The difficulty spikes of 5.1-2-3

[Imperatordavius]

So i've been noticing that a common problem with the recent Matabele Ant levels is the huuuuge spike in difficulty compared to previous ones.

Fusca ants were easy peasy beginner levels as, all you had to focus on were the enemies/food to dig out and treat it like a puzzle. It gave you plenty of time to figure things out and learn the game

The Rufa Ants while, a new shake up and inviting us to go look around our nest outside in the real world teaching us new challenges, but still gave us 'plenty' of time to get our feet wet and teach us to prioritize certain things, such as going for the food further down and then scaling upward as the water rises, or go instantly to the closest food but risk losing the food down the line due to water.

Atta Cephalotes, while more complicated at least gave us 'time' to learn the ropes before pressuring us to win. The biggest notice of this being in 3.2 when you had a massive bar filling up of the army ants before they'd reach the line where your nest was located.

Solenopsis Invicta was when things became more hectic, but you were still given 'time' to prepare, it warned you ahead of time and gave you fair notice of the incoming and very dangerous threat. Furthermore unless you actually 'disturbed' the other nests in 4.1, they wouldn't agro onto you until a couple days have passed, most notably the big headed ants.

However, Megaponera Analis, gives you next to 'zero' notice of the dangers approaching, even as the termites in 5.3 you get little to 'no' notice of a danger approaching other then when the stink ants are digging. It doesn't exactly let you get your 'feet wet' and gives you time to prepare for a problem that's to come. Unless you know its coming, you have no warning or time to prepare, and even if you do, its down to "did you get enough resources" to prepare and if not, well too bad here it comes.

in 5.1 you're learning how to raid the termites, not over extend, understanding how to time your attacks and figuring out what the new soldier type your unlocking does. However you get only '1' night and 1 morning to get enough food safely before the first boss shows up and storms your nest.

If perhaps the first night the spider appeared and tried breaking into the nest, but doesn't because the nest is too small but makes enough of a dent that it returns the 'next' day, thus kicking off the barrage of boss insects, then it might alert the player that "they need to prepare" and gives them time to plan/prepare and makes it feel 'fair'.

In 5.2 you see your surrounded by 4 termite mounds, they aren't nearly as upgraded as the previous ones were, so you can scavange and pick, but the driver ants attack in such a huge swarm ...

(it really puts the army ants to shame, i keep saying this, but i'll keep saying it, i remember first seeing the army ants when they dropped and now they look 'barely' like a swarm and more like a single filed line of school children with how slow they spawn in and how spaced they are'

... that they look too imposing to even 'want' to take on even by the 3rd nest coming under assault. They break the termite mounds too quickly once the first mound falls, and since you can't freely raid the termite mounds or do so easily with the fact that creatures keep crossing the lines, such as scorpions, and interrupting the raid, costing you 'precious' food, that unless you scramble and 'perfectly' time your routes you'll 'never' get enough to take on the driver ant swarm before its too late.

Seriously i was following a guide that played on brutal 'with' challenge mode on and even then, i barely had enough to hold the line while playing on extreme w/o the challenge on, i had to let them raid the termites and let them bring some food to me just to survive the mission.

Perhaps if they had a bar filling up with either scavanged insects or termites, determining the ferocity/numbers in the attack line of the driver ants heading to the next mound or during the next mound, which reduced with you regularly raiding or killing the driver ants en route, encouraging you to 'raid' the raiders, and helping you buy time to protect the mounds that might make it fairer.

And the 'termite' mission is the worst sinner of the trio, it doesn't give you enough warning to when its 'too hot'. Like, i get '5' seconds warning before its too hot? i see the other colony still harvesting despite mr. narator telling us that the sun is starting to bake the ground, and they don't turn around to their nest until the countdown hits 0. Another night i get like 15 seconds, and the next it may be 6, it should give us a 30 second countdown flat so we have time to get our furthest termites home.

I think 'that' might be the problem with the new levels, they don't feel fair because the player isn't given 'time' to prepare or at least, wiggle room to get their feet wet before they're pulled out of the kiddy pool and thrown down the first water slide into the ocean and expected to start diving for gold. Maybe extend the time period in the morning/afternoon so that there's more time to raid, i believe the time atm is like 1 minute before it goes full day or full night, if it were 3 it'd feel fairer or more wiggle room.

But, maybe i'm an idiot and have no idea wtf i'm talking about~ you judge me~

[e.]

You should add a TLDR section, not many people will bother reading something this long, even if it's well structured like this

[RealDeathClawProductions]

Originally posted by Imperatordavius:

It really puts the army ants to shame, i keep saying this, but i'll keep saying it, i remember first seeing the army ants when they dropped and now they look 'barely' like a swarm and more like a single filed line of school children with how slow they spawn in and how spaced they are'

I think what they were trying is do is that since you need to kill Army Ants to decrease the bar eventually there will be so few that you become unable to push them back until it eventually reaches your nest.
Do agree it really doesn't fit the image of a Army Ant raiding line though. Now that being said...

