What would you change?

[QUOTE]The point is that NM mode has all sorts of problems, and reducing Monk damage scaling doesn't fix a single one of them.[/QUOTE]Uhhh, right, but adjusting monk (or the other characters) isn't about making fixing NM or making it easier or harder, it's about bringing the four main hero classes into balance with each-other. You were missing the point of what I said.

[QUOTE]Until NM I'd never felt that much monotony; not after I started from scratch after switching to PC from Xbox; not after I started from scratch after switching from open to ranked. Before NM I developed my own unique builds, I hacked people with my hero, I saw upgrades, I hadn't even noticed that 3 hours passed and that I had to be to work in 2 hours. And guess what? it was challenging! [/QUOTE]I don't understand. There was no reason you couldn't develop your own unique builds on NM as well. That's what I did- I never used other people's builds, I've never bought a single item from an AFK shop, and I still made it through NM (except CD at this point =\ )

The last post post made me realize what DD was for me before I quit. Look up a build (or a few, but they were all pretty much the same), build the level, switch to my monk (seahorse chauffeur) and stand wherever the most ogres were on the map, sift through the massive amounts of garbage gear, rinse and repeat for 3 hours.

Until NM I'd never felt that much monotony; not after I started from scratch after switching to PC from Xbox; not after I started from scratch after switching from open to ranked. Before NM I developed my own unique builds, I hacked people with my hero, I saw upgrades, I hadn't even noticed that 3 hours passed and that I had to be to work in 2 hours. And guess what? it was challenging!

Thanks to high level NM I've been reduced to going outside.

All the ridiculous tweaks to NM (and the general difficulty) really cut the size of this game down to like 1/3 the size from Insane. Every build is just small tweaks of the same components. YOu wanna win? Here's what you do:

1. Minion walls on boost beams.
2. Harpoon/Fireball towers.
3. Aura stacks above the minion walls.
4. Fill in extra DU with reflect beams or gas traps.
5. Get a Monk and a Seahorse geared for DPS.
6. Play for 20 hours and hope you don't get disconnected, hope your rewards don't get rolled over and ruined by a bugged system Trendy is okay with, and hope anything good actually shows up at all.

That's why I think the rebalancing of the defenses mentioned in my first post is so important. When only ONE strategy actually works, the game ceases to become about strategy and just becomes a game of farming for better stats until the ONE build actually works.

Just think, if we had more options, we could go back to using strategy to beat levels instead of grinding for stats good enough to do the ONE thing that works.

That's mainly a problem on some of the newer maps that are too wide-open. On tighter maps, you have more options. Still there is room for variation. Personally I don't really use harpoons and fire towers all the time. Sometimes I throw in EV beams, and like to use deadly strikers, depending on the situation.

Still, NM would have been a lot better if they didn't wildly change the rules- My inrerpretation is the goal of the changes was to put more emphasis on towers, which it does, but as you play the later maps, the enemies scale up a lot better than your towers do with more stats and a strong DPS still becomes absolutely necessary, so it doesn't really achieve its goal in the end.

Uhhh, right, but adjusting monk (or the other characters) isn't about making fixing NM or making it easier or harder, it's about bringing the four main hero classes into balance with each-other. You were missing the point of what I said.

Well, if you're not trying to fix things I see little reason to even bother with the conversation, then.

I understood you, I just don't care. Hero imbalance doesn't bother me. Hero uselessness does. If you have a favorite character and feel bad 'cause the Monk is better, I guess that's your thing. The Monk being great doesn't cause any problems. Other characters being garbage IS a problem. The NM-mode-emphasizes-defenses thing has been a failure, so why continues to put up with crappy hero damage?

That's mainly a problem on some of the newer maps that are too wide-open. On tighter maps, you have more options. Still there is room for variation. Personally I don't really use harpoons and fire towers all the time. Sometimes I throw in EV beams, and like to use deadly strikers, depending on the situation.

Still, NM would have been a lot better if they didn't wildly change the rules- My inrerpretation is the goal of the changes was to put more emphasis on towers, which it does, but as you play the later maps, the enemies scale up a lot better than your towers do with more stats and a strong DPS still becomes absolutely necessary, so it doesn't really achieve its goal in the end.

