4Game

Let's Talk: State Of Meta and Gameplay (long post, please read)

u/FreightTrainUSA u/EmptyTux If you are seeing this, please read absolutely everything, best wishes :3

(coming from a July 2017 ultimate founder, and have sunk 1000s of pounds into save the world on multiple accounts)

So, as we all know by now our beloved endgame content has been getting easier and easier with all of these "AFK" and spammy stall builds coming out over the past almost 3 years (if you look at the dates that this started happening, it all points towards the 11.20/11.30/12.00 Updates from late 2019 to early 2020) now as an endgame player since 017 I'm going to give a brief summary of what those updates did and how they started the transition to a more "run and gun/afk meta" when they should've kept it tower defense, with a tick on what was done well and a cross on what they could've done better, which I will give an idea for.

11.20 –

Ward trap converted into anti air (✔️) – this was nice, nothing wrong with it, nifty little trap!

smashers can now see stairs, slants and edited floors as target structures (✔️) – this was nice to have and was in the game since early access week of 2017…but like the recent door scandal, it was most definitely not intended.

gas trap no longer deals DOT (affliction) and requires husks to stay in tile in order to take damage (❌) – Alright sure, affliction stacking after every tick was a problem, but why remove it completely? how about this, gas traps go back to doing affliction, however it can only reapply once the current 6 second effect wears off.

Floor launchers and wall launchers now do not deal any fall damage (❌) – OK, so fall damage was busted and we can all agree on that, but right now we have tire traps that permanently lock husks in place and freeze traps to add to that strat, which one is more OP? in any case reverting this change wouldn't cause any major dip in quality of gameplay as we currently have the meta how it is, and would actually encourage people to think way more.

Wall launchers and floor launchers do not lift Smashers out of the air (❌) – this one is tricky, yes smashers are supposed to be big and strong, but this change deleted all recycling possibilities for smashers and all the fun along with it, we can literally INFINITE FREEZE smashers right now, and kill them with 2 shots of a good launcher, so why can't we launch these guys into the air? I say just revert this straight up as the way we kill and sea with them right now is much worse than launching them in the air like 5 tiles, or alternatively if you really don't wanna go back on this, make it so wall launchers can recycle them like they used to because right now there is no way to navigate smashers through our tunnels anymore, they will still get through however this gives us just a little longer. however this game is about the community, and I think we'd all just like to see Al of those reworked or reverted to prior state.

propane self destruct on low HP due to traps (❌❌❌❌❌) – just no… seriously just no, no one wanted it back then, and we don't want it now, this was done to literally make trap tunnels less efficient and punish us for using them, in a game, about tower defense. how about just making them drop there tanks upon death again instead of self destruct? that way we still need alot of engagement and strategy however we have the chance to keep our tunnels intact, and also would require us to go back to cleaning our tunnels with teleporters to not risk all of those tanks blowing up, so no more afk!

so, yeah that was, 11.20…disastrous.

11.30 –

so after hearing our feedback, in 11.30 they didn't adjust or change any of the above in the next update, they just decreased the power level of husk scaling in endurance and frostnite, while making frostnite 10 waves Shorter (❌) The pl was not the problem and the length of the game was not the problem, it was the changes you made too the meta that sent ripple shockwaves and effected everything, Make frostnite 30 waves again, And return the old endurance scaling to it, How is a PL500 wave 30 smasher now weaker than a PL277 smasher back then? Too much confusion in general (this would also mean that you'd need to return old weapon pl like 34, 58, 82, 106, 130.

12.00 –

CDT and CEF where buffed beyond belief and now they are being spammed and used to afk kill spawn everything….yeah you might as well just give us all of the above back because none of it is worse than what people are doing right now.

in short, when we have infinite zenith freeze, infinite tire trap freeze, and so much other cheesy business, why not bring back the fun stuff they NOBODY asked for it to be removed.

please do not just remove the current op stuff as leave it at that, consider these reverts and retweaks, it really will improve the core game AND IT REQUIRES LITTLE EFFORT because you guys already have the code!

u/FreightTrainUSA u/EmptyTux we wouldn't need new content if the existing content was fun and repayable with many ways to enjoy traps and such.

We have been asking and asking about this for 3 years, we need communication and clear responses on if you guys are planning to bring the actual endgame back into a state of playability.

(if the game is "finished" why does it matter what is and isn't allowed? , why does it matter if I can fling a smasher with a floor and wall launcher the same way people do with a rocket? Why do propane punish us for using the tunnels we have grown to love over half a DECADE? please :3)