Game feels more frustrating than difficult

[areebjunaid28]

A lot of people have already made posts regarding the difficulty but i feel its the frustrating mechanics that make it seem bad to lose a run.

1. Overclock - The whole mechanic of leveling a weapon to lv12 to unlock overclocks just feels terrible. It incentivizes you to not pick new weapons, or you have to use a gimped weapon for the run. Either get rid of the mechanic or give some concessions say you only need to get lv 6 to unlock them and can start getting overclocks this run at lv12 or give you an overclock at lv12 as a reward.

2. Timer after boss - There have been so many times I have had to leave XP worth several levels because there is no way to make it back to the pod if i take that XP. Also the way the enemies are amped up in this game i am always moving back while slowly killing enemies, meaning all the XP is in middle of the whole horde of enemies and i have to somehow circle back to get it. Either increase the time or have a magnet always spawn in the map (similar to halls of torment).

3. Enemies getting stronger if you can't defeat the boss - This is not some new creative mechanic but a band aid put in place because during the demo released last year people were intentionally not killing the boss to farm the map. It also favors damaging builds and punishes the player for going a defensive build. Its also a vicious cycle, if a run is not going well it just makes the enemies even more difficult for you to kill because you couldn't kill the boss fast enough. They could make it so that enemies that spawn after the boss has spawned don't drop any XP.

4. Pacing of maps - I get that the devs want to have a frantic pace but with so much going on at once you barley get to interact with all the mechanics. There is Nitra and Gold to mine, materials for meta upgrades to mine, quest objectives, swarms, drop pods, there is just ways too much going on at once. Spreading out the events will make the game better imo.

This game has a lot of potential but needs a few adjustments to be good.

[Zogtar]

Originally posted by FelixChirps:

Originally posted by Zogtar:

They need to balance and add more maps/weapons/characters... otherwise I'm just going to play vampire survivors when I need an autoshooter fix.

go play vampire survivors then

I did a lil earlier. It was fun.

Hope you have fun too.

[Hez]

Originally posted by Felonious Sophist:

Originally posted by Sharpshooter:

I agree with this one: mechanic of leveling a weapon to lv12 to unlock overclocks just feels terrible.
So in order to unlock new overlocks you must always pick 1 gimped weapon and lvl up it to 12 till last stage. And in the same time you need dps to clear map..

I..

What..?

Just because overclocks are unlocked at level 12 doesn't mean you have to level up that weapon alone to reach overclock.

I hit overclocks for a minimum of two weapons a run. You have your primary that you will focus on more than others but if you're putting ALL of your points into one weapon just to hit overclock, that's just not knowing how to play.

You got it wrong. I do not play on haz1. And in order to unlock overclocks for new weps at haz4-5 i always must pick 1 out of 3 weps without overclock
I didn't unlock overclocks like many on haz1. I went to haz3+ from the start. And in this case, it's a little boring to unlock everything.

ps: It's funny when a casual who unlocked everything on haz1 tells you that you don't know how to play.

[GIRL]

Very curious to see how many of these "difficulty" problems go away as the game is out longer, and more people get experienced with the game. A lot of the common complaints I've seen come from people either not understanding how Survivor games work, being unable to multitask, or having awful situational awareness.

This isn't to say the game is perfect, but it is in early access, and people are new to the game. I think people should rack up at least 50 hours before coming to any conclusions about balance issues.

Not elitism, I'm new to the game as well - I just recognize that it's a common occurrence for newbie frustrations to be mistaken for actual criticisms with new games.

[Cabbagefat]

I agree with point 1. I can get 2-3 weapons to level 12 in a single hazard 1 run, but it is just a chore. I'd rather play on a harder difficulty, but if the run is going to be gimped because I feel obligated to pick weapon-specific upgrades while ignoring the upgrades that affect all weapons, or character stats like move/mining speed, then I'm stuck just getting this grind out of the way on the faster difficulty instead of fighting the odds. Not to mention that while doing this, the weapons being leveled to 12 during this run cannot receive over clocks until after that run is over. Truly gimped.

