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Joking aside, the CW4 campaign is very easy by the standards of players who pause the game and know how to play. However, the campaign is balanced around newer players that don't use pause that much, if at all. A lot of players have trouble with multiple campaign levels, with Wallis being one of the most notable examples of this.
But your question isn't really about the standard campaign levels, you want to add an optional hard-mode to the levels. There is actually a discussion going on right now in the Developers Discord about including hard-modes in base game missions. Unfortunately the discussion is about the next KC game (may or may not be CW5), not about adding it to CW4. If you want input on how a hard-mode should be implemented for the next KC game, drop by that chat.
Everyone has a different idea of how to add difficulty; adding a time limit to the mission is not a popular method of increasing difficulty (see CW3:Farbor & CW4:Holdem 2). From what I have seen, the more popular hard missions seem to focus more on survival than pushing objectives quickly. If a hard-mode was added for campaign missions it should ideally be one of the more popular methods of implementing difficulty.
My suggestion for having a hard mode was to let the maps run without any player input for a few minutes. So Founders+4 would spawn you into Founders as if you let the map run for 4 minutes without doing anything. I like it more than 'bigger creeper numbers' because it means that map is less of a slog to get through mid/lategame but it still has the problem of once you stabilise, winning is an inevitability. Other suggestions included modifiers like reduced weapon fire rate that you could apply to campaign levels. Alternatively it could copy the hard mode that existed in (IIRC) the original CW game, double down mode, which doubled creeper generation.
That said, the game does have the ability to do exactly what you are suggesting if you want to try it out; you can enable creeper++ on the map. To do this, when you load into the map, hit shift+e to enable edit mode (this does prevent submitting scores), click the editor button bottom right, navigate to the game tab and look for the "Creeper++ Time" option (it should be 0 for maps without creeper++). This number is the delay on creeper++ increments in gameticks; set it to 9000 for a 5 minute delay. You can also modify the "Creeper++ Grace" setting to change the first creeper++ increment delay. Once you have those settings changed, hit Apply at the bottom of the editor menu and shift+e to exit edit mode. You can now play with creeper levels increasing every 5 minutes.
In regards to finding hard levels in CW4, after the campaign you could try Holdem 2 (nullify), it is a step up in difficulty but if you are the type that likes pausing a lot it shouldn't be that bad to beat. Beyond that, mark V can generate some difficult levels, #1444 (blank seed, small/insane/scarce/aggressive) and Fireswamp#1444 (seed: 'Fireswamp', small/insane/scarce/aggressive) are a pair of difficult maps you can try.
Most of the difficult levels are in Colonies, and navigating Colonies to find what you are looking for isn't easy. Some personal recommendations I have are 521:"The Omegawave of Omegadoom" by Hypnotic22 and 949:"Battlecreeper Operational" by Fireswamp (myself). But I can look for other levels depending on your preferences (vanilla vs custom units / puzzle vs mechanical / hard vs very hard vs complete nightmare / etc) if you want.
Alternatively, in the Developers Discord we also have competitions to beat maps as fast as possible, if you are interested in something like that.
In AoE2 once you have defeated the AI it will surrender, because no one wants to clean everything up when they already won. That was a major improvement from aoe1 where you had to run around the map to destroy every single unit/building. If you have won and can't be defeated the scenario should end.
I will try those, thanks.
The battleship level was more annoying than anything. I got all redon claimed before 5 min and then it was just this for 20 min: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2896897047 Patching all the holes the game randomly decides to create. Everything just made to be annoying with the intermittent "all stun" and the roughing up of the terrain around emitters so you have to put the effort in to terp every time. The challenge is watching the seconds grow longer and longer while you patch up the holes. Also the ending was a big troll. The description says "save often so you are not reset by a mistake at 30 min", but there's nothing you can do against that carving beam and the earthquake targeting your earn port. I don't know if it was bad luck or programmed that way, but the carving coincided with one of those "everything is offline now, trololol". I just ended up collecting all of my missiles in one corner and hoping it would be enough: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2896896479 Luckily it was.
I don't see much strategic choice other than get the redon fast and then never let it overfill your factory.
I assume you want a different style of map compared to Battlecreeper, and with the difficulty turned up from there. In that case you might be more interested in Hypnotic22 maps; though Hypnotic maps are more about survival than pushing quickly. The Omegawave of Omegadoom map I posted earlier is one we use to introduce players to nightmare difficulty maps if you want to give that one a try. Other than that one, 1302 "The Corner", 1191"Hand of Omega Doom Fireproof!", and 3615 "Tight Passage" and are the next ones that come to mind.
In terms of a nightmare difficulty push quickly map, Colonies 3271 "Dig Site XG-7521(Harder Version) by Zekses is the best option I can think of. Other maps with ramping difficulty or time limits are usually more puzzle maps than maps about efficient play.
If you have anything you want to specify in terms of what kind of map you want to play, feel free to say something on that. I am guessing you want something harder than Battlecreeper, standard map style (no 4rpl ideally) and focusing more on aggression than defending.
I don't think I can have a preference for type since I haven't tried different types. The battleship concept could maybe have been fine, but it was too large of a map that caused lag and too much hp. No real challange after the first 5 minutes and just loads of annoying terping. The terping in the omegawave level was better because it was used strategically and not just patching a hole.
Fireswamp really knows his stuff here, but the bottom line is the playerbase has reacted violently to many previous attempts to increase difficulty.
That's not true. For example the aoe2 ai is very good at playing the game and the difficulty comes from its mastery of the game.
A multiplier is just a very simple thing that can increase difficulty somewhat. What I'm really after is the escalation. For example the megawave map I just played had increasing size waves. Also the skimmers had a grace period of over 5 min, then launching much more often. Hard maps could have that too, a spawner that activates first time at 5 min, then maybe another that activates at 7 min. At easy difficulty maybe those first time timers are increased to 50 and 70 minutes instead or simply have them not spawn. Yes, crafting difficulty that is tunable is not always trivial. I'm suggesting they put as much effort as they want into it. The more effort the better obviously. Some effort is better than no effort.
Like I said I'm not suggesting to take away the sandbox/zen/idle nature of the game, just add a difficulty setting that you can choose to use.
In cw4 - yes. Though the problems that players have on that mission directly stem from non existent difficulty of every other mission before it. Wallis isn't even moderately difficult for anyone actually trying to play the game, instead of building units at random for an hour or two.
Mission 6, which I think is We Know Nothing, and all off the last three are the big ones. Wallis, the one you are referring to, is the most often complained about, but some people have found others to be harder.
That's not the method most games use though, and CW4 doesn't even have mechanics which allow the opponent that kind of agency.
I think the main point is just that given the number of people who don't like the difficulty that is already there, adding more difficulty is something that is unlikely to be worth the developer time. The direction CW has gone for a long time now is putting that effort instead into tools for players to develop their own maps, so that people can seek out those community maps if they want something that is harder.
I strongly disagree with you on the typical gamer wanting challenge. Most people don't, and I've seen this across game community after game community I've been involved with, including those games specifically designed to be hard. The great majority of players don't want that. Some do, but they aren't enough to carry a game.
That's again why games have difficulty settings, because it doesn't have to be one group against the other. I've played wolfenstein 3d and even back then there were difficulty settings.