Ok. So we all know FSC is too easy. It's ridiculous that the highest paying levels are the easiest. Now, FSC used to be hard. But missions exploited how easy it is. Well, for me it was getting a new comp that showed how easy it was. Without lag, the thing is a breeze. I understand that FSC was made before SL's and danger missions, but you have to do something to make it harder. I would suggest completely redo-ing to bring it on par with a danger missions difficulty, but that would take a long time. So instead, I will suggest something simple. GET RID OF ALL THE DANG HEART BOXES T_T It's just... there is so many, I can make mistakes without a care in the world, because I know there are a ton of heart boxes up ahead. Please, remove AT LEAST half, make us have to actually THINK and be CONCERNED when we make a mistake. Also, I think the mobs drop too many hearts as well. Tone that down a little as well.
Simple idea to make FSC *somewhat* harder.
Heck might as well get rid of all the heart pads and vial spawners
Put shields on slags back like UFSC carnavons.
Wait....you never heard of hardcore mode?
Easy....
Fight zombies while the Wheels keep shooting out wheels.
Dont block stuff.
make the turret mad at you. and dont kill it.
Bring totems with you to party buttons. (Blackstone Bridge, middle of chared court, and Smoldering Steps) <--my teamates gets mad when i do this :3
Fight vana, old school style....with Swords and Antiguas.
List goes on....
"The heart boxes would be nice if FSC were actually dangerous"
Yes, but it isn't dangerous, and making it dangerous would take a long time, so a quick "fix" would be to reduce the hearts.
Might as well get rid of the water balloons, too
...You need the water balloons to get past certain barriers. Though if you throw it while standing in front of a wall while on fire, it removes the fire. But that doesn't really seem like a problem, because I have to acutally THINK to do that.
Ermm... why not make shadow lairs a bit more accessible? I mean, really, FSC is pwnable with 3-4* weapons (albeit long)... last I checked, nobody's complaining about shadow lair difficulty when they're all 5*...
Just offering an alt
To make FSC harder(list below)
Kinda Hard:4 star items only
Hard:3 star items only
Very Hard:2 star items only
Ridiculously Hard:1 star items only
Impossibly Hard (still possible):Proto gear :P
Impossible (still KINDA possible):No capsules, no vita-pods, no status vials, and no health capsules
Proto gear, with no shield
Absolutely impossible:Don't play XD
@theorangefruit: Your list only makes FSC more tedious.
I have done levels in Fencing Jacket/Cyclops Helm, with 5* weapons and Swiftstrike. This does not make it 'hard' so much as 'glass cannon' mode, but given the common heart drops it is rarely fatal unless you get statused somehow (walking into slag breath/shadowfire/trojan farts). Having poor weapons just makes it slower.
And yes, I agree that there are rather too many heart boxes around. Cutting their number in about half would be enough, without making it excessively difficult for newcomers.
Did someone say HARDCORE MODE?
Anyway, I remember when FSC was hard... and then I blocked off all the obstacles... it's easy...
I'm all for taking out some of the heart boxes... but the difficulty (or lackthereof) is simply in your head. If you want Danger Mission level hardness, just come out and say it.
I still say making shadow lairs 1kce to access or something of the like would result in less Q.Q from everyone about how easy everything is.
Then do the shadow lair and do them each day without dying. If you die because of Vanaduke in the shadow lair, then you may consider vanaduke in shadow lair hard.
Also, if you think Vanaduke is too easy, why don't you beat him in every single gear. Including 0*, 1*, 2* etc... Until you die. I did not do Vanaduke yet as I am stuck in the 4* hall of heroes
"Then do the shadow lair and do them each day without dying"
Way too expensive.
"Also, if you think Vanaduke is too easy, why don't you beat him in every single gear"
That doesn't make it harder. Just makes it take longer.
And I'm not asking for a whole makeover of FSC, just take out some heartboxes. Little effort. I just want to feel punished when I make a mistake (though FSc is so easy most people shouldn't make mistakes anyway).
you always have the choice for being a masochist by not breaking the heart boxes and pick up the hearts...
and shut up benightz, can you do Vanaduke without losing a single health? at least i can't
Why tell me to shut up? You seem immature. I only asked a question, and you yet become offensive.
Yes, I can do vanaduke without taking any damage if concentrating.
FSC is right now much easier than RJP, though the boss is harder (but still really easy).
A while ago I tried doing vanaduke in proto armor and without a shield (not even one for cancelling). I made it to the boss level, where I died on phase two. Turns out I suck at bullet hell.
LOL'ed at some ideas, some are pretty viable.
this caucasian look like a very mature person, i would make some amendments for your statements,
"Can you do Vanaduke (all 5 levels) without losing half bit of health? "
"I only asked a trivial question, but the premise is that i haven't tried FSC at all"
have fun:)
3-4 star here and thus not tier 3. think about this, bosses are meant to be impossible. vana is ment to be as hard as roarmulos, rj, and snarby to their star equivalents (except mabey snarby. you can do him without dieing in proto). that is all. P.S. i won't visit this thread again, so don't yell at me.
