I haven't played any Haz5+ or messed around with any settings simply because I don't need to. I have my own difficulties to play. Also, I keep hearing it's terrible since it doesn't make the game harder in any interesting way. It's simply number changes to enemy damage, HP, increased bugs, enemy movement speed, and some projectile speed. The main criticism I've heard is how ludicrous the increased damage and HP is and the fact that wave and swarm timers have no setting. Again, I haven't played it myself so I have no clue if it's really as terrible as everyone's going around saying but on paper, simple number changes are not enough for me to try it out. As you can see from the difficulties I play and create, while increased bug damage, HP, amount, and movement speed is part of these difficulties, they're not the main focus and I cap them out to either Ike's Hazard 6 or Hazard 7 values. What I prioritize is increasing enemy diversity; adding new enemies that normally don't show up in a wave such as Sentinels, respawning Breeders, and Patrol Bots; using mods for entirely new enemies such as the Turbo Menace; modifying existing enemies such as making Nexuses spawn Slashers or making Oppressors and Leeches x2 as fast; and really making wave timers and swarm timers short to force pacing. The vanilla Haz5+ doesn't offer much of anything I'm interested in. As for the new enemies, I wrote about them elsewhere: - I quite like Barragers. They're a super dangerous stationary that rival Nukeballers (a Spitballer that shoots Fat Boy projectiles) in difficulty. However, they're completely ruined if you leave them at their default DifficultyRating (the cost to spawn in said enemy). For reference, a Spitballer has a DifficultyRating of 100. Meanwhile, a Barrager has a DifficultyRating of only 145. In ND and FC, a Nukeballer has a DifficultyRating of 300. A Barrager has more base HP than a standard Spitballer (1200 vs a Spitballer's 800), has a far more dangerous attack that is harder to dodge due to the number of projectiles it fires and the coverage it can get with said projectiles, has no weaknesses (Spitballers have a fire weakness), and have a harder WP to shoot. All of this would be fine if Barragers weren't so cheap to spawn in. Cheap Barragers means you can typically find more than one in a cave which leads to absolute obliteration of the team if you’re not careful. As it currently stands, I find Barragers to reach their full potential if not many are allowed to spawn in similar to a Nukeballer. - I’m very mixed about Scalebrambles. In an easier difficulty like 6x2, they’re perfectly fine. I like the idea of forcing a team to push into a cave to shut them down. However, at least in the difficulties I play, they interact very badly with the very fast Leeches I like to employ. Fast Leeches force the team and especially Scout to slow down and actually take the time to shoot them down. Meanwhile, a Scalebramble desperately wants a Scout to go in and shoot down the nodes so the Scalebramble can be killed. These mixing of the two stationaries leads to very unhappy situations where a Scalebramble can just keep hampering a team’s push due to the fast Leeches protecting it. The issue can be solved in a multitude of ways such as slowing down the Leeches, nerfing the Scalebramble itself, having a guarantee of only one Bramble spawning in the entire mission (multiple Brambles really feel like a disaster), or banning Brambles or Leeches from spawning in a cave if one is selected. At the moment, I don’t know what to do. - Stalkers. These things make some random noise, suddenly deal heavy damage AND disable your shield, then disappear to God knows where. I don’t like them at all. You can’t stun them. I far prefer beta Stalkers as while you needed to turn up your effects make them reasonably visible while they’re cloaked, these can be easily shut down once you spotted them since they could be stunned. And if you didn’t spot it in time, it still dealt heavy damage to you and got away quick, but you still had a chance to land some decent damage or even outright kill it if you were quick enough. These current Stalkers just blitz you. You hear the noise and wait for it to show up, but then it doesn’t. 15 seconds later, it finally shows up and whacks you. I’ve even heard from others how it hits you while it’s burrowing. And if you do avoid its attack, it burrows away so fast you can typically only chip it, allowing for the whole cycle to repeat. In short, these things are ridiculously annoying and unenjoyable to fight in their current state and I’m thinking of just replacing them with beta Stalkers. Something that does make them significantly more digestible is allowing them to be stunned. That way, if you do manage to spot it, you can actually burst it down instead of it immediately disappearing again. - I haven’t played the Core Stone event so I haven’t experienced the absolute tornado of Crawlers that is apparently unplayable. However, I have been putting them in some of my difficulties as another enemy that can regularly spawn in and I quite like them. They’re somewhat beefy (Crawlers have a Base HP of 280 while a Grunt Guard has a Base HP of 270), highly mobile enemy that you gotta dance around. Having a group of up to 5 Crawlers spawn somewhat frequently makes for some interesting fights. The one downside of them is that goo they leave behind. We have enough enemies that leave behind some sort of DoT or area denial upon death. The goo deals some serious damage too and it’s subtle with its dark color and small size. And given their highly mobile nature, it’s often that a Crawler dies in your face and then you end up stepping on the goo they left behind. They’d be excellent if they didn’t leave behind the death goo, but thankfully with mods the goo can be removed.
@@pH-JPEG Thanks for your input. It is great to hear opinions from both Vanilla players and Modded players, as each side views the enemies from a different perspective. I forgot to ask also your opinion on the new OCs, the new warnings (red mutators) + anomalies (yellow mutators), and the new mission type. I personally find Deep Scans hard due to me often approaching the missions "lick the walls clean" style while also sucking at basic triangulation, causing the search for the resonance crystals being mildly infuriating. The mission itself is very interesting though, unique in many ways while also not feeling outlandishly different.
what a fabulous slab of beef he is
What are your opinions on the new Haz5+ and the new enemies?
