Suddenly slow progression after area 5?

[Shyguymask]

Before ascending for the first time, I could make it to around stage 35 in area 5 and hardly make progress in area 6. After filling out the bestiary in earlier areas as well as stockpilling materials, I ascended and bought a lot of stuff. Then after grinding my levels back and then more, I could beat area 5 but I still ended up getting walled midway through area 6, with enemies taking a long time to kill. And now with the GIGANTIC Ghost Blade nerf (2x mana cost and like 1/3 damage compared to before), it's even more difficult to progress and it also takes longer to grind in area 5. I'm trying to push through expecting some BIG new unlock or feature through discoveries and such, but it's not really happening and I feel like not much is happening in the gameplay now. I was hooked at first, but the sudden steep slowdown in gameplay (despite trying to maximize my stats and equips and etc) is disappointing. Am I doing something wrong?

Before I get "It's an idle game duh" comments, there's a difference with slow but steady progress like in Cookie Clicker and Clicker Heroes, and then getting stuck with little progress & events happening like in my case.

[Infern]

Originally posted by Palandus:

There is an obvious disparity here.

I'm region 8, 52 hours in, with almost entire ascension tree filled out. I have 1-6 regions bestiary filled out, and up to wave 26 of region 7. I have all tier 1/2 at +29. I have all pets at level 30. My skills are at 65 (passive mastery is at 31). I have 75 maximum for all stats. All other equipment is at +9.

I can't beat Region 8. I've tried adventurer, cultist, paladin, ratling archer and divine. None of them come close to sufficient DPS.

They are using a build that lets them completely outpace me; region 10 with only 33 hours. That tells me their build is operating at like 2000% of any of my builds.

I literally hit that wall a while back. As soon as I started putting points in to a different area I blitzed past that point.
Ratling Archer is great for long ranged builds.
The default adventurer is just an all rounder with no benefits or negatives.
Cultist is great for DOT builds (Benefiting from poison DOTs.)
Summoner (Which you get from the descent) can have multiple pets making it a powerhouse for advancing.

Some builds like the poison toxicology wis, int, dex build spirals out of control.

It's how different systems interact. Some builds are just stronger at certain points.

[OLt. Otto Carius]

Originally posted by Palandus:

"A demotivation would only appear if i dont see any progress at all." That is my experience for the past 12 hours. Hence my rage quit.

Like seriously... I've tried several different combinations of pets and heroes. I've tried several different combinations of skills and trinkets on the pets. There is like over a thousand builds... and I've tried several hundred but can't find a build to progress anywhere close to what others seem to be doing.

okay, i am not at that point of the Game to be honest. So i can not give a real review of all. But maybe there some good builds on the Discord or in the Guides Section?

[Trash]

Originally posted by Palandus:

"A demotivation would only appear if i dont see any progress at all." That is my experience for the past 12 hours. Hence my rage quit.

Like seriously... I've tried several different combinations of pets and heroes. I've tried several different combinations of skills and trinkets on the pets. There is like over a thousand builds... and I've tried several hundred but can't find a build to progress anywhere close to what others seem to be doing.

You must be particularly bullheaded about not using a particular skill/pet/hero/build, then, because I haven't looked up build information or guides or anything; I just keep experimenting on my own when I reach a frustrating wall and eventually find something that takes me from weakling to peon-smashing god of death. Like the dev said, there's a reason that switching builds is easy as hell, and I'm super glad that they made it that way. I've tried all sorts of stuff at this point, and most of them were some measure of successful, so the fact that you're finding nothing but failure is an accomplishment in and of itself.

[Palandus]

Originally posted by Δsh:

Originally posted by Palandus:

"A demotivation would only appear if i dont see any progress at all." That is my experience for the past 12 hours. Hence my rage quit.

you're basically where I am/was at and all I can say is slime+toxplosive does like 20b poison damage or something and every else can only hit up to like half a mil

I've tried playing with the slime but the bugger just wanders off doing its own thing across the map and thus doesn't inflict much damage. I've never gotten it to be consistent about staying near me, so I never use it. Toxplosive only works if they have poison stacks and none of my spells applies poison stacks. So not sure how I'm supposed to be applying poison stacks, other than that one Ascension tree buff that has 10% on applying a bleed stack.

And yeah, I'm usually using the builds that are giving half a mil in comparison, hence my extreme levels of frustration and inability to progress at all.

Like I'm not saying make every game build do like 20b damage, but if on average, builds did 5b then at least then I'd feel like I was progressing.

[Palandus]

Originally posted by Trash:

Originally posted by Palandus:

"A demotivation would only appear if i dont see any progress at all." That is my experience for the past 12 hours. Hence my rage quit.

Like seriously... I've tried several different combinations of pets and heroes. I've tried several different combinations of skills and trinkets on the pets. There is like over a thousand builds... and I've tried several hundred but can't find a build to progress anywhere close to what others seem to be doing.

