Endless haters come here

[elite outsider]

All over this forum people are hating on endless. They say it's boring, it's pointless, if you explain things by whether or not they're useful in endless you're a lunatic, etc.

Here's another way to look at it. Read all of this before writing your reply or else you're letting us all down and that's bad.

- Once you know how the game works, you can basically beat danger 5 on both maps with any character and any weapons. Some might be more difficult than others, but you can do it. People on youtube do awful challenges like "hammer engineer" to show this.

- Given that, what makes someone a better or worse player?
-> How well they beat wave 20 danger 5 (they did it with a hard character/weapon, they did it with high stats at the end, they did it despite really nasty elite rolls, etc)
-> How well their build scales up into endless after beating wave 20
Obvious, right? You basically have 2 ways to measure how someone showcased their skill.
-> One is more objective than the other. A long endless run is a long endless run. You thinking that beating wave 20 with a certain character was hard.. others might disagree.

- Now how about.. not the players, but the balance or usefulness of the items, characters and weapons. What makes an item truly strong or well designed?
-> When you can use it on a character that beats wave 20 danger 5? Eh, not really, you can pretty much do that with anything as long as your build isn't garbage and you don't try really hard to lose.
-> Or.. how well these things work past wave 20? If a certain character falls off and isn't viable in endless, that's weakness and a limitation for that character. It means its design is capped in some way. For example, consider Ogre: the chain reaction explosion mechanic is funny, but it will just stop happening because endless enemies' hp will outscale you. Can only take that character so far.
-> Similarly, some things can be "okay enough" to barely beat a wave 20 run. This is where weapons like shredder and characters like chef come in. Nobody is going to do a long endless run using shredders, and it's debatable whether they're worth taking in a lot of 20 wave runs. It's because they're weak and badly designed, it's not because they were put in the game for you to torture yourself with them (I hope).
--> These things limit your build to much lower potential, so you can beat wave 20 at best, but you won't be able to scale into a good endless run. A good endless run requires a strong character, weapons and items all chosen during the first 20 waves (the time when the game is easiest, so you play greedy and accelerate). Weak characters, items and weapons limit that acceleration - even if you just want to play 20 waves, your gun build running away from a huge crowd on wave 11 four out of five attempts is a sign that something is wrong with the game.

On the other hand, we know "demon with potato throwers" can go really far. Or even something like "loud with sniper guns" can go really far - sniper guns and potato throwers can do more than just beat wave 20 consistently (the thing that anyone can do). In fact, potato throwers are very obviously meant for endless (they're strictly weak in a 20 wave game with almost every character)... which brings me to my next point:

- Half the items are clearly designed for endless.
-> How much value can you get from Giant Belt in a 20 wave run? Basically none, because it's hard to max out crit on a real build AND enemies' hp is still low so you can build damage more efficiently with the regular damage stats. The whole point of this item is that it scales with ENEMY hp, which happens in endless mode!
-> Most of the other unique red items (the ones you must get in an endless run) are the same way. Anvil can almost never give you a serious amount of value in a 20 wave run. It certainly can't scale and give you tons of armor in a 20 wave run.
-> Even something like Pearl is borderline impossible to collect and truly scale in a 20 wave run. In endless it's an amazing way to connect luck to %damage, so your luckycoin and pearls work together.
-> Something like vigilante ring: the only time this ever gives you a good amount of value in a 20 wave run is when you find it insanely early. CyclopsWorm/GlassCannon/etc are often better on balance because more damage now is better than more damage later on (we're trying to accelerate and make more money now to make more money next wave from being stronger).
-> "When you level up" items in general are weak until you get into endless, then they become absolutely amazing. You tend to find them later in the game where your levelups have reached diminishing returns (until you have time for celery tea and lots of bean teachers to kick in), and they compete with other items that give you way more value for less if you're only planning to play 20 waves. How many times have you bought or found grind's leaf on wave 17 and thought "ehh it's kinda okay I guess"? For an endless player the reaction is "awesome, already got that started!"

Look at how many items on the list are obviously made for long runs and trying to assemble a jacked ridiculous character. It's undeniable.

How about Curse, the new mechanic from the DLC?
- You can build up *some* curse in the first 20 waves. It can find you amazingly strong items that carry the rest of your run by themselves, but it won't make the enemies too strong to show its negative side unless you really get tons of curse somehow.
- In endless, curse necessarily builds up forever and you really can't do much to stop it. It adds another layer of scaling and difficulty to endless that was not there before.
-> A huge part of what Curse adds to the game can only be experienced in endless mode. In regular games, it's basically just a really high reward low risk addition to the shop.

So.. in conclusion:
- The bar for how we judge things needs to be raised. When someone says shredder is weak, it's not valid to say "oh yeah? well I barely managed to beat wave 20 with negative dodge here check out this screenshot"
- Endless shows which things in the game are actually strong and fun. Endless is that bar: either things that work in endless are strong, or things that can get you into a strong endless run are strong. Thief dagger is an example of that.
-> Things that make your build weak and low potential for endless are weak.
-> Things that can barely beat wave 20 and need extreme luck and retries, or have to run away from big crowds of enemies like Pacifist for the last 10 waves .. are weak.
- Half the content is actually made for endless.

