Skill level rebalance

[anon27929001]

Yeah…it won’t be so funny once you end up dying several times to those waves. Then again,maybe deaths are funny to you. I wouldn’t know.

[anotheruser12]

Umm, you got missiles, or mines, I don’t even use those unless it’s that kind of wave

[anon27929001]

Neither do I,but I don’t think that the game should force you to use them. IMO,every wave should be beatable by a regular weapon(with no deaths,of course).
If the next update(or any update,at all) is going to fix waves like this,then I’ll be looking forward to that. Of course,I’m not expecting the game to have 0% RNG,would just be nice if it had a bit less of it.

[cook1ee]

@InterAction_studios maybe you can make skill levels unlock by achieving certain tiers instead of buying them with keys? I am at tier 30 but tier 17 already unlocked the hardest missions. Are you planning skill levels above SSH? The Graphics indicate that there could be 3 more skill levels.

[Sophodot]

Ooookay, so the waves which spawned 10-20 Chickenauts or Armored Chickens or Chick Gatling Guns at a time during 8 orange square difficulty missions were also caused by a bug. I am surprised, because they didn’t seem entirely unintended, they were a nice, although extreme, variation of the original waves and some of them were more or less unobtrusive, especially if you knew the wave from before and made sure to kill the enemies in a way to not allow the game to spawn too many of the difficult ones at a time. But others, like the Chicken Roulette with Chick Gatling Guns, are already notorious among us.

I’ll have to see in-game how the changes to game balance will be implemented before I can give feedback on them, but I have to say that in the first public build, the bug that made missions more difficult was canceled by the bug that made skills increase your damage, such that although the waves had many powerful enemies, you were able to kill them very quickly until the wave ran out of replacements. In short, what happened was that the players’ ability to boost their damage was removed first, leaving the mini-boss waves only accessible with low or no skill level and SSH turning them into meat grinders, and now what’s about to happen is that the Henpire will be nerfed so they won’t be able to send as many Spartan-grade chickens your way anymore. That still goes in the direction of reducing available power for both the player and the enemies. It’s not what I was hoping for, but I’ll come to terms now with the fact that I won’t get to play that extremely fun powered-up SSH mode ever again.

If there’s one good thing that I see coming out of all this, is that we might have already seen the worst the game had to throw at us and afterwards we’ll find that the base game is easy enough to start ramping up the difficulty. Without any skill level equipped, a full orange square mission feels reasonably playable at the moment, usually not as hard as previous games’ SSH, so if that is what Veteran or Hero will be in the future, I guess everything will be fine.

[Traveller]

@Sophodot

It’s not what I was hoping for, but I’ll come to terms now with the fact that I won’t get to play that extremely fun powered-up SSH mode ever again.

@InterAction_studios

Skills will change from boosting enemy health to boosting mission difficulty (i.e., spawning more difficult enemies). If we assume a mission has a nominal difficulty from 1 to 100, Veteran might add +20%, SSH +40% etc (these percentages will be tweaked). Additionally, harder skills will remove RNG limits that would normally prevent it from spawning all-miniboss waves (similar to the ones seen on other threads). Attack frequency and projectile speed will also be increased.

@InterAction_studios

Anyway, in the next update the difficulty will indeed be scaled back to fit inside its expected operating range. HOWEVER you difficulty freaks should not despair, because skills are being reworked and will probably change from controlling enemy health to boosting mission difficulty. So it will still be possible to boost difficulties past their limits and get these types of insane missions (you’ll just need to void your warranty by explicitly choosing it).

(that laſt one is from Ideas about balancing waves, bosses and weapon upgrades - #17 by InterAction_studios)

Before complaining bitterly, why don’t you firſt make ſure that there actuälly is a problem, and then ſuggeſt a ſolution if there is?

[Sophodot]

Well, I can’t deny that I am bitter, yes, because I only got to play around with the empowered SSH for a very short time and really missed it when it was gone. If it had lasted for a week or more, I might have got enough of the experience to more easily accept the change to the current status. I’m not just trying to whine, I put a lot of effort into this thread trying to explain the reasons why I think that what we have now didn’t make things better. Right now, Orandza is getting waves like these

in a tier 11 mission, so I withdraw what I said earlier, even without decreasing your damage by equipping skill levels, these waves are harder than anything we’ve had before. When playing a mission like this with SSH equipped… God help your soul. Now see, if SSH offered a damage boost like it did initially, even waves like these would become reasonably doable with no deaths because you’d be able to destroy enemies quickly enough. And that was exactly what I wanted to play more of. It was a rare case of the bugs actually making the game better than their intended features.

[Traveller]

SSH ſhould never increaſe your damage output. That’s what other upgrades are for. SSH is to make things more exciting.

