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Post by dayan on Jun 5, 2015 15:48:50 GMT -5
Doesn't seem to matter which one I take. I'm. Dead within 5 rounds. And on easy. I think I'm done embarrassing myself for a while, going back to the proverbial (and literal) drawing board.
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Post by Cory Trese on Jun 5, 2015 15:49:27 GMT -5
It can be done either way, honestly. If you are up for doing Right first you'll end up with a stronger squad.
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Post by fallen on Jun 5, 2015 15:50:33 GMT -5
Doesn't seem to matter which one I take. I'm. Dead within 5 rounds. And on easy. I think I'm done embarrassing myself for a while, going back to the paper. - can you help us provide advice? How are you dying? Where are heading? What Talents are you using? We'd love to provide help. Maybe I can make a play thru video of the level being beaten. |
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Post by contributor on Jun 5, 2015 16:59:00 GMT -5
Wow, by the third temple level I'm finding myself very frustrated. There are insane numbers of aliens on these levels. My captain finally died after 125 kills for the squad. Having xenos constantly coming from every direction is making this not fun. It takes so many templars to hold one TP, I might as well just not capture them. As I watch a xeno spawn in the middle of a group of three templars and attack my engineer, it begins to feel like defense is just not possible.
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Post by slayernz on Jun 5, 2015 17:11:08 GMT -5
Thanks fallen I'll give that a shot. Edit: that was a kick in the butt. Easiest mission on the easy setting after upgrading everyone and burning through 1600 points and my captain is dead within 3 rounds of contact. Since no one else appears to be having this trouble and tearing through the harder settings, the problem is more likely between my ears. Hey dayan ... I am a very very cautious player by nature - preferring to do things carefully rather than push for specific turn completions. I haven't figured out whether this will result in me getting MORE pain than less (because of the increased number of Xenos offset by the fact my team is theoretically able to cover eachother more logially ...) Oh ... and I'm still playing at Normal level ... I'm a whimp at times  |
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Post by johndramey on Jun 5, 2015 19:58:16 GMT -5
Ok, so after playing through more of thr tutorial I have to agree with dayan. Granted, I'm on Ironman Nightmare, but the game has literally become impossible. I was able to barely squeeze by the insane amount of xenos on the third mission due to the fact that most of thrm route towards my attacking squad. However, on level 4 of the tutorial, it was unmanageable. I finally aborted at turn 14 with 54 kills and another 10 xenos on the screen. That's approximately 64 xenos in 14 rounds, which is almost 5 a round spawning that I could see. It was pretty much impossible for me to do anything to staunch the flow, I had 3 soldiers on non-overlapping overwatch just watching the southern approach and still 1 or two skitterings would get through the line every other round or so. Those 3 soldiers were all overheated, so it was pretty much non-sustainable. My other 3 Templars were my captain, Luthor and my engineer. I was attempting to push north with them but was only able to make 2 squares a turn due to the 3-4 hunters I'd have to kill every round. I do realize I'm on the hardest difficulty and it should be challenging. However, as things were that round, it was not only impossible but also frustrating. I had 6 skitterings and two brood mothers bull rush through my overwatch, damage my Tact point by 3 hp and then watched as the brood mothers summoned an additional 2 skitterings. On round 13! If you guys didn't tweak anything then I'm not sure what to say because something has obviously changed. I'll retry running the tutorial on Hard and see how that flies but I'm going to go on the record as saying the spawn rates seem to be through the roof. For the record, though, I haven't tried the new content yet. Oh and fallen, specifically I've noticed a large uptick on levels 3 and 4 of the tutorial. |
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Post by Cory Trese on Jun 5, 2015 20:12:20 GMT -5
As I watch a xeno spawn in the middle of a group of three templars and attack my engineer, it begins to feel like defense is just not possible. If you post a screenshot or any real details, I can take a look. Maybe it was a map authoring error. I don't see any issues with spawning points inside the perimeter, but I very well could be missing what you are talking about or even misunderstanding what level you are on. |
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Post by Cory Trese on Jun 5, 2015 20:14:55 GMT -5
