Ways to balance DTV

[mulas]

With patch .222 we can't get pass x2 multiplier, usually wiped the first or second waves of bandits. I thought that all the bots are lvl 31 with 10 ps and 10 IF. I wear decent armor and the wooden club (Cudgel) hurt me, took 1/5 of my hp. The wooden Maul took 90% of my hp with 1 hit.

Here are a few problems I see
1. Bots are too strong and resilient.
2. Not only every round they're stronger but more numerous
3. They swarm you and spam, they can swing through other bots body, no way to defend when swarmed.
4. They seems to able to hit you when extreme close to you, yet your attacks bounced.
5. Bots are fearless, they swarm you like zombies, not particularly realistic, but what can you do?

Possible solutions
1. Peasants should be lvl 5-10 not more, peasants weapons (Cudgel) that can hurt plate wearers is nonsense, as the rounds progressed, bots levels should increased, I felt like they are all the same lvl with different gears and weapons.
2. Reduce the number of bots by 10-20% after each tier, Ex: bandits should be 5 lvl higher, better armor and weapons than peasants, but each wave has 10-20% less bots than peasants.
3. I'm not suggesting turn on Friendly fire for bots, that would wipe them out pretty fast, but make it so that a bot swinging a 2h ax from behind doesn't goes through another bot body and hit me, that bot in front should block that attack, just doesn't damage it.
4. Based on what I observed, my 2h sword bounce and glance them, but they 1 shot me with their 2h.
5. Make them scare and back off to give me some space when I killed 5 of their friends in 5 secs, don't know if it's possible to code that behavior.

[Seawied]

I disagree.

Perhaps peasants should have less life, but DTV isn't supposed to be easy mode. The higher levels are just about right. Perhaps a different weapon other than a maul is needed for the bandits (two handed axe maybe?) but I think the difficulty is just about right.

The map could use a bit of tweaking. The ruined house on the hill is really the only viable spot to survive. If you make some of the houses in the village closer together, and have the town wall connect to the back of the houses, actually defending the village would be possible.

I think DTV is off to a good start, and only minor tweaks are needed at this point.

[mulas]

I disagree.

Perhaps peasants should have less life, but DTV isn't supposed to be easy mode. The higher levels are just about right. Perhaps a different weapon other than a maul is needed for the bandits (two handed axe maybe?) but I think the difficulty is just about right.

The map could use a bit of tweaking. The ruined house on the hill is really the only viable spot to survive. If you make some of the houses in the village closer together, and have the town wall connect to the back of the houses, actually defending the village would be possible.

I think DTV is off to a good start, and only minor tweaks are needed at this point.

I play DTV for hours yesterday, we can't get pass bandits, we did get to nomads 1 time, and I lost tons of money wearing average gears.

[OzyTheSage]

Those sea raiders...

Holy shit

[Siboire]

I played for a good amount of time yesterday but never managed to get passed second wave of weeabos... those guys are just fucking impossible. With their Katana they can break shield walls in no time! I had a heavy board shield with 5 shield skill points and it would break really fast and they were hitting it simply with wakizachis or katanas.

[Elmiro]

I'm not suggesting turn on Friendly fire for bots, that would wipe them out pretty fast...

Yesterday evening on the EU6 server, friendly fire was already enabled for the bots: I have seen some nomads killing eachother

[mulas]

Yesterday evening on the EU6 server, friendly fire was already enabled for the bots: I have seen some nomads killing eachother

Only for range, they can shoot each other, but no melee attacks.

[Seawied]

I play DTV for hours yesterday, we can't get pass bandits, we did get to nomads 1 time, and I lost tons of money wearing average gears.

I played for hours too. We got to ninjas, and then wiped. "Average" gear doesn't mean average. I see some people interpret average gear as 50k worth of gear.

When I played, I made a considerable amount of money and a considerable amount of xp. I can't speak for your group, but it sounds like you had some strategic and/or skill problems going.

I like the challenge. A lot of your changes will set the game to easy-mode.

[Duke]

In terms of peasants, they definitely need reduced hp if nothing else.

With my double-loomed crossbow and steel bolts (58p + 8p) I could not 1-shot peasants.  It was not raining. 
I was told to 'stop whining' by my fellow players in-game.  Lovely community we have.

[Secret Agent Cow]

From my experience, I can say that I think DTV is fine the way it is right now. It has enough difficulty to make the amount of potential rewards from it worth it and requires more teamwork than other modes. I was on the EU DTV server and we used an active shield wall with replacements and archers and got to the rhodoc rider phase before we wiped. Keep in mind that is wave 6 and we were making 250 gold and 5k xp a tick. The NPCs honestly need the skill/level advantage over us because they can not utilize the same tactics and be as versatile as a group of humans.

[Malaclypse]

Difficulty seems fine in that, if you are a lone wolf, you will probably die after the Peasant wave if not on it. If you work as a team, you'll do a lot better. Use a shielder to bait bots into attacking, have other people attack those bots from behind, bait and switch, shuck and jive, etc. This is THE place for teamwork, no question about it. I just wish the NA server would give us exp/gold.

[Nessaj]

The problem is really the AI and making the mode balanced around its flaws -- the bots zerg and that is all they'll ever do -- making the only choice for balance the actual map structure.

Which means that unfortunately the only viable tactic is to bottle-neck a position, but now with 3 entries everywhere you need at minimum 3 shielders with very strong shields, preferably a backup shielder for each, then 2 people supporting them on each side, that's 9 people to defend the ruins or a tree-house.

I would suggest putting up a public TS for DTV, if there were some voice communication involved I am sure that it would help produce better teamplay.

Otherwise I do not like that to actually win properly you are forced to bring specific specializations instead of using the map's advantages.

Perhaps create some sort of "Bunker Hill" map where the bots has to charge up hill (from all sides) towards a smaller defensive stronghold, in general I would suggest creating maps where there's only 1 big main area to defend perhaps with the possibility of falling back to alternative positions as the game prolongs and people die, creating a mode similar to 'Rush' in Battlefield Bad Company 2.

[RandomDude]

I played DTV for some hours yesterday and I have seen what happens with and without team work. It's definately possible to get to x5 with team work, its just really boring for those at the back waiting for their turn to fight.

I think there's limited stuff you can do with the AI and the mode's longevity will probably rely on map/bot variation.

[Kafein]

I'm all for a reduction in the number of bots. The current numbers encourage camping in some place with only one access and luring the AI one by one into it. It doesn't get harder when there are more bots. Instead, remove those easy choke points, for example make a very simple map with just a little circle wall of wood with 4-5 entries and an open zone in the middle. Maybe even create some unblockable entries (the enemy comes from above the wall so there's no way from the inside to the outside). The more players really participate in the action, the better. As it is now, even a 100man team can just rely on 3 guys to kill all the bots.

[Tennenoth]

Those sea raiders...

Holy shit

Hit the third wave with 4 guys remaining (Myself under my 2handed alt full plate + flamberge) alongwith Caradoc (transitional + sword and board) Jormglorm (Full plate + german greatsword) + someone else who I didn't see since he got slaughtered.

We were defending the ruins but the last thing we all saw/heard was Carodac yelp on ts as his shield went down allowing the wave to take him down in seconds, along with the poor sod who was left with us before I fell down and ran with Jormglorm close by on my heels, we were caught up easily due to heavy armour and got swarmed it was some kind of heroic last stand but never would have won, we're not fearless, the bots are, I know you probably can't code that but maybe sorting the spawn out for players to begin with will help so that you can get to where you need to hide before your weaker allies aren't picked off or you lose a few heavies who sacrifise themselves to defend the pack and lead them away.