Why is Prime 4 starting so easy?

Confused about why the mob levels are so low compared to prime 3 and even prime 1 and 2? The Dark Awakening map itself isn't hard, and if there were onslaught enemies and lane modifier i might understand but its just c7 mobs so why are they so low on the endgame mode? Was it a mistake or was it play tested to be too hard at like floor 300 mob levels? Genuinely wondering the thought process behind this.

Random captain boss all over the map.Is hard if you dont place all your stuff way back making (slow mode), which make the map take double or more of the normal time i believe.

Those boss have four spots that is behind the usual lane placement..(at least wht i use) which make you play full attention for the fast mode.

If you played and didnt notice this is probably because you made in the slow mode which is probably the intended but if its ,they should had increased the scale like you said.

I realize they spawn behind a lot of the main building points on the map, so i usually either build normally with a couple boss killers close to core or i turtle build and put 1 or 2 flame auras at the start of each lane, so most enemies other then bosses and ladies orcs die after a couple upgrades. For first time players of the map, yeah it can be hard but once you learn the mechanics its easy like every other mechanic in the game . So again, why for the "endgame" mode is the mob levels so close to floor 100? if this was on prime 1 or 2 id have no problems with this, but the mob levels in prime 3 were much higher over the 200 floor mark even , so why are we going back?

I dont understand either..Its seems than they dont want go overboard with hp scale when there is a mechanic related to boss fight or hero interaction which seems to be with that map even if you can place thing backward.The power surge was almost the same hp for the enemies i believe and there is other map than will have this.

I hope than is not the case because eyeof cthulhu or betsy will be severely underpowered for a late prime incursion stage.

I dont know wht to expect of this mode really, its the only content that i can effectively play and the majority of players that have a good power gear dont need to overthink about wht to do atm..

I was expecting than a lot of decent/good player would reunite to try to beat the two/three last stages but if keep like this the scale will be so low that will be doable solo with no much effort.

 

IMO, It would be an incredibly poor idea to spend limited and extremely valuable devloper time, during new product development, to create something only a very limited few can play, or worse - must play together. I would imagine prime was built with the idea of accessibility to as many as they can while still a challenge to most. How mad would we all be if only like 6 people could beat Betsy? 

Since the enemy stats do not scale to those playing, that makes it incredibly hard to create content that will satisfy both hardcore players and mostly devote players (which there are likely way more of). I would expect the top 10% of players to breeze through all of prime, the bottom 30% are too low to play, and that leaves room for the bulk of players in the middle to have a decent challenge. 

To create a challenge, you will inadvertently also create exclusion, which is not a great way to make $. That is where the delicate balance needs to happen to offset how hard versus how exclusive that difficulty will be. 

I think the miss here was Prime beings described as endgame, as that has connotations and expectations involved. A revamped mode with new goodies and an escalated difficulty...might have been closer. You say endgame, and most of us proabably think that is only for that top 10% group.

My take at least...

You're right, yeah it wouldn't be fair at all if only like 6 people could beat Betsy, i don't want them to make it impossible for players who spend a month grinding and still cant even touch prime. But i don't get why they scaled back to floor 100ish. i think they did a really good job with the power surge - the enemies feel pretty well scaled to the mechanics of the game even if it they were lower then the other prime 3 maps.

I know their main focus is on DDA and trying to finish up for DD2 but it feels super lackluster as a final mode. The rewards really aren't great ( New weapon skins are always fun but really don't add anything to game play ), little to no normal gear drops, so farming mods wont work and crafting materials don't drop so there's no point to that either. So what is prime supposed to bring other more challenging game play and interesting game mechanics for us to try. With it not being somewhat challenging, not being able to grind for special mods, not farm able for shards, whats the point to not scaling up the mobs for every prime that's out to give players a real challenge.

If prime was needed to grind something/ help with Ancient power in anyway i totally wouldn't care if they made easier for more players, that would make sense to me. but its not needed for anything to progress so i genuinely don't understand why they would need to scale it down.

Either way its not a big deal. i hope they make it harder but its also not a deal breaker, i enjoy seeing the incursion mechanics especially since they didn't need to try to add a new mode for them but they did so i appreciate it either way!

I am just happy to play an incursion that is not soooooooo easy to beat, that you go make a sandwich instead. I would have settled even for just a C7 version of each (and some basically are).

