The King's Game and its state of balance.

I don't agree with the way they approached this issue. it doesn't represent what was said in regards to the changes in the first place, and even people with really good gear struggle there. it was said that they never intended it to be as strong as more recent maps, and to help bridge the gap, yet was "too easy". I agree it was easy, I was able to afk all the way to completion on nmhc survival. but i think they tweaked the numbers too high. meh. I guess I'll have to go back to aquanos. :/

also in regards to people saying "well you can buy your gear from others who are able to farm it themselves", I dare you to go try and buy a piece of decent armor, people are charging an arm and a leg and then some for even some of the more mid-ranged mythics and low semi-decent trans. This has more to do with the whole inflation due to hacking/cheating, but it's the legit players that end up paying the price in more ways than one.

I loved the content presented with this patch, though the changes are a bit skewed and unreasonable, I am sure they'll do something to help "balance" to the point more than the 2% can complete. :)

So, no brick wall for players entering NM you said ?

With my friends we cleared every map on NMHC except CD and every original campaign maps NM survival without any significant problem and could finish CitC and CD if we were 4 with our current strat and gear.

So I'm not really what one would call a NM-beginner.


I could afk king's game NMHC campaign and NMHC survival to wave 14 (dc'd there :/ ).

Right now I tried survival because I was curious to see what would happen with my exact same build/stats and what was barely ever hitting my defenses has crushed me when I tried to start on wave 12. Off course I didn't have the same amount of upgrades and if all my buff beams and strength drain auras would have been maxed it would have been a different story. But as it was I couldn't go up and down to repair defenses fast enough.

My thoughts : fair enough, it may work starting from wave 1 or with another player to repair on the other core. So no big deal but it seems harsch for a map aimed at helping NM-beginner...

Then I wondered if campaign was so significantly changed (after all survival as always been a lot harder than campaign...) and tried to clear the map as I did.

With current timer and mana I have barely enough time to collect all the mana and put some defenses at each path and can't switch to a DPS char but it was more than enough.
I have never ever been wiped so fast out of a map on NM :D
My builder was ripped within seconds by 2DEWS and the first 2 ogres (on wave 1 with 700mana and 120sec, in the same path ? lol) crushed their way to the core.

Again with another player it would be ok with enough time to have a DPS char on both cores.

Let's say for a minute that this is easier than sky city, then this is not by much. So your solution to help player gear up so they can handle shards map is a map that is just a little more doable than those maps ? Not a huge success.

I do not really mind as I'll still be able to farm it with my friends but it's no longer the fun map right now, seems like a shards map to me. The time of spared-DU to troll'em up with presents is gone :(

I was hoping for something around Mistymire survival difficult, or between Mistymire and The Summit. That would be a nice stepping stone into NM.

So... let's say they DID play test this level (which it's obvious they didn't, or else they would have realized the difficulty was 1/10th of what they wanted, but just for the sake of the discussion). I'm going to assume they used the DUs currently asigned to the map?

Trendy, how do you justify a HUGE difficulty buff like this without extra DUs? You "play tested" (wink wink) with a certain setup and found it suitable. So you just... buff the whole level and don't compensate?

Unless you want to admit you didn't play test it, in which case the last few days makes a lot of sense...

Since I have played this map a few times now, I thought I'll share my thoughts with you.
After trying Campaign Nightmare 3 times, I gave up because I got crushed at wave 1 or 2 due to the low building time. I also can't build in the combat phase, because I need a DPS char to kill the ogres before they kill my minions. After that, I tried Survival hcmm which turned out okay (Summoner 1800/2000/600/1800, Monk 1300/2200/1900/2000). If I hadn't died at wave 16 through a stupid jump I probably could have managed to hold the build until wave 20. The main problem I was facing was that on the top layer up to 10 ogres (half copter-ogres) were torturing my archers and my mage. Ten ogres reinforced by copters are far too much, they kill my defensive row of minions in about 10 seconds if I don't help them out.
Afterwards I tried Campaign again. This time I managed it, because I got lucky and no sharken or whatever ran behind my defenses and attacked the crystal directly like they used to do in earlier games.
But the map definetly doesn't work as jump pad from mid-game to end-game, since it is practically impossible to do Campaign without a good DPS char/pet with 1000ish stats, which actually is possible for Mistymire, Moraggo and Aquanos (excluding the bosses).
To put it in a nutshell, we definetly need more time to build during the build phases, or just much lower mob-strength/speed/health (I don't know what the planned 15% will change about it, we'll see later).
The amount of DU is adequate in my option, it just doesn't fit the difficulty anymore.

