Seems like that hard mode is now useless for vets.

Basically, old nightmare were easy, too easy. Nightmare was a cakewalk for most who were doing it. During the "nightmare weekend" the difficulties went up a LOT, gear generated enemies + enemies were matching gearscore. Now gear and heroes dont add new enemies and only give enemy some gear pieces. From my perspective it has been done because options to increase difficulty are limited.

Adding more enemies makes it impossible to maneuver and one gets swarmed and cant flank oneself anymore.
Making enemies tougher means raising their levels - assume they get +3 stats per lvl and players get +30 stats with one item. To make nightmares not a cakewalk for the advanced players with good epics or perfect rares, enemies had to get some gear of their own simply because lvl 20 is the current limit and ballancing difficulty for those advanced players would require enemy lvls 30+. Quite logical so far.

Now we see that enemies generate gear at a percentage of the gear the player brings, they always generate less and i hope they generate randomly and not perfect ap/stat ratio rolls etc. So technically this gives players the advantage by using best suited gear vs. enemy using random gear and ofc less of it. Makes sence overall. Else ppl would lvl up and gear up to a degree where anything becomes a cakewalk. Current system prevents this from happening unless you get really close to your caps - gl gear grants solid bonus.

What i am curious about is - if heroes dont add any difficulty - are heroes now THE trumpcard? Because instead i would suggest the enemy to have heroes here and there and lower gs match
You could implement hero duels as well, that would be amazing. 

All in one i think i understand why we have what we have, but i find there should be other ways to raise difficulty - maybe adding skills to enemy units or make them bigger (more enemies in same units doesnt hurt own maneuvering options as much as more units would) and reduce the GS matching percentage to keep players interested to get as good gear as possible and be able to run those drop items again.

I think the key point RuneSlayer has made is that while you might be able to generate less CP's than before, so does everyone else. Therefore it doesn't really affect your ability to contribute because in a percentage it will end up being the same. While your CP's went down, so did everyone elses by about the same amount.

However as for nathors quote of himself below. RuneSlayer you were a little misleading there. Which is why I asked for further clarification afterwards. You made it seem that gear and heroes had no affect on difficulty of the AI (meaning no reason not to take gear\heroes). However now you've posted the modifiers. This is the first time I've ever heard them mentioned or knew they even existed.

How does this gear score modifier work exactly? Is it a buff to all enemy AI units? Does it just increase their stats or give them imaginary gear themselves?

Rares are like normal mode When I bring 6 units,all rared and epiced geared, it gives me 4 enemies, 1 giant 1 LI and 2 assault, that sux.

RuneSlayer wrote:

No, Hard should spawn max 1 Mercenary unit.

However, we may change it so Nightmare also spawns max 1 Mercenary unit, to nerf the difficulty even more.

RuneSlayer, don't reduce Merc units too much. They add fun and diversity to the battles. As they are generally more powerful in certain scenario's, perhaps add a lower level cap to Mercs than the rest of the army, based on the difficulty level and the players level.

So where the regular units are

Quote :

Normal Difficulty

Range of AI levels: Min 2 / Max 10 (Random level depending on the level of the player's highest unit level ranging from -2 to 0)

Hard Difficulty

Range of AI levels: Min 5 / Max 15 (Random level depending on the level of the player's highest unit level ranging from -2 to +1)

Nightmare Difficulty

Range of AI levels: Min 9 / Max 20 (Random level depending on the level of the player's highest unit level ranging from +1 to +2)

Make the Mercs something like.

Normal Difficulty

Range of AI levels: Min 1 / Max 8 (Random level depending on the level of the player's highest unit level ranging from -2 to 0)

Hard Difficulty

Range of AI levels: Min 3 / Max 11 (Random level depending on the level of the player's highest unit level ranging from -3 to +1)

Nightmare Difficulty

Range of AI levels: Min 7 / Max 16 (Random level depending on the level of the player's highest unit level ranging from -1 to +1)

I think the appearance of Mercs makes things interesting and requires more thinking and tactics than just rehashing the same tactics over and over again.

Tibr wrote:

Basically, old nightmare were easy, too easy. Nightmare was a cakewalk for most who were doing it. During the "nightmare weekend" the difficulties went up a LOT, gear generated enemies + enemies were matching gearscore. Now gear and heroes dont add new enemies and only give enemy some gear pieces. From my perspective it has been done because options to increase difficulty are limited.

i would like a confirmation on this. I think its wrong to do this, especially without increasing the rewards in line with the extra gear the enemy brings, else the only motivation to bring gear is a drop rate set or bring gls to make the fight really easier with a low stat per ap ration that only gls can give.

