Campaign difficulty spikes (version 4.2.0+)

[SneaksieRUS]

Hello!

I've been playing through the campaign for the first time since 2019 I think and wanted to share my opinion on its current (Dec 21) balancing.

Since I completed it before and remember how it goes in general I decided to go for Hard difficulty this time (thank God I didn't choose Insane).

Alpha campaign was mostly straightforward, it was hard in a good way, but not impossible. The only abnormal dificulty spike was in the away mission where you get the 'enemy transport approaches' messages literally every couple of minutes. First time I took too much time and the enemy base became completely filled with units produced by factories and airdropped, they barely could move because of this. I loaded a save from the beginning of this mission and made a nearly suicidal attack to bust the cyborg factory and then a tank factory so only constant airdrops remained. Only the fact that I had many units at the base saved me since I airlifted them to the mission as quickly as possible. I suggest this mission should have longer pauses between the enemy airlifts otherwise it becomes unwinnable quickly. I feel that this kind of challenge should be left for Insane difficulty.

Beta campaign was harder, but still manageable. NASDA central mission was brutal since you have nearly no land and enemy comes quickly and locks you up from reinforcements because while you're handling the first group another one arrives. It took several attempts, I think I succeeded when I brought bunker buster VTOLs and busted the factory first, then cyborg factory. Then I had time to bring reinforcements and do a (costly) advance.

Then the last mission, evacuation, was basically unsurvivable for me. I managed to send two transports away and was wiped out (and I knew there will be such mission and built all kinds of defences at the base perimeter beforehand!). Well I thought, let's see a guide on YouTube - it turned out I should have built defences everywhere to survive this. Literally everywhere and near the future enemy spawn points. This is really unacceptable from a game design standpoint - you require from a player knowledge what will happen so he should load a several missions old save and do a tedious work of putting the defences everywhere (and chances are he doesn't have that old save anymore even if he wanted to do several missions again!).

At least the mission shouldn't require the player to survive till the timer runs out. It would be great if it just ended with success and the player started Gamma campaign with the units he managed to save (the Gamma will fail on start anyway if you haven't brought a truck with you). There was the first time I had to cheat - I sent two transports and cheated to end the mission successfully without surviving for 20 more minutes which was impossible.

Then Gamma campaign started and frankly speaking I don't see a way how to survive even the first mission. You may think this is because I cheated on the final Beta mission and brought only two transports of units, but this is not the case. When Nexus cyborgs wiped me out, I restarted Gamma campaign from the menu so I had the default units with Hero experience and several reinforcment drops. Guess what? Wiped out. Another strat? Wiped out. Mad rush to the northern base to bust the cyborg factory there? Wiped out a bit later.

Oook I thought and started the Gamma campaign on Normal instead of Hard, now I'll have my revenge! Wiped out, but I survived a bit longer. Why? The main reason are the Nexus cyborgs that seem to be as beefy as my tracked tanks and come to me sometimes faster then I kill the previous group, tank buster hovertanks being the second reason. I searched the guides and they say the cyborg counter are Assault guns - I built Assault gun defence walls (they don't survive for long), then tried Assault gun bunkers (better, but still), a ton of my own cyborgs, made one group go north and eliminate the factory there - and again all this was in vain. I ran out of starting 15000 oil and the two derricks in the base and two contested ones to the north can't supply me with enough oil to make new units (I even stopped researching to conserve resources). It quickly became apparent I fight a losing battle even after taking out the north base since the enemy makes units faster that I can kill them and replenish my losses. I'm out of ideas what to attempt next short of starting Gamma on easy. Don't you think it shouldn't be like this?

My main point is that the game at least on Normal diff should be winnable from the first try for a new player (and on Easy for a casual player without RTS experience) and not require knowledge of what happens next (what's the fun of that really?). It should keep you on your toes, but you should be able to win without knowing when or where the attack will come, what to prioritize, etc. New players should learn as they go and have fun. In the current situation this is not the case for the Gamma campaign at all - I can't win the first mission even if I know what happens next.

What I'm trying to say to you guys that you're playing this game for decades and know all AI quirks and mutiplayer tactics and what to do in every moment, but please remember you're making the game not only for the expert multiplayer players like you. The difficulty for you already exists, it is called Insane:) Please consider adjusting the campaign difficulty for newcomers and for people who just want to complete the game normally.

[alfred007]

Thank you for your feedback. Here is my feedback for you.

I've been playing through the campaign for the first time since 2019

A lot of changes were made during this time and Hard difficulty is now what its name says: Hard. The difference between Normal and Hard difficulty was subtle before the balance changes but now they are remarkable. And this was the goal: getting remarkable differences between the difficulties.

The only abnormal dificulty spike was in the away mission where you get the 'enemy transport approaches'

And exactly this explains your problems at this level. The higher the difficulty the faster the enemy units get produced and transported. The timer for the NP reinforcements is the same as before, but for the higher difficulties like Hard and Insane, it is shorter.

NASDA central mission was brutal

Yes, this level is a bit tricky. But if you build some Assault Gun Bunker in the east against the cyborg attack, some repair facilities for your ground units, and stay close to your LZ until you have your artillery or Vtol Bunker Buster flown in, it's doable.

Then the last mission, evacuation, was basically unsurvivable for me.

Here is also Hard difficulty the reason. For Hard and Insane difficulty we added some "surprises" because for players that have played the campaign a few times the level became too easy with the knowledge of the spawn points. For Hard and Insane difficulty, it's more recommended to concentrate your defenses around your LZ and the power resource in the middle of the map instead of spreading them all over the map.

chances are he doesn't have that old save anymore

Because of that the game is doing now autosaves every 10 minutes.

