Comment on game difficulty.

Hi!

I know the developers asked what people thought about game difficulty, so I will share my two cents.

I'm not a new player to turn based games. I've played many of the Advance Wars games, Xcom series, and others - I feel that is worth mentioning since it colors my comments.

I'm almost all the way through the 4th section of Wargroove. I've felt the entire time that the game is challenging on the normal difficulty. It's fair, but challenging. I would say about probably a good middle. I've got probably about 4 or 5 S's and mostly 2 and 3 stars on each level on first runthroughs of the levels. There are certainly some levels that are more or less difficult, but I'm pleasantly surprised. I would say the game is more difficult than Advance Wars, both by the difficulty level but also because you cannot save in a game level. It really makes every move you make that much more important. I actually like that the game is somewhat difficult on normal because it does what it is meant to do - make you really think about the critical abilities of each unit and move with caution while at the same time still knowing to get a S you are going to have to minimize the time. The challenge of this game makes the game more entertaining in my opinion and offers a lot of replay value; I would be disappointed to have the game difficulty lowered.

Thanks to whoever asked for this.

Gabriel

 

As a newbie*, I think the game is too difficult. Or the learning curve is too steep.
The first two or three fights there is some sort of introduction and it's possible to score an S or A rank.
After that I was confronted with real tough enemies and/or big amounts of enemies. Too overwhelming for a newbie.
Rank D is the best I can get after dying a lot.
I will try to lower the difficulty tonight. Maybe that will help a little.


*not a total newbie, I've played Advance Wars. But that's a real long time ago.

 

I think the difficulty is fair aside from mission with Fog because the AI cheats (it's has been proved multiple times already) but the rank based on speed is kind of annoying, especially because some maps you absolutely need to focus on defense and take the advantage slowly. I wish unit destroyed/lost ratio would be more important than the speed.

 

Ah, so the AI *does* cheat in Fog of War...what's the point then? Is there a fix coming for this?

 

Hello there,
You all make perfectly good points and I agree with you (to an extent). First off, I am perfectly happy with the normal difficulty as it is. I am also in the middle of Act 4, I don't know what is ahead. I do believe that the developers (Chucklefish) have put in a lot of effort in balancing and validating the whole campaign (and all the rest), so I don't think that it will be a good idea to shift either for more difficult, or for easier gameplay. However, I am a firm believer that games should be for everyone - new players, casuals, core players and try-hards. So, I agree with Swift Fox that the game is rather challenging, rather fast, but I am sure that we all will agree that the tutorial dialogues, cutscenes, etc. hold our hands throughout the whole time, and help us learn the game one unit at a time (with each and every next mission). That alone is worth a praise to the devs! I mean, players like Swift Fox should indeed have the option to adjust the difficulty the way they want, as they have the right to also enjoy themselves, to see the final part of the campaign, and to learn at their own pace. So, in short - I am (very) happy with the game, as it is, but I encourage everyone to speak their minds, so that they might help to get these sort of options, which would help them.

(Sorry for the long post!)
Have a great time playing!

Yavor

 

I agree with you. Everyone should be able to set it as they see fit!

 

Yes, Chucklefish is aware and will fix this soon, they will improve the UI as well

 

If there's anything I'd love to see, is learning naval units one at a time in the campaign.

The first mission where you use naval units has it that you can already produce all those units, which feels quite overwhelming at first.

 

The difficult setting on the campaing mode are very good, also i think that they can improve the AI´s difficulty levels on multiplayer.

 

The difficulty is fair I suppose but many of the missions feel too long, I'm finding my battles to go over an hour and then to end up losing anyway feels so crushing. All that time lost and nothing to show, it hardly encourages me to try again.

The missions just feel like trying to figure out what paticular strategy the developer had in mind to solve the scenario and carrying it out this combined with the long missions often leads to me spending a significant amount of time on a mission before realising whatever I tried to do or thought they wanted me to do was wrong and I will need to start again. Theres excessive use of spawning enemies, sometimes in very close striking distance to your forces.

I feel like normal should be beatable by most players without having to headbutt a mission multiple times wasting hours, if people wish to challenge themselves they can try to up beat the mission faster and with fewer losses.

I will applaud you for having an easier mode however and not gating any of the playable characters behind the campaign unlike advanced wars.

 

Many of the missions do take quite a bit of time, I agree - sometimes, you get exhausted!

