Too easy or too glitchy? / New difficulty: Abyss 1?

Ive been thinking these days about how many players prefer to use glitches instead of playing properly, i believe that ive never played DD2 without players trying to exploit glitches. Im dont blame them, but i guess that DD2 without exploits would be the experience that devs are trying to give us.

Do you think that devs should keep updating the game as fast as they do? or should they delay some time to make sure nobody exploits their work? I believe that 1 month or more of delay would be cool if we get updates without exploits.

Now, about the new difficulty incoming, i want to say that i dont like the idea of people with 800 ipwr farming it easily just because of their ipwr. I wish we get a real new difficulty level with something more than high numbers, where even veterans or high lvl farmers get mad. And i think that devs are on it.

BTW, new players in NM4 with 700ipwr...i dont like reading some of this guys ranting about "hard" content. The only solution i can think of, is to remove siege roller from NM3 and below. If you cant beat it at NM4, then youre out of your league, this is not hate, is reality.

No. No more difficulties. Remove NM1~4, leave only "Nightmare".

In a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 = easy and 10 = NM4, I'd change the game's difficulties like this:

Easy: 2, Normal: 4, Hard: 6, Insanity: 8, Nightmare: 10. No more difficulties. Make levels meaningful and tie iPWR to maps AND level.

The problem with it is this game is more based on gear difficulty and not brain difficulty.

You fail content not because you did build wrong, but because your gear didnt had right passives/ipwr.

In most maps theres only one spot to build since lanes are so short, there is no choice.

Ofc you could build wrong, if your a complete idiot. /disclaimer.

But main point stands, this game checks gear, not brain.

@misachii87 quote:

But main point stands, this game checks gear, not brain.

Gear is important, but i disagree about the brain stuff.

@misachii87 quote:

The problem with it is this game is more based on gear difficulty and not brain difficulty.

You fail content not because you did build wrong, but because your gear didnt had right passives/ipwr.

In most maps theres only one spot to build since lanes are so short, there is no choice.

Ofc you could build wrong, if your a complete idiot. /disclaimer.

But main point stands, this game checks gear, not brain.

I disagree for a few reasons, Sure I have seen the most incompetent builds being used with a total disregard for the DU limit and upgrading being either ignored or having utterly no thought behind it.

Sure the build wins, but is it gear? no its overpowered defenses that even with mediocre gear still dominates. This is proven by the fact the individuals building are unable to even show a resemblance of strategical foresight that it is self evident that there approach to gear is just as shallow and lacking.

However at the other end of the spectrum I personally can attest to the gaming having a really fun and challenging aspect, but that aspect needs to be searched out and requires strict rules to obtain. Those strict rules for me where, no overpowered towers like PDT's, no new heroes (all of them have been overpowered at some stage etc).

I play with the original 4 only, and for me personally the wrong upgrade in the past has cost me a loss, incorrectly placed defenses have also. I have had to perfect ground defense placement with the introduction of the siege roller, I have had to perfectly manage my gear both main stats and passives to obtain the power to simply clear trash lanes let alone bosses. 

The level of character development on both my DPS heroes and builders has been key, but without a solid strategy for defense placement and perfect upgrading and repairing I would have lost almost all the maps I have attempted, at least in the early days.

@Zimmermann quote:I have had to perfectly manage my gear both main stats and passives to obtain the power to simply clear trash lanes let alone bosses. 

This is exactly what gear check is. That you also limit yourself in what you use, to have braincheck enabled, is an icing. My point still is Gear > Brain in this game. And foresight? on lanes that are shorter then firing range of ranged towers? There is no choice where to build on short lanes.

Best Example would be Malthius incursion, where it out of nowhere starts to appear healing zones. After you did it once and can see all the healzones in wave 5 all you need to do is to memorize it and thats it. Just build the killzones inbetween future healzones. Its same as in old jump and runs, where you had to jump into emptyness since you couldnt see it outside screen, and only after you jumped you could see where you are supossed to land, then you had to adjust your jumping point so you would land where you couldnt see. This is not a braincheck but a simple memory check.

And now compare the time you did need to figure out your strategys and farm your gear. is the time difference ca 100x?

Gear >>> Brain.

@noone in particular

probability of victory = fn [ ((gear passives x player knowledge x player intelligence) + gear ipwr) / (network quality + bugs) ]

ipwr isn't as important as the passives. We were doing NM4 onslaughts with ipwr 300+ [which quickly went up]. Take your typical i700 vs i300 gear... is +600 hero damage and 1k extra stat points that big a deal? That, with i400 difference. You need SOME gear to start... but it's not the be-all / end-all.

Knowing how the map unfolds, like the aforementioned healing zones in Malthius is more important than 'skill'. So you know... play it at least once and your 'skill level' goes up.

Being able to think out of the box / WILLING to think out of the box... just look at how many "siege roller killed the game, TE sucks" vs "siege roller... meh" threads. That's the difference between destroying a map / mob on the first day / try and having to google videos of other players who did.

Brain > Hero > Gear passive > Gear iPWR

Want a challenge? Do Griblock's with nothing but Mage Blocks [and you're only allowed to DPS the roller]. If you think that's impossible... you've just learnt something about yourself, no? ^_^

Seriously, when did not getting a 100% win-rate on a map means "mob is OP, game is buggy or TE sucks".

@misachii87 quote:

@Zimmermann quote:I have had to perfectly manage my gear both main stats and passives to obtain the power to simply clear trash lanes let alone bosses. 

