There is also a lot of randomness between maps. It could just be bad luck.

What philosophy you should start with is to optimise your FIDS, and developp your technologies when you have good opportunities for it.

>D



I just thought the same. My games were too easy, I'm pretty sure I had this bug. : D

obviously you're not alone in feeling the difficulty of this game. I finished it in "Too easy", and it did feel a bit too easy. but the "Easy" game? anything but! I have rarely made it past level 3 after many attempts, and I've read all the tips and guides I've found. they helped improve my game, but not enough. too much luck involved in the dungeon layout and the random reward opportunities. the game ends up feeling like a house of cards, one misstep or stroke of bad luck and it all falls apart. then back to square one it is. maybe "rogue-like" games arent for me after all, I'll probably end up putting DotE on the back burner and move on to less frustrating games. not that it hasnt been fun, I still enjoy the game and the participation on these forums.



note on resources: I've read pretty much opposing recommendations on this point, going heavy on industry first for turrets etc. vs. going heavy on food for leveling/healing heroes. maybe both are viable... unless you hit a stretch with little dust or few major slots, then you wont go heavy on either. you also have to question the tips you read, since some may have been posted based on previous alpha versions.

They really do need to rename the difficulties. I feel like they are very deceiving. Too easy should be renamed to easy and the current easy should be renamed to hard. Its frustrating to jump into this game on easy and expect to survive. I know this game is in alpha still and difficulties are being tweaked but this seems like an obvious change to me

My first 0.5.2 game took 7 minutes and ended with 3 waves of these dog-things, who did like 25% damage per hit. I went through all my 20 or so food and then there was no place to escape to anymore.



What a difference to the previous "Easy" where I didn't need a single heal since... well I saved and loaded for the first time. ^^

I'm curious: did anyone here manage to finish the game on "easy" mode ?

Well I've done it in earlier patches but I don't know for how long the bug was around and how often I benefitted from it.



I'm in floor 5 now in my current "Easy" game.

I've lost a level 4 hero due to not paying attention for a second. Luckily I already had a new hero waiting to be hired.



I now need a break from it. I hope that when I pick it up again, it will no longer go from quite tough to super-easy. Till now I've been relatively lucky with level-layout and in level 4 I had only one chokepoint up till door 26 or so.

I also had some good research early on. Unfortunately I didn't find any Research-shrines in level 4 so I now have ton's of science-points left, that could otherwise have been food to level my heros.

I was on level 4 when the "too easy" bug hit me :P

I have a feeling that even on easy it becomes easier later on. Of course not nearly as easy as on too easy but the progession of research, equipment and hero-levels seems a little faster than that of the monster-difficulty.

However, I'm not through yet so it might once again become harder in level 7 and 8 (currently at the beginning of level 7).

Ail wrote:
I have a feeling that even on easy it becomes easier later on. Of course not nearly as easy as on too easy but the progession of research, equipment and hero-levels seems a little faster than that of the monster-difficulty.

If it's true (and I think it is, the floors 1 and 2 are decisive), it's a problem. The game should be more harder, and not easier. :/

Ail wrote:
I mean the last one. I had not played 0.5.2 yet. I had been playing a playthrough of 0.5.1 over the last couple of days, and yes I did only 1 or 2 levels a day so I had to save.

And since saving essentially broke the savegame and made it "Too Easy", when I came back for the first time I was not playing on the intended difficulty anymore.

Thus it explains why it was so easy.

Ahh i gotcha. I never had the pleasure of experiencing that bug. I tend to die on easy long before i can save and exit haha

I feel like I'm getting hand of it the more I play... Just got it today.

Good to hear. You should also remember that a lot of this game is at the mercy of the RNG, much like FTL: FTL. You can have your heroes Lvl 5 on floor 3 but it doesn't do you any good if the game decides to send massive mobs made of hydras, zombies, and the bugs your way.

Imho the amount of mobs is pretty constant. The greatest problems for me always arise, when I am forced to explore into many different directions and have to spread my defenses thin.

You kinda have to keep one hero in each "border-room" and it often costs a lot of food to heal those lone defenders before you can afford to send the others.

In the long run this prevents leveling or you could even run out of food completely and just be overran.