I am glad CG did something geared more towards higher level players. The game sorely needs it. Prime maps are a good start, as long as it is not the last thing we get. Appitizer to hold us over? Perfect! 'The' Endgame mode of DD2? God, i hope not... 

Edited September 18, 2019 by Jaws_420

15 minutes ago, Jaws_420 said:

I am just happy to play an incursion that is not soooooooo easy to beat, that you go make a sandwich instead. I would have settled even for just a C7 version of each (and some basically are).

I am glad CG did something geared more towards higher level players. The game sorely needs it. Prime maps are a good start, as long as it is not the last thing we get. Appitizer to hold us over? Perfect! 'The' Endgame mode of DD2? God, i hope not... 

I read your two post and i agree in general with wht you think but there is a some but regarding this mode.

Mastery if you want to complete or just reach the automation you gonna need to play over 120 maps which have a wide variety of difficulty and some even atm precise timing if you play solo.There is not much players wanting to do it..

The whole selfish argument than people like to say as mastery was ultra hard and with mods become easy is debatable (regarding to the value because there is still time investment to complete) but when come to those prime incursion there is no excuse if you go deep with your judgement.

Will definitelly have some players that will pass without building from playing in multiplayer matchs asap and if you think at the long run this mode will die because is not a good training field or farm mode for anything really extra desirable.

The main problem as you say maybe is the 'endgame' label and the attempt of inclusion of different lvs of players which make ambiguous wht is the aim of content..You talk about being doable for ch7 good but is more beneficial to be slight harder to become a aim for improvement.

Wht would be of onslaught if they didnt increase the scale from wht was just after mods released for example.

Maybe i'm being partial because i have a strong source of power but if didnt have a mastery first this would be more reasonable because in comparison is just too simple for too much.

 

I personally really liked mastery, even though it was mostly just annoying and having to exit to the tavern and re-make a map because you accidentally repaired something made me want to cry. I cant say i would want a timer on every map especially if im just trying to grind out a material or shard or something i have to do a lot, but in terms of making the game harder and not just annoying, it did a pretty good job. Same with having to use 10 different defenses and only being able to use 1 of each defense really made me have to be creative, which is what i think a lot of people are wanting - a reason to mix things up and be more creative.

But i did finish it before mods were a thing and i can say from helping people more recently finish some mastery, the mods definitely help but its still a small challenge/ different mechanic  that other game modes lack. If mastery gave a reward that was equally rewarding to the annoying parts and challenges. Like re-giving the hyper shards/ resetting the stars when you finish it, then it would be much much more popular to farm out, however that would probably be to much power for the players but the idea behind that is what i was hoping prime was going to be.

You're right that i shouldn't see this as endgame, i was trying hard not to be disappointing from the easiness from prime 1 2 and 3 hoping it was just going to continue to get harder, so seeing it go back down to floor 100 was a little sad if it was supposed to be endgame.

i definitely hope people are still having fun with the incursion mechanics as they are all pretty fun though! Demon lord incursion was my go to place to grind for that high ipwr stuff back then, so it was fun being able to grind out some of the weapons from it even though it was pretty easy.

I just wanted to poke in for a sec and make the quick joke

3 hours ago, Jaws_420 said:

or worse - must play together.

"Oh noes, playing with other people in a multiplayer game :o"

Fun jokes aside:

3 hours ago, Debs said:

I know their main focus is on DDA and trying to finish up for DD2 but it feels super lackluster as a final mode.

They never said this. The last thing I have heard a dev say was, "we currently have no intention of stopping support for DD2" which, translate how you will, means they will continue things for DD2 after they get DDA up and running. Endgame does not mean End of the Game.

10 hours ago, Debs said:

Confused about why the mob levels are so low compared to prime 3 and even prime 1 and 2? The Dark Awakening map itself isn't hard, and if there were onslaught enemies and lane modifier i might understand but its just c7 mobs so why are they so low on the endgame mode? Was it a mistake or was it play tested to be too hard at like floor 300 mob levels? Genuinely wondering the thought process behind this.

The only thing to watch for is if Dreadbones spawns on the ship, but I usually put my defensive line back to the ramps and use a wall to distract him while I chop him to shreds with my Barbarian. The map itself is a joke given I use Embermounts with the Flame Servos. The only thing that gets out of the burning and makes it to the main line are Lady Orcs, minibosses and obviously air, but I got long range SGTs to pick them off.

Prime 4's only real challenge will be Bastille Master if they reduce the time to a tighter window like they did when it was first released.

