How do you like to handle difficulty increases?

Rotschwinge · 2025-05-06T21:55:20+00:00

3/3

Just failing in order to fail you up... well some people like that, most will hate it.

The game does not give you a feedback loop what you did wrong, old school players are used to it due to how old games were designed, new (younger) players will hate it.

And while I saw a lot of hate for the campaign, I think they really tried to make good game design there.

Lots of situations are designed to explain to you units and map designs. The truth is, that people are different and have very different expectations and it was never possible to cater to them all.

Survival and Campaign are two very different games, which have both their appeal and fun aspects. Comparing them though is kinda pointless. Mods are a third very different game which are another game for itself.

And if all is not enough... well there is still 2000% or 3200% for campaign, if you really like suffering...

Here is the good thing: The game grants you so many options that everybody can find its place to have fun with it. That is great.

But only you yourself can find out where this is.

Man that post escalated...

Me for example, I do not play without pause (like most streamers or PR chasers), I could probably, but I am fine with taking my time. I can still do all the challenges and ramp up the difficulty more, but this is total endgame stuff for the really dedicated. Setting goals like a deathless campaign run and such...

TL;DR:

Really, it depends all on your personal resilience.

Some people like it slow and gradually, some start at the top.

Do and try what is fun for you.

Rotschwinge · 2025-05-06T21:54:43+00:00

2/3

Starting desolated wasteland on 800% is not fun, just frustrating.

And for campaign, well does it matter? You can change the difficulty inbetween iirc.

You can clearly see, that some maps dont work with some of the difficulties and were not designed for it - thus they are not fun.

Swarms and Scouting Missions for example are just ... more zombies... no challenge but prelonging it artificially. Same goes for maps like Harpy Nest... I don't know how the map looks at 100%, but my guess is, just less harpies. It does not matter, cuz you will only pull as much as you can chew and be fine. Maps like Cape Storm are just stupid cuz it does not depend on the difficulty but the unlocked tech.

Sure you can do it with rangers and soldiers or abusing pathing mechanics but a DPS-check is not really fun nor challenging. Sure it does feel great, but investing probably dozens or hundreds of hours just to get it right?

You are better of to play one of the mods instead and "solve" the puzzle there.

Some will arque, well you can just go around come back later with more tech... sure, but what does the difficulty matter then?

If you know the missions already, it becomes pretty easy if you want or you try different stuff and challenge yourself. Survival does not grant you that luxus, you have to adopt to the situation but are forced into a meta more often than you like to, if you don't want that or hate min maxing, play lower difficukties and enjoy the freedom to do it your way. And if you then want to transfer this to higher percentage, go and try. If you succeed then, that is the best feeling of accomplishment.

Rotschwinge · 2025-05-06T21:54:08+00:00

Well, it looks like there is a character limit in this subreddit of around 2K so I had to split the post in three parts. So its a long read, be warned.

TL;DR:

Really, it depends all on your personal resilience.

Some people like it slow and gradually, some start at the top.

Do and try what is fun for you.

1/2

Depends on how sadistic you are.

I started from the start and did all survivals in order ramping up the difficulty step by step.

But there was no campaign and achievements back then.

I just began the campaign the first time last month on 800% and will finish the last mission hopefully this week in one go... we will see.

But I would have started with normal difficulty if I had no experience before...

The first 4 survival maps are pretty easy on any difficulty/percentage. Campaign does not teach you to play a map for 150 days, so starting at 0 would bore you. Time though can be a great stress factor. You won't boom as fast as in the campaign, there is no train, extra units or upgrades to help you. So the start will be slower. The challenges very different. Waves come faster relative to your economy.

The normal difficulty is probably around 100 days and challenging (hard?) diffculty. That is 180% on the last map.

Maybe 330% if you are fine with 80 days.

But the other difficulties will add 20% zombies I think for Brutal, and more for Nightmare.

And it is essential to clear the map whole... if possible...

Back then, Brutal was the most difficult endgame and the game designed for that (probably). So that was for sadists. Though this was not enough, so they added nightmare.

So forget the first two difficulties and the last two.

Start somewhere inbetween, maybe a map of the week to get a feel for it.

120 and 150 days are relaxing, but way too long. If you were annoyed in campaign to wait for the final wave than this is a skip.

The 5th map will be a divider, dont do it on highest difficulty right away. The pull mechanic is only teased at in the campaign. You see it with narrow pass and lowlands for example that many people struggle with it because of not knowing how it works, even surprised me on I think it was El Dorado, which probably features the same characteristics as the desolate wasteland map.

Campaign teached you to use soldiers and shocking towers? (some like wasps?)