I don't necessarily think all the over clocks for each weapon should be totally free, it shouldn't be too hard to add a grind that is kind of fun. Taking some inspiration from Deep Rock Galactic shouldn't be too hard. If they could add a 3rd mission or instead of the secondary missions giving xp and gold, offer blank cores that can be turned in and you can pick one of 3 over clocks to unlock. I would hope this is communicated through the UI somehow in a easy fashion. I suppose they could probably keep the current empty hexagon with a exclamation point to communicate whether a weapon has over clocks yet or not, but if unlocking over clocks goes down a route like this then the UI should easily communicate this to know if at least 3 over clocks are available or not.

[ImpactHound]

Originally posted by areebjunaid28:

1. Overclock - The whole mechanic of leveling a weapon to lv12 to unlock overclocks just feels terrible. It incentivizes you to not pick new weapons, or you have to use a gimped weapon for the run. Either get rid of the mechanic or give some concessions say you only need to get lv 6 to unlock them and can start getting overclocks this run at lv12 or give you an overclock at lv12 as a reward.

I thought this at first, but I've killed the Dreadnought with three never-used weapons stuck at level 12(mini-gun, turrets and warthog) on my second Gunner run, and once I unlocked Juggernaut did it again with a never-levelled lead burster grenade, fire grenade and revolver. It's not that big a deal and you're denying yourself interesting new weapon tutorials.

[Urza]

#3 I think you're super duper crazy absurdly wrong. Having post-boss enemies not drop xp would accomplish more or less the same thing, but in a far crappier and less interesting way.
You're a dorf. The mechanic as it stands encourages and punishes greed. Its both thematic and great.

[Kai]

When a boss is out and the 'horde' gets stronger, it's only a small incremental and you can always juke them and farm XP out of them if your build allows for it.

For instance you can do a Driller's corrosive fire builds where all your weapons are AoE attacks around you. Sure you can't kill a boss that fast, but you can sure damage every single horde on screen with Damage Over Time, and eventually wipe em out which clears space to spawn more hordes.

Some combos, like the Gunner's machine gun and the engineer's auto-shotgun, are great combinations to do single target DPS like crazy... You can mow down waves of enemies due to high fire rate and high reload speeds of the auto-shotgun alone.

If overclocked properly for the engineer, you can deploy like 7 turrets out at once, and raising fire rate on all of them won't make them expire faster, they rather dish out even more dps.

I literally had a group of turrets kill a elite boss on floor 5 hazard one within a few seconds because that's how powerful they got. But the main idea is: If you can wipe out groups of hordes, then you have the space to juke the boss.

Oh yeah I chose the bough region when I did that, managed to do turret + flame turret + smart smg + electric smg. Went overkill on the turrets basically.

[Urza]

Originally posted by Femboy Thighs:

Very curious to see how many of these "difficulty" problems go away as the game is out longer, and more people get experienced with the game. A lot of the common complaints I've seen come from people either not understanding how Survivor games work, being unable to multitask, or having awful situational awareness.

This isn't to say the game is perfect, but it is in early access, and people are new to the game. I think people should rack up at least 50 hours before coming to any conclusions about balance issues.

Not elitism, I'm new to the game as well - I just recognize that it's a common occurrence for newbie frustrations to be mistaken for actual criticisms with new games.

actually I think its rather damaging for people to externalize personal or skill issues as problems with the game just because the game is in early access.

When people fail at more established games its harder to blame the game (maybe they'll blame something else who knows), but with early access games these types of people instead externalize their problems by assuming the game is at fault, because it couldnt possibly be them.

Newbie frustrations are one thing. The differentiation here is the complete lack of introspection and the immediate assumption that the game is wrong.
I'm not disagreeing with you, I just think your opinion doesnt go far enough.

[Terrkas]

Originally posted by Femboy Thighs:

Very curious to see how many of these "difficulty" problems go away as the game is out longer, and more people get experienced with the game. A lot of the common complaints I've seen come from people either not understanding how Survivor games work, being unable to multitask, or having awful situational awareness.