Thanks!

[Bumc]

You're really stretching with like 5 items and one weapon being "half the content" there.

On contrary, harvesting dying after wave 20 kills a bunch of characters and even shiny legendary weapons that you'd think are designed for long runs are mostly pointless in endless.

Honestly, if you already beat brotato on danger 5 on all characters its time to let it go -- you already got more than its worth out of 5$ game.

[elite outsider]

There are lots of other items you can list that are geared toward endless, I just listed a couple examples. Random one off the top of my head - mirror is super expensive for likely low value in a typical 20 wave run, becomes an amazing strategic tool for rich swag endless runs.

Harvesting degrading is tough but there are ways of making it grow positively even in endless. As usual it's corny garden abuse. True about legendaries as well - they're not even that strong in a 20 wave game either, they require a lot of infrastructure or have built in steep risks (scythe/gatling gun).

The one exception is drill - it's just a super upgraded thief dagger. Thief dagger builds seem to find it consistently which is great if you like being rich and jacked and having a yacht!

Yeah, there's only so much you can expect from a $5 game but endless lets you take it reaaaaaaaally far as well. Endless does get boring of course, especially discovering that all roads lead to "demon + potato thrower + spicy sauce"... but long before you hit that point it gives you a way to experience much more of the game than just the first 20 waves. More stressful dodging and harder shop choices etc.

Here's another stray thought: baby is almost a combination of both things I listed. It's hard in the first 20 waves and it has huge endless potential. That's cool, it means people can really show off great play by doing strong endless runs with baby.
Know what's not cool? It still isn't better than demon! 4 times as many weapons doesn't beat demon because 4 is just a number, infinite scaling laughs at 4.

But if you say "it would be nice to have more options to play endless" the endless haters will scoff at you and say that's silly. The game already has items and characters that are made for endless, but asking for a bit more will have people viciously foaming at you. Hence the thread.

[AN]

This is not how you reach people who you are trying to convince of anything.

[Gentlest Giant]

Win rate is how you measure how good a player is.
Anyone can beat any challenge once. Doing so consistently is another.

[elite outsider]

Originally posted by Gentlest Giant:

Win rate is how you measure how good a player is.
Anyone can beat any challenge once. Doing so consistently is another.

that's definitely another way to do it, yeah. so how come when I post about endless people rage at me with screenshots where they beat wave 20 with 50hp, 7 armor and negative dodge? do you think that's a realistic build to be bragging about?

partly the point of endless is that you can do endless runs over and over, but to even do one impressively long run means that you did all the right stuff (unlike when you stop at wave 20 and it can easily be said you won by chance, your build didn't reach its limits yet etc).
you can get as lucky as you want in the first 20 waves with all the required items showing up at the right times, and that's still only like 10% of what goes into making an endless run successful.

i can literally play loud with thief daggers, demon with thief daggers or demon with ghost scepter and consistently hit wave 60+ every run without much trouble. i know how the game works, i choose the strongest stuff and i make the best choices in the shop and during each wave, then the results follow.

if i take the same approach with other characters and weapons, the results are capped at a way lower level because they're weaker. with those characters you simply can't make it past wave 40-50 or so without absolute perfect shop luck and results, and often your build will have some nasty gap in it that makes you die before wave 30 and can't be fixed in time.

the weaker characters and weapons are less about expressing your personal skill and control of the game, and more about expressing a particular gimmick mechanic like ogre's explosions or builder's single turret. they get old fast because they're so hobbled (once you get past the thrill of novelty).

take vampire for example. nobody will ever do anything remarkable or fun with this character. it's something you play to see it in action once, but the concept is so stupid and pointlessly specific that it's basically a waste of everyone's time. masochist or lich by comparison are stronger and have more replay potential, even though they're still weaker than demon because everything is. their design has more to offer you as a player who isn't a spectator.

it's very simple.

Originally posted by AN:

This is not how you reach people who you are trying to convince of anything.

thank you for this very important high IQ post.

[Shinibarty]

Too much words written (i didnt read) but endless isnt good at all.

Not optimized with very low fps late game, afking mid map with god build until you freeze and get oneshot by elite.

The theorycraft etc would be good if it was playable but it isnt at the moment

[elite outsider]

Originally posted by Shinibarty:

Too much words written (i didnt read) but endless isnt good at all.

Not optimized with very low fps late game, afking mid map with god build until you freeze and get oneshot by elite.

The theorycraft etc would be good if it was playable but it isnt at the moment

okay it's your thread now, i'm passing the torch to you because you're better equipped for this

good luck, we're all counting on you

[Sten]

Before: DLC Endless is not "endless" it's UNFAIR BS WTF #+#13+4 ...

After DLC: Endless is too easy boring BS WTF

Game used to be balanced for 20 waves. It is fine that way. With time and all the haters now it is pretty easy with some experience. You can also play other games. If you like long endless grind play VS (it's gud game) or others.

[Kermit Kruber]

What's the objective of this post? oO

[sad sack]

Bite into a juicy turd and see brown liquid squirt out

[midori]

endless is boring, game is good in like 20 minute intervals