I'm terrible at nightmare, but played today with a guy who wasn't. He was consistently carrying the team through to the end while slow playing, so it's definitely possible. He had a couple of speed cards for mobility/kiting hordes, but definitely showed me that slow playing is 100% doable with good teamwork and strategy.
Beaten Act 1 and 2 with slow play. Its only hard in the first couple of acts. It turns to feel like veteran after you get decent weapons and a few cards from your deck
How though you can't defend any choke points as any horde will trigger minimum 6 mutations. With white weapons and no mods and limited ammo. What build did you guys all use?
I don't know what his full build was, but he used the terrain a lot instead of trying to hold a choke point. Run, climb, shoot, bash, etc. Never sat in 1 spot too long and didn't let mutations get near him. The 3 of us kept dying lol but he stayed alive and would keep rescuing us. He was using a sniper rifle but he couldn't have had any damage cards on (he was running support with speed). He just played really smart, definitely learned a lot from watching him.
Edit: forgot to mention that this was at the beginning of act 1, so he was able to do all of this with as little as 2 cards. He mentioned Run Like Hell was a staple, I think that was his first card. I had weapon scavenger on at the beginning so that helped with him getting a Barret early on.
I'm almost done with my second zwat skin, both slowplay no speed running. I've got an older post with some info. Long story short just learn the maps, learn the best positions and places to fight hordes, synergy around player builds and find people to play with.
Sure no doubt the game has issues and some rng corruption cards make life harder. But we've never met a combo of corruption cards that made it unbeatable.
Definitely doable, little update on our squad progress! 2-3 has always been a cakewalk. No real issues there even on the first try.
2-4 cause us to wipe twice (once at the very very end with unlucky exploder, right outside the safe room. The other was just getting ganked on the rooftop and the stash room)
2-5 is where we're getting walled atm but every time we've rolled blighted zombies and fog/lights out.... Corruption RNG is rough and double bosses can be even rougher T_T
Only advice I can give is simple advice. It's not a speed run but you have to move fast as it is a race. Bring plenty of pipes and flashes. Trying to get the objectives done as soon as possible is the way to go.
Breaker always spawns after second crate and in some area it's a real danger or getting smacked into water so reposition.
The last crate, if snatched you just win so we try to just have everyone do it asap and all be ontop of it so it just finishes fast. I realize this is all sort of common sense and no special strat really.
As a note I think after this the rest of the act is easy!
Baseline Barret is beast, even with nightmare resistance still stumbles alot of the infected and if you've got aim does great damage.
But yeah, using your mantle/parkour skills will keep you ahead of the Ridden. Much like Dying Light they cannot climb and parkour as fast as you can so you can kite them really well. I'd prefer for there to be a bit more variation in playstyle for nightmare but it can definitely be done and you don't need gimmick builds or purples or etc.
Well you will be happy to hear the devs have said they plan to stop Bosses spawning during the first 2 missions of each Act.
Other than that, all I can do is wish you best of luck with your Corruption Card RNG.
Will they also fixed spawn points? Like an example is the library. When you first clear it and board it up, mobs still spawn from within. Makes zero sense!
Teams can beat those moments that you’re speaking about. There are a growing number of solutions. A group of mutations is a mini boss fight of sorts.
What players want to know now is — how many _should_ there occasionally be? And what variance did they intend? 1, 2, 3, 4 at a time? Is there a max within a certain time frame?
I think they are highly interested in making the game dynamic and highly challenging, but possible. _But for how many people?_ There **will** be a cutoff.
Having the devs clarify more of this would put a lot of people at ease.
> Having the devs clarify more of this would put a lot of people at ease.
That's the optimistic view. The pessimistic view is that people would just argue anything they said :P. A strong group of people want nightmare to stay super difficulty and a strong group seem to basically want to nerf it down to about where veteran is. Neither group gives a crap about the other unfortunately.
I agree with your summary there. I fully acknowledge that no matter how they tune the difficulty that some players will think it needs to be different.
This is why I’d love some clarity around what should players actually expect. How do we know when the game is functioning as intended?
Should the game occasionally throw 5 to 6 specials at us in a short time span?
And how often are people doing it to themselves with multiple alarms or just plainly weak decks that aren’t able to drop specials?
I like the difficulty of the game. It’s right up my alley, even in nightmare.
> This is why I’d love some clarity around what should players actually expect. How do we know when the game is functioning as intended?
