Are brutal maps worth it? Are experienced players avoiding brutal maps out of fear?
I now exclusively only build brutal 4500 capacity 9000 genmat bases.
I have several. Of those bases I've wracked up a couple of kills. When looking at the replays and the kills it seems obvious to me that I'm only getting low level inexperienced players.
Are high level players scared of failing a brutal map? If so, why?
Shouldn't there be an incentive for players to play the harder maps?
It seems like after custodian level 25 there isn't anything left to grind for other than rank.
Why are players given the option to grind normal bases all the way to master? Shouldn't they at least have to do some brutal bases to be considered among the best raiders?
Back when I first started building, I had a level 100+ visit my dangerous 1000 capacity base. this player died twice and awarded me two accolades. i've since then deleted that base because I wanted to see what happened when I did (surprise. nothing).
this makes me wonder if anyone even tries brutal bases. why are skilled players (that i know for certain exist) afraid to raid brutal bases and being rewarded for avoiding them?
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I have also noticed that none players above 32lvl have attempted my outposts if socials do not count.
I am over lvl 120 and I only block long mazes and through acid-targeting exploiters.
Yes. I agree that the ranking system is faulty due to grinding easy brutals as the rank indicator. I personally try to pick the most cancerous looking lvls when playing raids nowadays.
I also hate it when the success/kill ratio counts abandoned raids as success so it does not show the real ratio.
I wish there were a playlist of real hard lvls.
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80% (value made up for emotional impact) of Brutal outposts are the same boring killbox.
Now I wouldn't call myself a high skilled raider, but I started playing Brutal the first few days for the genmat, but I quit after I abandoned my SIXTH killbox in a row.
Btw, my outposts are generally all Dangerous (because no one raids Brutal anymore) and I still don't get raiders above level 30. So maybe these 30+ raiders are just a rare breed.
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acid exploits i get, but why mazes?
if a player makes an actual maze - unless you're just terrible at spacial reasoning (which i am not so i can't relate, but my condolences if you are) - just use the always do left turns rule. mazes are super easy because they sacrifice 50 capacity for an unnecessary path instead of putting that into a bolt shot or towards an armored warmonger or something. even just 10 blocks could be a holocube. 15 for a second wave holocube or a corrosive cube.
those blocks on those pointless halls add up.
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killboxes are free money. you might die somewhere between 1 and 5 times figuring out the pattern, but the bases themselves are super simple and can be sprinted through. just figure out where the activator tile is throw down a flash barrier and profit. the only things that continue to activate are incinerators, unrelenting impalers, pistons, plasma sentinels, claws, and mobs. so if you use a flash barrier that will destroy everything except mobs, plasma sentinels, and incinerators. using that knowledge - you can deflect plasma and bolts. the armored warmonger can be sidestepped and hit in the back. armored enforcers and hornets have exposed legs, armored cannonbacks can be hit in the back.
you get 2 flash barriers and shield+deflect deals with almost any situation.
so the only real issue is the incinerator. so shield or flash barrier it.
voltshot is reasonable, but only if you prefer to play fetch all game. 1 set of 5 plasma sentinels over some corrosive cubes with a few incinerators guarding it and you're screwed. those three bolts are gone. you give up deflect or shield for that.
if you run heavy sword you sacrifice range and deflect for unlimited armor peircing which you don't need to begin with. because both swords break traps and all mobs have weakspots even armored ones.
there's only one item in the game that counters both fire and explosives. shield.
light sword just makes so much more sense over anything else. it can break traps, it has infinite uses, and it can deflect bolts and plasma, it can kill guards. you need nothing else.
Post edited by EQWashu on0 -
the more i play this game and level the more i feel like after about custodian level 25 there's nothing to do other than grind rank.
which - i have no proof as i don't really care about rank so i haven't bothered to pay attention - apparently rewards progress for doing ONLY normal bases?
I've never heard that one before. All activated Outposts regardless of difficulty reward Rank, but the number of Rank points rewarded diminishes quickly for each death until it caps out at (if I remember correctly) -30 points. Most players don't want to go backwards, so rather than risk losing progress they already earned they stick to Outposts they can probably run deathless.
This is why I am so vocally vehemently against BHVR's habit of taking away progress towards reward goals. MYM calls it "Rank" but it's really just accruing a set number of points like a battle pass until it reaches Master, which is when the ranking actually becomes competitive. BHVR announced cosmetics as seasonal rewards for ranking up and the results were easily predictable.