At least the mission shouldn't require the player to survive till the timer runs out.

This was also implemented because the level became too easy if it ends after you started a few transports.

For your problems with the first Gamma level, I need a few more informations. Did you use a commander? How experienced were your units? What kind of units did you use (propulsion, body, weapon). From what you are telling I can only suppose that you activated the Nexus factories too early. If you stay near your LZ, don't leave the valley west, and don't move much farther north than the second oil derrick near your LZ, you have, even with Insane difficulty, enough time to bring in all four transports from the Beta campaign. Or to build a factory and produce new ones.

What I'm trying to say to you guys that you're playing this game for decades and know all AI quirks and mutiplayer tactics and what to do in every moment, but please remember you're making the game not only for the expert multiplayer players like you. The difficulty for you already exists, it is called Insane:)

All balance changes were tested from players with every experience level. Newbies, experts, and every experience level between this. We finished the balance changes only after all were able to beat the whole campaign.

I want to invite you to the official Discord server. There you can discuss everything with players of all experience levels and get some helpful hints for your walkthrough. https://discord.com/invite/ZvRVQ8g

[Berserk Cyborg]

People failing Gamma 1 is nothing new. From past observations, they usually don't know the basics of weapon effectiveness, or, are simply using obsolete tech. You'll want 2-4 Assault-Gun units (high experience and attachment to a high experience Commander is recommended) with Tiger body + Hover/Tracks Propulsion. Inferno is another choice that works with the cyborgs. Other than that you'll probably want the rest of your units to be Hyper Velocity Cannon or Assault Cannon since they'll absorb more damage and won't be as frail as the Tank-Killers.

From there it's just a matter of building your base, bringing in reinforcements, and fortifying the LZ with 1-2 trucks placed preferably in the first transporter load. You don't need to start attacking immediately (venturing outside the LZ West and North exits) and chances are if you do that too soon you'll be overwhelmed by the pure technological advantage Nexus has.

Also, using the Counter-Battery sensor is vital to stop those Angel missiles which are a high priority target.

[SneaksieRUS]

The higher the difficulty the faster the enemy units get produced and transported. The timer for the NP reinforcements is the same as before, but for the higher difficulties like Hard and Insane, it is shorter.

That's understood, the problem is though that airflifts on Hard happen so fast it breaks the AI pathfinding - the entire base was filled with units that couldn't get out. Perhaps an overall limit should be introduced, like if AI has XX units he can't order or at least airlift anymore.

stay close to your LZ until you have your artillery or Vtol Bunker Buster flown in, it's doable.

Agreed, it was tough but I was able to beat it after several tries (bunker buster VTOLs blew up the factories and then only the defences were left, still proved a challenge because of the time limit).

Here is also Hard difficulty the reason. For Hard and Insane difficulty we added some "surprises" because for players that have played the campaign a few times the level became too easy with the knowledge of the spawn points. For Hard and Insane difficulty, it's more recommended to concentrate your defenses around your LZ and the power resource in the middle of the map instead of spreading them all over the map.

That's the problem - you say you prepared the mission for a 'spawn camping' player so he won't succeed this way. That's nice for Insane diff, but I didn't even attempt that on Hard! I had lots (I thought so) of defences around the initial base, but they barely survived 15 mins I think. That would be OK (my bad for not preparing better) if the game didn't require me to survive the entire mission. The only way I could survive for 20 mins more I think is by building the defences across all the map. This kind of tedious behavior can't be expected from a new player. I wasn't new and I didn't play this mission on Normal, but I'm not sure it will be survivable for a full mission length either.

Because of that the game is doing now autosaves every 10 minutes.

Imagine playing the game and finding out you can't survive the last mission because you didn't built the defences on half of the map 5 missions back. Would you really load that old save even if you have it and spend at least 1 hour building those defences and then replaying these tough missions once again?

This was also implemented because the level became too easy if it ends after you started a few transports.

Understood, but that's what I meant when I wrote that you're making the game for multiplayer vets at this point. Too easy for them is impossible for a regular, especially a newcomer. It's not like you have to prove anything to anyone. The game won't became worse if you think it is too easy, quite the contrary, for the most players it will be more enjoyable. Those who lack the challenge should be playing Insane, right? Then why this requirement is on Hard (and I suppose on Normal as well)? What bad thing will happen if the player gets 2 transports out and then the Collective steamrolls everything that is left? This is completely by the story (Nexus nukes both the Project base and the assaulters) and will leave the player with 'whoah that was close!' feeling. Nothing would be broken or feel too easy - the player has Gamma 1 on his hands after that.

Just a side note - once I worked in a dev team of Theatre of War series of RTS/wargames and they (especially the first one) were plagued by too high difficulty. Mission designers simply thought that to be interesting the missions should be really hard for THEM and ignored the QA and players feedback. They couldn't be more wrong and this was one of the main reasons these games didn't became popular. Noone wants to buy another game in a series if he failed again and again in the first one he played because of the mission design like 'you have 5 tanks, go assault the fortified position and see an enemy counterattack you with 10'.

For your problems with the first Gamma level, I need a few more informations. Did you use a commander? How experienced were your units? What kind of units did you use (propulsion, body, weapon). From what you are telling I can only suppose that you activated the Nexus factories too early. If you stay near your LZ, don't leave the valley west, and don't move much farther north than the second oil derrick near your LZ, you have, even with Insane difficulty, enough time to bring in all four transports from the Beta campaign. Or to build a factory and produce new ones.