On those tighter maps, there's usually fewer DUs, though, and people are often back in the same position. The entire player base is relegated to only the most-DU efficient builds possible because otherwise stuff just isn't doable, with the exception of one guy who wanders into a thread with anecdotes about how he still loves Lightning Towers. The point is that only 1% of players out there have the stats that it takes to re-open the game and make stuff like Deadly Strike Towers anything but a joke. Set yourself back to the 1500s on tower stats and let me know how helpful your Ethereal Spike Traps are for Palantir.

I've heard the bit about NM supposed to be an emphasis on defenses instead of heroes. Which is fine, I have no problem with the goal. Looking back, I have two problems with it:

1. Too many useless towers. If we're trying to make defenses more important... why does NM make so many of them irrelevant?
2. Doesn't Pure Strategy kind of do that already?

So what the heck was Trendy even really trying to do? NM mode never really accomplished that stated goal, and Pure Strategy does it better anyway, so all NM is doing is taking the great gameplay from Insane mode and making it bad.

At this point, their goal failed, so unless conversations about "what they meant to do" are going to go back in time and fix it (but we all know they won't) there's little point in bringing it up. Unless Trendy is going to re-work NM mode to achieve the goal they originally intended (but we all know they won't) we should start trying to make it something ELSE, because "was it was supposed to be" didn't happen and never will.

[QUOTE]Well, if you're not trying to fix things I see little reason to even bother with the conversation, then.[/QUOTE]I am trying to fix something, just not the same thing you are. You personally not caring doesn't make it less important.

[QUOTE]2. Doesn't Pure Strategy kind of do that already?
[/QUOTE]Pure strategy is also a lot more restrictive. Once the build phase is over, the state of your build is locked in and you can't make any changes other than upgrades during combat. NM was supposed to make your tower build more important without totally eliminating the DPS/ability end of the game. On easy-insane, it doesn't take a lot of effort to vastly out damage your towers singlehandedly. On pure strategy, your character has basically no influence during combat at all. Nightmare is supposed to be somewhere in between I think, but it ends up not being that far away from the other difficulties in the end. It might have been better to classify nightmare as a game mode rather than a difficulty.

I don't understand. There was no reason you couldn't develop your own unique builds on NM as well. That's what I did- I never used other people's builds, I've never bought a single item from an AFK shop, and I still made it through NM (except CD at this point =\ )

I'll bet that your unique builds ended up being pretty similar to everyone else's. Not because you aren't creative, but because theres only so many effective builds in the delicate world of NM.

All the ridiculous tweaks to NM (and the general difficulty) really cut the size of this game down to like 1/3 the size from Insane. Every build is just small tweaks of the same components. YOu wanna win? Here's what you do:

1. Minion walls on boost beams.
2. Harpoon/Fireball towers.
3. Aura stacks above the minion walls.
4. Fill in extra DU with reflect beams or gas traps.
5. Get a Monk and a Seahorse geared for DPS.
6. Play for 20 hours and hope you don't get disconnected, hope your rewards don't get rolled over and ruined by a bugged system Trendy is okay with, and hope anything good actually shows up at all.

That's why I think the rebalancing of the defenses mentioned in my first post is so important. When only ONE strategy actually works, the game ceases to become about strategy and just becomes a game of farming for better stats until the ONE build actually works.

Just think, if we had more options, we could go back to using strategy to beat levels instead of grinding for stats good enough to do the ONE thing that works.

This. Not to mention that NM requires at least an EV for any high level. A class that must be purchased. Show me a shards survival build that uses only the free classes and works with ~ 1.5k stats and I'll completely believe you when you say that we have significant build options.

...Well, if you're not trying to fix things I see little reason to even bother with the conversation, then.

I understood you, I just don't care. Hero imbalance doesn't bother me. Hero uselessness does. If you have a favorite character and feel bad 'cause the Monk is better, I guess that's your thing. The Monk being great doesn't cause any problems. Other characters being garbage IS a problem. The NM-mode-emphasizes-defenses thing has been a failure, so why continues to put up with crappy hero damage?



On those tighter maps, there's usually fewer DUs, though, and people are often back in the same position. The entire player base is relegated to only the most-DU efficient builds possible because otherwise stuff just isn't doable, with the exception of one guy who wanders into a thread with anecdotes about how he still loves Lightning Towers. The point is that only 1% of players out there have the stats that it takes to re-open the game and make stuff like Deadly Strike Towers anything but a joke. Set yourself back to the 1500s on tower stats and let me know how helpful your Ethereal Spike Traps are for Palantir.

