Powers have ruined the game

[```skunk3```]

Getting a bunch of fast and skillless cheap wins is easier than ever before now thanks to Sabotage powers... combine a difficult to combat send with a sabo power and a kidnap maybe and its GG no matter how good you are. You can't defend against it at all... all you can do is just try to get a cheesy win first.

[```skunk3```]

Originally posted by ThePatchWorkHoax:

Originally posted by ```skunk3```:

eco choke + salted wounds + bloon upgrade + kidnap card = you literally can win any match in card mode as long as you do it first. it takes no skill whatsoever.

i dont think you can have 4 powers man

The kidnap card is a card, not a power.

[Nuttybcc]

I just got back into the game and I absolutely hate the new power feature. As a former BTD player coming back and playing this game is absolutely ridiculous, I can't play with anyone anymore without getting Sabotaged or something. I tried to come back but this really is the last straw to this game. With the declining player base already, introducing these new mechanics to the game just feels like they're trying to dig their own graves now. RIP BTD Battles

[```skunk3```]

Yeah it's not fun anymore. At higher levels everyone is a tryhard lame just kidnapping constantly, rushing with the same typical stuff, and using sabotage powers... at least in card mode. It's become a game of "screw over the other player before they screw over you." There is no late game, like ever. It's just a bunch of disgusting tryhards using the cheesiest tactics that they can to win because their lives are so boring and sad that grinding out medallions in a silly game like this gives them a feeling of accomplishment.

[CENSORED BY *****BOT]

Originally posted by ThePatchWorkHoax:

Originally posted by ```skunk3```:

eco choke + salted wounds + bloon upgrade + kidnap card = you literally can win any match in card mode as long as you do it first. it takes no skill whatsoever.

i dont think you can have 4 powers man

my powers are over 9000.

[ECS]

Dude, Sabotage Powers are just absolutely b***s***!

I came back to this game after having played the original flash version and a bit of the mobile version years ago, was having fun for a while until i came across these things!
Sabotage powers are absolutely nonsense in this game, like, really? Reduce range/attack speed? Stun a tower for 8 seconds? Stun all towers? Who the heck even came up with that idea? How did no one in the team look at this and said "Uh, maybe this is not a good idea"?! A single use of these things is enough to let a rush pass and ruin an entire match! How is that even damn fair at all?
There's no strategy when you can literally DISABLE opponent's towers and let every bloon pass! It's just not possible for your opponent to react to such a thing! It's just completely stupid!

And don't even get me started on the Kidnap card! If stunning opponent's towers wasn't enough, now there's one to literally get rid of it?! How in the heck did anyone think that was a good idea?!
Refunding the price means basically nothing in Cards because we cannot choose the tower we want to build, getting the money back doesn't mean we can get a defense equal to that we had before! And i didn't even mention having enough time to rebuild the defense before it's too late. (My opinion on other Sabotage styled cards is the same!)

The other powers are ok, Eco Powers help build income and cash, Track Powers help catch bloons that slip through or defend some unexpected bloon types, Tower Powers help giving our defenses a boost in tight situations, or weakening the vicious blimps, and even Bloons Powers which, while being pretty offensive, all they do is improve on the already offensive aspect of the game itself.
All these powers affect and improve aspects that were already a part of the game, but Sabotage Powers on the other hand do nothing other than screwing up the opponent in the cheesiest ways possible.

[```skunk3```]

Originally posted by ECS:

Dude, Sabotage Powers are just absolutely b***s***!

I came back to this game after having played the original flash version and a bit of the mobile version years ago, was having fun for a while until i came across these things!
Sabotage powers are absolutely nonsense in this game, like, really? Reduce range/attack speed? Stun a tower for 8 seconds? Stun all towers? Who the heck even came up with that idea? How did no one in the team look at this and said "Uh, maybe this is not a good idea"?! A single use of these things is enough to let a rush pass and ruin an entire match! How is that even damn fair at all?
There's no strategy when you can literally DISABLE opponent's towers and let every bloon pass! It's just not possible for your opponent to react to such a thing! It's just completely stupid!