The RNG on this map seems a bit screwed up as well since I get 1-2 trans and crappy myth from wave 7-20 and after wave 20 transcendent, surpreme, ultimate and 300-stat-myth items start dropping like mad (5-15 per wave).

I was hoping for something around Mistymire survival difficult, or between Mistymire and The Summit. That would be a nice stepping stone into NM.

This is about what I had in mind with a stepping stone into high-stat-nightmare.

EDIT: I don't think it should be lowered to the difficulty we had before, because I was able to afk the combat phases on survial waves 20-30, which is far to easy, considering the good amount of trans, surp, and ultimate.
Oh and btw. through the 12 Survival runs I did at the old difficulty, I got only two upgrades to my armor at all (none for my 1200/2900/800/2700 Countess though).

I think the biggest problem is that they haven't incrementally increased the difficulty.

That said, Trendy never intended to release it the way it was. However now that we know this is supposed to be a bridging map into NM, I think they should continue to monitor the difficulty. Hopefully they can incrementally decrease the difficulty until it hits the sweet spot.

I would envision that 3-4 times the enemy health, 2 times the enemy speed and 3 times the enemy attack would have been a good place to start.

I really do hope Trendy can hear the voices of those who just want to progress without spending countless hours for very small incremental stat changes.

That said, I have faith Trendy will fix this all :)

I think the biggest problem is that they haven't incrementally increased the difficulty.

That said, Trendy never intended to release it the way it was. However now that we know this is supposed to be a bridging map into NM, I think they should continue to monitor the difficulty. Hopefully they can incrementally decrease the difficulty until it hits the sweet spot.

I would envision that 3-4 times the enemy health, 2 times the enemy speed and 3 times the enemy attack would have been a good place to start.

I really do hope Trendy can hear the voices of those who just want to progress without spending countless hours for very small incremental stat changes.

That said, I have faith Trendy will fix this all :)

Your faith is strong classic.

But this is not an isolated situation, and has happened in the past. Despite wanting or not to release it as was, the fact is, only a
Minor part of the community had a problem with it ( doesnt matter how easy or not).

What i mean is, people were enjoying the map, even if it was a mistake, it was a fresh welcomed mistake.

If trendy fixes the old maps for better loot or remove the new enemies from them.

So far they only cared about pleasing the elite or the lucky ones, that capitalized big time on mistakes like yesterdays.
There has been zero to negative pleasing to casual or new players.

I know the game reached an "end" so new players can get the middle finger, but future software from trendy wont get my attention like DD did, cause all this crap is just ridiculous and the same mistakes being made over and over are just too much.

So keep your faith, ill keep my money till something on trendy changes

I'm just not sure how a company can miss the idea of balance by such a wide margin. I hope that now that they've released much of their new content that they go back and FIX what they have.

Now that I think about it, the new content was Trendy jingling keys to distract us from how broken the game is.

But you're forgetting that Nightmare mode was never intended to be played by casual players, it was designed to make a challenge for the very hardcore players.

But you're forgetting that Nightmare mode was never intended to be played by casual players, it was designed to make a challenge for the very hardcore players.

Oh please. That argument is no longer valid. Read the OP.

New map was fun to play, now it's not. <<
For context (because I know someone will just say "lol get better stats"): My friend and I are not exactly slouches in stats or in working out good builds for maps. We both have a small fortune and could buy gear we need, if there actually was any in shops. Previously we could clear the map easily, we got gear we desperately needed and progressed. Since we patch we were like "to be honest we can probably still do it, it should be still within our range". Nope.

-We now get crushed on wave 13 at most (starting from beginning) and it's not a fun few waves either.
+The map was previously genuinely fun, we could run around and play with the tiles, upgrade and check our defenses sporadically till wave 20 or so. It felt like the spirit of the map (having fun)
-All the gear up to the point we wipe is worse than our current gear, we get little to no mana and our gear we're wearing is fully upped. How are we supposed to progress?
+Previously the map felt like an actual game I play for fun rather than a boring, stressful, grind (like a second job).
+Previously trans was flooding into shops, this was significant and a good thing because good trans is like gold dust. You hear about it in a shop, go there in the hopes to buy it and find out it was sold hours ago. This readdressed that balance. Trans should not be as rare as it currently is in shops seeing as there're two tiers above it.

Suggestions for what you could have done.
-Removed ulti and sup drop chances from map, lowed max upgrades for trans very slightly and left as was (increase availability of trans, allowing people to actually progess without months of grinding)
-Removed ulti/sup chances and raised difficulty to about 2 times what is was
-Made two versions of map, one as is now with better loot, ulti and sup chances, etc while the other as previously was but without ult or sup chances and just slightly harder (appeasing everyone but those who would be angry either way)

Instead the map has become yet another brick wall despite what the OP said and we're left with the choice of grinding earlier maps till our eyes bleed for poor loot or going to play a different game and actually having fun.