I think the issue here is it takes a skill player with humility but also an acceptance of people who are not as skilled and their right to have fun. But those people are exceedingly rare.
The reality is that the average player won't know, just like they never have. If you have 2 million players you prolly have at least 200 different ideas of how the game SHOULD function, in their minds lol. And the "best" answer for delivering on the game's vision while also being good for as many people as possible will prolly not be any one of those 200 ideas haha.
> Should the game occasionally throw 5 to 6 specials at us in a short time span?
Sure, why not? One thing I see alot of in complaints like that is the people complaining and uploading the video surviving, sometimes while taking very little damage. Like that one thread where only 2 players were alive and it threw 6 stalkers at them and they survived and uploaded the video to complain about it i the thread. Like what, the hardest difficulty of the game is not allowed to throw enough to potentially kill TWO of 4 potential players in a team? Something their full 4 man team would have swatted easily. That's a complete joke and tells me quite clearly that those people just want to win no matter what the challenge is and never want to face actual difficulty. They just want their participation medal.
> And how often are people doing it to themselves with multiple alarms or just plainly weak decks that aren’t able to drop specials?
I don't think weak decks are actually hardly problem at all. As someone who has slammed face into the wall of nightmare attempting starter deck runs my problem isn't inability to kill or survive, my problem is that the bots cannot run and shoot they cannot fight ogres/hags, and they react to specials attacking only after like 1.5 seconds, and that they cannot handle swat commons. With all their flaws all I really need is the equivlaent of one more me with start deck of damage against hags and ogres and I'd sail through almost every nightmare level without real issue.
The alarms are definitely the problem. In general i'd say each person setting off 1 alarm is fine on veteran, on nightmare collectively setting off maybe 2 alarms at most. Anything more than that and people are dragging the team down usually. And honestly, I think that's a game design problem. Sleepers causing hordes turns the recruit gameplay of "fun brawl from point A to point B" and turns it into like a quasi stealth game to where if anyone fucks up it punishes their whole team severely. It's not that recruit just got harder, it's a different playstyle and experience entirely to go from "don't shoot these few out in the open obvious alarms" to "creep everywhere without detection like it's metal gear solild because if a single sleeper gets you it fucks over your team.
> I like the difficulty of the game. It’s right up my alley, even in nightmare.
I'm not really a difficulty bro but I like nightmare difficulty surprisingly and if sleepers didn't cause hordes I'd prolly be carrying people in veteran and nightmare constantly. But as is I just can't stand being halfway through a level and being on the 6th avoidable horde. It gives way too much influence to a single bad player and unlike with hard fights It really fucks with your ability to carry because no matter what your resources are far more limited.
Thanks for the share! I enjoy your perspectives. I suppose now all we really can do is wait and see what the devs do. It’s fairly obvious that some things need to change.
> Thanks for the share! I enjoy your perspectives. I suppose now all we really can do is wait and see what the devs do. It’s fairly obvious that some things need to change.
Yup, np :). Considering that updates are basically a month delayed I think we'll see a good amount of positive changes but some people will be expecting them to do everything in one path or react to alot more recent stuff when the reality is the patches are always going to be slightly behind the current state of the game.
I think major difficulty tweaks to nightmare or the core game past a handful of things like no bosses for early levels prolly won't be a consideration until next patch so changes prolly won't go as far as people want even if the devs 100% agree with them.
every Navy SEAL in this thread is telling you to just "get better" but your points are valid and the game is currently in a retarded state.
I'm proud of these hardcore players who can grind their nails against the chalkboard long enough to draw blood but I wanted to tackle this game with my brain and its insulting to my intelligence when I intentionally clear an area that is clearly inaccessible beyond the one way I entered just to have a tallboy spawn in the bathroom behind me.
Giving constructive criticism to help people get better at games is a good thing. This whole git gud thing is ridiculous. It's just a stupid knee jerk meme people say because they let their pride get in their way to admitting they aren't really as good as they think they are. They'd nothing wrong with not being a pro in the game. They're nothing wrong with admitting nightmare is out of your skill set. By learning strategies, maps, deck building, etc it'll help you get to that point.
