Survival mode... what's the deal?

[Dumb Quixote]

I was super excited about the introduction of this mode, but no matter how well you play, at 25 minutes it just introduces an insurmountable wave that ends your run - tested on both hard and extreme modes. If the purpose is to last 25 minutes, then it should be presented that way, not as if you're facing an endless wave. Really disappointed in how this is couched, and hope its an oversight in balancing that will be fixed soon.

[vestigialvisage]

I'd believe that it takes, uh, extreme luck to get to 25 minutes on Extreme, but I decided to try out Hard and I'm currently at 45 minutes and going strong.

[Dumb Quixote]

Unfortunately luck has more to do with it than skill. I can get to 25 mins on extreme but then there's always a wave of unstoppable enemies and I end every run feeling cheated. Needs more balancing if this isn't just meant to be the natural ending of the survival run.

[vestigialvisage]

Ok, now I'm really curious about the difference in our playstyles.

I have not gotten to 25 minutes on Extreme Survival, but I've tried Hard Survival twice since you started this thread and I'm 2-for-2 in getting past 60 minutes. My current run is in progress; my previous run ended at 87 minutes due to a combination of bad luck (not seeing a single Terraformer in the entire run) and bad decisions (passing up on a Shield Forger when I had the opportunity to buy one).

Granted, in both Hard runs I did manage to acquire a key artifact -- Art Brush. ...but my impression is that it'll take a while past 30 minutes before lack of that would really become a problem.

[Dumb Quixote]

After our discussion I gave it some more time and was able to get to 39 minutes in extreme. I will say that it wasn't very fun, and I think I only lost because the modifiers piled on so heavily that even my front line towers could only hit one lane, and only when the enemies were directly in front of them.

Ultimately, survival is not what I was hoping for, and think that I'll probably leave it alone from here on out.

[vestigialvisage]

It does seem somewhat suboptimal that the dominant struggle in the long term is keeping the range modifier up -- tower placement is so dependent on range and to have it fluctuating wildly over the course of a run is just so awkward.

[Ace]

It seems like the variables for the modifiers are just too high, too.

Things swing FAR too wildly for it to be worked around. You just have to build and pray.

[Frosty the Pyro]

I havent done extreme yet but I made it to an hour in hard before I got tired of it and removed my crowd control to let the attackers by.

[Sharpnessism]

After my 3rd try I've made it to over an hour on extreme

https://imgur.com/a/ZRSfCPk
https://imgur.com/a/l1VtyUV

I'm pretty sure this will go forever if I pay attention. The enemies basically instantly die now. I use cleanse+arcane resonance to remove all modifiers periodically. It's getting boring and very laggy so I'll probably let it go soon.

Strategy:
Early: Find ways to accumulate mana while surviving (combination of efficient towers and towers/spells/enhancements that give you mana). You want to be overloaded as soon as possible.
Early-mid: Start building teleports/slows/stuns, prioritizing teleports because there are trinkets that deal % HP damage after teleporting.
Mid: Find ways to acquire a variety of towers for cheap (trinkets/spells). You will want the following...
-Arcane resonance: This will let you repeatedly cast cleanse to remove all modifiers
-Thief: Unlimited crystals for more trinkets
-Song of the earth (or transformer): Create new spots for towers
Late: Let the game play itself. You're basically done since you probably have trinkets/enhancements that generate towers for you and you've filled the whole screen with towers. Just periodically buy cleanse when you see it so you can clear out the modifiers. The game will probably crash periodically unless you "prune" your excess towers occasionally.

[Dumb Quixote]

Originally posted by Sharpnessism:

After my 3rd try I've made it to over an hour on extreme

https://imgur.com/a/ZRSfCPk
https://imgur.com/a/l1VtyUV

I'm pretty sure this will go forever if I pay attention. The enemies basically instantly die now. I use cleanse+arcane resonance to remove all modifiers periodically. It's getting boring and very laggy so I'll probably let it go soon.

Strategy:
Early: Find ways to accumulate mana while surviving (combination of efficient towers and towers/spells/enhancements that give you mana). You want to be overloaded as soon as possible.
Early-mid: Start building teleports/slows/stuns, prioritizing teleports because there are trinkets that deal % HP damage after teleporting.
Mid: Find ways to acquire a variety of towers for cheap (trinkets/spells). You will want the following...
-Arcane resonance: This will let you repeatedly cast cleanse to remove all modifiers
-Thief: Unlimited crystals for more trinkets
-Song of the earth (or transformer): Create new spots for towers
Late: Let the game play itself. You're basically done since you probably have trinkets/enhancements that generate towers for you and you've filled the whole screen with towers. Just periodically buy cleanse when you see it so you can clear out the modifiers. The game will probably crash periodically unless you "prune" your excess towers occasionally.

Getting a resonator is clutch, but it isn't a greenlisted tower, so you need to get one from some random spawn effect. Overall, this mode needs severe rebalancing. Frankly its just not fun, which is unfortunate because it's the feature I was most excited about.

[Alpha_mindustry]

you need to break the game to win, quite litelary, to last a lot longer, ATLEAST get archane resonator and both exprt trinkets to upgrade the arshane resonator, or get hardend ruby is it isn't removed from the survival pool

[Madpinger]

For me, about 50m in, the game broke instead, and it seems you don't get any meta progression from it ?

Performance turned into voodoo glitch fest at any rate. I just rushed my death best I could before it crashed or something.

Seemed my progress was pointless in survival tho.

[MedicinalPsycho]

worst part is wenn you get like 8 range modifiers and none of your towers can attack....