was just you vs one other small tank in a perfectly flat field....boring, and nothing learned...

[Eliphaser]

Цитата допису Akbarogo:

Цитата допису AMURKA:

That's kind of the point. If it were easy, the game wouldn't be fun.

So this mf thinks the hardest level in a video game should be the first? No. You dont get the point, and you have the process completely backward. The game is less fun after you have practically conquered it. Once you have mastered effectively this tutorial level, the subsequent ones are a breeze. Its not well thought out.

I mean it's debatably a tutorial level; it's just chronologically the first as it's WWI
given the difficulty difference between no man's land and any of the interwar-era levels, I'd argue No Man's Land is a hurdle you should more return to after succeeding at the other levels, as the ultimate challenge

the main issue is that levels are not sorted by difficulty and so by which level is the first one to start with, but rather purely by chronological order, from ww1 to late ww2

I don't really think the dev thought it out as an order of levels with the top being meant for new players as a "tutorial", and rather they just sorted by era instead, which is a mistake tbh, as this kind of conversation is a direct result of the dev not taking level difficulty into account when sorting levels

Цитата допису AMURKA:

Lol. Calling people "MFrs" just because they think differently. I'm surprised you don't seem to realize that the only reason those later levels FEEL easier was because what you learned during the first level made all those other (actually more difficult) missions easier to master..... Imagine if it was just you vs one other small tank in a perfectly flat field....boring, and nothing learned...

I mean many of the other levels are genuinely far easier; I beat all other levels multiple times before I even came close to beating no man's land
never got past the first trench until I was done with the rest and played through the interwar levels dozens of times each

the other levels don't just FEEL easier, they ARE easier, because they don't require as much time painstakingly done adjusting the dimensions, suspensions, engine and gear ratio of the tank to be able to cross the trenches, where for other levels, there's a lot more room for a more suboptimal solution

[calembredaine]

idk how to gauge no tank's land difficulty-wise when you can clear it smoothly enough with the b4 bratten. even barring the design part, you won't be more challenged at all. it's just different, not very intuitive and also very long.

it's my fav scenario by far but no, it is not some necessary rite of passage to enjoy the rest of the game at all. if anything, the learning may even be way smoother and enjoyable to the average joe if you teach them the basics in a simple deathmatch, and leave ntl as an advanced level with its own spin.

[AMURKA]

Ok, I guess my experience was different from other peoples on the difficulty. I just built a tank based off of one of the WW1 examples, and eventually, gave it a suspension, and extended the tracks so that it would clear the trench....and then I had to fiddle with the engine and gearing until I (and my AI team) would almost never get stuck in the trenches due to not having enough torque to power over it...the rest was minor compared to that. All in all took an hour or two. The feeling was great, knowing where i started and finally seeing my 10 teammates trucking along at 16 mph and easily clearing the trench and storming the hill as a team. Lots still got stuck in the mud but its still by far my favorite mission. I'm just waiting for the ability to mod the game to triple the amount of tanks in battles or something.

I'm kinda shocked so many people just passed it by. Isn't the point of a design game to overcome challenges through ingenuity and trial-and-error?

[dSbKe.Redzu]

for me the No Tank's Land is the best level ever, just made a light 10-11 ton tank that barely had armor, 37mm cannon, big duck tail, and 2 crew that cramped like a sardine in a tin.. you can get 7 tanks on this mission with that build or just raise the budget to 200% to get more tanks.

If you itch for a heavy WW1 trench eater tank, make sure you had lots of road wheels.. don't mind spacing them for better ground contact. go for the heaviest engine and gap the RPM 200 less than the max to avoid burnout. the best gearing I find is at 3.6-4.8 at G1. if it still over rev turn down a little. got so much fun building and driving a Großkampfwagen K Wagon and Ishi Heavy Tank in this map. absolutely a fun map.

[calembredaine]

since i am about to mention the experimental game build in this reply, i'll let everyone know it currently features improves traction, which normally makes trench crossing in ntl much better. have not tried yet though, it is just in case anyone's interested.

Цитата допису AMURKA:

I'm kinda shocked so many people just passed it by. Isn't the point of a design game to overcome challenges through ingenuity and trial-and-error?

main criticism here is that it does not really sell well as a first scenario, not simply that it is hard. most people in here -even op if i read their later posts- do not have much flak to give about the level itself. else everyone seems to be on the same wavelength as yours.

btw, Documents\My Games\Sprocket\settings.json has a parameter called "battlesize" for you to toss more units if you want.
you also have custom battle on the experimental branch, if you have not tried already. probably the closest we can have to the kind of modding you want for now.