OP: you're stating that FSC's levels are the easiest. Not even in only T3 is this true. While I can say that I find Devilite cities a bit more challenging, FSC is the midpoint between T3 and the true endgame as the only harder things are danger missions and SLs.
There's a reason we're all finding FSC so very easy, no matter. In case you've yet to notice, we all get Vog sets, Shivers, Blitzes, etc. just to bring down the citadel as easily as possible. We don't get gear specifically made for everything else. And if we wouldn't get sets made for FSC, we'd find it much harder.
I find it easy, and I wear an efing chaos set (no vita + no heart trinkets + catch on fire = death), and the two weapons I bring are the Sudaruska and Valiance, and a swiftstrike shield. Yes, I can solo it with that. Tell me that is optimal for fsc. And no, I'm not pro, I get hit a lot in FSC, there's just a ton of health boxes I don't need to worry.
Yes, danger missions and SLs are harder. But FSC pays more and is faster. I don't know about you, but in every game I've played the hardest stuff is the most rewarding.
Seriously, all I'm asking for is a reduction in heart boxes. Little effort for OOO. Yes, this is not the best fix, but it's something.
So, no.
If you want to make it more of a challenge, play it in 2* equipment.
FSC is too easy for the rewards it gives. So if you dont want to make it harder, remove crowns from it.
^ it would make CE cost less :o
Omagersh, why not take an extra quarter of KOA's cr payment, and convert it magically to heat? CW's FSC is fine, since it'll take a mist tank to run.
Omagersh, nobody ever.... Thought of this? I'll copyright the idea and get rich like that talisman of fate guy.
Owait.
(all seerusness, remove a chunk of the cr payment = hearing less QQ overall... I'd bet on that.)
Don't give them any ideas XD. I think the FSC is fine the way it is, I still die quite often. Well...............partially becomes of my horrible internet, computer, still, and lack of shadow resistance armor XD.
Still, I would like to see someone do FSC in just Proto Gear (EVERYTHING proto, proto sword, proto armor, proto shields, proto bombs, etc. Or, do the run with just 2* shadow weapons or something)
I think that FSC is already good enough on it's difficulty level (admit it, the first time you got there it was kinda hard but became easier as we repeated it for all eternity because of the payout), the real problem is the extremely high payout that begs for you to repeat it until you quit out of boringness. Just nerfing it's payout and maybe buffing danger's payout would be cool enough.
So nobody's thought about accidental deaths caused by lag?
Don't forget that FSC is plagued with lag all the time for many players, which quite often makes avoiding hits from huge hordes of slags, Wheels and Shadow Fire a bit of a gamble. Someone who dies a lot because they suffer from lag can be a real health drain for the team. If you have less heart drops in FSC it'll be impossible to even get through the Charred Court. Hell, making it more difficult with less heart drops, heart boxes and less crowns for doing all 5 levels then it would give next to no incentive to play it. Then it would become dead content.
Sure, the intention is to kick CE prices down to the ground, but all the suggestions I've seen so far serve nothing more than to make FSC less fun/less rewarding to play.
I don't have any ideas of my own but I say just keep it as it is, find some other solution and to stop blaming the FSC for the high CE prices.
When I didn't have such a great comp, FSC was a challenge to me. I understand and feel for those that lag a lot making FSC difficult. That's part of the reason why I don't want to ask for a dramatic change, such as redoing FSC danger mission style. Just a reduction in heart boxes. Eh... if mission didn't take you directly into FSC and instead just make it start at the gate where FSC is, CE wouldn't be so high.
It's not a matter of how many hearts that drop, it's matter of level design, monster spawns, and the amount of cooperation needed to progress through the boss stratum. Right now, FSC is, arguably, the easiest boss stratum as it has the slowest enemies in game. Slags are no challenge to someone with a weapon of considerable knockback, i.e. Levithan Blade or Divine Avenger. What FSC needs is an introduction of different monsters, more Kats and Oilers would be a nice addition. Slags are slow, boring and unimagitive monsters (part of the reason I don't really like doing FSC anymore) who make up about 85 - 90 percent of the monsters in the entire boss stratum.
Once again, it's not hearts that are the problem here, it's that FSC is too easy due to poor choice in monster spawn. Give me some challenge!
Getting hit due to lag is relevant to removing heart boxes. Heart boxes are at the end so even if you did lag they wouldn't save you.
Also as a sidenote I'm pretty sure FSC was designed back when hearts were not shared and therefore more boxes would be needed to heal up a full party.
its been so boring that I've done it with full proto and a blitz needle (no uv's unless you count fiend damage low), no shield, no other weapons....
I got an old computer with like 1gb ram and 100ms ping so no beastly connections and lagless runs here ^.^
Personally I think there should be falling debris and more fire hazards.
The new slag guards are super cool and they should most certainly replace existing trojans.
