Hey Trendy, I'm costing you money and it's pissing me off

I'm just hitting C7 and now have 8 maps, some of which I don't like, haven't got a tower strategy worked out yet, too hard, etc.  So basically just want to play 2 or 3 for now.  So when a map comes up that I don't want, I either quit the map or let it die so I can get to the next map in rotation.  I assume it costs you server fees to keep spinning up maps that aren't being played and it's costing me mental health so why not make it possible to select what maps you want in your rotation?

how about instead of rotation, we just plain get to pick our maps again for endgame content. Give us back our freedom, the freedom to not only pick what maps we want to play, but to also be able to use any defense we want. This is what the game needs to be great again, to have amazing longevity to it. Our choices back.

Yeah... I really don't understand the point of, not only limiting the maps in each tier, but also not letting us pick which maps we can play on once we get beyond the campaign.  The only think it's resulted in for me is, like Kruntski said, quitting when I get a map I don't like and trying again.  That's extremely annoying, a waste of time, and potentially costing Trendy money if Kruntski is correct. 

I also think it makes advancing through Chaos a little more complicated as, from my experience, there are maps in each tier that are much more difficult than others.  Right now, I'm on Chaos III.  I can do Dead Road, Throne Room, and Nimbus pretty consistently, but Bastille and Sewers are maps I have yet to get anywhere with.  When I was on Chaos II, I avoided Siphon Site D and both Ramparts.  I also couldn't do Little-Horn until I got enough gear from Liferoot (which meant constantly quitting maps until I got it).  Granted, it could be since I primarily like to solo, but even grouping, I don't think you can deny that not all maps are equal when it comes to design and difficulty.

Basically, the system as it currently stands is not something I find enjoyable, and I really don't understand what the reasoning is behind it.  It's just annoying, and I've sat down with the intention of playing the game many nights only to quit in frustration when I get Bastille 5 times in a row.  Sad to say, but I had a lot more fun advancing through DD2 before Chaos Trials came along and locked down so much content.

The whole map rotation idea is flawed IMO. Players usually find a way to avoid certain aspects that they dislike of the games that they play . In this case the map rotation "tries" to promote variety but actually limits it. I also think they are trying to stop players from progressing too fast through chaos by choosing maps that Trendy deems the hardest or more difficult of the lot. Well people will just skip those maps lol. If the rotation included the entire map pool it would be closer to what I think Trendy is trying to accomplish but would not wear out their players with mostly the same old maps over and over.

Suggestions:

1. Make the entire map pool available to players on all chaos tiers
2. Lower the DU limit on "easy maps" (only in chaos trials, not campaign)
3. Balance all maps so none stand out as too easy or too hard
   

If Trendy makes all of the maps "balanced" in regards to difficulty in chaos then their is zero reason to have a rotation. Balance the map DU and unleash the map pool.

@Baba-Kaboom quote

If Trendy makes all of the maps "balanced" in regards to difficulty in chaos then their is zero reason to have a rotation. Balance the map DU and unleash the map pool.

from my experience from day 1 of early access, trendy knows nothing about balancing, its either make something easy or make it terrible, make something op/perfectly fine the way it is then nerf it to the ground until its unusable

I recently had a daily that said I needed to do 3 ruins maps and I wanted to do my 3 daily runs on Nimbus Reach (c3) because I wanted to get another deadly reach and max out my c3 progression faster so I can head towards c4.

Took me 19 reloads to get TWO Nimbus Reach maps and I just gave up on the third and went to campaign mode.

They could make it so are first map we can pick but after that its random. So u have to sacrifice consecutive wins for specific map you want.

@mindlessdefender quote:

They could make it so are first map we can pick but after that its random. So u have to sacrifice consecutive wins for specific map you want.

Not a bad idea at all IMO. Honestly, I am willing to go along with any idea that gives back our choices regarding the maps we play lol.

@mindlessdefender quote:

They could make it so are first map we can pick but after that its random. So u have to sacrifice consecutive wins for specific map you want.

This would be amazing... atleast then you can do your dailys within some reasonable time frame without having to resorting to campaign mode and wasting time.. 

@Kruntski quote:

I'm just hitting C7 and now have 8 maps, some of which I don't like, haven't got a tower strategy worked out yet, too hard, etc.  So basically just want to play 2 or 3 for now.  So when a map comes up that I don't want, I either quit the map or let it die so I can get to the next map in rotation.  I assume it costs you server fees to keep spinning up maps that aren't being played and it's costing me mental health so why not make it possible to select what maps you want in your rotation?

We all agree that their trials map rotation is not spot on.  That being said, I was in your seat pre patch and I went back and farmed C6 some more; received a few upgrades - then was able to manage all the new maps in C7 as well.