Shirohart wrote:
It just feels like after the 2nd or 3rd floor, I'm getting overwhelmed :\



I have no idea what I'm doing wrong.

You just might excel at dying. I have got dying in dead souls down to an art form. Im tempted to let my one year old little girl have a go. Her randomly attacking keyboard couldnt be any worse than me.

I also felt like I was terrible at this game for a while, until (as others have mentioned) I realized that a powered room is safe from new monster spawns!



This realization changed everything for me. Knowing that, you can power up whole subsections of explored areas so that zero monsters can spawn from that direction, allowing you to focus your towers and heroes on other choke points. Often this means "wasting" Dust on powering up rooms with no major modules or really any other benefit at all, but knowing that a path is completely safe from monsters is worth it.



You can also game this knowledge when carrying the crystal. One you know where the exit is, you can power down everything and then power up the entire path between the crystal and the exit. Any extra dust you can use to power up rooms along the way as a "buffer zone" from monsters.



Once I learned this I completed "Too Easy" mode on my second try. "Easy" mode, here I come! ;P

Yeah, I am learning not to suck at this game myself. This has been a helpful post, if not a little outdated.

I made it to floor 7 on "easy" without knowing that i could level up characters. Never managed to finish the game yet.

It's a tad too relying on random for me sometimes. I'm addicted though.





(spoilers)

I just played as two random characters and one of them turned out to be a dog. Sadly i couldn't unlock him and made it only to level 5.

blub wrote:


(spoilers)

I just played as two random characters and one of them turned out to be a dog. Sadly i couldn't unlock him and made it only to level 5.

You can unlock Ayiari, she is only available as a random hero. So don't worry

Yay its not just me!! haha i feel relieved seeing all these posts now. I get absolutely demolished on floor 2 all the time. Things will be going super great for me, im leveling my characters up and building modules and defenses etc... life is good right? I open one last door and all of a sudden im fighting what feels like 2 or 3 times the regular amount of enemies and in a span of like 15 seconds im staring at the game over screen. I handle everything great up until this super wave of mobs. Seems to happen more often than not to me

Could just be bad luck.

I find 2nd and 3rd to be the hardest floors.

It is easy to get overextended and overwhelmed if there are too many dark rooms.

Part of the trick with winning is estimating the right balance of food consumption for leveling and healing.

But there is a lot of luck involved in getting enough dust to power your rooms.

There have been a few guides put up regarding this. It might even be that you're not that bad, just unlucky. Lately I've been opening something like 10-15 doors and collecting only ~30 dust, even on floors 1-3.



If you don't have much food/industry, you can't keep up with the mobs. If you don't get any dust, you can't improve your production and your exploration hero has to go farther every time.

I've been having this issue, too. In my current game, I finally got to floor 4, I think, and took a pause. The one before it was brutal, but I got through with 4 characters and finally figured out that a lit room is a "safe" room.

One tip I got is don't get greedy!



On the first floor you can pretty much open any door you want. On higher levels you need to establish one main path. You want to give the hordes as few paths as possible when they come at your defenses, that way your resources are always focused on the threat rather than remaining idle if you branch out to much. As tempting as it may be to cover every major node with a generator there are situations where it's simply not defensible. Rather than lose resources on a smashed generator, wait till you snake out a little further.



One floor one I typically go two industry gens and one food, or three industry and one food---More if the layout and dust allow for it. The food gen gives you breathing room for a couple of heals and an extra hero if you run across one. The bulk of the industry you want to take with you to floor two! Start with three food gens, then set up a couple industry. The industry from floor one will give you enough to spend on generators and defenses. I like to stock pile food on level two and gear back into heavy industry on floor 3.



My games usually run pretty industry heavy. Throw enough turrets at a problem and it goes away! ;p

You could watch some let's play on Youtube. Someone did a topic for that, I think.



