Defender Chronicles II: Heroes of Athelia (universal) +Poll

[Gimka]

Deltha_rhino, the increase difficulty is 2% per round. Immortal R1 should be 2% harder than Mythic R20 and has an extra elite/ boss enemy. Maybe it’s just like you’ve said, the additional skill points help and perhaps you have refined the strategy further during Mythic R20.

The shops in DC2 has improved filter. With higher rep, you will get much less lower rank/ quality items. Each item also has minimum and maximum rep. For instance, “Dagger” will only appear at Rep 1 to 3. After 3, it will be replaced with “Sword” until Rep 5 then it will be replaced with “Longsword”. This applies to all items. So, the shop will not be cluttered with lower grade items anymore.

ArtNJ, the special difficulties are not for everyone. Like Plast2 said, we already have medals for that.

This is probably too much detail but here is the list of requirement that we used when we designed the level for each difficulty:

Novice – Casual
- Target new/ casual players
- Minimum strategy required
- No grinding required
- No artifacts required
- Might need to spend some skill points to achieve perfect victory on some maps
- Note: Novice & Casual for DC2 have been adjusted to be much easier compared to DC1.

Master – Heroic
- Target experienced players
- Additional waves and boss units may appear
- Good to strong strategy required, especially to achieve perfect victory on Heroic
- Minimum grinding for Melwen; medium grinding for General
- Some artifacts required
- Max level on 1 to 3 most important skills required for some maps

Legend:
- Target hardcore players
- Strong strategy required
- Grinding required: not recommended if you don’t like this. Most players will be done after Heroic.
- Strong artifacts required
- Max level on 4 to 5 most important skills required.

Mythic – Ultima:
- Beyond hardcore; target those who want infinite play.
- No new features: think about going beyond floor 100 in Torchlight/Diablo. Same items, same enemies, just stronger. Nothing new to expect; just replaying the same thing over and over again (with slightly more difficult every time).
- Lot of grinding required. Probably less than 0.5% players will reach these difficulties. Obviously, not for majority

For Legend and beyond, we intentionally don’t add new features because these difficulties are optional. If we start adding new items/ gears then they won't become optional anymore. People will get back to us mentioning they can’t get such gear/ item because they can’t beat Legend/Mythic difficulty, which obviously are not designed for majority of players.

Hope that make sense!

[dib]

Originally Posted by Gimka

dib, I'm sorry to hear that. IAP was added more than a year after the launch of Defender Chronicles: Legend of the Desert King. In that first year, many players have proven that the game is beatable and the later added IAP are just there as optional/ for fun only. Defender Chronicles II follows the same model. You don't need IAP to beat the game. If this doesn't satisfy you, please clarify and let us know what kind of business model would be ideal for you?

Perhaps you mean 'many players' in the sense of the diehard fans who actually frequent the forum and didn't mind pouring countless hours into replaying the same levels in order to progress.

I just loaded it up to check where I was: Melwen level 105. Three levels that I could never beat on legendary: Silver Keep, Helegom, Siria.

The way the game is balanced favors equipment over strategy. Perhaps you also mean beatable in the limited sense of finishing the final levels, as opposed to playing on the hardest difficulty. The point being that the latter is impossible without the best equipment. There simply is no strategy to overcome the fact that many enemies cannot be damaged by normal units without the hero and massive boosts that comes with equipment.

The problem being the game was grindy. Equipment costs hundreds and thousands of tokens. The number of tokens for beating Helegom on master level: 16. The total value of equipment I was using is 7529. Meaning I would have to replay that level 470 times in order to afford it.

But of course, you guys so kindly provided the shortcuts in IAP: purchases like double tokens, or buying your virtual currency outright. Should I spend a couple months grinding away in the game, or buy 30,000 tokens outright?

So don't insult us by insisting that it was purely "optional/for fun".

[Gimka]

dib, I'll just say the honest truth, Legend is not meant for you (and for most players). Legend requires strong artifact and grinding. I have no intention to hide that fact. Your game ends at Heroic.

Legend:
- Grinding required: not recommended if you don’t like this. Most players will be done after Heroic.
- Strong artifacts required

And there are still 3 difficulties after legend. Those are only for those who want infinite play (meaning repeating the game again and again).

And there was never insult intended. If you felt that way, I apologize for my inability to explain clearly. And thanks for the detail reasoning on your side.

[Plast2]

@dib: If you look just above your post, you'll see that the target for Legend is hardcore players. In fact, Legend was added some time after the games release because many players requested a tough challenge.

We have just finished the beta tests for DC2. Only two testers actually had access to the IAP items, the rest of the beta testers did not. IAP items are optional, and for fun. - And you can believe that or not. - It seems like you have made up you mind about it though...

[delta rhino]

@dib: I have never done an IAP with DC1 but have beat Legend, Mythic, and most of Immortal (on this my third play through). My current Melwen sits at level 305. I really appreciate that it took a lot of strategy to beat the harder levels. I had to learn to grind with the General with certain skill points high, and use a different game mode to (more quickly) grind tokens. I had to learn how to balance skill points and gear differently for different levels... Between Helegom and Siria I had to completely reset and reapply my skill points and switch up my gear.
That level of depth and strategy is what made the original awesome and I hope the sequel is every bit as awesome... SIX DAYS! Just saying...

[ridewithme69]

Originally Posted by delta rhino

@dib: I have never done an IAP with DC1 but have beat Legend, Mythic, and most of Immortal (on this my third play through). My current Melwen sits at level 305. I really appreciate that it took a lot of strategy to beat the harder levels. I had to learn to grind with the General with certain skill points high, and use a different game mode to (more quickly) grind tokens. I had to learn how to balance skill points and gear differently for different levels... Between Helegom and Siria I had to completely reset and reapply my skill points and switch up my gear.
That level of depth and strategy is what made the original awesome and I hope the sequel is every bit as awesome... SIX DAYS! Just saying...

I completely agree with delta. I never bought anything IAP, never felt the need. I personally thing buying these optional items makes the game less enjoyable then working hard for them. I spent hours and hours learning the strategies (a lot of reading on the forums about strategies) I also spent many many more hours just grinding to get one or two items required to beat a level. The first game was by far my favorite game for mobile device. I bought an android phone (this isnt the place to debate which is better ) but i keep my old iphone 3s around just for DC1. I am SOOO excited for DC2, I hope there is just as much grinding to keep myself occupied for another countless amount of time

[delta rhino]

Gimka: Plast wrote that this will be linked with iCloud... does this mean that my game progress on my iPhone and on my iPad will be synced?

[Deity X]

Why isn't there more hype for this game?

[Gimka]

delta_rhino, we are working on iCloud support. But we don't want to rush that as we heard some people are losing save games because of it. So we want to make sure we give it enough time to implement and to test it properly.

We have June 4th target submission date for update 1.1. That will include a new map, a new enemy and few more new things that I'll post in more detail in the next few days but most likely it won't include iCloud yet for the reason above.

Deity X, all major sites have received the game and they will post reviews on launch day.

[awp69]

Looking forward to this, but any word on file size (uncompressed)? Gotta think about what I may/may not have to delete to grab this upon release.