First impressions of the new difficulty

[Silvertongued Devil]

First off; I enjoyed the game a fair bit even before the rebalancing (thanks Dev!) even if I never got remotely close to winning a campaign. The strategy advice linked in the forums were quite helpful but I still didn't make much progress. Perhaps more information on the effects of threat/how to mitigate it in-game would've been more helpful -- I didn't even realize why Global Threat increased until the forum post.

That being said, the nerfs -might- have gone a bit too far. The problem with the default difficulty was that the scaling went wildly out of control - especially when you were learning the game - so you were often facing endgame enemies with zombies that were woefully inadequate to do anything. Items were absolutely useful but I frequently encountered awkward moments like mines not spawning at the point of the cursor, meaning the Z.I.T. squads would just stroll through them and mow down the horde without incident. Playing my first game with the new patch I found I didn't need even mines to deal with Z.I.T.s; they weren't much of a threat at all.

I appreciate that the grinding is substantially lessened; as others have observed, it's not a free-to-play game and having access to more options to make the game easier was really desirable... in the previous difficulty. No complaints there.

I think the developer (bless him) took on a ton of criticism and decided to acquiesce with nearly everything; making everything slightly easier to obtain. These cumulative changes ended up making the game a breeze. I appreciated the earlier difficulty, even if I felt like I was slamming my head against the wall/in an unwinnable situation, because it gave me somewhere to go.


So if I may make a suggestion; cut back, a little, on some of the easier tweaks. Z.I.T.s -should- be scary. The endgame -should- be difficult, even if you're equipped for it. Perhaps focus a bit more on keeping the scaling at a point where not every nation has Hazmat/Z.I.T./Soldiers/Riot/EveryoneHasGuns by the time players get onto their third continent, but continue making it so players have to be clever/use items to achieve victory.


... And then make a mode designed to be played with the later-game modifiers where everything is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ hard. :D


Seriously though, Dev, I appreciate your efforts and the fact that you so rapidly responded to (and conversed with) the community in the wake of the initial backlash. I appreciate that it hit you hard and I'm glad you powered through it. Thanks for making the game. I'm looking forward to seeing where you go with it next.

[LotusBlade]

Difficulty should stay as it is, but should increase after you beat the game (game+, game++, etc).

[kerissakti]

Hi Silvertongued Devil,

You can increase the game's difficulty by activating new game modifiers. Some modifiers are designed to make the game more interesting and challenging, such as Friendly Fire, Increase Human Health, etc.

On top of that, we are working on adding new modifiers for players that demand harder/easier difficulty modes. So, please stay tuned

[Mike]

Personally, i thought the game was better before patch. It is now too easy.

[Calamis]

Friendly Fire makes the game even easier, why would anyone think it's the other way around? They literally shoot each other into 1 hit territory if you drop a sacrificial lamb in front of them, which means that you don't even need to spend much into attack if you choose this "perk".

And what about your own weapons? Well,you barely needed items before this patch. But now i only use them for the quests, as you don't even need to deploy all of your uniques to gain dominance anymore and can keep em for clean up.

I really hope that there will be some options to severely increase difficulty, the few present in game are absolutely meaningless as you will steam roll the planet regardless. Even when you don't rank up your zombies, completely forgo mutations or play without items whatsoever (losing out on 2/3 quest slots) . Finished the game with all of these personal handicaps and it was still a massacre. The latest patch basically negated the only dangerous thing, that being the ZITs.

So yeah, some options to buff up the difficulty by huge margins would be appreciated.

[Silvertongued Devil]

Originally posted by kerissakti:

Hi Silvertongued Devil,

You can increase the game's difficulty by activating new game modifiers. Some modifiers are designed to make the game more interesting and challenging, such as Friendly Fire, Increase Human Health, etc.

On top of that, we are working on adding new modifiers for players that demand harder/easier difficulty modes. So, please stay tuned

I always planned to.

It's just that the modifiers seem better suited to beneficial things rather than effectively handicapping yourself - it feels bad to give yourself a disadvantage with points you could otherwise use for improving your odds, you know?

I thought I'd offer some feedback since you've shown yourself to be willing to listen to it and I want the game to improve. Certainly new difficulty modes will improve things; I just think that the regular mode was somewhat over-nerfed in response to the initial negativity. I understand why that was, of course, and I sympathize with it, but we're left with the same end result regardless. You guys were close with the starting setup; just a little too brutal and grindy. Baby steps are better than giant leaps, IMO.


Either way, I hope you don't regard this as a demand or some bitter complaint; I just want to see the game improve.

[Vushe]

I feel like the difficulty of this game really just came from the tutorial not really explaining the full clear mechanics and infection mechanics. If it were more clearly explained people would probably have more gold to get upgrades and items. I try to explain it a bit in my guide, don't know if it really helps. If people didn't realize they needed full clears they'll definitely feel the pinch on upgrades which means heavier reliance on items. They would also feel a pinch on the panick meter which full clears help reduce the build up of. The fun should be from trying out the various different zombies and which ones are more fun to play with....or just find out which regular zombie is the most over powered *cough* Military Zombie *cough*.

Oh and crafting quests is a bit much...When I try to keep up with crafting quests I barely have enough commons to upgrade my Uniques :/ Or maybe that was a balancing thing...hm...

[Unkars Thug]

In my opinion, the difficulty problem should not be solved automatically, but players should select difficulty when entering a game.

All in all, games pretty fun.

[Enigmagmatic]

Originally posted by Vushe:

I feel like the difficulty of this game really just came from the tutorial not really explaining the full clear mechanics and infection mechanics. If it were more clearly explained people would probably have more gold to get upgrades and items. I try to explain it a bit in my guide, don't know if it really helps. If people didn't realize they needed full clears they'll definitely feel the pinch on upgrades which means heavier reliance on items. They would also feel a pinch on the panick meter which full clears help reduce the build up of. The fun should be from trying out the various different zombies and which ones are more fun to play with....or just find out which regular zombie is the most over powered *cough* Military Zombie *cough*.

Oh and crafting quests is a bit much...When I try to keep up with crafting quests I barely have enough commons to upgrade my Uniques :/ Or maybe that was a balancing thing...hm...

Yeah, my first couple games I was not clearing any zones fully for a very long time, and those were the games that felt nigh impossible. I had no idea if it was like Plague, Inc where it was better to spread a little bit everywhere and stay "below the radar" or what. And since it took so many attacks to actually eliminate zones it felt like I should do all the "easy" attacks first that only needed 5-15 humans killed before I went deeper on any.