I've heard the bit about NM supposed to be an emphasis on defenses instead of heroes. Which is fine, I have no problem with the goal. Looking back, I have two problems with it:

1. Too many useless towers. If we're trying to make defenses more important... why does NM make so many of them irrelevant?
2. Doesn't Pure Strategy kind of do that already?

So what the heck was Trendy even really trying to do? NM mode never really accomplished that stated goal, and Pure Strategy does it better anyway, so all NM is doing is taking the great gameplay from Insane mode and making it bad.

At this point, their goal failed, so unless conversations about "what they meant to do" are going to go back in time and fix it (but we all know they won't) there's little point in bringing it up. Unless Trendy is going to re-work NM mode to achieve the goal they originally intended (but we all know they won't) we should start trying to make it something ELSE, because "was it was supposed to be" didn't happen and never will.

Well I for one was around before NM ever came out - and up until it came out the game play had gotten quite a bit away from 'tower' where all the (at that time) end game players pretty much just 1 shot killing everything with super-looted hunts w/ vans. NM (even as imperfect as it seems at times) pretty much has made towers important again - plus all those end-game players moved on to it and out of insane. I would say that Trendy got a pretty good result in that. Now I would not have made the thousand little changes to do it like they did, because I think it definitely made balancing it harder if not impossible but Trendy did move the game back to it's 'tower' roots. So yeah NM mode gave the end-gamers more (which they were demanding/begging/crying/whatever for) and pushed the game play back to a tower basis. Then players cried out that dps was worthless - so they buffed the pets.

Honestly; if you read the patch notes starting at the beginning and worked your way up to today - it would seem quite schizo. But you have to balance that with the fact that a lot of the changes have all been driven by the community (at least it has seemed that way at times) and that has not always been a good thing. Except in proof that Trendy actually does listen. Now listening doesn't always mean acting upon wisely - but if so the community carries part of the blame in that.

Change of subject here; for me personally I think the DPS aspect would be best served by severing the link between pet DPS factor and hero DPS factor. I get that each hero should do different DPS; although I think the factor in and of itself is a clunky balancing factor because now you have both weapons and factor to tweak, but pets? If you look at their stated character backgrounds - none of them are stated to be a better pet handler. So why the difference? My guess is because pre-NM it was not a big deal since pets at that time where rather tame so to speak. And so there was just the 1 factor. When NM hit and players cried out for dps once again and pets were given the buff - it was stuck with just the 1 factor. Now if you need to increase dps on one toon - the easiest and fastest way to do so is with the factor but since the weaons are nerfed and pets are buffed in NM you see the biggest difference there. So now monks are the defacto best pet carrier. And I won't even go into how the summoner was nerfed back too far because of it's dps factor. So a good suggestion in my opinion would be to add a separate factor for pet damage - then set them all to 1 except on the summoner - and for that toon - make it 0.8 as originally intended or balance it somewhat but not where it is now.

tl;dr: Trendy's intent with making towers important is working (perfectly/imperfectly) in NM mode. AND add a pet dps factor so that can be balanced without changing hero dps.

[QUOTE]This. Not to mention that NM requires at least an EV for any high level. A class that must be purchased. [/QUOTE]People keep saying this, but nightmare itself must be purchased, so I see nothing wrong with the purchased characters being valuable for it. Unless you don't like the game before any DLC, odds are pretty good you're going to purchase it.

Also as I've repeated a number of times, you don't HAVE to purchase it, you can also play with other people who have purchased it.

Would you have given any consideration to purchasing the DLC characters if they didn't help you do anything better? They may as well have just been costumes for existing characters if they didn't.

People keep saying this, but nightmare itself must be purchased, so I see nothing wrong with the purchased characters being valuable for it. Unless you don't like the game before any DLC, odds are pretty good you're going to purchase it.

Also as I've repeated a number of times, you don't HAVE to purchase it, you can also play with other people who have purchased it.

Would you have given any consideration to purchasing the DLC characters if they didn't help you do anything better?

I have to concur with Alhanalem with this 100%. For me I do not see anything wrong with requiring DLC to beat DLC. And the prices have all been reasonable (some free and others on sale at stupid cheap prices).

