Resurgence Pack #1 Discussion

[DFizzle720]

Just curious how folks are feeling about the new maps? Here are my quick thoughts.



Service Interruption:
Right away this doesn't feel like any other map in the game. The intermittent obstructions on the outer wall, and built-in path obstructions on the bottom section make this the map I've studied the most before actually playing. It's small, but the options initially seem numerous. Having only run through the map a couple of times (and still yet to gold it) I find myself questioning my initial strategy. I can see this map having a number of viable but vastly different strategies.



Height of Confusion:
First impression, "this is perfect". Second impression, "this isn't as straightforward as I thought". After scrapping two initial strategies, this map turned into a lot of fun as I built away from the cores and led the aliens through an increasingly elaborate maze. This was a first try gold for me but there are so many ways to tweak any strategy that I can see myself going back through it a few times as I drop farther and farther down the leaderboards. I didn't take the time to look, but I've read that this map doesn't have a Grinder mode and that seems like a bummer of an omission.



Overall, this first pack has made me even more excited for the others and at $1, the value is amazing. After only getting to play for an hour or so yesterday, I'm looking forward to diving back in and working on new strategies while laughing at how far I've fallen on the leaderboards in the last 24 hours.



Two thumbs up from me HP. Thanks for all your hard work and for supporting your outstanding game.

[fortunz]

I found getting gold on Service Interruption on the campaign one of the more difficult things I've done, and when I did finally get it, it was only by the skin of my teeth. Most levels, especially on the basic campaign, I get gold on the first try. I've golded every original and Borderland level in the game and rarely had to replay (other than waste disposal).



Normally, I set up my towers to minimize how long any core is out of the housing, so as to maximize interest accumulation. This time I completely ignored the spacing pre-housing, and set up nearly all my towers down below. During the last 5 or so waves, my cores were out of the housing nearly the entire time. I didn't want meteors at the beginning, because they're so expensive, and early game I actually was earning some interest. Once I couldn't earn interest anymore I built three of them to yellow. I ended up at gold with MAYBE 15 points, after failing to get there a half dozen times.



I didn't like those obstructions at all, and I didn't even really test them out to see how problematic they would be, I just decided any guns I built I would want to have full range of fire. Considering how many replays it took me to get to gold, maybe that wasn't the best strategy.

[MyEasyButton]

I've only played Service Interruption so far (don't think I got a gold medal, can't remember). What's tricky about this map is the lack of good tower placements to eliminate enemies *before* the cores are taken. We all know that you don't collect interest unless cores are still in the base. I don't know how many times the voice told me "running low on power".

What I think helped me in my score was the use of a command tower at the bottom of the map. It was my best chance at creating a kill zone (if I can't create one, I don't use command towers), with a maxed out temporal tower slowing them down, and numerous L3 guns.

Like many others, I am very happy that the DLC finally arrived.

[MyEasyButton]

Just an FYI... I edited my initial post because I might not have received gold. I actually cannot remember. What score did you need to get on that one (not in front of my 360 at the moment)?

[fortunz]

I think it was 65k.

I'm actually pretty eager to try out the campaign reversed on that one. It should allow me to play the way I'd prefer.

[MyEasyButton]

65K, eh? That I did not get. I was somewhere in the 63K range. Serves me right for not paying attention!

Back to the drawing board for me.

[dffd]

I am sad there is no grinder on Height... also i bought pack one on steam without the other 3 and i have a bad feeling now that there will be some sale when they all come out... if this dose happen please make the add-ons gift-able if you buy a 2nd copy of one.

[piderman]

I found Height of Confusion to be a bit simple, since you can maximise each tower's potential, easily getting gold on the first try.



Now Service Interruption was a whole other matter. I finished the level once with a silver medal, then couldn't get it to work anymore for a long time. Tried some different strategies. The shooting gallery at the start of the level, while fun, did not really work. Like Baccus below I finally went for a red command tower at the bottom for the 45% extra to make up for the lost interest. Also I realised that if I could keep the board clean (so to speak) the flyers would get to my gun towers when there were no ground units, thus not needing missile towers in the start of the game. That gave me enough money to get the gun towers to red and stay ahead of the HP increase.