@Baba-Kaboom quote:

The whole map rotation idea is flawed IMO. Players usually find a way to avoid certain aspects that they dislike of the games that they play . In this case the map rotation "tries" to promote variety but actually limits it. I also think they are trying to stop players from progressing too fast through chaos by choosing maps that Trendy deems the hardest or more difficult of the lot. Well people will just skip those maps lol. If the rotation included the entire map pool it would be closer to what I think Trendy is trying to accomplish but would not wear out their players with mostly the same old maps over and over.

Suggestions:

1. Make the entire map pool available to players on all chaos tiers
2. Lower the DU limit on "easy maps" (only in chaos trials, not campaign)
3. Balance all maps so none stand out as too easy or too hard
   

If Trendy makes all of the maps "balanced" in regards to difficulty in chaos then their is zero reason to have a rotation. Balance the map DU and unleash the map pool.

Honestly, I don't think the really can balance maps.  Larger maps are almost always going to be more difficult than smaller ones, particularly if you don't have a full team.  At the same time, I'm not sure they really should balance them. 

In my opinion, if they're stuck on the random map thing, it should work where a Chaos Trial is 5 random maps (non-repeating) that get progressively harder but also have a chance at better rewards as you go along.  If you complete all 5 maps, you get additional rewards.  That gives an incentive to stick with the randomness and try to complete a series of maps in a row rather than trying for particular ones.

The problem, as I see it, is there's really no reason to do one map over another.  Why would I try to do Bastille and fail at it repeatedly when I can do Throne Room and know I have a good shot at beating it?  They have the same amount of waves, same enemies, same chance of rewards.  So what's the point of going with a harder map?  I think that's what Trendy is attempting to do by enforcing randomness (so people don't just farm the easiest map they can find). but all they've really accomplished is essentially taking away player choice and limiting the amount of maps you have to play on.  And, to me, that's really not fun.

@Hoon quote:

I recently had a daily that said I needed to do 3 ruins maps and I wanted to do my 3 daily runs on Nimbus Reach (c3) because I wanted to get another deadly reach and max out my c3 progression faster so I can head towards c4.

Took me 19 reloads to get TWO Nimbus Reach maps and I just gave up on the third and went to campaign mode.

You know, I actually used to enjoy doing dailies/weeklies.   It was a really good way of encouraging me to go back to maps I might not play as often, particularly Incursions that were difficult.  But now?  They've become pretty tedious.  Either, like you said, you have to reload over and over until you get the right map.  Or, even worse, the map isn't in the Chaos tier you're at, which means playing the Campaign version, putting a few towers at the enemy spawns and sitting around for 10-15 minutes - and then doing that 1 or 2 more times.

The daily rewards system and Chaos Trials really don't work well together.  You have one system trying to get people to branch out and replay certain maps and another that limits you to 4-5 (or 8 at c7) that are the right difficulty, but it gets to choose which ones.  Want Throne Room?  Too bad, here's 10 Dragonfall Sewers in a row!

@mindlessdefender quote:

They could make it so are first map we can pick but after that its random. So u have to sacrifice consecutive wins for specific map you want.

i agree with this, when we do chaos, gives us teh option of doing picked maps, or random but with consecutive win bonus enabled.

For end game-player dailies sake, I would love to have defense back with chaos tier but with actual chaos gear dropping, it does not need the consecutive win, and does not need to drop shards.
Everyday looking for a chaos which has the most forests in or ruins, or castles, and still not getting the rng map on a chaos that does not even give you any upgrade in gear nor shards, sucks.

Then there is scrolling though all the campaign servers looking for the map you need for your daily, looking for the one closest on last wave? is this not true?  This is also not fun.

Looking on the server list for games on the last wave doesn't work too well, as it seems that the games persist on the list after the chests spawn.  It's annoying to try to join, be told you can't, but when you refresh the list the map is still there, probably only showing as having 3 out of 4 people because one player has already left!

DD2 isn't unique with the "random map" deal, but it is annoying not to have the freedom to choose, especially when a Daily is involved.  Wouldn't it be great to have the freedom to enjoy ourselves by choosing any map we wanted, at any difficulty we opted for?

It's been like this for over 5 months now, and I am amazed that they still insist not letting us pick our map is a good thing.

It sucks for people breaking into a new Trial, as some maps are much harder and trying to perfect one build means you will have to restart a lot to get the right map. Try CT6 Forest Biome and Assault with CT5 max gear, and try and figure out which one people want to skip.

