Why Make The Game Less Fun?

[EliTheRev]

I get when developers play their own game and they consider it too easy ... I mean, they created it and they know all the ins and outs and maybe to them it seems simple but the game was never easy ... it was always the right balance of challenging and worth the struggle and fun but now ... Norse Lands ... why did you do this?

"Well, our designer Alan wants you to diversify your strategy with more types of units and towers. Your archer army may no longer stand up to the challenge!" - from the patch notes.

Hey Alan ... the reason we all used archers was because no other units were truly useful. Pikemen never show up fast enough. The knights with the archers behind them had archers who didn't even hunt or do anything else. Archers were the only truly useful unit aside from the catapult with fire barrels. So instead of nerfing the only good unit, why not give us units that are more helpful so that we can create the balance you are FORCING us to use? The berserker guys suck just as much as the suicidal knights ... and they are expensive and not worth the cost. Walls are so brittle all of my coins go to maintenance ...

You have succeeded in taking what I always felt was a beautiful and fun game and turning it into something punishing and unfun. If I wanted that kind of gameplay I'd play Dark Souls or some other kind of game that brings out all the forum jerks who only say "git gud" when you complain or ask for help or ... even worse ... a game that was singleplayer and now forces you to play coop. Kingdom was not that kind of game before ... why is it now?

I don't understand why developers do this. What is the incentive to ruin something or make something so unfun that players really want to abandon it? What in the developers mind makes them say, hey lets make the walls useless and lets make archers less effective, and lets make the blood moons even more punishing ... I really want the devs to answer because I don't understand the mentality behind these changes and I want to understand why you would do these things ... I honestly do.

I never thought Kingdom was easy and maybe that was because I was bad at it but it was always something I worked hard on and I felt rewarded for doing that. I felt good at the end of each DLC even if it was a frustrating number of weeks or months that it took me to make progress. It was always tweaking my plan or trying something new that made the difference ... it was never RUSHING and SUFFERING and having no choice of strategy like Norse is now.

I have played Kingdom since day 1 all those many years ago. I have loved it. I have recommended it. I have always come back to it every time a new DLC comes out. It has always been, to me, a perfect game ... I just don't understand why the developers would take it apart and remake it into something like this.

I just want to understand

[procnessil]

If you have a lot of spare coins then a single berserker is much more powerful than several archers. Cost in coins is not the only factor when evaluating defenses. Cost in people is also important

[AerialW360]

Berserkers have two big problems:

1. They don't run when losing their axes.

2. Are useless against breeders because they only resist two punches.

[Tamerlane]

The norse builder with a shield is stupidly OP at times. Took out a few Greed before walking back to the wall.

Being proactive with defense is nice and all but mobility is crap in this game. Being given offensive skills is nice but not much use if you're too slow and too far. Winter is an awful slog and turns into a waiting game running to every bush to activate with coin.

[solol]

the biggest complaint i have after beating the game a few times (coop) is the freaking banker. Shorter window? Sure. but if there are any units walking around while you're trying to shove coins into her butt then GG. I think the game is definitely harder and it's not the same "set and forget" playstyle of the previous games where you can just let your units handle night defense on their own.

[coldazrael]

"Well, our designer Alan wants you to diversify your strategy with more types of units and towers. Your archer army may no longer stand up to the challenge!"

I've been playing two crowns ever since my cousin introduced it and let's compare how "diverse" is the unit strategy between original, deadlands and norse lands.

---- Defending the edge of kingdom
Original :
1) Archers for backbone of defense
2) Catapult for mid ranged AOE Attacks with rocks/fire barrel for setting greedlings and breeders on fire
3) Ballista Tower for long ranged safe AOE Attacks (breeders can't retaliate with giant bolts) - built within the walls
4) Archer Towers for crippling the wave of greeds before reaching the walls - built outside the walls
5) Monarch's Mount for defense support (Griffin for pushing back greedlings and breeders, or Fire Lizard for setting greedlings and breeders on fire in case fire barrels are out/not available)

Deadlands :
1) Archers for backbone of defense
2) Catapult for mid ranged AOE Attacks with rocks/fire barrel for setting greedlings and breeders on fire
3) Ballista Tower for long ranged safe AOE Attacks (breeders can't retaliate with giant bolts) - built within the walls
4) Archer Towers for crippling the wave of greeds before reaching the walls - built outside the walls
5) Monarch's Mount (Golem for summoning barriers,or Fire Lizard for setting greedlings and breeders on fire in case fire barrels are out/not available)
6) Monarch's Ability (Miriam for freezing the greedlings and slowing the breeder's punch rate, or Zangetsu for attack speed boost for all defending units, Alfred for doubling the abilities of mounts)