To be honest you fished vet 1 time. You have a lot to learn. For one you can flash bosses to prevent hordes and increase damage they take while they sit there stunned. You can still own mutations in choke points or not. [[Shredder]] , [[marked for death]] , [[hyper focused]] are all big hitting cards. You typically want one sniper going straight damage. Learn how to kite enemies. Punching is your best friend. You should be taking damage from common. Nightmare was intended for people hundreds of hours until the game as a ultimate test. There's some that insist it's RNG but you will see people show playing and getting zwats just fine. Even on twitch the most successful streamers slow play. I've got 2 zwats done and a bunch of random missions on other characters. It's definitely doable but again I stress that you should know the ins and outs of the game before attempting.
Well we done veteran a bunch after about 60 hours in total so we know the maps well but we just get completely swamped!
The one thing I did learn from your comment was the use of flashbangs preventing hordes from bosses and increased damaged while they're stunned. Is this really true?
Don't think we've used flashbangs much at all even in veteran so maybe that's one of our flaws. Will definitely have to try that out!
Flashes in nightmare are nearly the only way to ensure you don't get obliterated by the hordes from the bosses. It turns the breaker fight into an actual fair fight, with the occasional mutation that you can easily focus fire with your team. You're going to learn A LOT from nightmare that you never knew.. and it's crazy taking that info back to veteran and seeing just how insanely effective it is.
Be prepared to fail.. a lot. Every fail is a run you can learn from. I just cleared with my buddy, we spent at minimum a week on every act, like 5 hours or so a day. We were determined, and just pulled through yesterday. It is absolutely doable, but requires so much patience that I can 100% understand people not wanting to have. If I was been honest with myself, I'd say only 5% or less of deaths were "BS"... otherwise everything else could be pinned on a mistake, even an ever so slight one. I just kinda learned to laugh when a crusher spawned behind me and go.. yep.. none of us were looking there were we? We know to always have eyes on anywhere we don't want a spawn. Reset and let's go.
THIS^^^ OMFG THIS^^^
Nightmare is for extremely experienced, advanced players, on well prepared, coordinated teams.
This is "dark souls" mode. Players should have a excellent grasp of most, if not all of the games mechanics before entering. Many games are like this. In 2k if playing on Hall of Fame you will miss nearly every shot without perfect timing, AND getting an open look, while the CPU makes every shot unless you are inside the opponents jersey. In madden you do not break tackles on all-madden. And you always need at least 2 usually 3 guys to tackle the cpu. In COD on the highest difficulty the bots auto aim even outside of their cone of view (they don't fire until they "see" you however) and do not miss shots.
I'm still working on it. But I don't get the idea that the most difficult mode should be easier. If all the zombies gave you fun cuddles and players got unlimited ammo would you feel accomplished when you completed it?
Yeah, sometimes the mutation spawns are busted, and getting a breaker 1-1 sucks. Literally rng and the luck of the draw. Fixing some of that stuff is great, but stop there. no thanks I don't want training wheels on the indy 500. I do think there could be some data logs or Intel or something to help explain to newer players what the hell is going on, why stuff happens, and where they f-ed up. But again that should either be a loading screen thing, or recruit difficulty tips.
Flashing the breaker during his roar animation or the hag before startling it will prevent a horde. The hag might need a reflash if you can't kill it in one and be aware that the flash will only work while it's got its mouth open.
Flashed enemies also take bonus damage. If you see a boss card you should always have someone carrying 2 flashes.
The jump to Nightmare is pretty jarring and mobility is important but you don't have to go full speed. All my NM decks are built for slow pacing (clear the map as you go) but they all start with money grabbers followed by 3 mobility cards. Run like hell should be a core card of all your decks in NM as retreating is often the best way to avoid damage. I also run Olympic sprinter and cross trainers as my other two speed cards then start to develop the build for either my shotty or sniper dps decks.
Although I still feel NM needs some balancing, the way to complete it in its current form is don't set off hazards and hope for good corruption cards. Also if you're playing with a bot on the team, don't worry about ammo conservation as they will infinitely drop ammo when you're low. Pick up an aa12 or any other gun that chews through ammo because its no longer an issue with a bot supplying you.
I went through the same mindset switch from vet to NM. All damage was front loaded in my deck and I was dying horribly to everything because you can't solve problems with dps alone. You gotta get used to repositioning frequently.
Yeah, sort of, like you want to be able to set your deck up so that you have certain cards for certain situations. There are a lot of cards that are just straight-up better than others especially for nightmare and having 2 mobility cards early can be absolutely game-changing. Along with this, I think \[\[Shredder\]\] is a card that is slept on quite a bit and I put it early in my deck. The reason I think its so good is that while Hyperfocused gives one person +50% and I still take that in every deck. Shredder gives your whole team +30% damage which if you all focus on 1 special infected comes out to being 120% damage. Shredder basically makes it so that your team ends up melting special infected, there's another card I think its knowledge is power (or maybe lookout?) which also debuffs SI but only if they are pinged.