I disagree that 5.3 is the worst sinner of the three, it gives you quite a bit of time to prepare for the raids and there's a bit of time before the Matabeles actually attack (even when they actually reach the nest), I'm also not too bothered by the heating mechanics since it doesn't immediately kill the termites (though I do agree that the warning before things get to hot should be increased as a whole to around 30 seconds).

Personally I think that 5.2 is the worst out of the three, you get very little time to prepare for when the Driver Ants introduce themselves to the map, and 5.1 while much kinder in that regard isn't too much better.
As a whole I do agree that the time periods to prepare for the threats should be increased (at least for 5.1 and 5.2).

[ZoraergazU]

OK, i DONT know what exactly im doing correctly on 5.2 but i can assure you that i BEAT it on the last termite colony.
20 soldier and upgraded and about 20 medic ant upgraded, i have 12 worker ant to go and gather food at the destroyed termite colonies. if you are unaware their QUEEN IS NOT EATEN! i noticed that and basically have a proper food supply.

the driver ant comes in waves, i always end up having to let go of the first wave and attack second, let go 3rd wave and attack 4th.
if soldier start dying let go of the pheromone marker, and protection, only gather food.


at the last mound i did the same, except with tons of food and workers basically only gatherand doesnt protect/attack. let go the first wave, kill the 2nd and WAIT for the previous wave to come with food.

its a really neat dance if you did it right but idk how to make a proper guide for it.

[Imperatordavius]

Originally posted by ZoraergazU:

OK, i DONT know what exactly im doing correctly on 5.2 but i can assure you that i BEAT it on the last termite colony.
20 soldier and upgraded and about 20 medic ant upgraded, i have 12 worker ant to go and gather food at the destroyed termite colonies. if you are unaware their QUEEN IS NOT EATEN! i noticed that and basically have a proper food supply.

the driver ant comes in waves, i always end up having to let go of the first wave and attack second, let go 3rd wave and attack 4th.
if soldier start dying let go of the pheromone marker, and protection, only gather food.


at the last mound i did the same, except with tons of food and workers basically only gatherand doesnt protect/attack. let go the first wave, kill the 2nd and WAIT for the previous wave to come with food.

its a really neat dance if you did it right but idk how to make a proper guide for it.

Oh nobody is doubting its possible, and it takes some steep learning yes, but what i am saying is that you basically have to follow a certain pattern and do things in a 'correct' way in order to stand a chance, and the game doesn't give you much 'wiggle room' to variate or experiment, i 'did' defeat it and at the time when i 'was' struggling i never knew the termite queens could be harvested, i just assumed we could only get food from the termite soldiers/workers.

[Rutherford Gaming]

The 5.1 Sun Spider less than half the health as a wolf spider (kinda pathetic considering it is a "titan") and the narrator tells you well beforehand that it is coming and you should stay underground. If you can't fight it off you probably were losing anyway. 5.1 doesn't become difficult until the centipede and is a great introduction to the Matebele ants.

I agree that 5.2 was kinda lame but it was very fair and probably the easiest of the three levels. You aren't forced to attack the ants, although if you see a weakness in their lines you can even steal some of their food. This level is fine although I think it could use a rework.

5.3 was by far the most fair and I really don't understand your complaints about it. I cleared it first try and it was fun all the way through.

[e.]

Originally posted by Rutherford Gaming:

The 5.1 Sun Spider less than half the health as a wolf spider (kinda pathetic considering it is a "titan") and the narrator tells you well beforehand that it is coming and you should stay underground. If you can't fight it off you probably were losing anyway. 5.1 doesn't become difficult until the centipede and is a great introduction to the Matebele ants.

I agree that 5.2 was kinda lame but it was very fair and probably the easiest of the three levels. You aren't forced to attack the ants, although if you see a weakness in their lines you can even steal some of their food. This level is fine although I think it could use a rework.

5.3 was by far the most fair and I really don't understand your complaints about it. I cleared it first try and it was fun all the way through.

I think the main reason people are complaining about how hard it is is that it forces you to be a bit more strategic than
"place marker"
"remove marker"
"attacc ant"

[Mia Ishata]

On 5.2 My issue is, when the first nest was lost i tried to check if anything was left in there, since the ant wave stopped and tried to scoop up the remains. But for some reason all neutral critters, scorpions and all seem programmed to charge at you if you try to pick the queen clean in the aftermath, wiping the entire attempt i did it and was totally unneccesary.