And don't even get me started on the Kidnap card! If stunning opponent's towers wasn't enough, now there's one to literally get rid of it?! How in the heck did anyone think that was a good idea?!
Refunding the price means basically nothing in Cards because we cannot choose the tower we want to build, getting the money back doesn't mean we can get a defense equal to that we had before! And i didn't even mention having enough time to rebuild the defense before it's too late. (My opinion on other Sabotage styled cards is the same!)

The other powers are ok, Eco Powers help build income and cash, Track Powers help catch bloons that slip through or defend some unexpected bloon types, Tower Powers help giving our defenses a boost in tight situations, or weakening the vicious blimps, and even Bloons Powers which, while being pretty offensive, all they do is improve on the already offensive aspect of the game itself.
All these powers affect and improve aspects that were already a part of the game, but Sabotage Powers on the other hand do nothing other than screwing up the opponent in the cheesiest ways possible.

Bro I've been saying the exact same thing for so long now but NK doesn't listen, and most of the people on the forums just respond with troll stuff like "GIT GUD" and crap like that. I like the Bloons games in general but this one is obviously geared to give paying players a substantial advantage and also some of the mechanics in place are questionable at best and completely broken at worst. They also nerf stuff that doesn't even need to be nerfed at all and ignore things that are clearly OP. Many of the powers are a total joke and game-winning if used at the right time, especially with a kidnap card. It's laughable how silly it is and in order to have a chance of maintaining a decent win rate in this game you have to know the meta intimately and be a total tryhard because if you deviate from the meta and show any sort of independent thinking you will just get owned, period. That said I still do enjoy the game but sometimes it makes me want to rage, especially when playing against players with millions and millions of medallions because they will use literally any sneaky/cheesy/OP trick they can to get a win.

[ECS]

Alright, again back here just to say how stupidly b***s*** Sabotage powers and cards are!
As i'm climbing up the leaderboards and going against "stronger" (i.e. stupid, since they just exploit the cheesiest strategies) players, it seems i can't ever get a game where the other player isn't trying everything they can to screw me over. I literally had to develop some sabotage strategies myself just to have a chance at winning (which i still only use when the other player shows their intention, because i'd rather have a nice match whenever possible).

Today was a perfect example of how stupid this game became.
I just lost 2 cards games in a row to 2 different players who used the exact same stupid strategy because it's literally impossible to counter these stupid powers!
The guy sent Camo Leads, i had a Cannon Ship, then he kidnapped it, i got another Cannon Ship, he used Knock Out and i had nothing else i could do to counter that! I couldn't draw more cards in time and i had none that i could play.
It's just like that, doesn't matter how good our defenses are, Kidnap + Knock Out all the way and we're done! (And the worst part is the fact Kidnap is a card, which means the player gets infinite uses AND it doesn't take a power slot)

Really, it's insane how anyone ever thought this was a good idea! If we can literally disable and destroy opponent towers then what's even the point of having a tower defense game in the first place? We can't play TOWER DEFENSE if the strategy is to DISABLE THE OTHER PLAYER'S DEFENSES! It just doesn't come to my mind how no one inside NK offices or whatever ever just told the others "Hey, maybe this is not a good idea"

I remember years ago in the NK forums people discussing about the possibility to add bloons that stun towers to BTD, and the answer NK themselves gave was always "We don't think this is fair to have bloons affect players' towers". Then all of a sudden they change their mind?

Really, i love BTD games, and BTD Battles has been a game i've had a lot of fun for a long time, ever since i played the flash version, but there are days where i'm just one click away from uninstalling it because of how stupid it is!