Flame thrower puppies serve no purpose without oilers. All the other boss levels have normal puppies, why not FSC? :<
As Zenihd-Rol and Serell said, lag is as deadly as the citadel itself (deadlier, dum dum duuuum). Yesterday was a good example (obviously nobody else was there but Shuichi, thanks Shui :D ). I died within 5 seconds upon touching the party pad, list of events (chronology)
1. Stepped on party pad
2. Attempted to maneuver around shadow fire
3. Got caught in shadow fire
4. Spiral Knights spazzed out
5. Died
Wasted about 20 energy in the first depth -_-. My friend (Shuichi) and I just kept on getting injured by shadow fire which suddenly appeared on our screen, zombies/skeletons (not sure which one to call them, they look a bit like both XD). Eventually Shuichi found out that her computer was lagging because she had a CPU monitor opened. I on the other hand was quite the opposite (internet).
Personally I think that if you make the citadel any harder than it already is, it would (or will) be a nightmare for all the other players who suffer of lag.
P.S The occasional love puppy is like an oasis in the citadel =)
"its been so boring that I've done it with full proto and a blitz needle (no uv's unless you count fiend damage low), no shield, no other weapons....
I got an old computer with like 1gb ram and 100ms ping so no beastly connections and lagless runs here ^.^"
I call [horsefeathers] on this.
Blitz needle can OCKO anything in FSC preceding vana.
He also didn't tell you what his party mates were wearing/bringing.
I can do FSC in cyclops cap/fencing jacket using a shockburst and hail driver....
but my friends carry the same 5* gear as normal and watch me like a hawk.
Not so hard now is it?
I think the very fact that FSC came out before SL/DMs should be reaason enough to NOT change it. JK came out before them too and is even easier; is it time we made that harder? No, because the new players who can't do it yet will NEVER be able to finish it if the devs keep going back and retroactively increasing the difficulty of previous missions.
FSC is easy now because you've done it sixty million times and had plenty of practice; the gear is only a part of it, practice is the rest. Think how scary and hard FSC was the first time you played it? Now imagine it's 5x harder and has no heart pads etc; you'll absolutely require a tour guide which defeats the point of playing it.
You're bored of FSC and want a harder challenge, then stop doing FSC and do the harder missions.
(I am aware that with the zombie nerf made FSC easier anyways, but since that they've also introduced half a dozen new, much harder missions to accommodate higher level players)
I barely play PvE anymore. Less than one full run a week. I almost NEVER do FSC. I played it a lot way back when (february), though. I consider blackstone bridge to be difficult because of the requirements for precise movement (also you need to watch out for stairs); it starts off hard. With my experience and good gear it is easy, but it's not so easy that it needs much buffing. The rest of FSC is pitifully easy. I can do it in my sleep, even after playing so little PvE. Zombies are a joke to a gunner and anyone who knows how to shield bump. Trojans are mildly dangerous if your party doesn't know how to handle aggro well, but once you do it's a breeze. Damage from red rovers is almost random and quite rare. Oilers are a bit dangerous but not common enough to pose a real threat. The only hope of FSC is to trap you in hordes of zombies/traps/walls, a fate anyone who can kite can easily avoid. Every level but blackstone bridge needs to be harder.
Agree with Darkbrady. There are other outlets for a challenge. The problem is that the most valuable mission does not provide risk commensurate with its reward, so players get bored but feel obligated to keep repeating the mission.
most valuable mission does not provide risk commensurate with its reward, so players get bored but feel obligated to keep repeating the mission
That's where I have a problem, as I've said in other threads. The reward output is completely separate from the difficulty of the mission. Having an old, commonly run mission (that many end-game players are long past now) as the most rewarding mission as opposed to the newer, more difficult missions is insane to me. I get "they're not for profit, they're just for challenges" but it must be the only game I've ever seen where the hardest challenge pays out as much as the easiest levels in the game.
most valuable mission does not provide risk commensurate with its reward, so players get bored but feel obligated to keep repeating the mission
That's where I have a problem, as I've said in other threads. The reward output is completely separate from the difficulty of the mission. Having an old, commonly run mission (that many end-game players are long past now) as the most rewarding mission as opposed to the newer, more difficult missions is insane to me. I get "they're not for profit, they're just for challenges" but it must be the only game I've ever seen where the hardest challenge pays out as much as the easiest levels in the game.
We all think FSC is easy just because we did it more than a million times already. It is fine when you get there, I still remember how scary it seemed to me all the wheel crushing action, two trojans at a time, and that just in the first stage. The first time I did the last room before Vanaduke? Screams and death.
Everything with practice gets easier. Which is perfectly fine.
Zombies and other monsters in FSC don't drop that many hearts, however, trojans ALWAYS drop a significant amount of hearts. Their dropped hearts should get reduced in number. The heart boxes would be nice if FSC were actually dangerous. So yeah, get rid of them unless it's after a room with heart pads. In which case, make more to compensate for people with trinkies.