Norse lands :
1) Archers for.. defense support - damaging hermit crab greeds that got stumbled after charge and killing some greedlings that are spawned by breeders
2) Fire Tower for backbone of defense as well AOE attacks and for setting greedlings and breeders on fire - built outside the walls as far as possible in order to maximize the fire DoT
3) Monarch's Mount - Sleipnir, just Sleipnir. Charges and pushes back greedlings and breeders as well for crippling hermit crab greeds. And of course not to forget the fire trails spawned after the charge for setting greedlings and breeders on fire
4) Monarch's Artifact (Thor's Hammer for randomly damaging multiple greedlings, breeders or hermit crab greeds with lighting strikes, or Hel's Skull for summoning ghosts - useful for both damaging or as meat shield)
5) Shield Wall Rally for stopping hermit crab greed's charge attack, leaving them stumbled and vulnerable

---- Attacking Greed Portals
Original : Good ol' sending the two or more squads of a knight and 4 archer soldiers, Monarch can also support the squad with Griffin, Fire Lizard or Warhorse's ability.

Dead Lands : Same Good ol' two or more squad dispatch, Monarch is able to support the squad with both mount's abilities and their own abilities. Zangetsu shines the most since the attack speed buff helps alot to destroy portals, Miriam approaches more defensive support with her freezing ability, Alfred's approach can be defensive or offensive depends on the mount he had with his cloning ability, Gebel's ability is useful for quickly head back to the kingdom in case the counter attack wave strikes from the opposite side.

Norse Lands : 1) Sleipnir (again), 2) Hel's Skull. Why would you waste a squad anyway if the monarch is literally a one-man army?

---- Exploring the Island (Bonus)
Original :
Simply Griffin, high stamina, above average sprinting speed, able to graze everywhere, that's all.

Dead Lands :
Beetle or Stag, above average stamina and sprinting speed, runs faster within woods backed with Gebel's bat transformation ability for high speed boost as well to avoid greeds. Unicorn works just fine in case most of trees in the island has been chopped down since unicorn runs faster in plains.

Norse Lands : Sleipnir (and again..), all that OP abilities I mentioned Sleipnir also have high stamina, high speed both sprinting AND walking, the only setback is Sleipnir grazes on grass which can be problematic during winter. Other alternative is Freyja's Cat Chariot, hella speed boost passive that literally make this mount the fastest in game, yet lower stamina compared to Sleipnir but able to graze everywhere just like griffin, which can be useful during winter.

--------
I have no idea what sort of diverse strategy you mentioned while most things I do is just Sleipnir-ing because that is the most effective way to survive during late game. Regardless, I'm not saying norse lands is not fun, it is fun but I still prefer original and deadlands. I'd hope there is also 6th land on both original and dead lands as well.

PS : Didn't mention berserkers because they are too pricey during early game and useless during endgame.

[Kaezeribato]

Why so many people say that berzerker are bad when they can clean entire army of breeder? If you complain about the cost then you have a realy bad economy two farm let you have enouth coins to build dozen of them in a few day...
It's obvious that if you use only one or two Berzerker at day 80 they wont be of use... It's the same for archer.
4 Berzerker a single fire tower and less than ten archer will clear a bloodmon at day 50.
When in the other dlc or the base game you will need three dozen of archer your catapult and multiple tower outside your wall.

I know many people are too lazy to learn anything, and that if they cant win without making any effort they will say that the probleme come from the game, but seriously Norse Land is not hard, and the way you have to play is totaly diferent.
You dont just spam archer ad vitam eternam without having to take any risk.

Edit:
It's no wonder that so many dev just make copy/past of the same game again and again with the minimal dificulty they can.

[Phaeron Seherekh]

Originally posted by Kaezeribato:

Why so many people say that berzerker are bad when they can clean entire army of breeder? If you complain about the cost then you have a realy bad economy two farm let you have enouth coins to build dozen of them in a few day...
It's obvious that if you use only one or two Berzerker at day 80 they wont be of use... It's the same for archer.
4 Berzerker a single fire tower and less than ten archer will clear a bloodmon at day 50.
When in the other dlc or the base game you will need three dozen of archer your catapult and multiple tower outside your wall.