Ok, so after playing through more of thr tutorial I have to agree with dayan. Granted, I'm on Ironman Nightmare I don't think Ironman Nightmare is the best place to start. Please, please, please play on Normal at least one game first? Games with awesome difficulty systems like ST RPG can only exist if players accept they need to practice on easier difficulty levels before tacking Impossible. May people say Impossible ST RPG IS impossible if you haven't really mastered Insane. |
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Post by johndramey on Jun 5, 2015 21:01:55 GMT -5
Ok, so after playing through more of thr tutorial I have to agree with dayan. Granted, I'm on Ironman Nightmare I don't think Ironman Nightmare is the best place to start. Please, please, please play on Normal at least one game first? Games with awesome difficulty systems like ST RPG can only exist if players accept they need to practice on easier difficulty levels before tacking Impossible. May people say Impossible ST RPG IS impossible if you haven't really mastered Insane. In my defense, cory, I played through the entirety of p1 on Ironman Nightmare as well as having played pretty much all of your games on the higher difficulty levels. It's not like I picked up the game and mashed IN without any knowledge. My post was about a change between p1 and p2. Is it just my perception? Maybe, and I am willing to accept that if it is. The reason I posted is a) this is an alpha and you probably want your player's feedback and b) at least two others, dayan and contributor, have commented on exactly what I have noticed. |
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Post by Cory Trese on Jun 5, 2015 21:22:56 GMT -5
A) Definitely want player feedback. Need it to make the game as good as possible for general release.
B) Getting similar feedback definitely helps us narrow in on the cause and find similarities and differences in the reporting.
The math runs came out super clean, 0.52% interior variation on the rates -- below expected statistical variation, in fact. So it is clear -- the spawning rates between P1 and P2 are not substantially different, so far as to the actual rules and running of the game on a reference Android device.
However, I cannot cleanly measure how much impact the new AI routines are delivering, in terms of player difficulty or psychological impact. Aggregated heat maps extracted from saved game files may indicate that the slower moving Xeno in P2 tend to bunch up more and hit player positions in waves. This may be the cause of the perception.
The next phase will dramatically reduce spawning rates on lower difficulties.
As part of the reducing of spawn rates for Brutal and below, I had planned to increase the spawning rate for Ironman Nightmare because I was started to feel like it was too easy. Maybe a bad move.
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Post by fallen on Jun 5, 2015 21:54:05 GMT -5
As stated in another thread, "The levels are very different than P1, so trying to compare "spawn rate" is not very effective I think. Bigger levels, more objectives, longer on the map -- all of these things contribute to the count of xenos."
Also, these are "large warfare levels" -- more what you'd expect at the end of a deployment, and not every level of Templar Battleforce.
Thanks for all the feedback, we'll keep working on tuning the difficulty and xeno counts for levels. We're working on some more statistical analysis tools that will help us look at these numbers as clearly as possible.
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Post by Cory Trese on Jun 5, 2015 21:55:47 GMT -5
I was comparing the spawn rates on levels that haven't changed like Tutorial 2.
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Post by fallen on Jun 5, 2015 22:16:18 GMT -5
Asking this on contributor's thread too - to anyone struggling with difficulty: are you playing with a Boost-In squad or one coming through the Tutorial? The RP and XP for a tutorial squad will be drastically less, making this challenge way, way harder. |
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Post by ntsheep on Jun 5, 2015 22:36:40 GMT -5
I started a whole new squad on Normal to play through the tutorial and then the new content. I'm not using a boosted squad yet. May try that later just to see how much of a difference it makes.
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Post by Brutus Aurelius on Jun 5, 2015 22:39:31 GMT -5
I have seen the Xeno come in in waves, and only had to restart that third level once. That was because my Captain bit the duat. Damn Brood Mothers! Neptunes for the win! They are amazing so far on defense, but they generate so much Heat! I could have a Xeno BBQ on their armor, but I imagine the Hydra are worse. And as a last little note, my first deployed Neptune was named Verz, which is: A) My character's name from a Star Wars site B) Said character is a heavy weapon using badass, so nice little coincidence there |
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