I know balancing is hard and all and you guys tried but I just had to express my disappointment.

+Previously the map felt like an actual game I play for fun rather than a boring, stressful, grind (like a second job).

THIS

As I said in my previous post. My stats on my builder are an average of 1300. I actually have over 1500 in Tower Damage, but only just over 1200 in tower health. She's an adept by the way, but I have a countess who could easily put on her gear and match her stats.

I have an EV with around 950 that I use for a buff beam. I have an initiate with just under 1k stats for aura's, because I have a monk for DPS.

Before the update, I couldn't do NMHC survival for more than two waves. Insane HC survival I managed to do all 30 waves, but I did struggle some after wave 25.

Now, I have tried to tweak the build. I even swapped my Adept and Countess around using their defenses in place of the others. Solo or with a team, my friends joined in two or three times, I can't get past wave 10-12 on Insane HC.

Now, you can scold me and say that I'm too low, whatever. But I can do every map up to Royal Gardens on NMHC solo, and only need a sinngle partner for Spires on NMHC.

I keep hearing about this great loot, but when I did insane HC...nothing worth the time fell. And I get that the better gear would fall from NM, however, since I can't even do Insane now...how can I be expected to do NM?

I quoted what was said earlier, this was supposed to be a stepping stone to NM. But it's far beyond that now. It's the largest Stepping Stone I have ever tried to step up to.

Go ahead and flame me. I don't care. I know what I have experienced, and I spent all day yesterday trying to make it work on Insane difficulty. With or without a team, just didn't work. I was chasing an Ogre from behind on wave 12...and he nearly outran me. He was moving like you see mobs on the final waves do. Considering that it was wave 12...I can't imagine what 20 or 25 would be like. Spawn and teleport to the defensive line.

The map is just not fun at all now. The work it takes to complete a wave for such little rewards...not worth the time.

I keep hearing people say they got great stuff from it, but I have seen nothing fall worth picking up. Nothing better than what I have equipped anyway. The end reward weapons are nice. I love the Bishop myself. But getting those is all but impossible for me right now.

Go ahead and flame me. I just know what I have experienced myself.

So Nightmare is difficult. Have you tried Insane? Anyone?

So Nightmare is difficult. Have you tried Insane? Anyone?

Have you read the post above yours? lol

So Nightmare is difficult. Have you tried Insane? Anyone?

Insane campaign is about 75% more difficult that the old NM campaign, doable, but for 1K characters it's going to be a struggle. Reward item is decent, drops are trash for anyone who can do it.

I would say KG insane is somewhat easier than nm glitter, although that's only because nm glitter has copters.

No, King's Game insane is harder than NMHC glitter. After failing insane there yesterday, me and my friend wet to do Glitter on NMHC and we breezes through it. It was so much easier because we had enough DU to accomadate the size of the map. DU, time and mana on those first waves is very important and King's Game does not provide enough for the difficulty of the map.

No, King's Game insane is harder than NMHC glitter. After failing insane there yesterday, me and my friend wet to do Glitter on NMHC and we breezes through it. It was so much easier because we had enough DU to accomadate the size of the map. DU, time and mana on those first waves is very important and King's Game does not provide enough for the difficulty of the map.

KG on InsaneHC is really quite simple with the right build. Auras are key, as well as minion walls. That said, my stats are high.

Im quite upset with how this map was so called balanced. I got this game during the Steam summer sale and have logged over 110 hours into it since. I can do almost all campaign maps on Hard no problem. But most of them just felt like a grind because I'd already done them all on Medium. I was excited when a map came out that actually gave me a reward for HardHC to hopefully allow me to ease into insane, something I cant seem to do without Myths. And not only did it provide me with the gear I needed(1 peice of DPS myth before the change), it was a lot of fun doing it. The tiles are a great addition to the map. The people complaining about the map being to easy for the rewards it gave were just the elitists who already have 5k in all their stats and Trans armour, nothing else to do. They're all doing maps on NMHC while Im still stuck doing HardHC. One day the map is all Yellow Ogres throughout, the second its 400k Red the first wave? Just didnt make much sense to me.

the community was over all happy with the way it was they should put it back to the way it was at the start
if the l33t want more of a challenge they can try taking their gear off and doing it with lower stats or no gear at all

the changes made do nothing to help the game it just slams the door in the little guys face

Im quite upset with how this map was so called balanced. I got this game during the Steam summer sale and have logged over 110 hours into it since. I can do almost all campaign maps on Hard no problem. But most of them just felt like a grind because I'd already done them all on Medium. I was excited when a map came out that actually gave me a reward for HardHC to hopefully allow me to ease into insane, something I cant seem to do without Myths. And not only did it provide me with the gear I needed(1 peice of DPS myth before the change), it was a lot of fun doing it. The tiles are a great addition to the map. The people complaining about the map being to easy for the rewards it gave were just the elitists who already have 5k in all their stats and Trans armour, nothing else to do. They're all doing maps on NMHC while Im still stuck doing HardHC. One day the map is all Yellow Ogres throughout, the second its 400k Red the first wave? Just didnt make much sense to me.