This isn't to say the game is perfect, but it is in early access, and people are new to the game. I think people should rack up at least 50 hours before coming to any conclusions about balance issues.

Not elitism, I'm new to the game as well - I just recognize that it's a common occurrence for newbie frustrations to be mistaken for actual criticisms with new games.

That seems quite condescending. You are aware people can refund the game in the first 2 hours?

Ignoring complaints of New players can alienate a lot of them.

Locking Feedback behind 50 hours of gameplay will automatically filter out nearly all the critique, because no one is going to play 50 hours if it isnt fun for them. And the few honest souls remaining will get shouted down by the 100 people not caring.

[SimplyGnome]

I'll just say I disagree. I enjoy the gameplay aspect of all 4 points you just made.

[Xersin]

Originally posted by Terrkas:

Originally posted by Femboy Thighs:

Very curious to see how many of these "difficulty" problems go away as the game is out longer, and more people get experienced with the game. A lot of the common complaints I've seen come from people either not understanding how Survivor games work, being unable to multitask, or having awful situational awareness.

This isn't to say the game is perfect, but it is in early access, and people are new to the game. I think people should rack up at least 50 hours before coming to any conclusions about balance issues.

Not elitism, I'm new to the game as well - I just recognize that it's a common occurrence for newbie frustrations to be mistaken for actual criticisms with new games.

That seems quite condescending. You are aware people can refund the game in the first 2 hours?

Ignoring complaints of New players can alienate a lot of them.

Locking Feedback behind 50 hours of gameplay will automatically filter out nearly all the critique, because no one is going to play 50 hours if it isnt fun for them. And the few honest souls remaining will get shouted down by the 100 people not caring.

Cool. So you're saying it's like the Souls genre, which is infamous for filtering people, but provides a wonderful experience for those who stick with it. Not every game has to be for everyone, and this genre is known for specific things. Things that people who would play this have come to expect, just like you expect a Soulslike to be punishing.

This game provides the exact kind of thing that veterans of this genre love. Catering to new players who haven't stuck around long enough to have an opinion beyond "The start sucks" is how you end up with a game that nobody likes. See most AAA swill lately.

[Terrkas]

Originally posted by Xersin:

Originally posted by Terrkas:

That seems quite condescending. You are aware people can refund the game in the first 2 hours?

Ignoring complaints of New players can alienate a lot of them.

Locking Feedback behind 50 hours of gameplay will automatically filter out nearly all the critique, because no one is going to play 50 hours if it isnt fun for them. And the few honest souls remaining will get shouted down by the 100 people not caring.

Cool. So you're saying it's like the Souls genre, which is infamous for filtering people, but provides a wonderful experience for those who stick with it. Not every game has to be for everyone, and this genre is known for specific things. Things that people who would play this have come to expect, just like you expect a Soulslike to be punishing.

This game provides the exact kind of thing that veterans of this genre love. Catering to new players who haven't stuck around long enough to have an opinion beyond "The start sucks" is how you end up with a game that nobody likes. See most AAA swill lately.

First and foremost, this will appear as a drg game. So it will attract players who like drg.

It can also keep its difficulty for higher levels while providing some easier entry for people new to this type of game.

And unnecessary slog like leveling each single weapon to 12 once to finally being able to really use it, certainly needs some changes.

Besides, even darksouls has easy Mode build in. You can disable invaders, focus on magic, slowly farm the enemy spawns away until you just have to go to the Boss again once you die.
You also can play it on hardcore naked with a bad weapon.
Or make it way easier by summoning partners who do most of the work for you.

[se05239]

2 and 3 are the main sources of frustration for me.

The timer after the boss is way too short sometimes because of the bugs that can be blocking your way up the ramp. It's either have enough firepower to plough through 'em or take a bunch of unnecessary damage to get intot the drop pod.

The constant "the aliens are growing stronger" waves that happen as you're fighting the boss aren't fun. Some bad luck in your run and you're just doomed to fail because you can't overcome the dps check. I can understand WHY it exist but that doesn't mean I have to like it.