Is this game at it's best point right now? Or should I wait digging in until some other updates show up?
Singleplayer and coop-wise, this game is already in its best. All the multiplayer aspect (including endless leaderboards) can still use some significant balancing though, but it doesnt make this a bad game at all. Ever since the release, i had this on my top10 games on iOS for 2015, and each update that has happened only strengthened its position.
@crystallion, Thanks fogot that elf archers stun. It still only worked with my druid/ranger and his free dryads. without the free dryads to tie them up it wouldnt have worked. The defense and skirmishes become increasingly annoying. Stil cant find a single strategy to deal with Trolls, Seige trolls, and spiders in a fog skirmish when all of those spawn in the first 2 seconds.
^You can look at utilizing Ice Mages instead of the archers as an option. If you have at least 2 Ice Mages and have their research upgrade completed these mages will keep a significant number of enemies off your walls. If you opt to take this strategy make sure you get rid of archers that can take out your mages as they are significantly a more expensive investment than the archers. 3 Elven Snipers, 2 Ice Mages and a Graybeard does wonders from your wall as long as you can keep the number of ranged enemies on the field at a low. With this wall setup, you only really need 2 pathfinders to get your snipers to Troll killer status. Also, try to experiment with Paladins. The buffs they have received made them more useful than Knights (IMO of course) with the addition of their running, and that they can stun as well. They are also immune to stuns which is a nice addition to keep them attacking and proccing stuns. Take note they deal magic damage too, so you will need some physical damage source in your strategy especially if you like taking a sniper'd up wall. A personal favorite of mine is going with 3 Paladins and a slew of Dwarven Miners.
anytime there is no fog and it's daytime I do a defense build like this: 2 elven archers, 1 grey beard, 2 dwarf riflemen, rest elven sniper I build the above units first (after maxing out bannermen) during that time I'm running disruption with the hero, especially to get the bannermen out. After that I build a ton of elven hunter, 1 pathfinder, 1 elven healer , 2 dwarf miners. It's incredibly easy and kills just about everything on spawn. Only 1 elven healer needed because its rare anything makes it to your walls. For research you can do Generals Rally, elf buff, double shot, dwarf buff. I did this all the way to wave 50 and when there was fog/night I ignored wall units for the most part and build knights instead of elven snipers and the rest was situational.
Hey, didn't the v1.2 patch notes say Human skill:Taunt now works on Trolls? I have to second what others (and I) have said about Knights or Paladins being really interesting units... especially in fog conditions (and someone smartly posted that Pathfinders are not only still effective in fog, but the graphic mark helps your hero to know where the priority targets are). A knight might stab multiple Trolls and then they're off chasing after him (usually never touch him!)
Yeah the knight's ability to kite multiple enemies is basically what his main purpose is. In the latest patch i do prefer the Paladin though. He is only able to tie up one target through his stun, but that means it's open for you to wail on with your beatstick, which is what my main playstyle is.