That's what I remember (didn't attempt it again since my initial post). After getting my back kicked I thought this was because I flew only 2 transports from Beta so I restarted the Gamma campaign from the menu with default units. You get several Hero tier tracked units in the first transport. I fend off the initial attack, built repair, cyborg factory, assault gun bunkers and wall turrets, regular factory, two derricks. Stayed near the LZ, did not go further at first. Recycled a couple of default Hero units and made two veteran (I think) Commanders, assigned units to them. While I was doing all that all the transports arrived and I had a lot of units. Started producing more to replenish the losses because the units and defences were dying to cyborg and hover enemy attacks (tracked Tigers with assault gun and the second type AT rockets). The attacks became nearly constant (I couldn't kill them fast enough so there were almost no breathers between them), I sent one Commander with his units to take out the Northern base as suggsted in the guides. He succeeded with heavy losses, but after that the attacks from the West became so hard they overwhelmed the defences and the Commander that remained at the base. VTOL attacks also sometimes blew up vital buildings like factory, the AA sites I could place in the limited area shot some down but that didn't prevent the damage.

Restarting on Normal didn't help - it was quiter, but as I said in the initial post I could only held the line and replenish the losses when I had the oil. With 15000 (?) oil gone Nexus continued to kill my units and I couldn't build them at the same speed anymore with 4 derricks operating (2 in the spawn area and 2 to the North). I leveled the Northern base, but the Hover and Cyborg attacks from the West intensified, there were no time to repair or attempt an attack West with Nexus putting this kind of pressure.

I think the Scourge (?) hovers are part of the problem - they park on the lake and pick up your defences near the spawn. You have to go out to the lake to engage them and this triggers more brutal Nexus attacks.

All balance changes were tested from players with every experience level. Newbies, experts, and every experience level between this. We finished the balance changes only after all were able to beat the whole campaign.

I want to invite you to the official Discord server. There you can discuss everything with players of all experience levels and get some helpful hints for your walkthrough. https://discord.com/invite/ZvRVQ8g

I would like to hear how people beat Gamma 1 at its current stage at least on Normal, RIP any newbie that attempts it I guess Thank you for the Discord link, I may try asking there too when I accumulate enough willpower to try Gamma 1 again.

People failing Gamma 1 is nothing new. From past observations, they usually don't know the basics of weapon effectiveness, or, are simply using obsolete tech. You'll want 2-4 Assault-Gun units (high experience and attachment to a high experience Commander is recommended) with Tiger body + Hover/Tracks Propulsion. Inferno is another choice that works with the cyborgs. Other than that you'll probably want the rest of your units to be Hyper Velocity Cannon or Assault Cannon since they'll absorb more damage and won't be as frail as the Tank-Killers.

The default units were Heroes, most of them tracked Chainguns. They fend off the initial Cyborg attacks, but later on as I wrote above I've been trying to build tracked Assault Gun Tigers (Assault Gun is the blue thingie similar to HPV, right?). I converted a couple of Heroes to Commanders (each one had like 20 unit limit).

From there it's just a matter of building your base, bringing in reinforcements, and fortifying the LZ with 1-2 trucks placed preferably in the first transporter load. You don't need to start attacking immediately (venturing outside the LZ West and North exits) and chances are if you do that too soon you'll be overwhelmed by the pure technological advantage Nexus has.

Sounds like what I've tried to do, but the attacks became nearly constant so I destroyed the Northern base to reduce the pressure from the North, but the stream of enemy units from the West made it clear I'm loosing the war of attrition unfortunately.

Also, using the Counter-Battery sensor is vital to stop those Angel missiles which are a high priority target.

I don't think I even saw the missiles (failed sooner maybe?), there were VTOL attacks though.

My main suggestions are:
- Limit the max units the AI can have in the Alpha away mission with lots of reinforcements because currently it breaks the pathfinding if the player doesn't rush;
- Don't requre surviving for the entire mission in Beta final if the player already managed to send at least 2 transports of units away;
- Do something with Gamma 1 because it looks impossible even on Normal at the moment (so far I've tried restarting it like 3 times on Hard and 1 time on Normal). That's definitely too much for a newbie playing on Normal.

[Berserk Cyborg]

Autosaves were implemented since somebody randomly made them, not for difficulty reasons. Used to be just a few versions ago you had to manually save and if you messed up and didn't save you could very well lose a lot of progress. Still need to display an "autosaving" message... some people think their computer freezes when it happens.

We always try to listen to implement (sane) feedback though if nobody tries to say anything we can't do anything. Two of these are completely new to us.

What Alpha mission are you talking about? Alpha 9 or the final one with the water everywhere? About the only thing we can do is widen the tight areas on the map since the A-Star is trash at times. For these situations unit limitations really won't work and have always eventually failed no matter the amount of experiments. And I've tried many times just to preserve the originality of maps before doing small edits to them. We can thus only widen the areas that are problematic, or if it's related to units trying to repair and trapping units, due to two-way movement pathways between structures, moving the repair facilities.

Beta-end had a way to end the mission early, however, it was obscure and very buggy and would literally softlock the player and prevent the transporter from exiting the map a lot of the time. It should be easy enough to make the map a win-always state though unlike before the script conversions. Of course, not bringing a truck, sending at least one transport, or having the transporter on the map when the nuke strikes will always be a fail condition as soon as the mission ends. There are some players who disagree with ending this mission early. For Insane difficulty it will definitely be the same as it is now.