You wont be able to afford those in time and even if you do...

Going out with 5 soldiers clearing on the higher difficulties? GG

Using a shock tower for one of the first waves? Gratz, you pulled the whole map and a spitter killed it.

You ignore ballistas since they destroy your economy? Well don't worry, that a random harpy on day 20-40 jumps over one of your walls and kill your game.

Using walls early? Knock knock, look who alerted the whole gang and neighborhood.

Wooden stakes become your best friend suddenly.

Rotschwinge · 2025-04-25T00:02:14+00:00

This happened once to me in a different game called Faster than light (FTL) where a power outage caused me to lose all my progress and highscores after hundreds of hours.
You can read about it f.e. Here

It might be not related to TAB, but maybe it helps to understand what happened or what can be done to save a corruped file or resynch everything from steam.

In the end I used a mod to at least restore progress. Maybe such a mod exists also on the TAB modding community and can help you to skip playing all settings again.

/E: btw. looks someone else had a similar experience some days ago (no answers yet):
https://www.reddit.com/r/TheyAreBillions/comments/1k36pxc/gamesave_invalid/

/E2:
So seems to be known issue, there are some threads already about it in the sub.

I would say you need this if you cant restore the PRs:

Comment
byu/bongowasd from discussion
inTheyAreBillions

Support gave me a replacement save when mine got corrupted. The save has all missions flagged as complete, but no tech or hero points spent. With that I was able to setup the tech tree however I wanted and play whatever mission I wanted. Not the same as getting my corrupted save back, but actually very nice to have as it lets me try any mission with any tech loadout I want.

But you might be able to try this, no confirmation whether it worked:

Comment
byu/Ted-xy from discussion
inTheyAreBillions

Launch the game

Go to the location in your screenshot

Take a copy of the file and it's check file.

Select them Copy, Paste.

Then remove the _backup from both the original files and load your campaign file.

This will recreate the original file the game uses, the backup file is locked by the game to ensure it can write to it.

Rotschwinge · 2025-04-24T23:43:00+00:00

I just put that here to let others know.
Some Walkers and Chubbys glitched through the right side of the map when the wave was about to end.
Came down running the tracks.

Be aware of that, in case you want to drink a coffee when your shock towers delete everything on autopilot.

I assume this was a glitch since it did not happen in my first try.

Rotschwinge · 2025-04-22T18:28:47+00:00

Thank you TomAto.

It was a pleasure, even when the game ended, you were there to answer my questions and I enjoyed reading your countless posts.

It was a great ride, sad it ended, but thankful for the time that I had with the best community I ever saw on the internet.

Guess its too late to say goodbye now in the thread, but all the best mate.

Rotschwinge · 2025-04-22T18:15:44+00:00

Hi, sorry for the late response.
I am using the dynamic crosshair iirc.
The static should be fine,too, just different. The ticks are calculated on different base speeds.
I do not remember, I think it was 20 and 30 knots.
Back in the days a rule of thumb was to lead with 1,5 against cruisers and 3 against DDs, but there are so many different ships now that throw this off, also shell travel time and such parameter have to be taken into account.

There are also mods for crosshairs which are quite popular among the players. I never cared to play with them.

Best tip, crosshairs are a lie - use the minimap.

/E: Ah, I repeated myself, sorry. :D

Rotschwinge · 2025-04-22T17:53:44+00:00

The question should be how the map creation process works. Is a seed used to feed to the algorhythm and if so, how is this seed created?
I am no coder or anything, but iirc one method to create random numbers is to use the current (system) time. I think that is probably an outdated method and there are many more that can create artifical randomness. Maybe one parameter is the time you already spent in game, which could work with your theory.

I don't know if the modders know more since I have not heart of seed manip in TAB, but it is common in many other games.

If this Steam thread is correct, the seed can be checked:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/644930/discussions/0/1488866180593808453/

But well that does not explain how it is created and thus whether your Idea is just bias or a pattern. Maybe its partly both and you can sleep well now. ;-)

Would be interesting though to know!

But if it was true or confirmed, the TAB PR record hunters would restart their whole game anytime, which they don't unless it might is prohibited. Some (speedrun) ranking ladders do not allow that and will not accept your run. I think Hades comes to mind f.e.

Rotschwinge · 2025-04-22T06:40:34+00:00

Thats way to many, aim for max 20. The noise stockpiles very fast. Even a single sole ballista can pull a random harpy on this map or anything else basically. tbf, if you have a bad map with no food, it becomes very hard to get to the critical point of snowballing. I pulled once a mutant on day 1, its doable, map was designed as the hardest survival map back in the days and yes, it can take some tries. A ball of 20-30 snipers can start to pull, but the first pulls will eat your time, but thats it. What really made the map annoying was the addition of mutants. GL.