 

A M E N
Still in the tutorial levels, and finding myself wondering how the enemy is allowed to spawn 3 units each turn, when I'm capped at 1. Wondering if the rules are going to change on each level, so figuring out the rules will always be task #1 before I even make a move on turn 1.
Loving the game overall, but this one (rather large) nitpick is killing my game mojo.

 

To not make yet another thread, I'll just share my personal opinion here.

I have some spoiler sections down below but I mention nothing that wasn't also mentioned in some reviews and it's just minor spoilers as to what kind of content you can unlock; just in case if someone doesn't know if they want to click on them or not..

I have to say that I don't have the game yet and that's mainly because of the "Lower the difficulty, only get 1 star" thing.

Let me be clear: I absolutely don't mind getting a bad rating if I lower the difficulty, but locking

part of the epilogue

behind the stars is an absolute joy killer for me

I've been looking forward to this game for years and it seems to be right up my alley gameplay wise. But over the years I've become way less of a challenge seeking gamer. When I come home exhausted after a long day of work and start a game, I do so to relax, not to get big challenge. Certainly, a little challenge is appreciated so things don't get boring but if it's very hard (or I'm just not that good at a game), it can get frustrating for me and kill the fun, especially if I have to repeat some parts over and over. Especially long ones, which seems to be the case with Wargroove, from what I have read so far.

That's why I love that a lot of games nowadays let you adjust the difficulty to your liking.

I know, theoretically you can lower the difficulty in Wargroove too, but then

you get almost no stars and with too few stars, you can't even play the whole epilogue! I appreciate that I can lower the difficulty but if I'm not even sure I can experience the whole store, I just don't know if I want to buy this game (and based on everything else, I'd like to so, so much!).
It's like having to buy a book or movie and not even be sure if one can read/watch the ending.

I really wouldn't mind, if it was just some cosmetic stuff or maybe even some commanders. But if the reviews I read were right, you even get locked out of part of the story if you're not good enough =(

 

I absolutely hate the defense/endurance side missions for this exact reason. They can spiral out of control quite easily if you're not prepared and on top of enemy reinforcements. And they're all like 16 or 18 turns (I forget exactly) minimum to beat. I honestly didn't want to bother so I just skipped those by lowering the difficulty. Last I did one them I was 100% in control, smooth sailing, then I started getting overwhelmed really bad towards the end in the last few turns. That was when I decided it wasn't worth.

 

@margotbean yeah being able to spawn even one more unit a turn than you is a significant advantage, granting the AI a couple more villages is a fair bonus for them but extra production facilities really allows them to mass numbers.

@HappyFarmerGuy So you cant beat the game without playing on normal? Nothing quite like locking out content you paid for all in name of 'git gud' this games honeymoon period is wearing off awfully fast... :/

@cinoba Was that the outlaw defence mission as Ceaser? Remember slogging through that and then getting the 'half way to go!' message and just losing the will to live ha.

 

God that mission with Caesar was...horrible. I had to lower the difficulty for that one because on top of being long you have just too many units coming from everywhere

 

Funnily that is what I like about the game. That sometimes it is just brutal, I had to restart 3-3 several times, because I just didn't understand how to defend against all those flying units and at the same time defending the upper spot. But it was very rewarding when I finally made it. I wouldn't have wanted it easier tbh.

 

@Antlionguard unfortunately, it looks like it. There seem to be other ways to earn stars as well but from what I could gather, you'll have to beat quite a few missions on normal to play through the whole thing, yes (ok, as I understand it, you could also earn a lot of stars in other ways. But to do so, you^d have to be good in the other modes as well and in that case, you'd probably wouldn't have much problems with the campaign anyway..). But take it with a grain of salt, because, as said, I don't own the game... but I would the the second they announce that they'll remove this requirement for seeing the whole story

 

So far i'm only having trouble when my Bloodthirst gets the better of me & I get myself killed trying to defeat numbers of foes I lack sufficient Army Force to Contest... but that's my fault. >_<

I know i'm supposed to be minding the Objective, but I love killing things so much...

 

For those who missed the latest stream about the upcoming patch it will be possible to earn 3 star in the campaign (but not S-rank) with a reduced difficulty and up to 2 star in the new easy mode.
And if you still don't have enough star there 25stars to obtain with the puzzle 13 for the easy mode in arcade, 26 more stars if you finish all the normal run in arcade and 26 more if you finish it in hard.

Unlocking the episode will get easier after this patch (currently under the certification process) that will come soon enough