That was my worst case scenario in 1.0.5 as well. I’d say these take a “normal” time but that wouldn’t convey much since other peoples’ games are still “1.0.5 normal,” even in deeds (and every run I have now is “worse” than any deed). I can explain it best like this:
- These are always full book runs
- We never stop/rest for hordes except to briefly assess a horde to determine whether or not it’s a “stay safe” horde or a “we don’t have time for this bs, push ahead” horde, though, tbh, we all already know exactly which is which without having to stop or slow down. There are a few rare instances where a horde will mandate we back tf up to not get surrounded in a tactically disadvantageous position but that doesn’t have to happen often.
- The only time we’re not pushing ahead is if we’re about to hit a boss trigger when a horde is due. Usually only means a handful of non-productive seconds but the tradeoff is we aren’t committing suicide by rushing a boss + 2x horde + specials + w/e ambient trash the rooms ahead have in store for us.
- This is with me vaporizing waves faster than they spawn. Even then, we’d sometimes get another horde within seconds of clearing the first.
- The horde timers are utterly fubar most of the time. Eg. we’ll sometimes get a horn right at the start of the level, silent hordes w/o music or horn, a horde + a second horde moments later, etc.
- Elite spawns are sometimes messed up as well. On one War Camp run, we had over 12 non-patrol Chaos Warriors + a patrol + a ton of doubled up specials all just in the lil ravine at the very start of the level well before the open area that branches off to the first tome. It was basically as though the deed that upgrades ambient mods was active + on crack.
- It feels like the director is randomly applying three different deed effects every time from a pool that includes more hordes/bigger hordes/more specials/upgraded ambients.
This is just how my games behave. I don’t think it has to do entirely with hosting. It’s bad enough though that I am obligated to always be on a class that excels at wave/special clear because, if I’m not, then the levels will take longer and we just won’t win.
Nope, I’m just hyper-aggressive without being reckless and, as mentioned, choose classes that excel at wave/special removal specifically to offset the director’s rage hard-on. These runs aren’t made artificially long and we, in fact, will surge through any linear horde, by necessity. When this is how the director behaves every time, you have to know how to go as fast as possible. This is just how insane the director is and different characters will outshine others in different situations. In this situation, where the director is throwing non-stop hordes at you, Sienna > Bardin > WS >/= BH should always be the hierarchy of kill/dmg by virtue of how effectively they can kill hordes at range. If we had gotten more Rot Helms/bosses, the Shade would have been a stronger shower, for example. In this case, the only other person with true horde clear was the Bardin but he was using Drake Gun, not Pistols, so he intrinsically couldn’t do fire + movement as effectively when we were pushing through non-stop waves and if we were stationary, most things would be dead before they reached his flames or we would just push up, meaning the Bardin had to relocated, at which point we’d be pushing up again, and so on.
That’s what 99% of my scorecards look like, regardless of players/comp. Here’s the bigger picture of how my game changed from 1.0.5 to 1.0.6, for example. I’m not a green circle hunter, but I do try to always do my best and if I don’t have as many kills as the rest of the team combined, I feel like I’ve let the team down. Was the same when I was leveling, though to a lesser degree given the lower hero power and the fact I wasn’t rolling perfect stats on w/e trash gear I was using at the time. Most characters are capable of something like this. The IB in my earlier post-1.0.6 case was using a Drake Gun instead of DF Pistols, so they were effective but not as effective as they would have been with Pistols in this situation, where they could have done better damage on the move. It wouldn’t affect the speed, however, since I’m still melting everything just as fast… they’d just have been able to “steal” more kills away. No matter what their scores were, I’m still murdering everything the instant it spawns. The speed would be unchanged, they’d just be having their killshots land a few ms before instead of the other way around.
There’s really no need for you to attempt to armchair quarterback this. I’m a V1 veteran, pretty much only play on legend now, have both games completed, and know exactly what I’m doing in both. This isn’t a case of “hurrdurr we fell asleep in the level for 40min without moving.” Further, this isn’t an isolated incident and it happens every time, with different people. People just tend not to be able kill things when you’ve vaporized them a few ms faster than they can, regardless of what character you’re doing it on. Since these are the results I get virtually every single time I play, you’re calling everyone I’ve ever played with, friends or pug, scrubs, which I assure you isn’t the case.
This Bardin was extremely aggressive, but you can only be so aggressive with Drake Gun unless your team sits back and lets you kill everything. Since he was aggressive, it enabled me to be more aggressive, which meant I wasn’t just sitting back or feeding him kills, and we were able to clear faster. Drake Gun just makes you plant your ass. Any character/weapon that can horde clear while moving will outshine it in a fast-paced run unless the entire group turtles for the dwarf.
I used to think it was related to host but now I’m not so sure, because even in 1.0.5 (when my games were normal) it would sometimes happen when someone new joined me while I was hosting. Eg. We’d have nothing but normal games for 10hrs, then someone would get tired and leave, a new person would join, and the director would go bananas. Then they’d leave and someone else would join and director behaviour would change again. The shifts in behaviour were palpable. Now, the same thing seems to be happening to me. Anyone who can’t relate seems to still be on “normal” director behaviour and their game is “ez mode” by comparison. That’s not an insult but rather an observation of that simple fact that if some people are still getting <60 specials/run and <1k mobs while other are consistently getting twice that amount, the one director behaviour is harder than the other to deal with.
Also, I don’t know how you’re claiming your PC has no effect when one of the biggest fixes from 1.0.6 was them supposedly correcting the fact that someone could become deed contaminated and infect any game they joined. What’s happening to some of us now is like that, only it just seems to always happen, whether or not someone is deed contaminated. Some people just seem to be like Typhoid Mary to the AI director.
EZ relative to the people who went from having normal runs to suddenly getting 100 specials per run. It’s considerably less bullshit than than people baselessly trying to discredit those who are pointing out their games went totally haywire after 1.0.6, accusing them of being just too passive. It’s an outright stupid argument: If the issue was that they were too passive, they’d be having the same problem before 1.0.6. No one suddenly said, “oh boy, 1.0.6 is here so I better totally change my playstyle to be a massive turtling pansy!” There is zero logic to that argument whatsoever, no matter what angle you’re looking at it from.
Unlike the “git gud” bs, which is rude, irrelevant, and illogical, the ezmode comparison is an apt one. If someone is shouting “git gud” but their game didn’t suddenly go from normal runs to “every run is a multi-deed and then some,” they’re not facing nearly the challenge they think they are, or could be.