Quote :

Adding more enemies makes it impossible to maneuver and one gets swarmed and cant flank oneself anymore.

that is ok, i can indeed maneuver now, and thats how i can win my NMs, running aroung with cavs and lias until i get numerical advantages good enough to take units out. if i bring HI or other, i can never win the impact against op HI and mercs, its just impossible.

Quote :

Making enemies tougher means raising their levels - assume they get +3 stats per lvl and players get +30 stats with one item. To make nightmares not a cakewalk for the advanced players with good epics or perfect rares, enemies had to get some gear of their own simply because lvl 20 is the current limit and ballancing difficulty for those advanced players would require enemy lvls 30+. Quite logical so far.

i dont use gls much, because mostly i dont have frags to fix them when they break, i am saving them still. i only use drop rate set and. anyways, it was relatively easy before the nightmare weekend(love the expression) and the main issue remains, difficulty was doubled and reward stayed almost the same. that sucks. at least we have these negligible healing times.

Quote :

Now we see that enemies generate gear at a percentage of the gear the player brings, they always generate less and i hope they generate randomly and not perfect ap/stat ratio rolls etc. So technically this gives players the advantage by using best suited gear vs. enemy using random gear and ofc less of it. Makes sence overall. Else ppl would lvl up and gear up to a degree where anything becomes a cakewalk. Current system prevents this from happening unless you get really close to your caps - gl gear grants solid bonus.

if your gear(low level) and tech don't make the fights easier, what is the sense of progression then? there is none! there should be new difficulty levels for higher level like us to access and as we progress, and they should become easier as we progress as well...
the only thing that makes them easier is gl's but gls is pay to play as you likely need to use crystals to fix the broken items.

Quote :

What i am curious about is - if heroes dont add any difficulty - are heroes now THE trumpcard? Because instead i would suggest the enemy to have heroes here and there and lower gs match

yep, heroes seem the only advantage, but the poor things die quite fast against geared enemies. mine are level 10 and dont have much chances...

Quote :

You could implement hero duels as well, that would be amazing. 

i think heroes are there for the skills they will later give to the unit they are attached. rune talked about it. right now they dont seem much usefull unless you gear them with gl's, which can make them true killing machines.

Quote :

All in one i think i understand why we have what we have, but i find there should be other ways to raise difficulty - maybe adding skills to enemy units or make them bigger (more enemies in same units doesnt hurt own maneuvering options as much as more units would) and reduce the GS matching percentage to keep players interested to get as good gear as possible and be able to run those drop items again.

i understand that but if if we get more difficulty for our gear and tech levels, then our rewards should also be greater. and if you want to keep the sense of progression in the game, making new difficulty levels is the way to go, else, its just seems pointless to level up and gear up(low level gear) and research... for what? to pay more healing and repairs and get the same rewards?
we cannot even use our edge to speed up the battles and earn more cps...

RuneSlayer wrote:

Nightmare Difficulty

Range of AI levels: Min 9 / Max 20 (Random level depending on the level of the player's highest unit level ranging from +1 to +2)

Gear Score Modifier: 0.80 of player's GS (Random range -0.05 to +0.15)

Max 2 enemy Mercenary Units allowed

There is still something wrong. I am going naked to NM and enemy units can be very hard to defeat. I know that mercenaries have high base stats. But i dont belive that Great Spider has so high base stats (lvl 9 or 10) than he can defeat my 3 cavs (lvl 15 14 14), every cav has about melee 70 strenght 50. He killed them with easy. Normal units can be very strong too.

One more thing. Troll and his acid splash. This ability is much too powerfull. Can you take a closer look at it? For the better game balance it would be good if units with splash damage did not have tower ability.

Tibr wrote:

Obviously bringing gear makes enemy stronger, it doesnt generate more enemies.

Spot on.

XViper wrote:

I think the key point RuneSlayer has made is that while you might be able to generate less CP's than before, so does everyone else. Therefore it doesn't really affect your ability to contribute because in a percentage it will end up being the same. While your CP's went down, so did everyone elses by about the same amount.

However as for nathors quote of himself below. RuneSlayer you were a little misleading there. Which is why I asked for further clarification afterwards. You made it seem that gear and heroes had no affect on difficulty of the AI (meaning no reason not to take gear\heroes). However now you've posted the modifiers. This is the first time I've ever heard them mentioned or knew they even existed.