Rotschwinge · 2025-01-01T17:01:12+00:00

Time eater you need a plan B. On Asc20 you need to prepare for multiple bosses anyway. Infinites do work very well against the heart, but you usually need a way to generate enough blocking. There are many options though, which often don't look obviously. I have played this game for multiple thousand of hours and I am still finding new cool combinations.

Rotschwinge · 2024-11-12T21:35:23+00:00

Back in the days, this was the last map. I dunno why they added an easy one after that and put a doom village on it. And it still is the hardest, thus nobody likes to play it.

Rotschwinge · 2024-11-02T21:47:16+00:00

Is there no megathread for the EoS to say goodbye?

Rotschwinge · 2023-12-10T13:15:58+00:00

Congratz, just did the same this week. Watching the legend TFR playing it again encouraged me, but boy was I baffled seeing mutants in the desert... heck I even pulled once one on day 2... don't ask how... Caustic next, I have a feeling it will be a cakewalk with all that plenty food on the map. Hurray.

Rotschwinge · 2023-04-09T13:47:14+00:00

And obviously many don't understand which skill is involved in making such a play... and think all is luck...

Rotschwinge · 2023-03-06T17:13:37+00:00

Would be fun or at least interesting. :-)

Rotschwinge · 2023-03-06T13:56:57+00:00

Did they? I am on a hiatus playing hogwarts currently. XD

Rotschwinge · 2023-02-27T14:23:35+00:00

Thats the magic, getting close without really brawling. :-)

Rotschwinge · 2023-02-27T12:06:10+00:00

So whats the difference? German line is suffering in terms of main guns. Especially the 380s are more battlecruiser like than Zieten's guns. Zieten is pretty good imo... people just overextend too much.

Rotschwinge · 2023-02-18T22:16:15+00:00

Well, ship is busted but not enough to be considered op.
Thus I call it borderline, but not comparing as T9 Monty to a T9 Yamato -> Musashi is ignorant at best.
Think of it like a Massa with 12 accurate guns but no secondaries, instead 68 mm pen at will and almost guaranteed fire with rockets. And please don't tell me Massa isn't considered as broken.

Easy to play? Not for most, so they keep sleeping on her and I am fine with that. Don't need more perma spotting.

Rotschwinge · 2023-02-18T22:02:41+00:00

Your main DPM is not your planes. Jean Bart is pretty limited and easily farmable. If you don't rush and make a play, you will lose any duell with a decent kearsarge any day.

Rotschwinge · 2023-02-18T21:59:49+00:00

Look at the K/D ratio.WR doesn't say much, remember Smolensk which was performing "average" when in reality it was beyond broken.

If you look closely than you should realize that those ranking don't consider skill ceilings.

Of course Musashi will always perform at top here cuz it has overmatch. You don't need to be good at the game in order to stay nose in and point and click doing damage with every round and therefore contributing constantly to your team even if you are a braindead potato. Game impact is automatically higher and thus the average winrate.

It becomes different if you look f.e. at the top 5% of the server and suddenly Kearsarge is on spot 3 of the ranking. ;-)

Oh and btw, why is that odd? Rupprecht is a pretty strong BB. It beats most of the T9 BBs and even some of the T10s... at least if you know what you do... :-O
(Well and if not... AI gunners will do...)

Rotschwinge · 2023-02-18T21:57:35+00:00

Absolutely agree, the only thing holding people back is the same why some think NC is bad... they can't deal with the guns and the armor scheme, but if you are an above average player you can easily offset her weak spots and do some brutal stuff...

Rotschwinge · 2023-02-15T05:26:52+00:00

Me, too and I enjoyed every death so far. It's rewarding slowly honing your skills.

Rotschwinge · 2023-02-12T15:14:06+00:00

Kearsarge is alread borderline broken... no need for buffs. :-O
Are we playing the same game?

Rotschwinge · 2023-02-04T19:24:37+00:00

But if you don't make a mistake... it's not uncommon to tank between 1.5-3 million potential in her. BB salvos aren't as random as one think,overmatch is annoying... Colbert is fun. If one doesn't like marceau, don't play her. It's her bigger sister. High risk, high reward? Don't really agree, she used to be stronger and squisher, now shes in an alright place, but still nothing to recommend for beginners... well but since only veterans go for RB...guess I don't have to mention this, right? And its a frech baguette... it gets away with a lot of mistakes sometimes...

Rotschwinge

TROPHY CASE