28-02-2012, 12:25 PM
I agree that these things discourage players from continuing this mod. Even as the leader of the largest NA house, it's often difficult to get a good group of players together. Adding to that is the fact that our best players have extremely varied schedules, so getting a group of strong players together is even more difficult. If the player population deteriorates any more, progressing in hard mode will be but a distant dream. This is, of course, not completely the fault of the difficulty itself. It has to do with player attitudes as well. People want to be able to kick ass on their own and the difficulty prevents that, forcing better team play. But the problem is that the difficulty is set at such a high level that even when working as a team, one has difficulty advancing.
Even while using what the devs probably deem as cheesy tactics such as shield walling in town, we are wiped by Valks and Jotnes with their crush-through. Also, taking into consideration that they require 4-5 headshots from snipers to kill, it would be next to impossible for a commando to take on even one of them alone, as blocking is insufficient, and one false move results in death. If, by pure chance, you were to manage killing one Jotne, there are at least 3 spawning per player.
Though this is probably just a result of narrow-mindedness, the only other viable team-play alternative I can think of is having knights kite the wave while archers sit back and fire (a tactic that would not net much assist exp for both parties). Having commandos in such a group would be pointless, as they wouldn't be able to do anything the knights could not do better. The same applies to the shield wall tactic -- a knight in a shield wall would be able to do nothing better than a commando could. These two play-styles would exclude one class no matter what.
The solution would be to either reduce the number of enemies spawned, or reduce the capabilities of each enemy spawned. The latter would make hard mode more like normal mode, and because of that, I do not recommend it. The former, I believe, would be the better solution, though some enemies could certainly use some rebalancing even with reduced numbers. As it is now, one has to play making very few mistakes for an extremely long period of time to complete a wave. If there were fewer enemies, you would still have to play as close to perfection as possible, but for a shorter time and with more breathing room.
Apologies for the long post. It is quite a rant, but regardless of the difficulty, I do very much enjoy this mod and appreciate the work the devs have put into it. I am certain that better things are yet to come. Perhaps this post will move the mod in a better direction.
P.S.: While I am writing on the topic of balance, I'd like to reiterate that normal mode huscarls and veteran huscarls could use a nerf, they are deadlier than their hard mode counterparts.
Even while using what the devs probably deem as cheesy tactics such as shield walling in town, we are wiped by Valks and Jotnes with their crush-through. Also, taking into consideration that they require 4-5 headshots from snipers to kill, it would be next to impossible for a commando to take on even one of them alone, as blocking is insufficient, and one false move results in death. If, by pure chance, you were to manage killing one Jotne, there are at least 3 spawning per player.
Though this is probably just a result of narrow-mindedness, the only other viable team-play alternative I can think of is having knights kite the wave while archers sit back and fire (a tactic that would not net much assist exp for both parties). Having commandos in such a group would be pointless, as they wouldn't be able to do anything the knights could not do better. The same applies to the shield wall tactic -- a knight in a shield wall would be able to do nothing better than a commando could. These two play-styles would exclude one class no matter what.
The solution would be to either reduce the number of enemies spawned, or reduce the capabilities of each enemy spawned. The latter would make hard mode more like normal mode, and because of that, I do not recommend it. The former, I believe, would be the better solution, though some enemies could certainly use some rebalancing even with reduced numbers. As it is now, one has to play making very few mistakes for an extremely long period of time to complete a wave. If there were fewer enemies, you would still have to play as close to perfection as possible, but for a shorter time and with more breathing room.
Apologies for the long post. It is quite a rant, but regardless of the difficulty, I do very much enjoy this mod and appreciate the work the devs have put into it. I am certain that better things are yet to come. Perhaps this post will move the mod in a better direction.
P.S.: While I am writing on the topic of balance, I'd like to reiterate that normal mode huscarls and veteran huscarls could use a nerf, they are deadlier than their hard mode counterparts.
ba da bing ba da BAN! -Hypernoma