I haven't played any Haz5+ or messed around with any settings simply because I don't need to. I have my own difficulties to play. Also, I keep hearing it's terrible since it doesn't make the game harder in any interesting way. It's simply number changes to enemy damage, HP, increased bugs, enemy movement speed, and some projectile speed. The main criticism I've heard is how ludicrous the increased damage and HP is and the fact that wave and swarm timers have no setting. Again, I haven't played it myself so I have no clue if it's really as terrible as everyone's going around saying but on paper, simple number changes are not enough for me to try it out. As you can see from the difficulties I play and create, while increased bug damage, HP, amount, and movement speed is part of these difficulties, they're not the main focus and I cap them out to either Ike's Hazard 6 or Hazard 7 values. What I prioritize is increasing enemy diversity; adding new enemies that normally don't show up in a wave such as Sentinels, respawning Breeders, and Patrol Bots; using mods for entirely new enemies such as the Turbo Menace; modifying existing enemies such as making Nexuses spawn Slashers or making Oppressors and Leeches x2 as fast; and really making wave timers and swarm timers short to force pacing. The vanilla Haz5+ doesn't offer much of anything I'm interested in.
As for the new enemies, I wrote about them elsewhere:
- I quite like Barragers. They're a super dangerous stationary that rival Nukeballers (a Spitballer that shoots Fat Boy projectiles) in difficulty. However, they're completely ruined if you leave them at their default DifficultyRating (the cost to spawn in said enemy). For reference, a Spitballer has a DifficultyRating of 100. Meanwhile, a Barrager has a DifficultyRating of only 145. In ND and FC, a Nukeballer has a DifficultyRating of 300. A Barrager has more base HP than a standard Spitballer (1200 vs a Spitballer's 800), has a far more dangerous attack that is harder to dodge due to the number of projectiles it fires and the coverage it can get with said projectiles, has no weaknesses (Spitballers have a fire weakness), and have a harder WP to shoot. All of this would be fine if Barragers weren't so cheap to spawn in. Cheap Barragers means you can typically find more than one in a cave which leads to absolute obliteration of the team if you’re not careful. As it currently stands, I find Barragers to reach their full potential if not many are allowed to spawn in similar to a Nukeballer.
- I’m very mixed about Scalebrambles. In an easier difficulty like 6x2, they’re perfectly fine. I like the idea of forcing a team to push into a cave to shut them down. However, at least in the difficulties I play, they interact very badly with the very fast Leeches I like to employ. Fast Leeches force the team and especially Scout to slow down and actually take the time to shoot them down. Meanwhile, a Scalebramble desperately wants a Scout to go in and shoot down the nodes so the Scalebramble can be killed. These mixing of the two stationaries leads to very unhappy situations where a Scalebramble can just keep hampering a team’s push due to the fast Leeches protecting it. The issue can be solved in a multitude of ways such as slowing down the Leeches, nerfing the Scalebramble itself, having a guarantee of only one Bramble spawning in the entire mission (multiple Brambles really feel like a disaster), or banning Brambles or Leeches from spawning in a cave if one is selected. At the moment, I don’t know what to do.
- Stalkers. These things make some random noise, suddenly deal heavy damage AND disable your shield, then disappear to God knows where. I don’t like them at all. You can’t stun them. I far prefer beta Stalkers as while you needed to turn up your effects make them reasonably visible while they’re cloaked, these can be easily shut down once you spotted them since they could be stunned. And if you didn’t spot it in time, it still dealt heavy damage to you and got away quick, but you still had a chance to land some decent damage or even outright kill it if you were quick enough. These current Stalkers just blitz you. You hear the noise and wait for it to show up, but then it doesn’t. 15 seconds later, it finally shows up and whacks you. I’ve even heard from others how it hits you while it’s burrowing. And if you do avoid its attack, it burrows away so fast you can typically only chip it, allowing for the whole cycle to repeat. In short, these things are ridiculously annoying and unenjoyable to fight in their current state and I’m thinking of just replacing them with beta Stalkers. Something that does make them significantly more digestible is allowing them to be stunned. That way, if you do manage to spot it, you can actually burst it down instead of it immediately disappearing again.
- I haven’t played the Core Stone event so I haven’t experienced the absolute tornado of Crawlers that is apparently unplayable. However, I have been putting them in some of my difficulties as another enemy that can regularly spawn in and I quite like them. They’re somewhat beefy (Crawlers have a Base HP of 280 while a Grunt Guard has a Base HP of 270), highly mobile enemy that you gotta dance around. Having a group of up to 5 Crawlers spawn somewhat frequently makes for some interesting fights. The one downside of them is that goo they leave behind. We have enough enemies that leave behind some sort of DoT or area denial upon death. The goo deals some serious damage too and it’s subtle with its dark color and small size. And given their highly mobile nature, it’s often that a Crawler dies in your face and then you end up stepping on the goo they left behind. They’d be excellent if they didn’t leave behind the death goo, but thankfully with mods the goo can be removed.
@@pH-JPEG Thanks for your input. It is great to hear opinions from both Vanilla players and Modded players, as each side views the enemies from a different perspective.
I forgot to ask also your opinion on the new OCs, the new warnings (red mutators) + anomalies (yellow mutators), and the new mission type. I personally find Deep Scans hard due to me often approaching the missions "lick the walls clean" style while also sucking at basic triangulation, causing the search for the resonance crystals being mildly infuriating. The mission itself is very interesting though, unique in many ways while also not feeling outlandishly different.
I love grunting... what?