[anon27929001]

Exciting? You’re literally just spending more time on the same stuff you’d get with other skill levels! How is that exciting? And it doesn’t help when literally everyone in this thread(except for those of us who are defending our idea,of course) keeps using the conservative “ssh was always the hardest and it should be like that in this game,too.”. Is it really that hard to handle a change like that?

[Traveller]

I don’t like how it uſed to be, becauſe as you ſaid, it took forever to get anywhere and it really waſn’t that different. However, it’s ſuppoſed to be harder and more exciting and with the new changes, it will be the latter and thus the former as appoſed to vice-verſa. What I’ve underſtood from Sophadot is that he liked that a bug cauſed SSH to be eaſier than Rookie, not harder, and that he liked that it made it eaſier to play thoſe ſuper-hard levels, cauſed by a different bug.

@Sophodot

Now see, if SSH offered a damage boost like it did initially, even waves like these would become reasonably doable with no deaths because you’d be able to destroy enemies quickly enough. And that was exactly what I wanted to play more of. It was a rare case of the bugs actually making the game better than their intended features.

I was pointing out that SSH is to make things harder and ſhould never make them eaſier. If you want an eaſier level than Rookie, try Touriſt- and it only coſts 11 keys to unlock.

Oh, and as for

@anon27929001

You’re literally just spending more time on the same stuff you’d get with other skill levels!

You do get three times the points. Although I would agree that points in this game don’t really amount to much.

[anon27929001]

“However, it’s ſuppoſed to be harder and more exciting and with the new changes”
“I was pointing out that SSH is to make things harder and ſhould never make them eaſier.”
See? You’re basically saying “SSH was hard before,and it should stay that way”.
Why? Why does it have to be the same? Why can’t you handle a change?
Now let me ask you,why would you pay for something that’s essentially a downgrade?
Even with what you said,you’re paying for something that makes you perform worse.
SSH as it was before was different. It was an actual upgrade and it made waves like the ones I encountered(see sophodot’s previous response) at least somewhat possible. The score boost means nothing,and the keys…aren’t much,either. You’ll miss a lot of them on ssh,anyways.
Yes,new changes will make it better,but you’re still paying for a downgrade.
We could have left it at what sophodot said: “If there’s one good thing that I see coming out of all this, is that we might have already seen the worst the game had to throw at us and afterwards we’ll find that the base game is easy enough to start ramping up the difficulty. Without any skill level equipped, a full orange square mission feels reasonably playable at the moment, usually not as hard as previous games’ SSH, so if that is what Veteran or Hero will be in the future, I guess everything will be fine.”.
But no,you just had to continue.
EDIT: I take back that last part,I was just very pissed at the time,lol

[Traveller]

Ummmmm… You might want it harder for more of a challenge, or poſſibly for the extra points.
The idea of Super Star Hero level is that if you find Rookie eaſy and would like ſomething a bit harder, you unlock Super Star Hero. The name ſays it all: if you’re flyïng on Super Star Hero level, you’re expected to be, more or leſs, a Super Star Hero. The description is “I eat chickens for breakfaſt!”, implying that you have to be good to be ſucceſsful at that level.

[cook1ee]

@InterAction_studios said that they will rework skill levels in a way that they boost mission difficulty instead of enemy health (which i find awesome)

[Traveller]

@Traveller

it’s ſuppoſed to be harder and more exciting and with the new changes, it will be the latter and thus the former as appoſed to vice-verſa.

Yup! I can’t wait!

[anon27929001]

No,lol,“I eat chickens for breakfast” implies being at the top of the food chain. Sophodot said this at the beginning. It just tests your patience,except in waves like those 2 you saw,in which case it makes them borderline impossible without super-weapons or deaths. Now,why can’t we select ssh at the very beginning? Why do we have to unlock it,first? If we want a challenge,we should be able to select it at the very beginning,whenever we want. The idea of ssh might be to make things harder,but it doesn’t mean that it actually serves its purpose,nor that its purpose is good.(in this case,its purpose is good,but ssh doesn’t really serve its purpose well,imo.)

[Traveller]

Given that I have a hiſtory of wanting to make things harder, and you have a hiſtory of wanting to make them eaſiër, I ſee no point to continuïng this argument. Now, time to kill ſome chickens!

[anon27929001]

Hmm…I mean,I’m sick of this argument,and (correct me if I’m wrong) I’m sure you are,too. So I’d be fine with ending it here.
Edit: actually,no,not yet

[Nikito]

Well, I confess I’ve died one time at these levels mentioned above, but what happens to their attacks getting caught unprepared. Stop complaining and enjoy the game. IA said it: The greatest chicken invasion ever!

[anon27929001]

We just tried to improve the game the way we think is the best…

[anotheruser12]

Sooo I’m just gonna say my opinoon, skill levels in previous games were horrible, just adding more health and making missions borring, hopefuly they are reworking them in a good way to add actual challenge.