For Gamma 1 I am surprised Assault Guns (the yellow machinegun) or Inferno + whatever else is still giving you trouble on Normal. I will need to see discussions about this in Discord to gauge this situation better.

Thanks for the feedback!

[alfred007]

but that's what I meant when I wrote that you're making the game for multiplayer vets at this point.

Not for mp vets, but for campaign vets. Most mp players don't play the campaign.

The attacks became nearly constant

Before all transports arrived or after all transports arrived? Because if you get constantly attacked before all transport arrived you accidentally activated the Nexus factories. Even with Insane difficulty, you have enough time to bring in all four transports without getting attacked by ground forces. Except for a few Scourge hover units that were already on the map and are patrolling around the map.

I think the Scourge (?) hovers are part of the problem - they park on the lake and pick up your defences near the spawn. You have to go out to the lake to engage them and this triggers more brutal Nexus attacks.

You're right that they are a problem but you should simply ignore them. Because leaving the valley west to kill them activates all Nexus factories. Don't build defenses in the west. Some Assault Gun bunkers in the north (not too far north) attract the Vtol attacks and are not very expensive. If you don't want to use artillery units, you need some artillery batteries at the eastern edge of your landing area. Your main goal for the first attack should be the base in the southwest because it has two factories including one that produces the very lethal Scourge hover units and the Command Center. After you destroy the CC the Vtol attacks will end. It is not easy to destroy and you will need some time to do it.

Imagine playing the game and finding out you can't survive the last mission because you didn't built the defences on half of the map 5 missions back. Would you really load that old save even if you have it and spend at least 1 hour building those defences and then replaying these tough missions once again?

Yeah, I think we have to inform the player during Beta 5 that his usual defenses will not work anymore and he has to do a lot more if he plays Hard or Insane difficulty.

In general, the difficulties are designed to give a remarkable difference between all difficulties. Easy is for newbies, Normal for players that have the campaign completed at least once, Hard for players that want a bigger challenge, and Insane for masochists like Berserk Cyborg and me

We are discussing your feedback atm on Discord and will keep you informed. Thanks again for your feedback!

[SneaksieRUS]

What Alpha mission are you talking about? Alpha 9 or the final one with the water everywhere? About the only thing we can do is widen the tight areas on the map since the A-Star is trash at times. For these situations unit limitations really won't work and have always eventually failed no matter the amount of experiments. And I've tried many times just to preserve the originality of maps before doing small edits to them. We can thus only widen the areas that are problematic, or if it's related to units trying to repair and trapping units, due to two-way movement pathways between structures, moving the repair facilities.

It was this one I think, according to the walkthrough it is the Synaptic Link location:
https://strategywiki.org/wiki/File:Wz21 ... k_base.png
I suppose if you widen the tight areas and don't tone down the reinforcements it may become even tougher - the enemy units will exit the base easier and overwhelm the player. Perhaps it will be still winnable but only if you make a suicide attack at the beginning to take out at least the cyber factory or even get at least some units to the enemy LZ to stop the crazy airlifts. Too tough IMHO (for a comparison, Alpha final was way easier than this mission).

What is A-Star though?

Beta-end had a way to end the mission early, however, it was obscure and very buggy and would literally softlock the player and prevent the transporter from exiting the map a lot of the time. It should be easy enough to make the map a win-always state though unlike before the script conversions. Of course, not bringing a truck, sending at least one transport, or having the transporter on the map when the nuke strikes will always be a fail condition as soon as the mission ends. There are some players who disagree with ending this mission early. For Insane difficulty it will definitely be the same as it is now.

Fair enough, I never said anything about making Insane easier, this one is for you guys:) And yes, if you don't bring at least 1 truck, Gamma 1 fails as soon as the transport arrives, this is expected.

Also there was a CTD bug in Gamma 1 when I continued the save from Beta, loading a save made after the mission start and arrival of the second transport resulted in a CTD. Could be caused by a strange quirk - when I opened the transport menu where you can see the units inside, their turrets in this menu were rotating like 10000 RPM for whatever reason. I would have submitted a bug but I haven't figured out where the saves are in the Windows Store version (it is locked like Fort Knox).

For Gamma 1 I am surprised Assault Guns (the yellow machinegun) or Inferno + whatever else is still giving you trouble on Normal. I will need to see discussions about this in Discord to gauge this situation better.

There is a save I have on Normal (but, again, can't figure where it is) where oil is at 0 already and constant (mostly Cyborg) attack from the West overwhelms I think 4 assault gun bunkers, 2 assault gun towers, a Commander with tracked Hero assault guns backed by a repair, etc. I tried to make a suicide attack to the West with 1 Commander and his remaining units and took out 1 Cyber Factory, but everyone died there and since there are more factories this was the end. I think next time I might try rushing West sooner than oil ends to kill at least 2 Cyber Factories, but this would probably mean the Northern base stays and will bake Cyborgs like there is no tomorrow.

Thanks for the feedback!

Thank you for keeping this game alive!

The attacks became nearly constant

Before all transports arrived or after all transports arrived? Because if you get constantly attacked before all transport arrived you accidentally activated the Nexus factories. Even with Insane difficulty, you have enough time to bring in all four transports without getting attacked by ground forces. Except for a few Scourge hover units that were already on the map and are patrolling around the map.

Honestly, I doubt that not going to the lake before all transports have arrived would have helped me much. By default (when you start Gamma from the menu) the 3rd and 4th one bring rookie units that die to Nexus almost instantly. Also, if I managed to bring only two transports from Beta (as I explained before) this would trigger this 'attack of doom' very soon if it starts when all transports have arrived.