Can't wait for next week

[Dyloot]

I found Service Interruption to be the most challenging mission to date.

I took gold on all challenges after hours of tinkering, and the only successful strategy I found was a five-tower "upstairs" defense that included one meteor (red), two gun towers (reds), a temporal (yellow) and a missile tower (yellow). I placed the two gun towers next to the cores, the temporal behind one of the guns (hugging the wall) and the meteor in the middle of the upstairs shelf where it could hit the upstairs pathway and the downstairs area near the exit. This setup allows you to kill many of the aliens as they collect the cores, allowing resource generation. I put the missile tower in the middle so flyers were in range coming in and going out.

This leaves room for five more towers downstairs. I opted for a line of four towers for--forgive my awkward descriptions--a "go-around" in the only section of the map you can obstruct alien movement with towers (two on the ground, two on the ledge-top above the two): north to south, a gun tower (red), laser (red), temporal (yellow) and concussion (yellow). My final tower was a cannon at the southern most square of the ledge area in the raised section near the exit. The cannon/laser/gun combo kills both groups of weak mobs and single powerful mobs that escape the top kill zone. I tried many strategies with more gun towers and never was powerful enough to finish wave. For whatever reason, a red cannon, a red laser, a red gun, a yellow temporal and a yellow concussion was enough to do the job while still finishing the mission with over the 8,000 in resources required to get gold.

Even with full knowledge of what towers you need to win, finishing successfully is a challenge. You need to juggle saving resources with buying upgrades that will keep your cores inside the power base to allow for regeneration. This takes lots of fine tuning. Upgrading to red on the upstairs defense is crucial to kill enough aliens to keep regeneration going.

I needed a command tower to finish the last wave, so on the 10-tower challenge I needed to sell my missile tower after the final wave of flyers.

The second map was perhaps the easiest one to date.

[MyEasyButton]

Well I got gold on my second session with this map, about 65.5K.

As mentioned by piderman and others, trying to kill through the shooting gallery area just doesn't work. I've tried four different tower types, and there seems to be little affect.

What did work was an L3 Inferno and an L3 Gun in front of an L3 Temporal at the base. I also had a couple of L2 Cannons within range. While this didn't accomplish crowd thinning, most enemies were beat up pretty good as they took the ramp down toward my kill zone, which consisted of L3 Guns, an L3 temporal, an L2 Command, and an L2 Concussion. The Concussion was key on that last wave that has too many enemies for the Guns to focus on -- it was like a mini grinder mode!

I think I can maybe get 66K+. My cannon (3) and missle (2) placements were poor, and I think I need to go with an L3 Command in my kill zone.

On a side note, I found this map almost as difficult as Borderlands:Entangement, which gave me fits for a few days.

[fortunz]

For the record, I like the fact that it's hard to get gold. I'm commiserating, not complaining.

[jtracy]

Service of Interruption is a GREAT CHALLENGE map. I still have yet to get Gold, but will try a couple of the strategies mentioned above. I do have a question... If I put two Command towers next to each other will that double what I get from the Command towers or would it just be a waste?

[fortunz]

It would be a waste. I think somewhere in the in-game description is says command towers don't stack, and that's what that means. One bonus per zone.

[jeff]

Here are*links to full map views of the first two DG:Resurgence maps should you want to plan out or better discuss strategies.



Service Interruption: <span style="color: #6ebcff">http://defensegrid.hiddenpath.com/im.../996/_original</span>



Height of Confusion: <span style="color: #6ebcff">http://defensegrid.hiddenpath.com/im.../997/_original</span>



Jeff

[fortunz]

Woo-Hoo! I got gold on the SI 10 tower challenge. My first try was such an abysmal failure that I actually checked the leaderboards to see if 65K was possible before trying again. For anyone interested, I placed only one L3 gun next to the cores, on the landing platform just after the cores, I placed an L3 Temp, L3 Command, 2 L3 guns wrapped around the outside so aliens could still walk through (instead of taking the longer path). Then up on the elevated area right adjacent to the platform, I placed two L3 concussions. I had to add an L1 anti air on the second to last wave of air baddies, but sold it immediately thereafter. I completely ignored the last wave of air baddies and didn't kill a one, but it didn't hurt me because all my cores were floating back at the time. I added one more L3 Temp closer to the exit but close enough to hit baddies near my concussions and had two L3 Meteors at the end (think I had I had to sell my Core-side Gun to get the second one).