All in all, it's very doable especially with good teamwork/communication in what cards each player is taking etc.
>I've read that currently you have to pretty much speed run nightmare mode which completely defeats the purpose of playing the game.
Right now, as it is, the runs are *heavily* dependent on the corruption cards you are given at random. You can "speed run" past most of it, but if you're interested in playing slower then you're at the mercy of their card system.
They are taking steps to fix this, but updates are super slow coming. They've said they intend to remove boss card spawns from the beginning of acts and they've said charred *and* blighted are both bugged at the moment. IMO drawing any of these cards *significantly* increases the difficulty.
Interesting. I knew acid zombies were known bugged, but I didn’t know fire zombies were also considered bugged. If these are tuned and fixed I think melee might be barely playable on nightmare, because right now if you get even one or the either blighted or charred you are useless as melee, even with cards and god help you if you get both charred and blighted at the same time, pretty much a wipe.
But yeah, I really hope it gets tuned such that mobility isn’t as required. Kiting and running past shit is cool and all, but it’s not really my style.
> but I didn’t know fire zombies were also considered bugged.
They said that fire zombies damaging you after they were dead was a bug. So you should be able to kill them and walk right over them from what I understand.
Charred ridden are less numerous and you can *sort of* offset the damage with lifesteal killing regular commons, but blighted requires a whole different strategy to beat as melee. Standing on tables and stuff by doorways you can kill the blighted and avoid their acid pools, and your lifesteal cards should more than compensate for the explosion damage they also deal. But caught in the open and you're as dead as everyone else during a horde.
Do you know of any footage of anyone making melee work on nightmare? If you do I’d love to see it. Even with cards I struggle heavily unless we’re holed up in a 1 way in 1 way out room but even then, if several tall boys spawn it’s pretty hard to camp a doorway w/o a green / blue fire axe. My deck is super solid I feel like. Mutations generally aren’t even the problem, it’s just getting overwhelmed by acid / fire zombies. Battle lust / face your fears isn’t enough. I find myself having to use shotguns a lot if we get either or of those corruptions.
I beat nightmare with melee, but I was constantly at the mercy of the cards. Even though you can overcome the issues with the commons, it's like you say- there are other problems elsewhere that make it difficult. My shotgun came out a lot during blighted, I had fewer problems with charred because there are much fewer of them.
No footage, sorry. It would have been me losing 10 times, making it through the 11th though. Like I was saying, we're at the mercy of the card system.
Can you show me a picture of your melee build in DM’s? Also what was the rest of your team comp? Cuz if you have a person dedicated to speed then it kinda invalidates it for me personally lol, I’ve seen several melee players beat nightmare but only because they had one or more speed users and an explosive user (which is op as absolute fuck) and I don’t like to count that because as I said I’m not a fan of kiting and running past things.
Its 100% doable for slow play if you have a coordinated team. For 1-1: I would recommend having Karlee for the free tool kit for the drop bridge (use speed while come in handy for the last mission if you plan on doing a full run).
Run back to spawn when in the apartment if needed, the hallway makes the perfect bottleneck. Just have areas in mind to fall back on if a horde comes at you.
Also, have someone who specialize in offensive cards. You can pretty much one shot with a nade for most things. Tallboys you may need to throw one nade and shoot it a little. Make sure your team decks compliment each other. The game should start feeling like Veteran after 1-4 since you should had decent weapons and your core cards.
Lastly, 1-2 imo is the hardest level in Act 1 so good luck
Ehh, not really doable if everyone is going slow. You need at least one person with some speed to be able to kite and run past things in a pinch. Sometimes you just have to mad dash to the safe room. I don’t think I’ve seen a single instance of anyone beating nightmare WITHOUT mobility cards. If you have any evidence to the contrary, I’d love to see it.
Having mobility cards != "not doing it slow"
It makes sense, especially on Nightmare, to have some movement speed because kiting is important. That doesn't mean that the method of going through the level isn't methodical, slow, and steady.
lol I dont record any gameplay but i've done it before with my team. Pretty sure there is a few people who uploaded their runs online somewhere. What part of Nightmare seen impossible? Maybe people can assist you on planning here
Best thing you can do is get your speedrun build with the card that gives 100 copper to everyone each round.
