About Ironman Competition

Early Access
1

Okay, I assume most of you reading this have already tried the Ironman (and died over a dozen times).
If you have not, I suggest you try it before you read this post.

Anyway, onto the post. But first, I shall put a part of the mission description here.

(part of the) Mission Description:
“This Competition is designed to stress your abilities to the breaking point. Skillful maneuvering, exact aiming, and lightning reflexes are a must.”

Anyway, as much as I think adding Ironman was good, A LOT of the difficulty in this mission just feels very artificial. Cowards are everywhere, bullets that just fly at you from whatever angle (this is still reasonable, though.), thunder strikes that just seem to have a mind of their own, limited movement, faster overheat, and once again: COWARDS ARE EVERYWHERE.

Allow me go through them.

First off: Cowards.

Yes, we all know how annoying cowards are, but let me just get to the point here.

They just prevent you doing most things here in ironman. Trying to score, trying to dodge, trying to not run into thunder that’s right next to you. And this is where the “lightning reflexes” come in. Is this supposed to be a mission that tests your skills, or is this a patience test? At the moment, I feel that it’s more of the latter than the former due to the gratuitous coward spam, which forces you to do this mission really meticulously, which makes scoring not an option unless you have something like an Attractor or Phase Out to help you get the food and powerups.
Not to mention: Their bullets leave the screen in almost less than a second.

Second: Environments.

Thunder is deadly, yes. Faster Overheat is annoying, yes. Slower movement is making dodging even harder for you? Probably.

Okay, Environments are not so bad. They do make it genuinely more difficult as opposed to the artificial difficulty that the cowards pose. Faster overheat means you really have to bring coolants, or be a god at heat management. Slower Movements means you have to be prepared to move, and thunder is just… A mental barrier that constantly yells “DO NOT CROSS”.
However, the presence of thunder in this mission just makes the player have to guess when it’s about to strike, as they may not always notice the telegraph just as it appears. And because of this, you have no idea how many times I’ve missed a powerup or got trapped because of it.
A prime example is in Wave 7: Corridor Shooter, where maneuverability is very limited.
If you get an unfortunate thunder position, you’re forced to stay in one side until it passes to not risk a face full of electricity, and when toxics are present… You get the idea.

As much as the environments may be annoying, these are genuine threats, which are tolerable, but still can really be a pain in the patookus. (But most of it is due to trying to not die to bullets which already fly around like a storm. This one does test your reflexes, so it’s still fine.)

And last and definitely the least: Bullet speed.

Okay, this one does not really bother me much, but if bullets are going to be fast, there should at least be a factor of zoom. The height in comparison to the Width is much shorter, which means bullets will leave the screen extremely fast, and lightning reflexes are indeed a must. However, in some waves, you’re quite vulnerable to a rather cheap sucker punch from a bullet that you could not dodge due to lightning/cowards. (I’m looking at you, Enemy Hurricane.)

However, even though bullet speed can be a rather formidable threat, it is still tolerable, as the difficulty that comes from it is genuine.

Now, if you have taken all these into account, which factor do you think contributes to most of the frustration during Ironman?

If your answer is “Cowards”, you are absolutely correct. These buggers are so frequent in Ironman that it pretty much forces you to take things really slow, or risk a very likely death while trying to score.

I know it’s most likely on me for being impatient during the mission, but… like I said: Is this a test of skill, or a patience test? Challenge Missions should be fast and furious. Not something you have to do so slowly that you end up taking almost 2 minutes trying to clear a single wave that is a chicken salad of cowards and minibosses, with a generous helping of eggs. (sounds tasty.)

And, that is the end of what I want to say.
What are your opinions, people? Is Ironman fair, or unfair?
(Please read the post before voting or liking.)

Is the difficulty in Ironman fair, or unfair?
  • Fair.
  • Unfair.
  • I’m going to be that one indecisive guy who doesn’t like to think things out, and say I don’t know.

0 voters

Please leave an answer for why you think it’s Fair or Unfair.

6 Likes
2

I don’t know

1 Like
3

If you’re trying to be funny, you failed. Don’t reply with meaningless content for some lame joke.

Keyword “If”.

4

The mission just throws everything in the kitchen at you.

Just whatever that radiates “hard”.