That's not much a spoiler because the devil is in the details. When you place, sell and when you upgrade is the hard part.



http://img195.imageshack.us/img195/7646/sifortunz.png

[glarnk]

The interference map is very tough because it renders usual strategies redundant. For me, and many others, gun towers were the core of most strategies. This is ruled out because of the poor line of sight in the upper areas before the aliens get to the cores.

Meteor towers overcome this problem to a certain extent. I put two on the tall first building that the alians come out of. Then two cannons on the right hand side of the map on top of the little building/arch way that the aliens come through before going to the core.

Then build up a kill zone in the lower left hand side with temporals and gun towers etc.

I have only got a silver so far - but have only played it twice. But I think the above is a good general strategy to start off with and refine.

glarnk

[evilteq]

Disclaimer: let's not make this a flame, ok?

I found this pack very dissapointing. Yeah, both maps are fine... just fine...
Service interruption is very ugly to play, and brute force works. I still don't understand what's half the map for. Maybe on a grinder level... but I'll get to that later. It took me three tries to get a gold medal.
Height of confussion is... open... It gives you a lot of freedom to create very different setups... but.. lets face it, its just an square... I got gold medal without even trying.

Both levels' design are "simple", to say the least, and they both have very few modes, and the ones they have are not the ones I found more appealing. IMO, a grinder and supergrinder mode is a very must to every level. Even more than a must with such a large number of slots to play with.

I was hoping to get a level editor, and the announcement of these level packs made it clear to me that there is not going to happen. But imagine for a second there were, and imagine those 2 maps were uploaded, I bet noone would mention them in any top 20 maps.

Honestly, try to make it better for the next pack. More modes and better and more appealing design.

[Dyloot]

Keep in mind that this is only 1/4 of a map expansion that costs $.99. It took me some time to solve Service Interruption on all challenges for gold (and always by the skin of my teeth). The number of excess squares that seem irrelevant to game play have apparently been used by many in different strategies to beat the level, which is interesting. I can't wait until some upload them to youtube so I can see how others did it.

Height of Confusion is very simple, except for the poison core challenge, which takes some work. It's also a level you can come back to when you're bored to try different strategies.

As for your comment on grinder and super grinder, I'm surprised that these challenges are some people's favorites. They're all rather basic once you have access to concussion towers, allowing them to beat with ofter $1 billion or more resources. I can see when they're fun to those who like varying strategies or high school attempts, but overall I could get gold on these by setting up a defense in the first 40 or 50 waves and walking away from the computer.

Still, no flames. Good observations. I can't wait for the next six maps.

[fortunz]

Grinder is one of the few modes where leaderboard competition interests me. Sure, beating it isn't hard, but maximizing interest is an art. And when just when you think you've been as efficient as possible, someone comes along and adds a few hundred thousand more to the board (or in Super Grinder, a few million more). In grinder modes, DG isn't just tower defense, it's an economic puzzler. When someone gets to a certain score I didn't think was possible, I can't wait to get back in the level and figure out how they did it. It's like CSI: DG. I'm sure some of them are on Youtube, but why would I want to watch someone solve a puzzle when I could solve it myself? That's the fun part.



I hit a bunch of #1 spots on super grinder early on, but I've since been lapped so many times I don't even try anymore, just for shear lack of time. I am still competitive for the top spot on a couple of Grinder levels though, and I find replaying those more fun than most of the game and most other games for that matter. For people who have friends with the game, it's a great level to compete with each other on.

[evilteq]

I agree, grinder/supergrinder levels are far too easy above wave 50, they should be made harder. But anyway, they are the only ones in which I can make awfully huge setups and/or test "odd" things.