Some tips I can give you. Maybe everyone will not be agree with all of that, and surely you will know some of them, but it should help you a little, 'cause it helped me (a lot ^^). : )



The beggining :



- If you don't, try to play in the very easy mode. It could help you to learn how this game works, and you'll be back in no time in easy. : )



- Now we have options to choose team mates. So you could use it to play with the ones you feel right (and you unlocked ^^). Try to have a strong one and a "wit" one, who could have quickly the repair skill. If you feel good with any character, I think it's better to let the game choose. You'll learn to use all characters. : )



Team and characters :



- You can't really choose (except with the persistant beginning ^^), but if you can, try to have a mixed team. One "wit character" (who can repair and boost well your modules), one fast (to explore and fill up holes) and two DPS are good for me. Don't take with you too much slow guys like Gork. One could be good, but more will be bad. You have to be mobile in this game. ^^



- Try to level-up your characters as fast as you can, because they can be incredibly powerfull with the good level. Actually, there is 8 levels. If you can level-up your characters really fast (like have your team at level 8 in floor 4 or 5, yes, we can do that), the floors will be a piece of cake.



- Weapons are really importants. More than armors or accessories. Even a bad weapon can really increase your DPS significantly. So weapons first, then armors, then accessories. Of course, you have to specialize your characters, and give, for example, your wit accessory on your character with higher wit, because it will be probably him who'll be working on modules. : )



- Don't forget skill and passive skills. It will help you to use your characters. For example, some characters are better when they are alone in a room, other when they are in a unpowered room. Try to use it. So it's obvious, but take time to know the skills of your characters.



- Less obvious, but don't forget the skills of items. Now, items can have some skill. Don't forget to see what it does, because some of them are powerful, but also tricky. Like the hipster thing who transforms your character in tank: all ennemies will stop to attack him. It's really powerfull because it change totally the behaviors of ennemies: golem will not smash your major module, and even the slow guy who ignores all to attack your crystal will now stop to attack you. But it's also a dangerous item for your character. So if you forget it, you could loose your character pretty fast. ^^ So, you have to take care of that too.

(Problem for now, the tooltip of the item don't describe the skill. You can see the skill when you equip the item, so it's not too bad, but for the merchant, it's not easy.)



Position and room power :



- The monsters don't spread out in a powered room. It's the base. So you have to be smart with the rooms you power. Don't forget you can unpower a room after you have open a door. It's one of the most important things. After you opened a door, wait for the monsters to spread out (one second or two, just to be sure), then unpower the useless rooms (major module rooms who are not needed to power the path, like major modules are useless just after you opened the door) to power the rooms where the waves are coming. You can have more defense modules rooms like laser, tesla or claymore, even if you can't powered them when you open the door. After the battle, just power again the major module rooms. : )



- In the same way, you can use a character who worked on a major module to quickly go in a dark room just after you opened the door. It will prevent waves. Use this trick to power another room and earn the wit bonus of your character. And you can kill to birds with one stone : you’ll have a bonus of your module, and a room safe. Try to use that at best.



Exploration :



- Try to follow one path, so the monsters will always come from just one direction. It will help you a lot. If you can't (and there will be always times when you can't), try to use your characters to fill the holes (see below for more ^^). When you have to choose between right and left, have this in mind to help you to choose.



- Not easy to say it with my bad english, but let's try. You have to open doors which are at different distances than other unpowered rooms. To be clear, each type of monsters have a speed, and if you have three waves in three rooms which are distant of two rooms before coming in your defense room, so you'll have to fight three waves at the same type, and it can be tough. Imagine four golems at the same speed which come in your room at the exact same time. Bad situation. This is how the game works, 'cause rooms are often symmetric. So try to open doors to have different timing in wave monsters, so you could fight them one after the others. : )



- Before you open a door, try to use your characters with good wit on production modules (food/industry, but food first) to earn more resource.



- If you found some chestfood/industry/science in a room, don't take them right now. It takes one second approximately to take them, and you want to use this time to go back in your base if there are waves coming. : ) So, except if you could use food or industry right now, you should always wait after the battle to take them. For the chest, it's a matter of luck, so you have to see. But if your characters are well stuffed, so forget it. ^^ But don't forget to claim the prize after the battle. : )



- If you're in the beginning of a floor and there is some annoying thing on your major module socket (like science artefact or some machine who asks industry and you don’t have resources to use them), know you can destroy them with the bulldozer option, like if they were some of your modules. For example, a science module near your base at the first floor is totally useless. No hesitation : destroy it and build one of your precious food module instead. : )