You must be particularly bullheaded about not using a particular skill/pet/hero/build, then, because I haven't looked up build information or guides or anything; I just keep experimenting on my own when I reach a frustrating wall and eventually find something that takes me from weakling to peon-smashing god of death. Like the dev said, there's a reason that switching builds is easy as hell, and I'm super glad that they made it that way. I've tried all sorts of stuff at this point, and most of them were some measure of successful, so the fact that you're finding nothing but failure is an accomplishment in and of itself.

Some people are luckier than others. I've tried all skills at least 5 different builds, every pet in a build, and every different trinket. I've not had any success.

[Δsh]

Originally posted by Palandus:

Originally posted by Δsh:

you're basically where I am/was at and all I can say is slime+toxplosive does like 20b poison damage or something and every else can only hit up to like half a mil

I've tried playing with the slime but the bugger just wanders off doing its own thing across the map and thus doesn't inflict much damage. I've never gotten it to be consistent about staying near me, so I never use it. Toxplosive only works if they have poison stacks and none of my spells applies poison stacks. So not sure how I'm supposed to be applying poison stacks, other than that one Ascension tree buff that has 10% on applying a bleed stack.

And yeah, I'm usually using the builds that are giving half a mil in comparison, hence my extreme levels of frustration and inability to progress at all.

Like I'm saying make every game build do like 20b damage, but if on average, builds did 5b then at least then I'd feel like I was progressing.

Your mostly using slimes passives to apply poison so be sure to read them toxplosive just helps it spread and from what i've heard is the reason for the damage.

Balance is quite a fickle thing but yeah i feel you, sadly playing lots of "build diversity" games I know only certain builds will get you to the finish line in a timely manner, thankfully this is an idle game so idrc.

EDIT : DEX and INT will help with poison idk if summon stuff for slippy helps with the poison as well but spending souls on Power, Insight, and Acuity does.

[Palandus]

Originally posted by Infern:

Originally posted by Palandus:

There is an obvious disparity here.

I'm region 8, 52 hours in, with almost entire ascension tree filled out. I have 1-6 regions bestiary filled out, and up to wave 26 of region 7. I have all tier 1/2 at +29. I have all pets at level 30. My skills are at 65 (passive mastery is at 31). I have 75 maximum for all stats. All other equipment is at +9.

I can't beat Region 8. I've tried adventurer, cultist, paladin, ratling archer and divine. None of them come close to sufficient DPS.

They are using a build that lets them completely outpace me; region 10 with only 33 hours. That tells me their build is operating at like 2000% of any of my builds.

I literally hit that wall a while back. As soon as I started putting points in to a different area I blitzed past that point.
Ratling Archer is great for long ranged builds.
The default adventurer is just an all rounder with no benefits or negatives.
Cultist is great for DOT builds (Benefiting from poison DOTs.)
Summoner (Which you get from the descent) can have multiple pets making it a powerhouse for advancing.

Some builds like the poison toxicology wis, int, dex build spirals out of control.

It's how different systems interact. Some builds are just stronger at certain points.

Ratling Archer is only good if it can keep enemies outside of the circle. All the builds I've tried with it, eventually it can't progress past region 6, as enemies get into the circle and then go from being super tough, to nigh invulnerable.

Adventurer is only class I've consistently been able to push with.

Cultist I've not figured out how to use properly. Guy keeps getting smoked at Region 7, while on Region 8.

Haven't tried Summoner, even though unlocked them.

Paladin and Divine seem to be really hard to play. Divine is like the Ratling as an immovable turret, but I keep running into hp and mp shortages, even with the full restore from its evolved skill. Paladin just can't seem to progress past Region 5... so definitely doing something wrong there.

[Shyguymask]

Originally posted by The Fox Knocks:

Grinding up the Bestiary and your Equipment will get you to where you need to go. Failing that, a different build and overall approach may be necessary. That's the key difference between Nomad Idle and Clicker Heroes. Games like CH involve you winning more-or-less by default, gated only by time. Nomad Idle allows you to push further with different setups.

I think comparing a game with a seemingly infinite amount of zones vs. one that distinctly has 10 is also disingenuous. I'd hope it takes longer to go zone-to-zone in Nomad Idle or else you'd beat it in 10 minutes.

Not much I can do if you stopped finding it enjoyable. Tons of people in my Discord are still discussing builds and having a good time, so I'm not going to be changing anything here. It's not that you're wrong, it's that it sounds like what Nomad Idle offers just didn't really grab you in the end. I also think some games missed the mark or suck when otherwise a lot of people enjoy them. That's fine. Totally normal.

That's not really true. In Clicker Heroes, Autoclicker (the in-game autoclickers that can be purchased & stacked) builds become the primary way to progress compared to Idle. This does mean Idle will stop being able to progress reasonably, however you spend the earlier portion of the game saving up Rubies to buy Autoclickers & there are basically only two builds (+ Hybrid in hyper lategame from what I heard, but not relevant here), so it's not like you need to explore or think much at all on what you need to do to continue progressing on the way to zone 1 million.

