Impossible mode is bad

[jamesng323]

Kingdom Rush 5 and Kingdom Rush Vengence suffer from a few problems regarding game balance that didn't show up in previous Kingdom Rush titles. Namely game balance at very hard levels.

In previous Kingdom Rush 1, 2 and 3 when you played a level that appeared early in the game, the were restrictions regarding how many upgrades you can have and the heroes always started at level 1. This meant that the difficulty of the level was "fixed" - you couldn't artificially alter game balance by bringing more upgrades or bringing better heroes.

In KR 4 and 5, there are no restrictions on how many upgrades you can take into a stage and heroes can start at their highest level - which means that the difficulty of the stage is influenced by external factors. You can bring in more upgrades than you were supposed to have when the stage was supposed to be played and you can grind and level up your hero.

Further, you can only access Impossible mode after you've acquired all upgrades and, most likely, levelled up your heroes. So when you play impossible mode on the early levels it's not really balanced very nicely. It becomes way too easy. They really should have kept their old game design.

Thoughts?

["The Lunatic" Wolf-fighter]

thats wrong. only kr1 had heroes always start at level 1, all others had the level up system for heroes, there was no cap for their level, only the challenge modes for the level had restrictions, but thats still the same. upgrades where also only in these stages restricted not for the main level itself. (well not sure about frontiers anymore but origins definitely didnt had any restrictions on that in fact you could gain upgrade points even with challenge mode, which this kingdom rush actually doesnt have, here you earn them by completing the level , which i actually dont like, i was used to the old system of how many stars you got) so no it is basically restricted to what levle youre on how your upgrades are, after you completed the game yes for the levels you have that because youre simply replaying there , impossible mode is actually made that you pretty much need that anyways. heroes did also start in origins at their highest if you leveld them up, yes the early levels are easy then still . but you know if you want to restrict it you can simply refund your upgrades and leave them un-purchased . the pc version is actually way harder because the tablet version is pretty much pay 2 win. you can unlock from the first stage the dragons already if you buy the heroes there and also the towers you want, you dont ge tthem only after finishing like here. and on top of that i think the tablett version got an item shop with extras in, which is completly removed from the pc version. if you would compare it to the pc version its pretty much cheat items you can buy , in fact, from how i remember from origins (i played that on tablett first and later once they released it for pc) you could even buy the gems in some ammounts for money additional to earning a bit in stages. if its to easy for you use weak heroes or dont use any at all , you could let them stay at the end point. how the stage was supposed to be played depends really only on yourself there are multiple ways actually. and in fact the game was always pretty strongly pay 2 win . only want to state that the original version (because the pc version is secondary actually) was always that you only get a few of the weaker heroes for free and ofc the dragons are like 2,5x the price of other paywalled heroes and they are clearly also made strong and compared to other heroes overpowerd well maybe the other heroes simply suck, thats also a way to put it.

[Miathan]

My thoughts are that when it comes to the campaign, impossible mode has always been bad. I had no trouble clearing it in KRO and KRV either, succeeded everything first try. In KRV I even cleared the Hammerhold campaign on impossible with a mediocre hero (jun'pai). It wasn't that hard at all.

When it comes to heroic and iron challenges though, yeah, it's a shame they're not more restricted like in the older games, that was definitely more challenging. At the same time, more power has been moved into heroes since then, so if you bring strong heroes in Alliance (like the dragons) that'll always have a big impact on difficulty. The only way to make challenges hard to beat would be if they were all "no heroes" or made you use specific heroes.

[jamesng323]

Lunatic - Yes, you're correct about the permanent hero levelling system in KR2 and KR3. I was mistaken and didn't remember things correctly. However, in KR2 you'll notice that heroes are restricted in the early part of the game probably because Ironhide knows that a fully levelled hero is too powerful - especially if you pick the dragon.

Miathan - Campaign impossible mode is easy. In fact, that is a central "thing" for game designers nowadays. Completing a game is always very easy, but there exists challenges in a game for those who want extra challenge. It's designed that way so people don't get angry if they can't complete a game due to skill issues.

100% agree with you on the heroes - the dragons are way too powerful and there isn't really much challenge involved when you use them. It is the job of a game designer to build challenges that aren't trivial for those who like challenges and this just breaks it.

I don't think it is possible to win heroic and iron mode challenges on impossible mode without heroes. I'd pay good money to see someone beating the hardest levels of KR5 on impossible with no heroes. At the same you're right that certain heroes just make things too easy and the challenge doesn't feel "impossible". It is Ironhide's job to restrict heroes so that the balance of the level feels right - something they've not done a good job of.

[Miathan]

Originally posted by jamesng323:

Miathan - Campaign impossible mode is easy. In fact, that is a central "thing" for game designers nowadays. Completing a game is always very easy, but there exists challenges in a game for those who want extra challenge. It's designed that way so people don't get angry if they can't complete a game due to skill issues.