I think the Scourge (?) hovers are part of the problem - they park on the lake and pick up your defences near the spawn. You have to go out to the lake to engage them and this triggers more brutal Nexus attacks.

You're right that they are a problem but you should simply ignore them. Because leaving the valley west to kill them activates all Nexus factories. Don't build defenses in the west. Some Assault Gun bunkers in the north (not too far north) attract the Vtol attacks and are not very expensive. If you don't want to use artillery units, you need some artillery batteries at the eastern edge of your landing area. Your main goal for the first attack should be the base in the southwest because it has two factories including one that produces the very lethal Scourge hover units and the Command Center. After you destroy the CC the Vtol attacks will end. It is not easy to destroy and you will need some time to do it.

Yes, I guess I activated them by getting to the lake to engage the Scourge hovers. IMHO this is not a best trigger for an all-out attack. Thank you for the tips, I might try to attack West first next time (but the walkthroughs I found say 'avoid the West, attack North first!'. Once again, IMHO requiring the player to know what triggers what is not a best approach for Normal diff:)

The main problem I think is not the superior weapons of the enemy (this is according to the story), but the endless stream of enemy units that give the player nearly no breather and when he runs out of the initial oil it's over (I'm talking about Normal diff, on Hard I couldn't even survive long enough for the oil to end). I don't know how AI works in the campaign, maybe it is possible to lower the oil reserve the Nexus has, so it would be an option for the player to hold in the LZ valley line until Nexus runs out of oil and its attacks become slower because of this? Then the player could attack and take out at least some of its factories.

We are discussing your feedback atm on Discord and will keep you informed. Thanks again for your feedback!

Thank you for keeping this game alive!

[Berserk Cyborg]

The configuration directory can be quickly accessed by going into Options in the Main Menu and clicking the link in the lower left corner of the blue widget area. Then you have access to the savegames folder. It would be best if you upload that save from Gamma and one that is on the final Beta mission (or at least on the offworld mission prior).

[alfred007]

What is A-Star though?

The pathfinding "system".

I think next time I might try rushing West sooner...

Rushing is no good idea for Gamma 01. You have to fight your way tile for tile and need some time. Your units should be set to "retreat at medium damage" and you should have more than one repair facility. In my Insane walkthroughs, I needed more than 15 minutes after I left the valley until I had the factories in the southwest base destroyed.

By default (when you start Gamma from the menu) the 3rd and 4th one bring rookie units that die to Nexus almost instantly.

If you attach them to a Special Commander (made after you recycled a Hero unit) they get all bonuses of Special rank and don't die as fast anymore.

IMHO requiring the player to know what triggers what is not a best approach for Normal diff:)

The trigger areas are the same for all difficulties.

This is how my landing area looks after two transports arrived. In the south of the picture, I have a factory and one Hero commander with 16 combat units attached. With the next two transports another Hero commander and more combat units will arrive. The artillery units get attached to the CB tower you can see and then I leave the valley with one commander group to the north and one to the west. No rushing, fighting back the produced units, and destroying step by step the Nexus defenses and after the defenses are history, one factory after the other. Another approach is Vtol Bug Bunker Buster units. But I like to gain experience.

wz2100-20211130_211121-CAM_3A.png

[alfred007]

This is the link Berserk Cyborg mentioned.

wz2100-20210316_210226-main.png

[SneaksieRUS]

Rushing is no good idea for Gamma 01. You have to fight your way tile for tile and need some time. Your units should be set to "retreat at medium damage" and you should have more than one repair facility. In my Insane walkthroughs, I needed more than 15 minutes after I left the valley until I had the factories in the southwest base destroyed.

I prefer to turtle usually and rush only when I think the enemy is building faster than I can. Definitely seems this way for me in G1 - staying in the LZ I was getting slowly killed while rushing (see below) at least brought down 1 base (didn't save me though).

Ok my saves are attached, thanks to the options menu tip (unfortunately haven't found the one with CTD, but probably it can be recreated from Beta final save):

Saves.zip

Beta Final HARD - save at the beginning of the final Beta mission, Hard difficulty.

G1 HARD - here I landed two transports from Beta (since I managed to save only two and then cheated to win because the Beta base was overrun), and going to attack the Northern base.
Minutes ago I've tried going for the West base from this save instead - took out 2 Cyborg factories, 1 tank factory, Command and Research centers, but everybody died there and the assault on my LZ begun with almost no units left to defend it (probably from Northern base and some another base I haven't even seen yet).

Gamma campaign restarted on Normal from the menu:

G1 Normal Nexus Assault - here I'm at the LZ but Nexus is advancing full scale from the West through the hail of Assault Guns fire (perhaps I sent some units to the lake to engage Scourge there, don't remember).

G1 Normal No Oil - no oil left. There are some units standing against the Nexus but no way to replenish them fast enough.

[Berserk Cyborg]

We've taken measures against the things you've posted about after discussions.

For Alpha 9 I removed forced movement regrouping on the transporter units. Assuming it is inner-base issues. The units are coming out fairly slow on Normal so I don't think we need to touch the factory throttles. Someone else weeks ago wantrf to experiment with reducing the movement collision spheres by half so units will be able to squeeze past each other in more ways than they can now. Which I suspect this will guard against clogs much better and preserve the original "structure" of base designs.

For Beta-end I adapted a new early exit feature for Easy and Normal as long as they bring a truck and don't have the transporter die somehow mid-flight. A reminder message will be displayed for Hard+ difficulty giving a hint to fortify their base against the Collective throughout the pre-away missions.