- If you are in a good situation, explore all of a floor before leaving. You'll earn more industry/food/science and maybe you'll find new mates/merchants/chests. But if you feel it's hard, don't hesitate to leave. The waves are more harder and harder with a lot of doors opened in a floor. So basically, a new floor can be, at first, more easier than a precedent floor fully explored. It could save you to leave a floor when you have to. ^^



- Good tip for the end of a floor : you need three turn to learn a tech, but the game will give you the tech after just one turn if there is no more rooms to open. And it will happen often you'll have some door you'll not open 'cause you'll already know what's behind ('cause you went in the room by another path). So you can assure you one tech this way at the end of a level. These doors (where you already explored the room behind) will never trigger waves monsters. So, in the end of a level, you can have your tech without fear the monsters destroy the crystal, and you can open these doors with your characters on your modules, to earn a maximum of resources.



- If you can, try to protect the merchant until the end of the floor, so you can buy him all his stuff. It can be pretty hard, but if you can, it will help you a lot. If you have to choose between purchases, go on weapons first, then armors, then accessories. When you meet him, if you can't or don't want to buy him anything, don't forget to sell him your useless stuff. It could give you enough dust to power a new room. : )



- If you feel the game is really easy at some time, you could unpowered some room to have more waves, and so more dust. Not always possible, but if you can, it can be more useful because it will be more easy to keep a single path for monsters, even at the later stage of the floor.



Modules and resources :



- build food modules. Plenty of it. Never build a science module (actually, the 2 base points per turn are far more enough to buy some upgrades), and just one or two industry modules. Your characters will be pretty invincible if they have a high level early in the game. And you don't need a lot of industry if you never loose major modules. : )



- Until you have a full team (4 characters), try to always have 40 food (just to be sure ^^), so you can recruit any character you'll meet.



- Try to know how much doors there is in a floor (approximately), so you can know if it's useful to build a major module or not. Build a industry module which cost 16 if you're in the first floor and you already have opened 11 doors is probably not a good idea. (And in the end of a floor, maybe it can help you to figure out the architecture of the floor, and so can help you to decide of a direction.) ^^



- For science : improve your food production should be one of your priority. So, if there is a new food module avaiblable, try to search it. If you can, try to develop claymore mines too. They are slow to shoot but have amazing AoE damages. Just look the speed and the damages, you can easily calculate how much creatures needs to be in a room to make one of your mines more usefull than tesla or laser. : )



Combat tactics :



- Use the space button to pause the game! The battles in this game can be tough, and characters can die so quickly... especially with low level characters. So help yourself and pause the game one hundred time per battle if you need. : )



- Try to create a single route. One of the most dangerous things in this game is the multiplication of battlefields. So, do what you can with your dust and your characters to fill the holes, even if you need to take away a character from the battlefield (fast characters like Samus are good for that, they can be used to filled a hole and quickly join the battle after you open the door).



- Try to understand your ennemies. Each of them have some behavior you have to know. For example, don't let the huge crystal golem go in your rooms with major modules. They will destroy them in no time. You have to send your characters in the room before the one with your major module, cause the golems stop to kill you, but they will ignore you if there is a major module in the room. Don't run after the slow one who attack your crystal if they have to cross some room with enough defense module to kill them. They're slow, and they will ignore all but the crystal. So if you have a good defense, you can ignore them and use your characters for more usefull things. Just keep an eye on them. Sometimes, you don't know how, but some of them pass, and it's panic time. : D



- Don't forget to collect dust in rooms where your characters didn't fight. Don't forget to repair if you have the skill (and you surely want to have it, you’ll save a lot of industry with this skill). : )

Dont worry, I bought game like few days after it came to steam. And i still suck at it

I noticed I make sometimes really stupid mistakes which causes me to lose whole game :S

I am very unlucky all the time, but it's still fun

I feel like first 2-3 levels are crucial - they can either make you or brake you. I'd say don't be afraid to play "too easy" at first and maybe unlock heroes that would suit your gameplay better. So far I think first level(s) should be about gathering as much food as possible with ignoring science and limiting production to what you think you can get away with.

The game can feel really different according to what happens.

In my current "easy"-game I'm halfway through level 6.



I have 4 heros on level 8.

All of them have an item on every slot. None of the really good items but the ones they have are okay.