That's clearly not the case here since impossible mode isn't even available when you start the game. Noone can fail to finish the campaign because of it. It's an optional challenge for those who have already completed it, therefore it can and should be high difficulty.

[jamesng323]

I just think it would be very expensive for Ironhide to do something like that. Think about it this way - the main campaign was made to be mandatory and easy. To try and redesign the impossible mode to suddenly become extremely difficult would be very challenging and time-consuming for a game designer. That's probably why they made heroic and iron waves - because its a lot cheaper for them to design something from scratch and make challenging material with it rather than a re-design. I think that's a good compromise so I guess we should just put up with the easy impossible mode campaign.

We must all keep in mind that computer games are ridiculously expensive things to make. It would not surprise me if KR5 alone cost around $2 -3 milllion dollars to make.

[@mins are closet nazis]

Originally posted by jamesng323:

Kingdom Rush 5 and Kingdom Rush Vengence suffer from a few problems regarding game balance that didn't show up in previous Kingdom Rush titles. Namely game balance at very hard levels.

In previous Kingdom Rush 1, 2 and 3 when you played a level that appeared early in the game, the were restrictions regarding how many upgrades you can have and the heroes always started at level 1. This meant that the difficulty of the level was "fixed" - you couldn't artificially alter game balance by bringing more upgrades or bringing better heroes.

In KR 4 and 5, there are no restrictions on how many upgrades you can take into a stage and heroes can start at their highest level - which means that the difficulty of the stage is influenced by external factors. You can bring in more upgrades than you were supposed to have when the stage was supposed to be played and you can grind and level up your hero.

Further, you can only access Impossible mode after you've acquired all upgrades and, most likely, leveled up your heroes. So when you play impossible mode on the early levels it's not really balanced very nicely. It becomes way too easy. They really should have kept their old game design.

Thoughts?

KR 1 is best for difficulty balance. Original game balance is good, and the hero system is such an addicting part of micro play that actually can develop skills and strategy on the player side. Also, once you are done with hard mode, no upgrades no lives lost is a penultimate test of skill that goes very nicely with hero leveling. hero choice and leveling micro is often the most important part, if not 50% of the battle in beating many of the harder stages. I still have not beat all of the mini campaigns as this new level of difficulty is extreme, but oh so rewarding to overcome. Spending multiple hours on multiple days just to only figure out how to get a couple more waves into a stage is very frustrating, and can feel like throwing yourself at a brick wall, but it almost turns KR into a strategy puzzle game because there are few and specific build orders and hero ability micro that will beat the harder levels. Frontiers and Origins share a lot with KR1 in the way of the game formula and difficulty, the only major short sight being the new hero system. But I can say without a doubt vengeance was so much easier in all aspects. (also there are videos of a dude beating a ♥♥♥♥ ton of the game with just the hero and no towers) and as Alliance is very fresh at the moment and I dont have a full play through done, it feels like vengeance in many ways. I will say i get the feeling of a vengeance origins amalgamation, but I think it might have to do with the color pallet and art choices. Tower system is an L for me tho. Sure you can have more towers to choose from but something about it makes the game so so so much less satisfying to play on a level to level basis. Yes, it does matter what towers you bring into each level, but utilizing each one and upgrading it feels very stale and unrewarding as its linear and only has 2 upgrades at the end. Anyway to sum up, the challenge and difficulty in KR1 is addicting and rewarding, and unfortunately it cannot be replicated well in vengeance, and potentially alliance, although the enemy waves arent as mind numbingly bad, so maybe there is a little hope

[jamesng323]

Mins - 100% agree that KR1 had the best balance of all the KR series. Mostly this is due to the hero levelling system and the upgrade restrictions that they sadly didn't continue.

I've just finished Alliance in impossible mode on every stage. I think the devs have mostly done a very good job of balancing the game at hard difficulty and this more closely resembles KR1. Certainly there are no hugely OP towers like the blazing gem in KR4 and whilst it does matter what towers you bring - the impact is significantly reduced. If you want a truly balanced impossible game mode, I suggest you try it with the following self-imposed restrictions and I have verified that this is possible in the current version:

1) Multiply the stage that you're playing on by 6. The result is the number of upgrade points you may spend and bring into the game.

2) No dragons. Out of all the heroes they are the ones that are hugely OP.

3) Bring whatever towers you like. Tower choice does matter but it's not like KR4 where you had blazing gem that was a must-have.

[just.dont.do.it]

Originally posted by jamesng323:

Certainly there are no hugely OP towers

Um. Necromancer towers exist.
They're actually even more broken than Blazing Gem.

[jamesng323]

I've played with necromancer extensively - I've never thought it was OP. Certainly powerful though.