Specific map issues aside, you shouldn't have to have myths to ease into insane mode. If you do, there's something very wrong with your builds (or maybe you use one builder only, which you shouldn't either). I'd say you have bigger things to worry about in this game than just the king's game. It's been said the map is going to be made easier, it's up in the patch notes as well. But when you need mythicals to ease into insane mode, I'd recommend you to not comment on balance issues too much.

Also, with about 2k in my main stats I can do this map on insane hardcore with just two harpoons, a buff beam, and three auras at each crystal. No walls, no minions, no traps. And that's with four people in there. I guess with the open space towards the crystal (i.e. you need to wall off a large distance) there's a huge difference between killing ogres before they even get close and having to whittle them down at your walls.

I would envision that 3-4 times the enemy health, 2 times the enemy speed and 3 times the enemy attack would have been a good place to start.

This sounds like it would be reasonable. What I don't get is that they seem to give basically the same buffs and quantities to all enemies across the board on every map, only increasing as maps get further along.

Just due to the very lay out (and DU of this map) large quantities of copter ogres simply don't work. I wish they would consider maps individually.

This sounds like it would be reasonable. What I don't get is that they seem to give basically the same buffs and quantities to all enemies across the board on every map, only increasing as maps get further along.

Just due to the very lay out (and DU of this map) large quantities of copter ogres simply don't work. I wish they would consider maps individually.

I totally understand what you mean, Copters usually sit very high on this map, even to the extent I can't see them zoomed all the way out. They aren't on the level above either, just sending rockets continuously my way with no means of attacking them :/

No one seems to have noticed this, so I have to say it: you know what King's 7.40 reminded me of? Levels 0-70, that's what. Remember when you used to find upgrades every couple of runs of a difficult-but-manageable campaign map? That's what we had here. Shards broke that pretty badly, making upgrades absurdly rare even on Survival, but we got to glimpse it again for a day. Someone in 1k gear could run King's Insane HC and end up with 1.1k gear! If you had 1.5k, you could beat Insane Survival and bootstrap yourself to perhaps 1.65k or 1.7k! For 2k and up, there was NMHCMM so you could hit 2.25k! It was almost like you didn't have to rely on the few people who were able to farm NM Mistymire back when it only had spiders. The temporarily-free DLC also reminded me of those glorious times. But now a bunch of butthurt people who got their gear when it was reasonably difficult have ruined it again.

My suggestion for fixing it? Take The King's Game back to where it was pre-patch, knock off the random crappy Ultimate drops (I saw one Ultimate Sicarius with multiple -300 stats) and buff the loot quality on the tougher maps like Karathiki, Moraggo, Sky City, and Palantir. If you need +400 to all relevant stats per piece of armor to beat the map, it should drop at least a few pieces per late wave that have +410. Take it from an early adopter with a bunch of early-adopter friends (I believe I know one of the first people to beat the Ancient Dragon on Insane back when everyone wanted Godly Enchanted Pristine armor)--harder is not necessarily better.

I liked it as it was ;) But I have to correct you somehow. I crushed NMHCMM with 1.7k on the highest stats. The others were around 1.3k. You didn't even need a 2k builder, no dps. Only Monk, EV, Summoner. I was able to start on wave 28, only had to use flash heal a few times. It was a great easy map.

You can look up the build in the guides section.

I liked it as it was ;) But I have to correct you somehow. I crushed NMHCMM with 1.7k on the highest stats. The others were around 1.3k. You didn't even need a 2k builder, no dps. Only Monk, EV, Summoner. I was able to start on wave 28, only had to use flash heal a few times. It was a great easy map.

You can look up the build in the guides section.

I have to agree, it felt a little too easy as it was(blasted through nmhcmm with countess, ev and summoner, didn't even need my waller ev). A difficulty buff of 100% would have been reasonable and the drop rate of sups and ults should've been lowered. (ults especially, they shouldn't have been dropping as early as wave 17).

The map post patch is near unplayable for me in normal nmhc survival and an impossible time trial in nm campaign.