Originally posted by ```skunk3```:

Bro I've been saying the exact same thing for so long now but NK doesn't listen, and most of the people on the forums just respond with troll stuff like "GIT GUD" and crap like that. I like the Bloons games in general but this one is obviously geared to give paying players a substantial advantage and also some of the mechanics in place are questionable at best and completely broken at worst. They also nerf stuff that doesn't even need to be nerfed at all and ignore things that are clearly OP. Many of the powers are a total joke and game-winning if used at the right time, especially with a kidnap card. It's laughable how silly it is and in order to have a chance of maintaining a decent win rate in this game you have to know the meta intimately and be a total tryhard because if you deviate from the meta and show any sort of independent thinking you will just get owned, period. That said I still do enjoy the game but sometimes it makes me want to rage, especially when playing against players with millions and millions of medallions because they will use literally any sneaky/cheesy/OP trick they can to get a win.

Honestly, it just makes me sad and disappointed to see what NK has become over the years.
I've been playing NK games since 2012, so that makes it 8 years by now, and i've always admired NK so much as a game developer company. I remember in the early days, when they listened to their players, and they even set up the "What's Up at Ninja Kiwi" blog posts to keep in touch with their playerbase. They'd always communicate with us and decide together what was the best for the games. I remember specifically following the development of SAS4 ever since it launched in open beta, and even contributing in the forum discussions.

But that's all in the past now, i see. Ever since i joined Steam and found NK games in here, it's all been a huge disappointment. It was sad to see how much NK has changed, and how they're showing they don't care about us anymore.

First it was SAS4.
I have played every version of SAS4 up to now, first the awesome flash version, ever since it came out back in 2014 (i think), and i saw it growing, slowly but steady, to be what i still consider the best version of the game, by far. Then i started playing the mobile version in 2016, and while it has significantly less content than the flash version, i still enjoyed playing it, i saw it getting a few updates to add new content, but then those just stopped, leaving the mobile version significantly behind the flash one.
Then, came the end of 2017, and SAS4 Steam version was announced, i was really happy to see that, as it seemed SAS4 was finally getting some attention again, and, being another PC version, we could finally see a definite SAS4 version, that would be up to the flash version's glory!
But the reality was far from that, and SAS4 Steam version is just a lazy port of the mobile version that really lacks in content and quality of life features (especially for a PC version, since the mobile UI just doesn't work well for PC). It's clear it was released just as a cash grab with overpriced premium features. And what's worse, up to this day, 2 years later, it has never gotten an update, and i'm sure it never will, because NK has shown they don't care for SAS4, other than adding new premium weapons.

And now, it's BTD Battles, where they just drop some updates with features, that, as you perfectly described, "are questionable at best and completely broken at worst." (and i'm pretty sure it's the worst case) and don't listen to the feedback on it.
It doesn't help that many players (especially the "pro players", if we can even call them that) just accept these broken mechanics as the new meta and exploit the heck out of it to ruin the game for everyone else, and then just come with the same "git gud, it's easy" stupidity whenever we complain about it.

[```skunk3```]

Their favorite tactic when debating the merit these broken strategies is to point out something that can counter it, which is valid ONLY IF you know in advance what cheesy, broken 'strategy' someone is going to use. Like in regards to your camo bloon example... someone would just mention juggerlanche or lightning bolts but that only works if you actually have those powers/cards at your disposal at the exact moment they are needed. It's too much like rock, paper, scissors in that if you don't have just the right powers or cards in your deck at just the right time you can't possibly win. You also can't have a deck that has an equal chance of defending against all strats. I've been saying from the start that the kidnap card needs to be removed from the game because even though it refunds you the money for your kidnapped tower, that means nothing because it is often too late by that point because it is frequently used with some sort of rush and the kidnapped tower is the one that has the best chance of stopping it. Playing cards is kinda frustrating because I'm at a point now where most people are no challenge and the ones who do beat me are the ones who use the dirtiest, most cheesy tactics and unless I know that player and their strategy I get blindsided by it.