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my wording was poor.
what i meant was "playing normal bases still gives ranking points to high ranked players"
which i don't think should be a thing.
in fighting games they usually reduce the amount of points you get from beating up a player that is lower in rank than you and remove a ton of points from your rank if you lose. whereas when playing against opponents of your own level you get roughly the same as you lose. taking on higher ranked opponents will skyrocket you into the upper ranks.
my issue is that high ranking players can still grind their way to the highest levels of ranked with the "easy" difficulty bases.
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Ah, okay, that makes more sense.
Each time a player gets to the next rank (Bronze -> Silver -> Gold), the Outposts reward fewer Rank points. Once you hit Gold rank, Normal Outposts reward (I think) about 30 points. Dangerous Outposts reward 87 points or so. And Brutal rewards something like 125 points.
The number of points needed for Gold I-III is 1500 points each, and to get from Gold IV to Master is 6500 points.
Grinding away at Normal Outposts is a slow, slow way to get to Master.
"playing normal bases still gives ranking points to high ranked players"
which i don't think should be a thing.
This is why BHVR shouldn't combine competitive ranking with a battle pass or any sort of rewards. Almost everyone ends up unhappy with the results for one reason or another. Most players grinding Normal Outposts aren't in it for the competitive ranking aspect, they're doing it for the battle pass aspect, and because they can lose rank points if they die they're working to reach Master now because until they do they can't have fun and play harder Outposts.
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I think the kill box issue will solve itself over time. Since players refuse to play on them, they can´t upgrade and only waste their synth on them.
So they will eventually stop pumping synth into them, just to keep em running.
In the meantime, most people run normal or dangerous and occationally brutal to see if its a kill box.
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what i don't get is why it's a big deal to begin with.
first off kill boxes are such a free win. yes you might die 1-5 times figuring it out, but the viability of a kill box is so low that you're gaining so much more.
then there's the complaints about maze builds. which - yes - you might spend 20 minutes in one, but you're highly unlikely to die.
its like the community only wants prefabbed paths the game auto generates. that's apparently the only thing builders can make and if it's anything more than. 1 trap per 20 seconds it's a killbox.
come on guys. what? did the survivor mains from dbd all become raider mains now?
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We have different kinds of players. The speed runners that like kill boxes but hate mazes and the slow n steady players that hate kill boxes but like mazes.
Both can co-exist.
Maybe in time, a meta will surge, where mazes are easier to detect/recognize. So the people that like them, will find them easier. Just like identifying kill boxes is easier thx to the advisor bonus that reveals the kind and amount of traps.
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i mean you could always just give an advisor bonus that reveals the distance harvester has to travel to the genmat. assuming that doesn't already exist. tbh i don't use advisor boosts as much as i should.
i think the secret to getting accolades is building a minecraft house at the start of the level right where the screenshot is. then draw yellow arrows to all the forbidden tombs. and lastly dont use 2nd wave traps.
pretty sure that's what the community wants.
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Do you like mazes? Good thing that I just happen to have a normal difficulty maze for you.
4000 points worth of blocks, 500 points of killing power.
Interested?
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as long as i don't have to give out my personal information or add you on the game 🤷🏻♂️.
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also - if it's a normal difficulty map i'd honestly never play it because i need the genmat from brutal bases. i always look at capacity and difficulty when picking maps. i never play a normal large map.
simply because i wont get any currency.
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Oh that exists. The same bonus that shows what are the 2 most used traps and how many traps exist in total, also shows the distance of the harvester. But right now its bugged and doesn´t always work exactly how its intended.
Maybe we need another difficulty rating that comes after brutal.
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Socials do not give resources.
So basically if I understood correctly, you do not wanna prove that all mazes are fun? Yet you wonder why I block them?
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no. i never said that. for starters i never said i play for fun. so jumping to that conclusion is erroneous to begin with. context clues be damned. if anything i play to be mentally stimulated - not to have fun.
i said i would play it under the conditions that i don't have to add you or share my personal information to do so.
i searched for it on the social menu. couldn't find anything listed under your forum name.
beyond all of that though - my experience has nothing to do with the experience of others. whether i enjoy something or not is entirely subjective to my whims. and i have a lot of whims. as i am very whimsical.
i assume you block them because they're not fun for you. i have no clue what is your version of fun otherwise i wouldn't be asking the question.
all i can do is assume. i assume that you're not having fun because either you can't beat them or you don't find them efficient enough for earning rewards. 🤷🏻♂️
as those are the typical reasons stated by others.
for me - i make it a habit to beat all levels i attempt.
