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Chivalry: Medieval Warfare >  Workshop > Elko's Workshop > Horde Sandcastle > Discussions
Horde Sandcastle
Description Discussions91 Comments1485 Change Notes
Spudbar Jun 18, 2015 @ 7:51pm
Balancing for solo players/Other suggestions
Only a few servers are running this map currently. I sadly can't really play on those servers because I have bad connection from where I am. I tried playing this map solo, and it's pretty much impossible. Out of 10 attempts or more, I have only made it to the second stage once and can't make it any further. This is just a list of the issues that I am having as a solo player right now.

1. The AI is too aggressive. All the enemies gather at the gate to break it down. Once the gate is down, they will come charging after you. Once they're within range, they'll start swinging, and seeing as you're stuck with possibly the shortest ranged weapon, a breadknife, you're guarenteed to take a few hits before you can back out. Plus the few that aren't swinging can block your attack and leave you completely vulnerable. I'm not suggesting to make the AI stupid (In the original HordeTown, it was very easy to kite enemies around into spots you can easily dispatch them with, like fire as a level hazard, spikes that will instantly kill any enemy knocked into it, or into the line of fire of a ballista, and made it extremely easy to beat) however having 10 enemies run up at once, blocking and swinging for each other at the same time is something that is more or less not survivable. Try to make enemies spread out a bit more, or maybe spawn slower/be less aggressive starting out, and become more aggressive after each wave.

2. There are several hazards that you can't get rid of. Leaving the main gates (there are some items outside of the main gates) means you will be bombarded by trebuchets. Even if you don't leave the main gates, there's a lot of area where you're not behind a wall. There's two squads of skeleton archers stationed way out from the city walls, and if they can see you, they will launch flaming arrows at you no matter how far away you are and are insanely accurate. Until you can buy a ranged weapon, you're stuck with the skeletons archers.

3. There's never a clear sense of direction with the map. Obviously the main goal is to survive each wave, but what is there that you can do to help your chances? You can apparently upgrade your defences, but how? What do I get from completing quests? Where do I get torches to access the tent? There's items outside the first gates, am I really supposed to get those when there's only 10 seconds between waves as well as so many other hazards outside the first gates? What are the barrels for? It's fine to have players try to figure things out on their own, but there are too many things to try to figure out that it's unclear where to even start.

This is the only horde map on the workshop that is unique from the first HordeTown, and I would love to be able to play this version as it is taking a lot of steps in the right direction (Special waves, upgrades, more score for harder enemies, etc) however it's simply too difficult for a single player to attempt, and even with multiple people helping there's a lot of confusion as to what you're meant to do in the map.
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Showing 1-6 of 6 comments
tsebullach Jun 19, 2015 @ 3:53am 
hmmm You can tweak few map settings in separate .ini file. (bottom of the guide)
About gameplay, we created guide to this mod (in WIP state), here's the link https://docs.google.com/document/d/17PVG_GG3KhMbF9uwj3jLGmyCylNypzTSTW18HbuEow0/edit?usp=sharing

If you have any thoughts about guide, what can be improved etc. fell free to write about it.
Last edited by tsebullach; Jun 19, 2015 @ 4:01am
#1
Spudbar Jun 19, 2015 @ 2:44pm 
The guide looks good and did help a lot to understand the map better. You should add in where to find torches. Even with the guide, though, I'm still having a lot of issues with the map itself. I tried taking the fight outside the gates so that I could thin out enemy numbers and rack up some points. The skeleton archers force me to stay mobile the whole time, and randomly I'll get killed by one of the trebuchets stationed on the hill. It seems to fire whenever it wants to, and it's so silent over the other sounds of running, stabbing and arrows flying by that by the time I notice there's a giant boulder coming my way, it's because it's already killed me.

My assumption is that the trebuchets are there to prevent players from spawncamping the horde. Whatever the reason is, it's really a poor decision to have the tebuchets in the map. There's other enemies, purchasables and quests outside the first walls and depending on how close the trebuchet fires, you're not going to be able to avoid it. My suggestion to the mapmaker is to remove the trebuchets and instead have enemies drop in from over the hills, or somewhere else players can't reach or easily camp.
#2
tsebullach Jun 20, 2015 @ 3:11am 
Trebs are firing at players which are running on desert, outside of the castle. Yes, they're for the reason to stop players from running around the desert. Maybe there could be some warnings about that on the map maybe in form of alert board etc to inform new players about that.
At certain level few more enemies don't make any difference in difficulty, so trebs are better way to stop players (in my opinion).

Tips, don't fight them at desert, group them near boiling oil's, burn them, fight as often as you can 1 vs 1 (they can wreck you up easily) untill you get better weapon, use traps etc.
#3
Spudbar Jun 20, 2015 @ 3:07pm 
What about the items outside? If players aren't meant to run around out there, or even outside the gates, why put anything out there?
#4
limbo_champion Jun 21, 2015 @ 7:27am 
It's fairly easy to just avoid getting hit by trebuchets, and generally, I'd say that if you did die from a trebuchet, it's your fault.

Scenarios in which death is caused by trebuchet:

1: You are near a gate, cutting down horde, you see a red (friendly) skeleton appear next to you doing the same. If you die here, its because you should have kept you distance from the friendly, because if you are outside the gate, and a friendly skeleton approaches, you can be sure that they will end up aggro-ing a trebuchet upon you both. If you die here, it's both your faults, and you are both to blame. Them, for attracting the attention of the trebuchet, and you, for not leaving the area to save yourself.

2. You are doing the Push the Cart quest or the Capture the Area quest, and die via trebuchet. Unless you are soloing, (and have made it all the way to a quest, kudos), you should try to accomplish quests with a buddy, and I've noticed that I'll get hit by a trebuchet once, MAYBE twice during that quest. I believe Elko coded the trebuchets to fire less often during quests for this very reason, to prevent punishment for accomplishing goals. If you are able to realize you impending doom, by noticing a rock headed at you, F9 is your friend and leave the area before you die.

3. The items outside are there for a reason, to add to the challenge, all to often I'll decline the chance to run to the far tent to get the Greatsword, even with the appropriate cash, because I fear attack. That's the point of the game, to make you feel like it's nearly impossible, which it is. Occasionally DBT (Death by Trebuchet) will occur if you run out, get an item, and then turn precisely 180* to go back to the safe area. That's again, your fault. These siege weapons are unintelligent and if they get you like that, well, it's your fault for running in a predictable straight line.

#5
не делай этого Jun 22, 2015 @ 9:35pm 
the jank ai is the only real problem here, they parry my attacks from behind sometimes lol.
#6
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Showing 1-6 of 6 comments
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