I know many people are too lazy to learn anything, and that if they cant win without making any effort they will say that the probleme come from the game, but seriously Norse Land is not hard, and the way you have to play is totaly diferent.
You dont just spam archer ad vitam eternam without having to take any risk.

Edit:
It's no wonder that so many dev just make copy/past of the same game again and again with the minimal dificulty they can.

I mean its still just spam archers, towers, and now especially the mount ability. archers just need to be spammed much harder and from the consensus I have gotten actually are somewhat useful in late game when spammed into the they are unidentifiable mass of sprites unlike berserkers who need to be spammed effectively harder.

[coldazrael]

Originally posted by Kaezeribato:

Why so many people say that berzerker are bad when they can clean entire army of breeder? If you complain about the cost then you have a realy bad economy two farm let you have enouth coins to build dozen of them in a few day...
It's obvious that if you use only one or two Berzerker at day 80 they wont be of use... It's the same for archer.
4 Berzerker a single fire tower and less than ten archer will clear a bloodmon at day 50.
When in the other dlc or the base game you will need three dozen of archer your catapult and multiple tower outside your wall.

I know many people are too lazy to learn anything, and that if they cant win without making any effort they will say that the probleme come from the game, but seriously Norse Land is not hard, and the way you have to play is totaly diferent.
You dont just spam archer ad vitam eternam without having to take any risk.

Edit:
It's no wonder that so many dev just make copy/past of the same game again and again with the minimal dificulty they can.

Well obviously they are able to clean entire army of breeders, that I agree with you, perhaps the ratio is 1 breeder : 4-5 berserkers supported with let's say 10 archers. But that's not the point why the berserkers are bad. From my own viewpoint here are the reason :
1) They are slow melee units that is leeroy-ing through the walls when attacking, exposing themselves to greeds that are obviously going to retaliate.
2) When the shield wall rally is called, they can't even chill and still bursting through the shield wall formation.
3) They took extra time to be renewed in case if they are turned to vagrant/citizen. You have to go back to your town hall then to potion vendor, that is 2 trips and not to forget you can only stock 2 potions on the vendor. This situation goes even worse if your kingdom is big.
4) When berserkers were knocked back they become worker again when they picked up their axe, which means you will have to buy back the potion. Comparing to Archers and pikemen, they will returned to their original state if they picked up their weapon when they were knocked back.
5) I don't have to say it when winter comes.

Blood moon is very unlikely appears during day 50, blood moon usually appears during 2 days before the change of season which is every 16 days. Are you mistaking blood moons with counterattack wave? Regardless I see no need for berserkers be used for dealing with blood moon waves or counterattack waves around day 50s. Sleipnir and Mjolnir is just enough, your monarch can even strike right in front of the spawning portal while doing hit and run.

The only moment I used berserkers is dealing with normal nightly waves when I haven't built outer-wall fire tower on the specific side that the monarch is not protecting, it was around day 68s I have 6 berserkers recruited on the opposite side of the monarch and they are all returned to citizen state within 3 days. They became useless after the fire tower is built.

In the end, it's still better to invest your money on archers instead of berserkers, especially shielded archers. To be honest let's say if berserkers were able to fish just like ninjas and pikemens I'll definitely going to recruit them most of times.

Pardon the longpost by the way :)

[Anezka890]

Originally posted by Kaezeribato:

Why so many people say that berzerker are bad when they can clean entire army of breeder? If you complain about the cost then you have a realy bad economy two farm let you have enouth coins to build dozen of them in a few day...
It's obvious that if you use only one or two Berzerker at day 80 they wont be of use... It's the same for archer.
4 Berzerker a single fire tower and less than ten archer will clear a bloodmon at day 50.
When in the other dlc or the base game you will need three dozen of archer your catapult and multiple tower outside your wall.

I know many people are too lazy to learn anything, and that if they cant win without making any effort they will say that the probleme come from the game, but seriously Norse Land is not hard, and the way you have to play is totaly diferent.
You dont just spam archer ad vitam eternam without having to take any risk.

Edit:
It's no wonder that so many dev just make copy/past of the same game again and again with the minimal dificulty they can.