This is exactly what gear check is. That you also limit yourself in what you use, to have braincheck enabled, is an icing. My point still is Gear > Brain in this game. And foresight? on lanes that are shorter then firing range of ranged towers? There is no choice where to build on short lanes.

Using your brain to perfect your gear to clear content is not a gear check, otherwise any game that involves gear could be argued to be a gear check and that is a gross misunderstanding of the term gear check.

A gear check in any item based game is understood as "an encounter that is simply impossible without curtain standard of gear, usually coupled with the encounter having fairly simple strategic requirements. Which is in stark contrast to similar encounters in that game".

To state "DD2 requires you to equip loot to win maps, therefore is a gear check" is in my opinion a massive miss understanding of the term "gear check".

Anyway with that said, the fact the the PDT meta requires almost zero strategic forethought and mediocre gear flies in the face of the traditional interpretation of what a "gear check" is, therefore I would argue end game DD2 is far far from a gear check.

However with that said, I would say that gear checks would come into play if towers and hero damage was re-balanced, and that would be a good thing.

The best DPS heroes are not doing the best damage because of gear, but because of one item and a bugged sphere, and defenses are just the same either bugs or a lack of balance is forcing a META that barely requires gear. 

@Zimmermann quote:A gear check in any item based game is understood as "an encounter that is simply impossible without curtain standard of gear, usually coupled with the encounter having fairly simple strategic requirements. Which is in stark contrast is not the case for other similar encounters in that game".

To state "DD2 requires you to equip loot to win maps, therefore is a gear check" is in my opinion a massive miss understanding of the term "gear check".

Anyway with that said, the fact the the PDT meta requires almost zero strategic forethought and mediocre gear flies in the face of the traditional interpretation of what a "gear check" is, therefore I would argue end game DD2 is far far from a gear check.

However with that said, I would say that gear checks would come into play if towers and hero damage was re-balanced, and that would be a good thing.

The best DPS heroes are not doing the best damage because of gear, but because of one item and a bugged sphere, and defenses are just the same either bugs or a lack of balance is forcing a META that barely requires gear. 

Well DD2 has the problem where "if there were no bugs" the content that drops the gear would require the gear it drops to complete succesfully. Yes ofc atm you can do higher difficulty with lower gear because of imbalance bugs.

@Asphe quote:Seriously, when did not getting a 100% win-rate on a map means "mob is OP, game is buggy or TE sucks".

im perfectly fine killing 3 rollers while solo(gunwitch rocks), lol my beef here is with short lanes that limit killzones and variety and not rollys. Honestly i love betsy map because of her 4 medium lanes that interchange! This allows for so much build variety! But atm i have to farm stupid assault on throneroom with 8 short lanes because storm gloves either roll a very low passive, or the passive is high but stats are completely wrong. Im claustrophobic already! Around 50 runs alltogether this week! And yes i end the run with the hero i want the gloves for. Thats why i may be alittle bit frustrated. Guess its time to have a break.

@misachii87 quote:

Well DD2 has the problem where "if there were no bugs" the content that drops the gear would require the gear it drops to complete succesfully. Yes ofc atm you can do higher difficulty with lower gear because of imbalance bugs. 

That is spot on, now content would be eventually possible with a lot of grinding and failing on things like siege rollers but in the end people would get through it.

I have been harping on about this for a while now where I stated content is being balanced with either bugs, imbalance or even work arounds in mind.

• Take bloodmoon incursion, lightning aura/frosty though a clear AOE build struggles with the HP of the skeletons. While PDT's solo it without walls, SA's, boost auras or even UPGRADES!
• Siege Rollers are very very hard for non bugged DPS involving crane stance or bewitching hour abuse. Sure 1 on its own is easy even without bug abuse, but 3?! In solo I killed 3 safely in the last wave without any bug abuse, but it took 2x dragolitchs uses, 1 on a support 1 on a builder, and 3x poisonous Tips uses, on two melee monks (no crane stance). So I had to switch heroes multiple times, use all 4 deck slots, 3 deck slots taken up with DPS. That is a hell of a lot of effort and gear to deal with 1 boss.
• Power Surge is another example where the fact that Dryad Trees do not despawn, makes the incursion much easier on solo. When siege rollers are up you have time to focus them down before having to rebuild your defenses, building defenses on solo vs multiple siege rollers on that map is close to impossible due to their bombardment ability as you and the area around you is their only target.

That is 3 clear examples where balance, Trendy "work arounds" and bugs have caused trendy to ship content to us that would be either impossible or 10 times harder if they fixed all the issues mentioned. So I couldn't agree with you more on that one!

iPwr alone won't help you. :)

@Zimmermann quote:

• Siege Rollers are very very hard for non bugged DPS involving crane stance or bewitching hour abuse. Sure 1 on its own is easy even without bug abuse, but 3?! In solo I killed 3 safely in the last wave without any bug abuse, but it took 2x dragolitchs uses, 1 on a support 1 on a builder, and 3x poisonous Tips uses, on two melee monks (no crane stance). So I had to switch heroes multiple times, use all 4 deck slots, 3 deck slots taken up with DPS. That is a hell of a lot of effort and gear to deal with 1 boss.

They're really hard even with PDTs. On bastille I often have to place 4 blockades, rush to whatever lane spawns the third one and rush like a madman to then get the last one.

4 Blockades with a boost aura + 25% health are barely enough to hold them by myself. 160DU per roller.

AFAIK you cant win many maps (or none at all) with a weak PDT per lane and 0 hero intervention, except for upgrades in build phase. The only way you can do that is with a strong PDT, and i still doubt about it.