"a ton of elven hunter" is a really good point... I tend to unconsciously avoid them purely because they are too good. Against a host of magic immune rushers they aren't much use (a rare occurrence!), or, in fog, especially vs AoE inflicting enemies = meh, but otherwise, total awesomeness... each Hero can skill buff their damage output, as well: Human Vengence Aura, Dwarf Anvil & Steadfast Defense, Elf Eleven Arrows. It's worth noting that they defend themselves pretty well (an HC1 gotcha). The buffs from research are great too. The most ridiculous thing, though, are cases where you can keep an early-kills-bonus Captain close enough to them to buff their base damage. OMG, that plus Pathfinder and the percentage buffs, is, like you suggest for a fuller build-out with Elven Snipers, just whole-battlefield-domination! Edit: Speaking of Fog!... it was only recently explained (here) to me that the Defense boost of (Dwarf Hero skill) Steadfast Defense lasts for the full 30 seconds, so I'd never used the following trick, which works quite well for some Fog problems: after your Elven research completes, Elven Warriors are fast damage dealers in swarms, but fragile, so summon several groups at the same time to cast a (nearby) SD on them all at once. I've seen them wipe nearly everything off of a small battlefield, then storm a castle, get scattered by an AoE bomb, all taking only one point of damage, recover, and chop down the walls like it was bamboo to samurai before poofing the tower... what they accomplish in Fog I can't actually see, but the results suggest that, for 30 seconds, they are better than the HC1 Assassin at clean-up. The reason I often suggest shepparding a Captain or two as the only killers early in a Wave is to have their offense and defense unit bonus for later (BTW, no Human or Elite research is required for this to work!). Many Waves have lots of weenie units for a Captain to buff up on early, and if your only other units are Bannerman, Torchbearers, Elven Healers, and Pathfinder then the Captain(s) will stay close and get the kills. The tradition for what the Captains then buff is Pikeman (glass canon, benefits hugely from the defense boost, and the AI tends to have groups of Pikeman/Captain stay with each other well). But, like a Dwarf hero using SD on them, the defense boost of Captain(s) on Elven Warriors is scary effective. The smallest battlefield Waves are well suited to playing with this... Wave 45 is a fun challenge to get this technique (SD or Captain) going, because the weenies are undead/gob bowmen and initial survival is tricky. Once the terrarium is set up, though, it's hilarious to watch the frenzied slaughter fest! [btw, using Knight(s) to get up to speed in W45 has the advantage of helping with the high-armored gobs... otherwise Runic Curse solves that for your troops]
Round 101 reward Got to round 101 and the reward seemed a bit underwhelming, might be randomized for everything after round 13ish
Really love this game. Ive managed to have 3 of my human builds (gunmage, swordstriker, and crit build), and 2 of my elf builds (grandmaster and ranger) to finish all waves. Other characters im determined to finish as well.
Hmm, you got robbed! Taking half a dozen whacks to get to 50/50 chance to "10%" stun a Gob typically runs into one of two problems: 1. The weenies gobs are already dead 2. Some non-weenie gobs don't stun ("Goblin" +damage bonus includes Orcs and probably Trolls, iirc) 10% is so low, for the longest time I didn't think those runes even worked (the stun is not very long from them). Still, it seems like the legendary rune rewards might always have two perks? You seen any singles?
Btw, I've seen some people mention the difficulty of side missions after you beat the game (hordes of siege trolls, etc right at the start) - this is indeed a legit bug of sorts, which will be sorted out in the next update! Basically its displaying 20/20 difficulty, but the difficulty can actually continue to rise well past that, indefinitely - its quite possible to end up with 50+ difficulty behind the scenes, which can create some ridiculous initial spawns and enemy strengths. Spawns will be hard capped at difficulty 20 in the next update, as was intended (however, enemy strength will still continue to grow a tad). Also, we're going to be adding in an "Easy" toggle (toggleable on/off at any time - so you can toggle it on just for one wave, or play the whole game in easy, or whatever). Note that you won't be able to play arena, endless, or multiplayer in easy mode, you won't find equipment as often (or as good) in easy mode, and some of the rewards have been remade to be completable only in normal mode. In a hardcore game like this, I'm always curious to know how veteran players feel about something like this - do you feel slighted at all knowing there will be "an easy way out" now? Or are you content playing at whatever difficulty is most fun for you?
I think this is a great addition for people just getting into the game and I wouldn't feel slighted one bit especially considering the reduced loot quality and quantity in Easy mode. Good idea! The last thing to polish he game off for me is making the android nav bar auto hide while you play the game. Not only can it be accidentally pressed but it can cause screen burn in on AMOLED devices if you play too long since its the only static thing in the game.
I'm definitely in the most fun boat. That's the end goal. I really wanted to strangle someone at Wave 32, to the point where it really wasn't fun at all. As it was I had to complete with just the right set of mercenaries, after trying like 20+ times. An easy toggle and then coming back later in history (which I did anyway since j used the mercs) would have made it much more fun. Ps-- game of the year so far, thanks!!
I still cant make a decision... One one hand, i think the balance is perfect. The difficulty spikes are rare, indeed very difficult, yet still doable. I may have gotten down the gist of the game (coupled with a slew of characters over Lv70), that the spikes are more bearable on my end compared to others. On the other hand, that may be a good solution for those who hasnt really powered up some characters for a challenging counterplay yet. Suggestion... What if after 2 fails at the same set of enemy waves it randomizes at a lower difficulty, and continues to do so every after 2 failed attempts until it drops to a certain threshold based on character level.
