Does DW2 feels far too easy to anyone else too? / suggestions / hard mode

[Tomasz79]

For me, big part of the fun in TD games in general, and DW1 in particular was facing challenge - and overcoming it, with time. I still remember facing some new maps in DW1 for the first time and having my ass kicked, big time. Shallow Grave... The Mountain - that still sounds intimidating... Do I need to replay some old maps with runes to level up and be strong enough... or come up with better strategy/tower placement? Or both?

Now, DW2 started easy but I thought it's just to warm up new players. But tiers were rising, new maps were popping up and my experience/powerful items/skills were rising even more. Only once I faced a map that was too hard, first treasure challenge to rise 10000 gold. And I've done it on second attempt, with different strategy. Cool.
But later on... I'm destroying the highest tier, newest maps, and often with some runes already boosting difficulty, while constantly calling waves early/fighting on high level wraith waves, and still I basically win all the time.

That is unfortunately my biggest disappointment with DW2. I know I can use runes and call waves to make it harder, but best thing in DW1 and many other TD games was for me the ability to have a set challenge that does not change, and I level up/choose different approach to try and beat it. With random runes it is not the same, also if I have to guess all the time how much I need to increase the difficulty by runes to make it less easy, it's kind of strange.
And another problem - when I use runes to make maps harder, and call so many waves early/wraith it makes me earn so much xp, I'm getting more and more powerful and it actually gets worse!
This is the first game I can remember I was wishing there was a way I would earn less xp, and it's not a fun feeling.

I realize that players have different expectations, and some want to just have a relaxing fun with little challenge, or are beginners in TD genre. But there are also DW1 veterans who I imagine would really like to be challenged more, just by a base game.

So what can be done? I can alter some rules just for myself to make it harder: like mandatory unlock any new trap that is available, spreading my gems more and not specializing in few traps like I did. I could also limit allowed item used to 6, or 3, or none even, but this would take away from the game.

To Groquest/devs: I'm thinking, and hoping - is there any chance of making the game harder - or adding a hard mode for TD/DW1 veterans? Even something rough, that would not take crazy amount of your time (if it's even possible). It would be fantastic.

Anyone have similar feeling/have some suggestions?

ps. Just a note, I was sick for a few days and mostly played close after game release. I was reading through most patch notes thought, and realize there is balancing going on, just not a revolution I felt the difficulty would need to undergo.

[TSP]

It felt to me that the player "power level" was rising at a much faster pace than the game's difficulty was. Sure, you have wrath levels (capped at 7 when I started) and runes, but even these were trivial after you get a good early unique item and a few synergistic items.

Runes and uncapped wrath levels started making things a lot more challenging (But again, these are very unbalanced, some runes are easy as hell while others are just unfair to the max, such as +300% movement speed). But once you beat one of those maps, you get a boatload of experience handed to you, so your power level rises even faster and you need to use even more wrath levels and stronger runes for the game's difficulty to keep up with you.

And that just kept escalating, way too fast, you end up with billions of xp for a map even after the rune skill xp% nerf and nothing to oppose you if you pick the "right" runes.

[Klokinator]

I have several ideas after 70 hours ingame over this weekend about how to fix this game. Wish I could sit for a chat with Groquest and team. I bet we could hash something out pretty quickly.

[Tomasz79]

Originally posted by Agent Orange:

But once you beat one of those maps, you get a boatload of experience handed to you, so your power level rises even faster and you need to use even more wrath levels and stronger runes for the game's difficulty to keep up with you.

Yes, exactly this.

[Tomasz79]

Originally posted by Klokinator:

I have several ideas after 70 hours ingame over this weekend about how to fix this game. Wish I could sit for a chat with Groquest and team. I bet we could hash something out pretty quickly.

Hey, anything's possible. This game have amazing potential imo, but it has so much going on, it's chaos.

[Klokinator]

The problem with DW2, that I can see... is how it handles difficulty.

In DW1, stats were fixed. You could buff your traps, but only to a certain predictable point. It only helped you so much. Stats were limited. There was no enemy weight statistic, so push and throw traps did the same thing every time. Enemies had set speed, so you didn't have to work around them.

I think the game needs a total overhaul of the core modifers.

1. No more weight stat. It kills push traps and etc.
2. No more movement speed.
3. Limit the levels of traps to, say, 500. This also helps give more value to things like a +3 chakram ability. What does +3 matter when my Chakram trap is level 2,999?

This alone will make throwing and pushing traps more valuable. You can still have haste totems, invincibility totems, etc. You can still have enemies with huge HP, enemies that grow their damage resistance, which will also make throwing traps valuable again.

These three changes would prooooobably fix most issues I've seen.

[Klokinator]

By the way, I think the weight statistic is the most important and limiting factor in DW2.

Ex: If you used a spring trap in DW1, it would throw enemies 1-3 tiles away. They could land in the pit beside the path, or potentially jump the pit and land safely on the other side. You had to get creative with barricades.

But now? Enemy weight could be 100% higher, and your trap has... what? 200% physical force? No force bonus? What do those mean? How do they interact?