I personally want to ask why your base was so lacking if you played the game before? Most players designs grand bases on all the campaigns for the fun of it and to ward off against potential attacks on the home base. I think the vast majority of people will find themselves having a hard time trying to get through Gamma with 1 or 2 transporter loads. Nexus almost requires some high experience units to beat him comfortably.

For Gamma 1 we decided to delay the usual kinetic and thermal alloy upgrades on Easy/Normal that takes into account the forced factory time trigger, and the physical factory trigger so it doesn't get too easy. I increased the experience on all units if coming from the main menu so that they can be recycled into Hero Command units as well.

We also noticed your units are of poor rank and we encourage all players to not let their units die easily. As they gain rank from destroying things they get stronger in a substantial way. Gamma campaign will be very difficult for anyone who doesn't take care of their units as the pure technological advantage of Nexus will be not be merciful to those on Normal or greater. As with many missions, it is always a good idea to stay in the LZ and fortify it substantially before venturing out and doing any sort of attack. With Beta and Gamma campaign the usual defenses are Anti-Air weapons, Howitzers (general splash damage, great for cyborgs), and Ripple Rockets (for tanks).

I think that covers everything but at least this might help someone else.

Edit: Implemented more generous rank gifting when starting Beta/Gamm from the main menu. Now every load features units with an appropriate rank!

[SneaksieRUS]

I personally want to ask why your base was so lacking if you played the game before? Most players designs grand bases on all the campaigns for the fun of it and to ward off against potential attacks on the home base. I think the vast majority of people will find themselves having a hard time trying to get through Gamma with 1 or 2 transporter loads. Nexus almost requires some high experience units to beat him comfortably.

Funny enough, 1) I thought the base was more than enough to hold the Collective attack long enough because I had no problem with it before and 2) I had no idea it is now required to hold the base till the end. I planned to defend for some time and then just go to Gamma if the attack is too strong. Turns out that not everyone likes to build humongous fortresses

I spent some time in the previous missions to reinforce the base, put assault gun (or heavy MG?) bunkers before the walls with AT rockets, put VTOL auto-attack tower, CB tower, many ripple rockets, some multi mortars, etc., just to try them - something I did not bother to do a couple of years ago. I thought about putting some defences on the hill to the south-east because I recalled there will be a drop there but rejected the thought purely based on the principle 'as a commander I have no way of knowing where the attack will be' and because placing the defences across the entire map doesn't look like a sane option. Sadly, you have expected exactly such player behaviour

For Gamma 1 we decided to delay the usual kinetic and thermal alloy upgrades on Easy/Normal that takes into account the forced factory time trigger, and the physical factory trigger so it doesn't get too easy. I increased the experience on all units if coming from the main menu so that they can be recycled into Hero Command units as well.

Not sure I understand, you delayed them for Nexus? Or for the player? From my point of view there is no danger of G1 becoming too easy at all

We also noticed your units are of poor rank and we encourage all players to not let their units die easily. As they gain rank from destroying things they get stronger in a substantial way. Gamma campaign will be very difficult for anyone who doesn't take care of their units as the pure technological advantage of Nexus will be not be merciful to those on Normal or greater. As with many missions, it is always a good idea to stay in the LZ and fortify it substantially before venturing out and doing any sort of attack. With Beta and Gamma campaign the usual defenses are Anti-Air weapons, Howitzers (general splash damage, great for cyborgs), and Ripple Rockets (for tanks).

The units in Beta final or in Gamma 1? In Gamma 1 there were the units I squeezed into two transports, but yes, in general I didn't load a save in case of heavy losses, because this is like save scumming, only when I lost some heroes or 1-2 ranks below that.

For me, WZ2100 is a great game because it allows to play it using various approaches. It's unfortunate that it seems you (the developers I mean) expect only one approach to be successful - namely preserve all your experienced units by saving-reloading, maybe even farming experience, build all possible defences not only at your base but on the general map as well, etc.

But it is up to you how you design the game after all. It would be great to have some kind of difficulty settings, like 'use new balance' with an option to switch to the original game balance/difficulty. Something like Open X-Com allows to turn off new quality of life interface improvements to have the original experience for purists, but I'm not sure it is possible in WZ. I never considered myself a purist before, but for me the balance changes in Gamma campaign look worse than the original balance (and as I said before I enjoyed Alpha and Beta campaigns on Hard very much, only the last Beta mission and Gamma gave me these problems). Oh well.

I think that covers everything but at least this might help someone else.

Edit: Implemented more generous rank gifting when starting Beta/Gamm from the main menu. Now every load features units with an appropriate rank!

Thanks! When do you plan to update the public version? Or should it update already?

[alfred007]

I thought the base was more than enough to hold the Collective attack long enough

Using obsolete weapons such as Lancer hardpoints and HMG bunker and almost no AA defenses could not be enough.

I thought about putting some defences on the hill to the south-east because I recalled there will be a drop there but rejected the thought purely based on the principle 'as a commander I have no way of knowing where the attack will be' and because placing the defences across the entire map doesn't look like a sane option. Sadly, you have expected exactly such player behaviour

Hard difficulty is made for experienced players who know what they have to expect and get prepared for it. Acting like don't know what you have to expect is only viable for Normal and Easy difficulty in your first walkthrough but not for Hard and Insane.
Because of your feedback, we changed two things. First, we added the old behavior for Easy and Normal difficulty that you will always win Beta end if you have started at least one transporter that includes at least one truck. As soon as all of your factories are destroyed and no unit from you is anymore on the map, you win. Second, for Hard and Insane difficulty, we added a warning for the player that he has to fortify his base very well from Beta 6 on.