Here's my professional suggestion, a bit less wordy than usual (ha!)... 1. The hardcore gamers already love the game, and likely aren't your main revenue source anyway, as there aren't as many of them and their average iap is low. Don't worry about them being slighted. Give them challenges and facilitate chances to humblebrag and they'll be happy until they move on to the next awesome game 2. The mediumcore gamers are your bread and butter, because you have instituted easy-street or lottery-ticket iap bias. These are the folks obsessed enough to give you lots of cash, but not as adept as the hardcores, so they sometimes get stuck or simply wish to escape the grind that hardcores either accept or finesse. Going with your current business model (which I am not endorsing, btw), these players should be enticed into specific stump/spend/overcome/congratulate cycles to maximize your earn. A mechanism of "easy" is, therefore, not a "product market fit". A mechanism of offering them to choose their allied unit(s) for crystal(s), might be. Definitely your de-emphasized storyline should be brought to fore here, ie: Prince Rupert offers you 2 Elven Healers to aid you in your hour of need, do you accept? No. Yes:1 Crystal. ... Prince Rupert congratulates you on your Victory! He hopes you will come to his aid in time of need! (queue future random event challenge, with guaranteed good reward offered up front... Hardcores will also love this, if the challenge/reward is set high for them) 3. Softcore gamers just want to have fun and not have perplexity dumped on them or feel labeled. "Easy" risks alienation. Some of these players can be upgraded to more profitable mediumcore by shepparding. I would rather suggest, though, that you emphasize random opportunities to iap. For example, unlock a prebuilt and stylishly dressed character (mark them as already having completed some achievements and Waves and give them a brief backstory sentence--"Sir Roland, a wise Paladin, has recently returned, victorious, from the defense of New Hinton"--and mark them as unavailable heroes, aka resting, even when they don't die, to maintain play balance). Costume look upgrades for iap or crystals. Etc etc. the point is, in what ways can you deliver on the value orientation of casual fun, without selling out the game. You and your brothers are very talented, and it's a great game. But I just read the oral history Blizzard North founders gave about the Diablo 1 & 2 days (and I'm older than them!) and I am wistfully reminded how little I knew, but how much fun it was, when young in the "business" of games... So fwiw & ymmv; keep up the good work! Crystalion ex EA TD
Labelling change things. Easy is demeaning. If you guys decide on two difficulties, normal and "extreme" sounds a lot better than "easy" and normal. Then you can go on to describe the "extreme" mode as offering better rewards, rather than the easier mode offering worser ones.
Thats what the current iteration of mercenaries are supposed to do. The problem with automatically doing a difficulty reduction is that it takes away the potential challenge for players who like the challenge of figuring out how to beat a wave, and just need time to figure it out. It could suck for some to be forced into playing an easier version of the level. Mercenaries were initially going to be like that, but any sort of "pay up front for a bonus" becomes pay2win (which is why mercenaries have a retroactive penalty, instead of an up front payment). Since we don't target casual players, these more mid/hardcore players can sense things like this and get immediately turned off, especially since its a paid game. I think we're skirting a pretty good line right now where the game is majority skill based, even if you were to buy the max IAP and get all legendary equipment, for ex, while still offering incentive to buy IAP. We really try to stick to "fair, but enticing" IAP model - trust me, we learned a while ago that you have to pay attention to the business side of things, but its also a mistake imo to build your game completely off of those business principles. Right now, we actually have a really good IAP conversion rate with most of our games I think because players can tell that we're not trying to scam them - which is also why we tend to charge a lower up front cost then I think our games are worth, btw. The problem here is that it then encourages players to play "easy" (now labeled as normal)... players will gravitate towards normal mode most of the time, and I want it to be known that what we have currently is the way the game is meant to be played.
I think that an easy mode toggle would be a great idea as I know that some people are struggling in the early stages of the game. Also, the difficulty glitch is a much needed fix as seeing 4 wraith lords at the beginning of a battle can be a bit disheartening. PS: When can we expect this update to roll out!