CH having practically infinite zones doesn't affect the point about how CH actually has constant steady progression, from the zones themselves to unlocking new heroes and so on. Despite what I just said, Nomad would be a better and more enjoyable game if it was shorter and didn't need as much grinding to progress past the start, or if at the very least skills/builds were actually any balanced. And even then, when I found an actually strong skill to focus my build around (Ghost Blade), it got massively nerfed in a patch shortly after. I can't win here.

In general, my Bestiary from area 1 to 6 is completely filled out. Equipment from tier 1 to 3 are currently completely maxed out. I'm at level 180+ and leveling is slow. Summons are leveled as high as possible. I optimized skill levels & mana consumption as much as possible. Etc etc. Yet, two more ancensions later, and trying a different character, I'm STILL stuck at area 7, barely reaching tier 5 on it.

Needing to use specific builds to be able to reasonably progress in an idle game, at least in a game like this, is a huge problem and effectively makes the game nearly unplayable, not to mention it also means the the game has bad balancing in general. In the average game, even if a player uses a bad option, most of the time it's still reasonably possible for them to keep winning & progressing if they put more effort into their gameplay or execute their strategy as best as possible. But you can't do this in an idle game like this, if you pick the "wrong" build, you can no longer really play the game and progress. Having to do tedious trial & error until you find the "correct" build is not good gameplay. Gnorp Apologue is guilty of this as well and it's the one big sin that otherwise pretty good game has.

Even if you use a worse build, you should still be able to progress at a slower but still reasonable pace. Idle Colony somewhat achieved this, and that game is inspired by Gnorp Apologue, it made what I'm talking about less severe while still having noticeable difference in how different strategies/builds perform. It's all about balance and finding the perfect middleground.

I could see that, but a lot of games do this. They start off fast with you unlocking many things, then they slow down and you unlock things slower, and then it's over. Why is what I'm doing so different?

The severity is the difference. The average idle game does slow down after the start, but it's far more gradual and it's not nearly as abrupt & severe as how Nomad Idle does it.

EDIT: Meant to say Area 7 (Snow) I still can't beat, not Area 6, oops. Point still stands other than that.

[Palandus]

^^^^^

This has been my experience playing the game too. I just haven't found a "good" build to progress. I just find all the "bad" builds. Or... maybe the "good" builds were never meant to be a thing and the "bad" builds were the intended experience.

But it also sounds like the "good" builds are "cheese/cheater" builds, made to exploit a mechanic in an unintentional manner and thus have great progression with minimal effort.

Because it sounds like builds based on DOTs, are using skills at low levels (5 or less) to spam them constantly, to generate the DOTs and the damage output way exceeds what you might have if you were using the skills at level 50+.

[The Fox Knocks]

I'll do some tests and see what I come up with in terms of balancing. I've already done a big balance pass on this game somewhat recently, but it's worth checking out again to get a feel for things and be sure.

[Palandus]

Well if meta progression was unlocked earlier, I might be able to overcome my issues, but as it stands, I have to reach specific milestones in region 8 to get those metaprogressions unlocked.

So if we unlocked tier 1 up to +29, say at region 5 and tier 2 up to +29 at region 6, and tier 3 up to +29 at region 7, I might be able to progress.

Or if there was more unlocks in ascension tree and all the tree was available from the very start to purchase things.

Or if it didn't take quite as many kills to get bestiary unlocks.

Like it might be a case of where if you gained all available metaprogression, you'd be able to progress with a "bad" build. So then you grinding for time to reach the end.

But right now, I can't progress at all, at near maximum available progression.

[Osamaru]

Originally posted by The Fox Knocks:

I'll do some tests and see what I come up with in terms of balancing. I've already done a big balance pass on this game somewhat recently, but it's worth checking out again to get a feel for things and be sure.

I don't know what has or hasn't been said yet, but PERSONALLY I feel the biggest issue is that the Passive Skills / Stat interaction doesn't really feel impact enough.

If I'm running an INT/WIS build, then things like Ghost Blade shouldn't be outpacing something like Putrefying Circle or Water Spout.

I get that you tried to make it so that each skill relies on a different combination of Stats, so people diversify, But it in the end, it just makes it feel like certain skills are way to strong and others are next to worthless.

[Palandus]

Hasn't been said yet directly, but that is my impression too. If you don't have ghost blade in your skills, you have nearly zero dps... even after the nerf. Like I usually set it to like level 10, and my other skills at 50+, and they don't even come close to the damage output.

Some skills feel totally worthless, like Ebb and Flow. The amount of damage flying at me, it never heals fast enough to be worth a precious skill slot.

[Trash]

I've cleared area 10 on every character, and I've never equipped Ghost Blade a single time. There are plenty of other ways to play.

[D#]

I am about to finish the last of the content myself without ever using ghost blade or the flame one. In fact I wish there was more content to take advantage of all the classes (hoping it sells well to fund more time with it). There is very little idle in the game, it is very quick to max the asention tree once you unlock a void level for that tier.