Post edited by EQWashu on0 -
they already have that. it's the white icons. those bases are typically higher than prestige 5.
i could see them just providing more information in the picker. things like: prestige level, numerical capacity value, total deaths, accolade tally, 2nd wave traps count, etc.
but i honestly think base capacity and trap capacity shouldn't be used to determine lethality.
rather i think lethality should be determined by death count. so maybe all bases should start at "unknown" and slowly build up to "normal", "dangerous", "brutal", etc. based on their death counts.
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Because most brutal maps are the same recently. Get bored of it very fast
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pretty sure all maps are the same. 9 trap types and 4 guard types along a harvester path. 🤷🏻♂️ what were you expecting?
its gotten to the point where bases have to utilize unintended features (acid blinks, harvester spawn kills, corpse bombs, and path erasing) to break out of the cycle. and those are considered unsportsmanlike and abusive by most.
otherwise you're having to do a grey block 3x3 path with uneven pathing and partial walls to earn kills. armored guards are required and you have to combo bombs with incinerators to beat shield users. 20 men armored boltshot rooms with acid traps are also a common thing to counter the 15 crossbow rounds.
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Thats not a different difficulty. Thats just a base that is prestige 5 or higher.
But seeing prestige lvl in the status screen would be nice. Or, sorta like what you propose, having the lethality determined by kill ratio. New bases would have 0.
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What's the incentive to raid a brutal base? You can do 20 or 30 dangerous small bases an hour or potentially 1 brutal.
For me i don't mind either or but I need the incentive for the later.
If this balance can be made I think the whole game will benefit hugely.
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the benefits of brutal bases are:
- they tend to have more traps and guards that you can farm for loot
- they tend to be bigger meaning they're often large class bases with 3 vaults
- they give 3750 genmat which is 2x the 1875 you get for dangerous bases and more than 4x the amount for normal bases (900).
- brutal champion outposts give 5000 total genmat (1000 per) which is 2x larger than champion dangerous (500x5 or 2500) and more than 4x larger than champion normal (240x5 or 1200)
- the amount of times you can die while still increasing your rank is higher
- they cause champion outposts to spawn quicker
- they're often easier than smaller outposts with the right gear due to their saturation of traps and guards which will allow for "backfire" opportunities
- you gain more xp
- they make you better at the game
here's an example of a level 4 brutal base i just completed with 1 death
(will post image as soon as xbox live lets me)
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I´ll do occasionally a brutal map. But usually when its a small one and not a big one with 100+ traps. Since it costs simply to much time.
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Brutal maps have such a wide variety of difficulty that I'm sticking to dangerous outposts for the most part now.
I rather play more outposts than spend that time on one with plenty of crowd control traps (incinerators, plasma sentinels with plasma cloud mod, pistons, etc.). Slowly raiding outposts has been less fun for me and out of all the choices brutal difficulty has been the most consistent in making that a constant.
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i think it'd be interesting to know just what exactly defines a brutal base. where is the line drawn so to speak between brutal and dangerous.
and for that matter between dangerous and normal.
is there a harsh cutoff point? is it loosely defined?
because bases that start off with 4500 capacity can become bases with several hundreds more capacity as they're able to prestige the base.
whereas a 750 capacity base will fail to reach those higher capacities.
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I pretty much exclusively play brutal maps. You level up way faster playing brutal maps. I think a lot of players overestimate how difficult brutal maps are. Sure, some are nigh impossible. If it's obvious that it will be a super frustrating experience (lots of opaque cubes, pistons, grapple traps, or plasma orbs are good indicator of garbage map) then just abandon the map and move on. Here is another tip for you. Level up your suit advisor as fast as possible then use his boost. The value you get from the rank 2 or 3 boost is massive. If you know how long the harvester path is and how many and what is most common on the map then you can avoid bad brutal dungeons in the first place and just speed farm the easier ones.
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I am master rank:
i use the boost that tells you the length of the map and the traps. I don't play any brutal maps over 150m. I also don't play maps that have the highest trap as the flamethrower or sentinel cube. If you do this you can speed run all maps.
My honest opinion: I hate that I am selecting only certain types of maps. It ruins creativity. For instance, the creator that names their map "Free loot" I end up skipping because his maps are too hard for the time.
To fix this problem they need to link exp gain to the bases k/d ratio. If you complete a hard base you get more exp. If you beat a hard base below the k/d average you get even more exp. This is an incentive to play at any level and keeps hard bases hard. Also no new systems need to be added since they already track this. I should be rewarded for the ability to conquer bases not how quickly i can grind out easy ones.
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