It sucks for people who just want to play different maps, as most Chaos Trials have only a handful of maps instead of all of them (19 normal maps, 6 special maps, 13 Incursions). You get so sick of them so fast.

It sucks for people trying to do the daily quests, as I don't think any Trial can do all the quests (ie CT7 has no Forest, CT1has no Sewers). Even if you do, getting 3 of a particular map will take a very long time: getting 3 Sewers in CT7 will likely be over 20 maps, which means either just restarting repeatedly or just playing 3+ hours if you are lucky. Having to play Campaign or lower CT Incursions just to get these things done in reasonable amounts of time is a terrible design choice.

The only benefit is Trendy only has to balance a very few maps per Trial, and won't have any problems like the old Demon's Lair Incursion where one map is replayed forever (you could clear it in NM4 in under 3 minutes, and it gave more medals than any other map + the best 750 loot drop + the fastest guaranteed gold chest, so this was very popular). That is not a good reason to balance out all the negatives from this, especially for this long without the Early Access protection anymore.

Figure out a way to balance the rewards for harder/longer/whatever maps, and people will play different maps. If you track the attempts/wins for each map, you can make weekly "bonus" maps that offer special incentives for the ones that are still not getting played enough. 

This has all been said before and only a small minority prefer it the way it is, but the official response on this has been pretty much nothing. So oh well.

As I've noted before, there is no question why they instituted the random map feature for Chaos. It's so people don't just play the easiest/quickest stage over and over again to progress. Since loot is tied to Chaos tier and not to which stage you play. Part of that is with good intentions: so we're all not just playing outside the Castle Gates until the end of time. But part of it is also in their best interest: it stops people from progressing too fast.

However as noted above, this also limits our choice, freedom, and fun. I like the idea of some sort of compromise. Like how someone mentioned giving far less DU on the easy early campaign maps. Though even if you were forced to DPS or etc on those, they would still be immensely easier and shorter than any larger or late-game maps. There's really no way to win in that regard.

If they let us choose stages, they'd have to find a way to make the harder/longer maps give better rewards. Which opens up a whole new set of problems and complaints. One being that people who hate those maps are forced to play them in order to progress to full power. Then we're back at square one.

The current system, while by no means perfect, was designed with good intentions. And as with everything in the game, they will evolve it. Also we have that new Endless "not-Onslaught" mode coming. Which by all indications will be the place to spend endgame time once you finish the trials. Instead of just repeating the C7 trials. Which is good.

I wouldn't mind foregoing the consecutive win bonus in exchange for being able to pick my maps (which is functionally the same as skipping maps until you get the one you want).

Just build them instead of being lazy, this entire community is filled with people who would just run the absolute ezmode maps 24/7 0 risks all rewards. Its quite pathetic

@momohhhh quote:

I wouldn't mind foregoing the consecutive win bonus in exchange for being able to pick my maps (which is functionally the same as skipping maps until you get the one you want).

Maybe they should have a practice mode where you can select the map and chaos level.  You still get gear drops, shards and loot progression but limited XP and no bonuses.  This lets Trendy maintain the meta game which is chaos trials (including mastering all maps in the tier) while giving us a playground to farm gear, practice, play with friends, doing dailies, etc.  

@ShinUkyo quote:

As I've noted before, there is no question why they instituted the random map feature for Chaos. It's so people don't just play the easiest/quickest stage over and over again to progress. Since loot is tied to Chaos tier and not to which stage you play. Part of that is with good intentions: so we're all not just playing outside the Castle Gates until the end of time. But part of it is also in their best interest: it stops people from progressing too fast.

However as noted above, this also limits our choice, freedom, and fun. I like the idea of some sort of compromise. Like how someone mentioned giving far less DU on the easy early campaign maps. Though even if you were forced to DPS or etc on those, they would still be immensely easier and shorter than any larger or late-game maps. There's really no way to win in that regard.

If they let us choose stages, they'd have to find a way to make the harder/longer maps give better rewards. Which opens up a whole new set of problems and complaints. One being that people who hate those maps are forced to play them in order to progress to full power. Then we're back at square one.

The current system, while by no means perfect, was designed with good intentions. And as with everything in the game, they will evolve it. Also we have that new Endless "not-Onslaught" mode coming. Which by all indications will be the place to spend endgame time once you finish the trials. Instead of just repeating the C7 trials. Which is good.

This, and a few other similar posts, can be solved by 1 simple thing.

Dont make chaos the endgame. Chaos should ONLY be a progression step, not an endgame content. We should have something else for endgame,and good lord no not endless. Endless is for people who have several hours a day to throw away at watching he same map and same build last hours at a time. Some of us can only get time to do a map or three, or some of us just outright prefer our runs to have an 'end' so we can switch it up every time.