Damage is easy. I can look at an enemy's HP and my trap's damage and see what it does. But weight? It's a shot in the dark. I can't see their weight easily, nor is the stat for my physical force bonus listed anywhere. Even if it were, I have no idea how it's calculated.

In fact, I would say that botching weight is the single worst aspect of DW2, knock on wood. Enemy speed and unlimited trap levels come as a close second and third.

[Groquest]

Long time no see, Tomasz79. First of all, thank you for the feedback.

The general reception is that the game is too easy and unchallenging. Indeed, we sought to tune the difficulty down from the original. But the main issue here is that the player's level - firepower curve is much steeper than the tier - monster difficulty curve.

I've been trying to match the two curves by decreasing the steepness of player's firepower curve, but it seems to annoy the players when their favorite trap gets nerfed so I'm thinking of another ways to iron out the issue. I must admit that the game needed more play testing and balancing. We're working very hard to make up for the mistakes. We'll be releasing a major balance change update soon. I hope it will make up to the disappointment.

[Klokinator]

Groquest, I sent you a friend request. If you're willing to chat with me, a fellow game designer, I might be able to offer more specific suggestions. I can offer them without chatting, but it's better if I get feedback immediately regarding the complexity of the code and what would be easier to change or harder.

[Groquest]

Thank you very much for the kind offer, Klokinator. I reall appreciate it. But my English is very slow so chatting would be an ineffective way to communicate with me. I would prefer that you lay out the suggestions like you were doing before.

[Klokinator]

Oh, wow, I had no idea. Your English is very good!

[Tomasz79]

Hi Groquest :)
It's great to hear what you said. I just want to say, that my dissapointment is with part of the game, and still love Dungeon Warfare series, and I hope and care for DW2 to be the best it can be. And it's awesome to see how active you are after release.

Also hopefuly you will have a fruitful exchange with Klokinator.

[Flesh Engine]

There is also an issue with the Skills, mainly the Singularity skill is a bit too much I think. Currently, I have it at +700% Rearm Speed, which yields a 0.35 ish cooldown on my lvl 130 Bolt Trap. Now, this might seem "ok" since I can only have one, but with my items the Bolt Trap does like 2k damage (per bolt), it pierces enemies and adds about 5% of target's life (up to the "base damage", whatever that is), which basically amounts to about 25k damage per second, piercing...

My concern with the Singularity skill is that, not only is my lonely Bolt trap in 'machine gun' mode, point for point, this is the largest Rearm Speed increase in the entire Skill tree (yielding +10% per point) BUT since actually my lonely Bolt Trap has the best placing in my kill zone on each map, I only had to pay for ONE, while it actually performs like I had ~8 (not entirely true ofc) on the same tile... While I don't know that cost of the traps out of my head, let's say it's 2.5k gold, that onetime investment is actually worth ~8 times that amount...

This only gets worse when you consider stuff like the Teleport Trap (mine has 0.44 cooldown), the Shockwave Generator fires 3 times per second, Black Hole (0.55) and the Dart Trap redefines the meaning of gattling cannon with its ludicrous 0.07 cooldown and built in knockback from the upgrade.

And yes, I have the unique that allows me to field TWO traps instead of one affected by Singularity which further compounds the effect...

Making it to Endless (no runes) wave ~360 with two Bolt Traps, some slimes, the Freezer, Blackhole, Soul Trap (Impending Doom is awesome) and then with 2 Teleporters to guard the Portal was more an excercise in patience then an actual challenge. (I did cover most walls with Soul Traps to prevent Wall Totems but left some for the Shockwave Generators to farm xp, good tip ;)).

Since there is no cap on Singularity, every 10 points you're about doubling your effectiveness for those traps, both regarding count and cost. Those same 10 points in the Brute skill to increase Rearm yields a measly +10% on each trap, which means to even out you'd need 10 built traps for the same effect (not including Link)...

I'd suggest capping Singularity to +300% (which is about lvl 30), this is still awesome but not as rediculous, it's still the best investement but now it's no longer the ONLY investement you'd make after maxing the XP & Gold increases...

Which leads me to point out a problem with the Greed skill Bribery, since this is a requirement for Avarice, you cannot remove it if you'd still want to use it. Avarice also required Scavenge, now, when playing Endless, you'll only lose if you lost all your lives, which Bribery tries to prevent, until you have no more Gold to cover the loss. As such, if you lose naturally on Endless, you're being 'forced' to miss the XP benefit you'd gain from Scavenge.

Unless this was intended, it would be nice if you could shuffle the skills around a bit so that if I want to play endless, I'd have to option to switch off Bribery in order to benefit from Scavenge while still enjoying Avarice's gold increase.

[Klokinator]

In the lategame, Singularity only ends up being useful for dual teleporters or hex traps, to me at least. Once you hit level 500+ in any given trap that has rearm speed, they start hitting so fast it doesn't matter.

[Flesh Engine]

But what you're talking about is the "late late late" game, I'm talking about the "game" where you have enough gems to do like one trap to lvl 150 or something.
That's less then half the level you're hinting at, besides, since you can just move the points later on, I'm not sure that your point has any validity to the issue I'm reporting...