I have level 4 for all 3 resource-buildings.

I have level 4 of the +Defense-building.

I have level 4 of the AoE-Tower.



It seems really easy and even 6 spawns at once usually don't require me to have to heal.

But who knows. I haven't seen level 7 and 8 before.



In my opinion the game is most difficult when it takes too long to find a 3rd and 4th hero. Every additional hero drastically increases your strategical flexibility.

It just feels like after the 2nd or 3rd floor, I'm getting overwhelmed :\



I have no idea what I'm doing wrong.

In my opinion the game is most difficult when it takes too long to find a 3rd and 4th hero. Every additional hero drastically increases your strategical flexibility.

Yeah, I'm agree, it's the most important thing to me. In some game I could'nt find any new hero before the level 3, and these games are really the most difficult (never won games like that :/ ).

Pardon me, if my english is to bad to understand ^^



I just played some hours and also just on very easy, so maybe my tactic works only under good conditions. In the 1st and 2nd floors I usually only build food gens, to level up my heros very fast. I build induytry gens until I need them for other gens, because turrets are in my opinion not really necessary in the early floors. Science gens too because i get enough during exploration. For the other floors I build a mix with food and industry gens (and some science gens but only if i need them).



That works fine for me, but i still have to beat the game first on very easy then on easy. I will see how my tactic works with higher difficulty. ^^

The key is to take your time



- Use "stop" every time u are under attack to anticipate ur defence(especialy in last lvl

- Choose a good composition: one very fast(to open doors and run back under ur defences(check below), one tank, 1-2médic(pref2), 1-2enginer (pref 2)

- Move forward slowly but surely, analyse positioning, if u see a good spot, u can choose it to put all ur defences so u can let many dark room after

- Try eco a lot of ressources in the early lvl and always open all doors when u are in a good position.

- Don't tech too much (choose the defences u want but don't develope all at the same time. (aoe is op)

- Try micro your units as much as possible: back them in previous room when they are too low, use spell when needed, ect...(the use of the hotkeys 1,2,3,4 is very usefull if u can handle it)

- When u meet a merchant, do not buy anything except if u rly need one, w8 the end to buy all u need and don't forget to sell all u can! (all items u keep are lost at the end of the lvl)

- Care about the enemies who look like Jaba and can pretty much os ur heroes in early lvl



Hope it will help you, there is many other advices and but u discover them by urself if u master previous one

And there are many other strategy wich are viable!

ps: My english sux sr hope u understand

I find that it is easy to lose track of heroes that are not on the screen right now. Occasionally I have a 3-front strategy that stretches defenses very thin (when you don't have enough power to fully illuminate 1 side of your base, but you must explore a different side of the base since the first side is already fully opened, while you also want to protect an artifact/NPC/merchant that you happen to find somewhere). On such a 3-front battle line it is easy to overcommit resources to a particular front and lose track that a single hero elsewhere is currently going through a whole mob by themselves without module support.



It may help to have the option to auto-pause when a hero goes below 20% hp?

I never try to defend artifacts or merchants, if it means I must spread thin. The risk is way too high.

I only use artifacts when I can get them under my influence.

Lol, okay, just read the patch notes of 0.5.2... Now I know why the game was so easy.

Ail wrote:
Lol, okay, just read the patch notes of 0.5.2... Now I know why the game was so easy.

I don't get it. All i can find on 0.5.2 is bug fixes. What about these bug fixes made the game so easy? I think they all made the game harder





[0.5.2] Quick Patch



Fixed a bug that occurred during the Crystal carrying phase: the hero would simply be stuck

Fixed a bug when heroes got stuck when recruiting another hero

Fixed a bug with the game saves: you can now save the game even with a remaining chest in the dungeon

Fixed a bug that occurred during the loading of a save with destroyed machine gun module

Fixed a bug resetting the game difficulty in saves to “too easy” even though the player chose “easy”

I mean the last one. I had not played 0.5.2 yet. I had been playing a playthrough of 0.5.1 over the last couple of days, and yes I did only 1 or 2 levels a day so I had to save.

And since saving essentially broke the savegame and made it "Too Easy", when I came back for the first time I was not playing on the intended difficulty anymore.

Thus it explains why it was so easy.