But we need a proper endgame area. Like Defense mode braught back, or name it the Nightmare mode. Pick what map you want, default is no hard-counters(this includes Geodes, Cyborcs, and Vanguards) so we can use whatever towers we want to truly have fun. To spice it up, when you pick a map, you can have a selection of checkboxes to add in more things to challenge yourself more, like 1 to add in the hard-counters/chaos mobs, one to add the random mutator portals, etc etc etc and each check you checkmark provides you with more exp and gold. And we get loot from it, at the very least, so once we beat C7 we can finally relax, and unload into being able to do whatever the heck we wanna do while still being able to gear out our dozens of heroes.

@geo981010 quote:

It sucks for people breaking into a new Trial, as some maps are much harder and trying to perfect one build means you will have to restart a lot to get the right map. Try CT6 Forest Biome and Assault with CT5 max gear, and try and figure out which one people want to skip.

This is another thing I'm not enjoying.  It's much harder to learn a map with this system.  Breaking into Chaos II, I had a very difficult time figuring out how to deal with the Cyborks.  If I failed a map, I couldn't go back and attempt to fix what was wrong with the build I did.  I'd end up on a different map, and you can't necessarily build the same way on every map due to DU differences, additional lanes, secondary objectives, air lanes, etc.  And this didn't just impact my ability to figure out a particular map, but how to figure out Chaos II in general since the system makes it so there are too many variables to deal with just the new enemy.

A big part of tower defense is figuring out a workable strategy, and I feel like Chaos is a big impediment to that.  Perhaps this will be resolved some when practice maps return...

@ShinUkyo quote:

As I've noted before, there is no question why they instituted the random map feature for Chaos. It's so people don't just play the easiest/quickest stage over and over again to progress. Since loot is tied to Chaos tier and not to which stage you play. Part of that is with good intentions: so we're all not just playing outside the Castle Gates until the end of time. But part of it is also in their best interest: it stops people from progressing too fast.

Yeah, I've pointed out before that I suspect this was the reason.  This happened a lot in DD1.  People figured out which map was the fastest and easiest to farm, and then they'd just sit in that map repeatedly until they got all the loot they needed to move on.

But, I think the solution in DD2 is lazy and just doesn't make a lot of sense from a game design standpoint.  If there's a problem with certain map being too easy or too farmable, the solution shouldn't be to just completely remove that map from play.  It should be to either balance that map in a way that makes it less easy than others or adjust the rewards to reflect the difficulty (like Campaign does).  In my opinion, taking away content is rarely a good design decision, particularly when it's as much as we see here.  I mean, when you look at each Chaos tier, there are far more maps you can't play than can.

@Tattis quote:But, I think the solution in DD2 is lazy and just doesn't make a lot of sense from a game design standpoint.  If there's a problem with certain map being too easy or too farmable, the solution shouldn't be to just completely remove that map from play.  It should be to either balance that map in a way that makes it less easy than others or adjust the rewards to reflect the difficulty (like Campaign does).  In my opinion, taking away content is rarely a good design decision, particularly when it's as much as we see here.  I mean, when you look at each Chaos tier, there are far more maps you can't play than can.

Absolutely. This is why I have hope for the new version of semi-Endless mode they're adding in. They've said on the streams and such that the new mode is meant to be a proper "endgame" mode, while Trials would become what it's supposed to be: something you climb until you reach endgame. Rather than getting to C7 and farming that same tier ad nauseum.

I just get bored to hell way too quick with DD2, in the first game, there were nail tooth strong enemies at some point that you couldnt beat and crazy stat/stuff combinations.

Here its farming without end and all you see is "another legendary item with 1dp more than my current gear... meh"

There is no sense of wonder past Chaos 2-3 or anything else. Only repetitive grind for another +10dp until you are at Chaos 7 max gear, except that 1 shard you are missing and that 1 chest piece that is not legendary cause it never drops. And all you can do is grind another map where you put up 1 tower type all over the map and wait till its over.

At the end game there is absolutely nothing there. It doesnt matter which tower I use or where I put them its all the same, just plaster the whole map with your preferred tower and wait till its over. Chi blast the rollers to death for a bit when you get one and call it a day.

Please Trendey, give us something that is actually hard and engaging, but not because that mob just has a billion hp and 1 hits barricades. Maybe a map where you do not have enough du to fully build a good defence and have to think hard where you place your defences.

Even if they introduce new chaos tiers, it will just be another 1-2 days to grind out the max gear and then its back to square 1, no real engaging content.

I really miss the challenges, hero challenges and fun modes of dd1 even if some of them were really silly.