As for the Prime difficulty curves, I have noticed that myself. The hardest enemies I have seen so far have appeared on Malthius with 100M HP Zappers and 300M HP bosses. Griblok's Horde felt like I was playing Expedition Chaos 7 given how strong the enemies were coming out.

Edited September 19, 2019 by ChrisH36

I definitely am not trying to say that after this mode they're stopping with dd2 updates, but i think its fair to assume that with DDA being the main project right now and will probably be the main focus after it launches, that the next game mode or game play related update we get is not going to be anytime soon. Or to assume that DD2 will end up getting treated like DD1 where it becomes a kind of second child.

Im definitely not hoping this ends up being the case, but i honestly would understand if it did happen. Game companies moving onto an updated version of there 5+ year old game and focusing on building on that? how dare they - Sarcasm

Either way when i was saying Endgame i meant it as the endgame mode for players to have a challenge, not Endgame as in the final update/mode added, which i think got misunderstood but i should of clarified that.

I failed the first time due to forgetting he spawns on the ship and I'd stupidly gone public with the match queue embarrassing lulz

But yeah I was like what? With their hp...

Edited September 19, 2019 by Little Magic Hat

13 hours ago, Debs said:

I realize they spawn behind a lot of the main building points on the map, so i usually either build normally with a couple boss killers close to core or i turtle build and put 1 or 2 flame auras at the start of each lane, so most enemies other then bosses and ladies orcs die after a couple upgrades. For first time players of the map, yeah it can be hard but once you learn the mechanics its easy like every other mechanic in the game . So again, why for the "endgame" mode is the mob levels so close to floor 100? if this was on prime 1 or 2 id have no problems with this, but the mob levels in prime 3 were much higher over the 200 floor mark even , so why are we going back?

Try prime 3 power surge This one is difficult for me by myself 

:thonk: Well at least everyone else will now see that the devs do read everything lul

8 hours ago, cg_kyled said:

<DELETED>

Glad to hear a confirmation from a dev. Much Appreciated! :) 

I really look forward to the day when DD2 is out of the backburner. :D

8 hours ago, cg_kyled said:

<DELETED>

I hold you guys to that. 

Good points discussed so far. I do enjoy farming for the weapons even though they are skins and also the drop rates for C8 are better.

It will be nice if the challenge does increase so hopefully as we near the end of Prime Incursions there will be some maps where we get high level mobs from Super Onslaught and give Endgame players further enjoyment. As Onslaught push does get tedious and some bugs makes the mode frustrating. 

It's a good map for farming weapon mods, and having it at a lower difficulty means it's more accessible to newer players. The extra DU from being able to spend a minimum to spawn camp all the lanes makes it easy to defend the objectives as well and just relax for more geared players. Overall I think it's a fine balance to have some easier maps thrown in, especially a popular one to farm like that.

Hmmmm, Kyle deleted his post. Hopefully not a ominous sign...

5 minutes ago, Jaws_420 said:

Hmmmm, Kyle deleted his post. Hopefully not a ominous sign...

Hopefully indeed. It's pretty odd that happened.

I think it's because his answer was too definite. He basically said that there was for sure more end game content coming, but I think DD2's fate is much less certain. At least we know that the devs *want* there to be more content.

Or maybe he realized the thing he said was exactly what I said just worded differently, or maybe his cat deleted it by walking on the desk, or maybe aliens are getting payback from the raid on area 51. Honestly there could be a million reason for it and everyone is looking at the worst case scenario but looks at no other possibility.

To answer the purpose of the thread, the reason these are so easy is because the community is making it easy with something CG is in the middle of attempting to rebalance. They also want this to be somewhat accessible to a lot of the players and not just the 1%. If they rolled out a rebalance for the stun stuff I expect a lot of these become much less completable for a majority of players and some carries will start failing causing more people to depend on the higher end of players for carries.

On topic: maybe because of the random spawning of the boss? I'd like to know what the testing group feedback was.

Off-topic: Looks like the studio still has lots to learn about PR.

Edited September 21, 2019 by Little Magic Hat

@Little Magic Hat Look for people with a white betsy / parrot wing (reward for testing) in game and ask them about their current opinion about the game =P

(They can't tell you about what the feedback was during testing because of NDA tho)

Personally there is no way I'd consider content too hard if it wasn't harder than at least floor 945 ;)

Still hoping for harder fights toward the end

Edited October 4, 2019 by Zombiewookie