I've seen you criticizing people all over the kingdom foruns just beacause they find aspects of the new dlc rather unbalanced and saying they are lazy to learn anything. From what I have read many people invested tons of hours into this game, they really love it and they try hard to understand the mechanincs behind it. Maybe there is one or two people who are "lazy" as you say, but to generalize that just because they disagree with some things in this new dlc is rather rude wouldn't you say? I, for instance, love to learn all new gameplay mechanics, to test all units and see everything a game has to offer. So I, for one, am not certainly lazy. I agree with almost everything @coldazrael said. Berserkers are kinda useless in my opinion too, I never used them in my playthrough and still manage to beat the game with one reign regardless. Better to just invest in archers than to waste a lot of money on berserkers. I found the dlc fun to play but there really are somethings that are very unbanlanced like the mount sleipnir for example. I'm sure some kind of update is going to be realese to address these issues by the developers. Still the dlc was pretty fun and gorgeus to look at with an amazing soundtrack. Some changes were also good like the archers who will only populate the towers on the edge or outside of your kingdom, or the knights who will defend backwards after destroying a portal, stopping any greedling from harming an archer, or seeing the shield wall against crabs. There were some pretty cool quality changes here too. So to summarize, we are pointing out things for the devs so they can improve an already great game, we are not saying the game is horrible and can you tell me how is this dlc played TOTTALLY different than the rest of the game? I mean, sure there are differences but to say it is played tottally different? Im gonna disagree with you there also.

To finalize we all are entitled to our opinions, so if someone likes the game its fine, if someone doesn't like the game is also fine. Lets not generalize and say people are lazy or they have a flawed logic. Let's be civil and discuss things with respect for others.

[[B.A.B] F A T H E R M O C K E R]

hehe,,
Most people try help and be nice
And other nag about they same thing again and again
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2668225669
i have fun ,, any else ;D

And it seems we all skipping they berserkers - and focus on archers and else matters

[procnessil]

Originally posted by Robo:

There are definitely some people attacking anyone who provides feedback about the game. Some appear to be people from Norse regions who had their feelings hurt due to "their" DLC being criticized. Some also seem like paid shills or people who possibly have a financial interest in the DLC and they have tried to drown out any feedback about the game with low quality posts with some attacking people's character.

I was honestly convinced you are talking about people who complain about the changes, until the end of the second sentence. Like the OP, who managed to get offended by the dev saying "you'll need to be more active in your defense."

I must admit, though, that I skipped most of this thread after the first few walls of text

[procnessil]

wat
Where were devs hostile?

[procnessil]

Originally posted by Robo:

It has happened on a number of occasions. I have been following these threads since Norse Lands release. I could list them all with quotes but that wouldn't be a good use of my time and I doubt you honestly care. You don't have to accept my words but they are true. Feel free to go back and review the many threads since Norse Lands release if you can't accept my claims.

Well, if you have time to make such accusations it would be good to back them up. In this case I think the burden of proof is on you.
So indeed, I don't believe you. And I have better things to do than fact checking some random guy on the internet.

[procnessil]

Topic was about the game, I made a few comments about it, the changes and my personal experience. The only thing you did was complaining about supposed attitude from the devs, while stirring flame war by calling others shills (at the same time accusing them of "attacking", lol). And when asked for more details failed to produce any. Who's not contributing to the topic?

[Varagonax]

Originally posted by procnessil:

wat
Where were devs hostile?

They weren't. One dev came in and said that Norselands was meant to be played differently, which is true, and on other posts other devs have mentioned that they were listening to player feedback. If someone got insulted about this, I missed it.

I do think there was someone who posted back that the idea behind making the game different to play was ultimately a failure, because all they did was nerf player ability without adding other options, cementing the already supposedly problematic play style of archer spam.

Originally posted by Robo:

You haven't read the thread as you have already said. You can't make the claims you are making now without having read the thread and the others where I have posted. I have made plenty of comments in the Kingdom forums pertaining to issues the Norse Lands DLC has. I wouldn't expect you to have read those either. Now instead of having better things to do, you want to argue with me about things you haven't read. Time to let it go. You are wasting your time again whining instead of having better things to do. Thanks again for your non contributions.

I tend to agree here. If you haven't been participating in the discussion, your not really able to add much and in the end, your probably just here to cause ♥♥♥♥. MOST of the people on here have genuine concerns and feedback, and others have just said "It just means your bad because I don't agree" which is just the worst kind of counter argument, akin to saying "I know you are but what am I" as a retort. Its just trying to invalidate someones argument by insinuating they don't know enough or aren't skilled enough to make valid judgements, but you don't need to be a helicopter pilot to know that if a helicopter is stuck in a tree that it probably doesn't belong there and something bad went down.

And if you can't be bothered to read and understand what people are talking about, you're probably just here to cause some ♥♥♥♥. Or at the very least your only going to be getting the vapid half arguments that aren't intelligently and politely made, which is absolutely going to skew your opinion on the post.