How does this gear score modifier work exactly? Is it a buff to all enemy AI units? Does it just increase their stats or give them imaginary gear themselves?

Rune, please answer this! i agree that your previous answer was quite misleading if gear makes our enemies stronger...

RuneSlayer wrote:

Tibr wrote:

Obviously bringing gear makes enemy stronger, it doesnt generate more enemies.

Spot on.

it is not so obvious and i must say i completely disagree with this approach! i will explain in another post.

nathor wrote:

it is not so obvious and i must say i completely disagree with this approach! i will explain in another post.

Nathor, to save you from the trouble.

It doesn't scale up 100% according to the GS your army has. Depending on the difficulty the GS available to the AI army changes and AI units have limitations too. Therefore, a geared player's army will always be more effective than a player's army with no gear on.

RuneSlayer wrote:

And we are definitely always welcome all opinions expressed in the Forums. However, as "Resistance to Change" is a human "merit", I would suggest playing a few days with the recent changes and then come back with an open mind and express your feelings about them. We will definitely be here to listen again...

It's not about resistance to change or having a closed mind. What this is about, for me at least, is a less satisfying gaming experience. Why should I persevere with the current settings in the hope that I will somehow find it more satisfying again? That sounds like work to me and this is a game; it's supposed to be fun. If it's not a pleasurable experience, then I'm not going to play. I will, however, continue to drop by and do the odd NM, since there are times when I want a challenge, and I love the in-game community (yes even those nasssty elvses) and I hope that, once GW2 is implemented and we can recruit mercs of our own, the balance tips back to provide a satisfying experience once again. In the meantime, however, as a casual player, I won't be buying any more gems.

RuneSlayer wrote:

nathor wrote:

it is not so obvious and i must say i completely disagree with this approach! i will explain in another post.

Nathor, to save you from the trouble.

It doesn't scale up 100% according to the GS your army has. Depending on the difficulty the GS available to the AI army changes and AI units have limitations too. Therefore, a geared player's army will always be more effective than a player's army with no gear on.

i will answer in the new thread i just made...

Gorlak wrote:

In the meantime, however, as a casual player, I won't be buying any more gems.

What is it with people saying that again and again? Do they really think that whatever change we do or whatever new feature we are planning is about Gems? We make changes so people buy more Gems? If we are "good" devs then we will be rewarded with more "Gems"?

People, you are free to do whatever you want. It is your decision.... We are not driven by your willingness to buy Gems. We are driven by your enthusiasm and love to the game.

If for any reason one day, the game is not financially sustainable, because people stopped loving it, then we will bow, thank you all, and say our goodbyes... Until then, do not consider us "Gems" diggers and rest assured that whatever change is happening in this game is part of our effort to make it more interesting, more rewarding (gaming experience) and more entertaining.

Having said that, all opinions are welcome, but sometimes we have to express our own as well.

RuneSlayer wrote:

What is it with people saying that again and again? Do they really think that whatever change we do or whatever new feature we are planning is about Gems? We make changes so people buy more Gems? If we are "good" devs then we will be rewarded with more "Gems"?

I'm not trying to say you are Gem-diggers but clearly the game relies on a paying player base to succeed. If your attitude to those paying players is like-it-or-lump it, then those players will go elsewhere if they don't like things. The reason I've bothered to try to explain my dissatisfaction rather than just riding off into the sunset is that I recognise that there is a genuine will on behalf of the developers to take comments from the player base on board. I realise that not all comments can possibly be accommodated, however, as seems to be the case here from your apparent refusal to accept that I have a valid perception of the way battles now are. My last comment was, I suppose, a statement of the obvious and inevitable consequence of my dissatisfaction with the way the game has changed. From the comments elsewhere in this forum, I get the feeling I'm not alone and I hope that eventually tweaks will be made to the system so that it once again becomes a pleasurable experience for all. In the meantime I wish you all the best with the game and with GW2 in particular.

Gorlak, I personally prefer to speak with actions, not words. Just check the today's patch notes and then reassess the situation.

Thank you for your wishes.

The whole point of this was to say that with NM being better rewards and you can face the same units in NM and hard that is why hard has become useless. The main reason I did hard before was because I would rarely ever face HI or cav and never artillery. Now I can easily face the same difficulty of units in hard and NM. I much prefer the old hard where I did get casualties but very few. Now the new heal times have helped but it's still not the same to me.