I have absolutely no complaints with how much value this game has offered compared to the cost.

My only desire is to see a good game become better - because I think it can.

Incredibly tedious & frustrating game!

I'm about 500 hours into this game and have 12 chars all builders, over 3.5k, DPS 3k+, so this is not a rant about how "difficult" it is to get into Nightmare. My frustration lays entirely within the post-trans gear meta game.

I've seen posts similar to this about loot/rewards etc. Well let me say that since I bought this game during Steam's summer sale I to have noticed incredibly odd loot behavior. Coupled with the fact that Trendy/Steam goes down at least once every day or two mid-survival run, it's making for a very unenjoyable experience. (I JUST got kicked out of my game for no reason at wave 18 Aqua NMHCMM after finishing fully upgrading everything).

I've probably run over 30+ aqua's on NMHCMM with 4 of my own summoners through wave 30 and have seen 1 Supreme and 1 Ultimate...and they weren't even good. In fact they were worse than most of my trans/myth. (The ultimate had 223 ups and low base stats). Most of the trans I find is garbage as well, so that leaves me wondering. What the @#&$ is the point of "grinding" survival when you will literally find maybe one decent item every 30+ hours?

I've spent time talking to some of the vets in this game who say loot used to be a lot better and they were clearly telling the truth judging by the pieces they had on. It's like the pre-loot nerf stuff IS the game and the only way to obtain that is by trading cubes around and preying on noobs for their cubes (buying them for 1/2 the value).

Is anyone else having this same experience? I do not want this to turn into another Diablo style game where 5% is playing the game and trading is the other 95%. Time spent/risk is HARDLY worth the reward in this game's survival grind.

Again, this is a new players' perspective on the game, I've not been playing this for years. You'd think that Trendy would want to fix these issues to retain/draw in newer players. (Seems like most of the vets are quitting).

[QUOTE]Is anyone else having this same experience? I do not want this to turn into another Diablo style game where 5% is playing the game and trading is the other 95%.[/QUOTE]You don't have to buy items at all to get through the game. It's your choice whether to engage in the economy or not. Sorry to hear you're not enjoying the game, unfortunately, it is what it is.

[QUOTE]I've spent time talking to some of the vets in this game who say loot used to be a lot better and they were clearly telling the truth judging by the pieces they had on. It's like the pre-loot nerf stuff IS the game and the only way to obtain that is by trading cubes around and preying on noobs for their cubes (buying them for 1/2 the value). [/QUOTE]There never was a 'nerf" to loot. The problem is a function of the loot generator that makes perfect loot less common is being triggered much more by the higher loot qualities.

As this is essentially another thread about the loot system, I'm going to merge this into another thread on the subject.

I am trying to fix something, just not the same thing you are. You personally not caring doesn't make it less important.

But again... what problems is it causing? How important can it be to knock the Monk off his high horse if all it's doing is helping people beat levels and it's not an exploit/glitch?

Does "lowering Monk damage ramp" solve a problem other than "Monk damage is ramp too high"? I don't see that it does.

Maybe we just disagree here, but my main problem is that NM is too hard for too little reward. Extra hero damage helps that. Not sure if there's a "problem" you'll solve by nerfing the Monk unless you're starting to worry about your Squire's self-esteem since the Monk is so much better than him.

[QUOTE]Maybe we just disagree here, but my main problem is that NM is too hard for too little reward. [/QUOTE]The way to fix this is to reduce the amount of garbage loot, not to directly make NM easier.

The way to fix this is to reduce the amount of garbage loot, not to directly make NM easier.

Sounds good too me. Let's get Trendy on that.

Will the RNG ever be reworked? - SirLatency

Jeremy: No. The RNG has issues, but it's too ingrained into its existing balance-ramp to alter at this point.

****. Well, I guess we'll have to try something else. Hey, what if we boosted the hero damage ramp of all the other characters so they didn't get blown out of the water by the Monk? That might make it easier to get farther in Survival mode and get a better chance at loot!

Remember, at this point you can't expect much more than minor changes to the game for the most part. Trendy is investing most of its time on its next projects. It's not the end of the road

[QUOTE]Hey, what if we boosted the hero damage ramp of all the other characters so they didn't get blown out of the water by the Monk? [/QUOTE]It would be much simpler to nerf monk slightly than buff everything else. Yes, nobody is a fan of nerfs, but always buffing everything else does not make for a good balancing scheme.