For Gamma 1 we decided to delay the usual kinetic and thermal alloy upgrades on Easy/Normal that takes into account the forced factory time trigger, and the physical factory trigger so it doesn't get too easy. I increased the experience on all units if coming from the main menu so that they can be recycled into Hero Command units as well.

Not sure I understand, you delayed them for Nexus? Or for the player? From my point of view there is no danger of G1 becoming too easy at all

Nexus gets the upgrades later and therefore the units you have to fight at the beginning of Gamma 01 are weaker.

We also noticed your units are of poor rank and we encourage all players to not let their units die easily. As they gain rank from destroying things they get stronger in a substantial way. Gamma campaign will be very difficult for anyone who doesn't take care of their units as the pure technological advantage of Nexus will be not be merciful to those on Normal or greater. As with many missions, it is always a good idea to stay in the LZ and fortify it substantially before venturing out and doing any sort of attack. With Beta and Gamma campaign the usual defenses are Anti-Air weapons, Howitzers (general splash damage, great for cyborgs), and Ripple Rockets (for tanks).

The units in Beta final or in Gamma 1? In Gamma 1 there were the units I squeezed into two transports, but yes, in general I didn't load a save in case of heavy losses, because this is like save scumming, only when I lost some heroes or 1-2 ranks below that.

You don't need a save scumming to get more experienced units. You just have to set your commanders to "retreat at medium damage" and build enough repair facilities and they get more experienced without often reloading a saved game. This will also save power for you because losing a unit means losing power. I noticed in your savegames that your units are all set to "do or die". Setting them on "retreat at medium damage" will solve a lot of your power problems.

For me, WZ2100 is a great game because it allows to play it using various approaches. It's unfortunate that it seems you (the developers I mean) expect only one approach to be successful - namely preserve all your experienced units by saving-reloading, maybe even farming experience, build all possible defences not only at your base but on the general map as well, etc.

There are various approaches. You can farm experience (like me), or you can create 1-5 Hero commanders and don't care too much about your units (like Berserk Cyborg). With the lower difficulties, it's also no problem if you don't care about your combat units at all and let them die. But with the higher difficulties preserving your units is part of the needed power management. It's also possible to build defenses around the map or only at your base. But using nearly no or outdated AA defenses when you have to await heavy air attacks and using outdated defenses is generally a bad decision. This will not work, no matter where you build your defenses.

It would be great to have some kind of difficulty settings, like 'use new balance' with an option to switch to the original game balance/difficulty.

Which original game balance do you mean? version 1.10, 2.3.9, 3.1.5, 3.4.0, 4.0.1 or someone else? The new balance was made because with the balance before (I started with version 3.1.5 so I don't know how it was before) you had two overpowered weapons with the Lancer and the Assault Gun. All other weapons were not needed. I don't know if any developer will find the time to implement your idea because it's not as easy as it sounds. But if you tell me which broken balance you want to have back, I can try making a mod for you that you can use.

Because of your problems with Gamma 01 I started a new Gamma campaign from the main menu with the old settings (full armor for Nexus). I needed less than 2 minutes to kill the six cyborgs that await you in your LZ without any loss. The few cyborgs that will come a bit later from the west are then also no problem. And even with Insane difficulty, you have now 12 minutes to get prepared before Nexus starts his attacks. The key is not to leave the valley!!! Don't build any defenses in the west that get destroyed from the Nexus hover units. Ignore them, build an Assault Gun bunker line in the north (not farther north than two tiles more north than the most north of your oil derricks) that attracts the Vtol attacks, build a factory, a Command Relay Center, a Command Center, some Repair Facilities and a Research Facility. If you can't fly in heavy artillery units also build some artillery batteries together with a CB tower. In the at least 10 minutes you have for the preparation you can build an army with two Hero commanders with 20 combat units attached at each of them. Set them to retreat at medium damage and leave the valley. You can either fight your way to the Nexus bases with ground units or you can also build a Vtol Factory and build some Bunker Buster Bug Vtols and destroy the Nexus factories in the western base with a harakiri attack.

Edit: Implemented more generous rank gifting when starting Beta/Gamm from the main menu. Now every load features units with an appropriate rank!

Thanks! When do you plan to update the public version? Or should it update already?

It's already merged into the current master version and will therefore be part of the next release. I can't say atm when this release will come. Have fun and good game!

[SneaksieRUS]

Using obsolete weapons such as Lancer hardpoints and HMG bunker and almost no AA defenses could not be enough.

In the beginning of Beta campaign that's the best weapons you have, especially AA and I think at the time of the large base defence mission (when the entire Beta map reveals and you have around 1:30 hours or more to crush the enemy bases and then build defences) they were the best too. By the time you get the better AT rockets and AA you have no time to build the defences at your leisure.

Speaking of which, I would suggest to shift the 2nd AA gun tech reveal earlier a bit. When you get the basic 1st AA at the beginning you have only it for quite some time, during a lot of missions (and that's why the bulk of AA, if not all the AA, at the Beta base was the basic one in my save). Then you get 2nd tier AA gun and I started to replace the obsolete older AA vehicles with it but that wasn't needed really since the very next (I think so) mission gave me the 3rd AA gun tech. So there is no point of building 2nd tier AA defences and vehicles, you can just wait a bit for the 3rd tier. The natural suggestion is to give player the 2nd AA tech earlier (I suppose you have only the 1st tier for around 5 missions or even more).