5

I think it’s unfair because the speed of the coward chickens’s poop combined with the bullets of various other chickens and minibosses makes it impossible for any weapon that’s not plasma

2 Likes
6

I did read the whole post, thank you very much. The things I feel like should be changed are the coward spam and the freedom to use different weapons instead of just Plasma spam. Also the bullet speed is fine enough for me, but the constant lightning is slightly annoying.

2 Likes
7

Am I allowed to say “Bombers. Nuff said.” without getting my comment deleted?

3 Likes
8

I tried the mission with bomber, and it’s slightly harder than with the hatchling because of the bigger hitbox (despite the fact that it’s unaffected by the massive environment)

2 Likes
9

I can agree. but it does make me feel claustrophobia at times. :Д

1 Like
10

In my opinion, Ironman in its current place is: hard to master, hard to learn, easy to play

1 Like
11

I actually kind of doubt that. I’ve played a lot of 100% SSH missions, and in comparison of difficulty, it’s not much different other than bullets being shockingly fast, and with environments this time to really limit you.

12

…Until it becomes P2P. :'Д

13

my experience so far on ironman is:
C O W A R D S

2 Likes
14

Actually nevermind, it’s rant time. Why? I don’t know.

First things first. The cowards section. I don’t think that removing them altogether is a good idea considering the fact that it would result in a lot of challenge removed from the mission, but rather either a) The missions should have a restricted amount of cowards or b) A cowards rework, though that would be miles more time consuming and hard, but can affect the whole game positively if pulled off well. Also slowing down the overall bullet speed in the mission to at least 10-25% can also work well.

Part two, the environements. Not gonna lie, I’m actually fine with the environmental hazards but it looks too obvious that it’s just a placeholder solution for “hard”. I think the mission should have 2 randomly chosen environmental multiplier instead so it isn’t as obvious. Also there should be a feature in which a frozen environment can’t appear on hot and vice versa due to fairly obvious reasons.

And the third time’s a charm section, bullet speed. For this one, I think just reducing the speed by 10-25% sounds fair enough to me at least, so take this with a grain of salt as these are all personal opinions. Also something which hasn’t been touched on in the topic is the double bosses which I think is kind of unfair. A certain combination of bosses could make an already ridiculously unfair mission (yes, i used unfair) even more hard, especially considering that the zoom is limited in this mission. I think that the bosses should have slightly reduced health (say 5-17.5%) to balance it.

3 Likes
15

It’s unfair because of cowards obviously and some bosses need a more zoom-out like Sweater Chicken + Party Time at the 1st boss and 3rd boss too. Sweater Chicken is already a pain itself, I’m surprised it were included at Double Team. Some bosses are very easy like wave 50. Faster projectiles and lightning environments are hard at first, but we’ll get used to it soon. They’re just unfair at waves like corridor shooter & wheel of fortune.

1 Like
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1-In my opinion, Coward should be in Ironman competition, but in waves which you can’t even move, it’s unfair. I only lost a life because of cowards, because I knew how to deal with them. (Neutral)

2-For me, it’s a sun mission with lightning. Also, you have time to dodge lightning, before it strikes. (Fair)

3-I have no idea about bullet speeds in normal waves (I’m ok in some waves and not in others), but the most annoying thing is Double Teams, especially with only %10 zoom-out (even with larger bosses), massive & electric environments and their fast bullets. At least it should be more zoomed-out, as what others suggested before me, if nothing gonna be changed about that. (Unfair)

Totally, I don’t know if it’s fair or not, but as the title says, it must be hard and the 1st place reward is not small. It’s 900 keys!

1 Like
17

Idk why not 1000 keys tho?

18

This is my question too. :confused: What about other top players?

19

The number of coward chicken is too much.

20

Yep, it’s cowards which are the main problem because they strict your freedom to choose your starting weapon, like really, I’m not a plasma main, but this mission forces me to use plasma in order to not trigger the cowards which will rain upon you if you use lightning fryer or position stream or even the plasma’s AOE because of their splitting/chaining that quickly triggers the cowards.

About the environmental effects: They’re okay for me, but the lightning strikes are just too much. especially when they block your way especially on tight waves like the corridor shooter, I died over 2 times because of that because toxics blocked my way too.

Double Teams: It’s unfair because of that little zoom-out for 2 bosses coming together, especially with Sweater Chicken & Party Chicken. I’d say either make their projectiles slower or just zoom-out more.

Bullet speed: I’m kinda undecided on this one though. But I won’t mind a little nerf to the speed and it would be better.

1 Like