People keep saying this, but nightmare itself must be purchased, so I see nothing wrong with the purchased characters being valuable for it. Unless you don't like the game before any DLC, odds are pretty good you're going to purchase it.

I switched from Xbox to PC, so I didn't actually know that NM had to be purchased. Point taken.

I would like to see hacking gone from this game altogether. Atleast on ranked. This weekend I have come across atleast five players on ranked who have had modded gear on. It seems that a large portion of the players have suddenly become hackers, or then some of the shops are really spewing out hacked gear to the market. Or some players are giving away hacked gear for free.

If trendy could add "dingle" button to the shop, by which pressing you could tell if a gear is hacked, this would be great :) In the future all drops should have a hash etc. which would tell what the stats of the item were, when it spawned.

People keep saying this, but nightmare itself must be purchased, so I see nothing wrong with the purchased characters being valuable for it. Unless you don't like the game before any DLC, odds are pretty good you're going to purchase it.

Also as I've repeated a number of times, you don't HAVE to purchase it, you can also play with other people who have purchased it.

Would you have given any consideration to purchasing the DLC characters if they didn't help you do anything better? They may as well have just been costumes for existing characters if they didn't.

This. Isn't. The. Point.

I don't think anybody has a problem with DLC characters being useful for Nightmare mode, its just darn near impossible to get anywhere without them. Summoner walls on EV buff beams, with reflect walls covering the crystals, has literally been the dominating strategy since those DLCs came out. But for those of us who don't purchase the new defenses, or rely on someone who did, its almost impossible to get to endgame.

MAKING PEOPLE PURCHASE DLC TO BEAT OTHER PURCHASED DLC IS INCREDIBLY UNETHICAL, WRONG, AND AN EASY WAY TO RUIN YOUR CREDIBILITY AS A GAME COMPANY, NO MATTER HOW MUCH EITHER DLC COSTS (unless of course, both are free, but we're not talking about free DLC, are we?)

It doesn't matter if I don't have to purchase the DLC personally, its still stupid and wrong that someone has to in order for me to progress, even if it doesn't affect me personally! And if online build layouts are anything to go buy, tons of people have already bought into this horrible business practice!

We just want to beat the game without having to go through the unethical bs that Trendy is trying to shove down our throats. Is that really too much to ask?

DLC characters can make things easier. Nobody really has a problem with that, otherwise I'd see a lot more complaints about Summoner and EV being overpowered on the forums. So why can't the original characters get a buff so that we don't HAVE to rely on paid DLC defenses in order to progress? DLC characters would still be massively OP, but they already were to begin with, so what exactly is the problem, outside of a few more people actually being able to complete the DLC they paid for?

[QUOTE]MAKING PEOPLE PURCHASE DLC TO BEAT OTHER PURCHASED DLC IS INCREDIBLY UNETHICAL, WRONG, AND AN EASY WAY TO RUIN YOUR CREDIBILITY AS A GAME COMPANY, NO MATTER HOW MUCH EITHER DLC COSTS (unless of [/QUOTE]This is completely wrong. That's all I can say.

Both nightmare and the DLC characters are optional. If you don't want them, you don't have to buy them. There is nothing unethical or wrong about it, any more than any other DLC for any other purpose in any other game is/isn't.

This is completely wrong. That's all I can say.

Both nightmare and the DLC characters are optional. If you don't want them, you don't have to buy them. There is nothing unethical or wrong about it, any more than any other DLC for any other purpose in any other game is/isn't.

Buying the game in general is 'optional'. They promoted the shard packs AS EXPANSION PACKS, not small DLC packs. So to say they are optional in regards to continuing the game with other people is foolish.

This is completely wrong. That's all I can say.

Both nightmare and the DLC characters are optional. If you don't want them, you don't have to buy them. There is nothing unethical or wrong about it, any more than any other DLC for any other purpose in any other game is/isn't.

Sticking your fingers in your ears and screaming "LALALALALALA I can't hear you!" isn't a good way to counter somebody's argument.