Hard difficulty is made for experienced players who know what they have to expect and get prepared for it. Acting like don't know what you have to expect is only viable for Normal and Easy difficulty in your first walkthrough but not for Hard and Insane.
Because of your feedback, we changed two things. First, we added the old behavior for Easy and Normal difficulty that you will always win Beta end if you have started at least one transporter that includes at least one truck. As soon as all of your factories are destroyed and no unit from you is anymore on the map, you win. Second, for Hard and Insane difficulty, we added a warning for the player that he has to fortify his base very well from Beta 6 on.

Nexus gets the upgrades later and therefore the units you have to fight at the beginning of Gamma 01 are weaker.

Thanks! That should help players.

You don't need a save scumming to get more experienced units. You just have to set your commanders to "retreat at medium damage" and build enough repair facilities and they get more experienced without often reloading a saved game. This will also save power for you because losing a unit means losing power. I noticed in your savegames that your units are all set to "do or die". Setting them on "retreat at medium damage" will solve a lot of your power problems.

I recall why I reverted to the 'do or die' - in the Alpha campaign when you get the Commander turret I tried that behavior as I used it years ago, but the units acted rather strangely. For instance, a damaged unit would retreat like 15-20 cells and just stop there (I had repair stations, but maybe there were too far behind?). This actually made the things worse - units were getting stuck instead of firing at the enemy so I set them to 'do or die' and relied on 3-4 repair vehicles attached to each of the three Commanders I had. The fact that when there are many units attached to a Commander they may be not be able to find a path to retreat (it is usually blocked by their teammates) also contributed to staying in place and hoping the repair vehicle isn't far away.

There are various approaches. You can farm experience (like me), or you can create 1-5 Hero commanders and don't care too much about your units (like Berserk Cyborg). With the lower difficulties, it's also no problem if you don't care about your combat units at all and let them die. But with the higher difficulties preserving your units is part of the needed power management. It's also possible to build defenses around the map or only at your base. But using nearly no or outdated AA defenses when you have to await heavy air attacks and using outdated defenses is generally a bad decision. This will not work, no matter where you build your defenses.

That's sounds like what I did (and I guess the most players do) - I didn't farm and attempted to get to the enemy bases as fast as possible, but I did use 3 Commanders that eventually became Heroes (but I only brought 2 to an away mission usually with one being a backup). This didn't save me in Gamma 1 however, the units with various experience I had were overwhelmed even with a Hero Commander boost.

'Nearly no defences' - I learned the hard way that (I recall) around 15 Lancer hardpoints, around 5 Ripple Rockets, several MG bunkers, several Howitzer emplacements and I think 7-9 AA pits + around 5 AA vehicles sitting in the base are apparently count as 'nearly no defences' on Hard (I mentioned above why they were outdated).

Which original game balance do you mean? version 1.10, 2.3.9, 3.1.5, 3.4.0, 4.0.1 or someone else? The new balance was made because with the balance before (I started with version 3.1.5 so I don't know how it was before) you had two overpowered weapons with the Lancer and the Assault Gun. All other weapons were not needed. I don't know if any developer will find the time to implement your idea because it's not as easy as it sounds. But if you tell me which broken balance you want to have back, I can try making a mod for you that you can use.

I was thinking about the original (1.10 I guess?) balance, but don't waste your time on that really, it was a thought about having a backup way to play the game for players who preferred the original balance. I only thought about it because I hit a difficulty wall and couldn't proceed, otherwise I'm open for the progress.

Because of your problems with Gamma 01 I started a new Gamma campaign from the main menu with the old settings (full armor for Nexus). I needed less than 2 minutes to kill the six cyborgs that await you in your LZ without any loss. The few cyborgs that will come a bit later from the west are then also no problem. And even with Insane difficulty, you have now 12 minutes to get prepared before Nexus starts his attacks. The key is not to leave the valley!!! Don't build any defenses in the west that get destroyed from the Nexus hover units. Ignore them, build an Assault Gun bunker line in the north (not farther north than two tiles more north than the most north of your oil derricks) that attracts the Vtol attacks, build a factory, a Command Relay Center, a Command Center, some Repair Facilities and a Research Facility. If you can't fly in heavy artillery units also build some artillery batteries together with a CB tower. In the at least 10 minutes you have for the preparation you can build an army with two Hero commanders with 20 combat units attached at each of them. Set them to retreat at medium damage and leave the valley. You can either fight your way to the Nexus bases with ground units or you can also build a Vtol Factory and build some Bunker Buster Bug Vtols and destroy the Nexus factories in the western base with a harakiri attack.

Thank you for the tips. The problem I see here that a new player will have no idea that leaving the valley to the West triggers the attack of doom (I did not know about this even after completing the game twice in previous years, probably it wasn't a big deal back then). So the idea is to hold for 10 minutes and build what you can and hope that the units and defences you manage to make during this time will hold the attack when it comes anyway. The only solution I think might work (at least on Hard) is the suicide run by Bunker Buster VTOLs to the West and to the North base if some of them survive, but the enemy AA to the West may kill them before they bust the production. Maybe a joint attack - small ground suicide attack to get rid of the AA near the lake and then the VTOL raid... Why you suggest building the Research? The valley is very narrow to have this luxury and the oil is too precious while the enemy production isn't dealt with yet, while the two new available technlogies don't seem too tempting to research right away.

By the way, what triggers the attack of doom? Either A) leaving the valley or B) 12 minutes have elapsed? Or having all the transports arrive triggers it too? Then having only, say, 2 transports flying from the Beta will trigger it earlier?

It's already merged into the current master version and will therefore be part of the next release. I can't say atm when this release will come. Have fun and good game!

Thanks!