So because I don't have to gall to purchase more DLC to complete the DLC I already purchased, or rely on someone who did (which would be a breach of my morals, to say the least) I should just give up and go home?

I deserve the right to complete Nightmare mode DLC without paying for other DLC, or relying on somebody who did. So does everyone else in my situation.

Show me evidence that it can be done without an EV or a Summoner, and I'll be quiet.

The argument of, NM is impossible without all the dlc characters and so on, is such a broad argument. For me, given I did this before copters, but I was able to complete nearly the entire original campaign with just a squire on nmhc. And I did it with stats barely ranging from 300-800. With some effort, I think the entire original campaign could very well be kinda easy actually if you utilize all 4 original characters, and especially if you do it with a friend or two. However, shards is another story. For Mistymire I think I just joined a random group doing it on nm. But later on I did it nmhc with a friend but we used EV and Summoner, did the same with Morraggo. And only have beaten aquanos and Sky City just nm, well did Sky City nmhc with a random group but still. In which case, I can't say that any shards map is capable without either the EV and/or Summoner but I think I can say the original campaign is possible, it's just much more difficult and will take a very active player that is willing to be repairing and rebuilding constantly during and in between waves. I'd be willing to try out beating Shards without EV or Summoner, it'd crazy hard to do, but it'd be kinda fun to try. nb4 what are my stats, My characters currently range from around 1k-2k stats, with only a few stats actually much above 1.5k.

But as far as what I'd like to see changed, I'd really like to see better reward items on nm, particularly for stuff before Aquanos and Sky City. Also, I'd love to see a re-balancing of pets because well, as we all know, Seahorse is basically the only useful pet and I'd like to see all pets have a use, however, it'd be a lot of work to do so.

The argument of, NM is impossible without all the dlc characters and so on, is such a broad argument. For me, given I did this before copters, but I was able to complete nearly the entire original campaign with just a squire on nmhc. And I did it with stats barely ranging from 300-800. With some effort, I think the entire original campaign could very well be kinda easy actually if you utilize all 4 original characters, and especially if you do it with a friend or two. However, shards is another story. For Mistymire I think I just joined a random group doing it on nm. But later on I did it nmhc with a friend but we used EV and Summoner, did the same with Morraggo. And only have beaten aquanos and Sky City just nm, well did Sky City nmhc with a random group but still. In which case, I can't say that any shards map is capable without either the EV and/or Summoner but I think I can say the original campaign is possible, it's just much more difficult and will take a very active player that is willing to be repairing and rebuilding constantly during and in between waves. I'd be willing to try out beating Shards without EV or Summoner, it'd crazy hard to do, but it'd be kinda fun to try. nb4 what are my stats, My characters currently range from around 1k-2k stats, with only a few stats actually much above 1.5k.

But as far as what I'd like to see changed, I'd really like to see better reward items on nm, particularly for stuff before Aquanos and Sky City. Also, I'd love to see a re-balancing of pets because well, as we all know, Seahorse is basically the only useful pet and I'd like to see all pets have a use, however, it'd be a lot of work to do so.

I honestly couldn't care one way or the other if DLC characters are required or not, but with the addition of copters, it is far more difficult now. Though the original campaign is probably still 'doable' without them, you would have to be a bit over geared for it on your other characters. Such as trading with other people to get some gear and such.

Really doesn't matter much though, since you can't find very good things from just the campaign itself; you'd have to do survival which, on some maps, does require at least either a summ or ev for buff beams.

Remember, at this point you can't expect much more than minor changes to the game for the most part. Trendy is investing most of its time on its next projects. It's not the end of the road

Hey, you're the one trying to get Trendy to rework the loots still. I gave up on that, I figure it would at least be easier to try my thing in the pointless hope they'd listen.

It would be much simpler to nerf monk slightly than buff everything else. Yes, nobody is a fan of nerfs, but always buffing everything else does not make for a good balancing scheme.

I'll ask it one more time: simpler way to what? Boost the self-esteem of all those down-trodden Squires, yes. But other than that, it fixes nothing. You're telling me they won't fix actual problems, and then looking for them to fix a not-problem that some people need to actually help them progress? Yeah, good luck with that. The truth is, once they stopped fixing serious problems, they quit on the community and now we all need to move on to another game.

/talking in circles

I'm not the one trying to get anyone to do anything. Crazy random is the one making the mod.