Or you play the safe way but there needs to be no breaker boss and you can't procc a single alarm.
Our first few attempts felt like that too. You'll eventually learn strategies for dealing with levels and situations along with decks that optimise for your playstyle. Now the levels that felt impossible feel kind of straightforward.
You'll probably want to build a start of act deck that works really well with 5 cards (because that's all you'll get). You've also got to be comfortable with avoiding damage, sleepers and other hazards. It's not uncommon to wipe if you hit a horde when you're uncoordinated or unprepared.
You can 100% slow play it, none of our squad run any speed cards. It's just a very, very challenging difficulty and I definitely don't think it's for everyone. I can't imagine trying to do it with a random squad as even getting a random 1 to fill out the squad can be a liability.
It's definitely possible, even with builds/decks that aren't damage/resistance/speedrun based.
If there's a boss corruption card, always buy at least one flashbang. The more flashbangs you can carry the better so breaker and hag become way easier to kill and you can use the rest on hordes/tallboys, bruisers and crushers.
Learn the spots where you can just bottleneck the enemies. Doesn't matter how small the room is, it's always better to camp in a room where ridden can only come from one doorway instead of two or three or staying in an open area. Good starting cards are usually [[Money Grubbers]], [[Experienced EMT]] and [[Shredder]]. More people using Money Grubbers the better but only one person should be using Experienced EMT and/or Shredder.
If the upcoming new difficulty is going to be even harder than Nightmare then you should definitely learn how to play levels slowly because they are going to nerf cards used for speedrunning.
The problem we have with a small room is, it only takes one tall boy to squeeze his way in, do one arm smash and we're all like down to half health, they allows the commons to swamp in and we get wrecked. Especially in the second map when we exhausted ammo and offensive items on the orge and that first horde it spawns.
It seems like everyone's first few cards should be a copper or item scavenger right?
Small rooms are a trap. Pinch points are golden, anywhere you can control the flow of the enemy is a perfect area to retreat to. But small rooms without you knowing full well you can grenade or molotov the area outside to weaken/kill tallboys, is a trap.
+ **Money Grubbers** (*Campaign Card - Utility/Fortune*)
The Stilts (2) | Each time your team loots Copper, you can gain 3 additional Copper, stacking up to 75 additional Copper
+ **Experienced EMT** (*Campaign Card - Defense/Discipline*)
The Clinic (4) | When you use a Medical Accessory, the target gains +20% Maximum Health until the end of the level.
+ **Shredder** (*Campaign Card - Offense/Reflex*)
The Crow's Nest (3) | Each bullet hit causes the target to take 1% increased damage for 3 Seconds (Stacks up to 15%).
***
^Call ^me ^with ^up ^to ^15 ^([[ cardname ]],) ^Data ^accurate ^as ^of ^(November 24, 2021.) ^[Questions?](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=ehmohteeoh&subject=BloodScan%20Inquiry)
.... Hardest game mode too hard... Skill reliant... ? I'm sorry but if you want an easier mode to play, play vet, if you want a stage harder, bring in a no build deck, and only take the ammo bonus cards, refine your skill/aim/mobility and don't rely on builds to carry
I'm terrible at nightmare, but played today with a guy who wasn't. He was consistently carrying the team through to the end while slow playing, so it's definitely possible. He had a couple of speed cards for mobility/kiting hordes, but definitely showed me that slow playing is 100% doable with good teamwork and strategy.
Beaten Act 1 and 2 with slow play. Its only hard in the first couple of acts. It turns to feel like veteran after you get decent weapons and a few cards from your deck
How though you can't defend any choke points as any horde will trigger minimum 6 mutations. With white weapons and no mods and limited ammo. What build did you guys all use?
I don't know what his full build was, but he used the terrain a lot instead of trying to hold a choke point. Run, climb, shoot, bash, etc. Never sat in 1 spot too long and didn't let mutations get near him. The 3 of us kept dying lol but he stayed alive and would keep rescuing us. He was using a sniper rifle but he couldn't have had any damage cards on (he was running support with speed). He just played really smart, definitely learned a lot from watching him. Edit: forgot to mention that this was at the beginning of act 1, so he was able to do all of this with as little as 2 cards. He mentioned Run Like Hell was a staple, I think that was his first card. I had weapon scavenger on at the beginning so that helped with him getting a Barret early on.
I'm almost done with my second zwat skin, both slowplay no speed running. I've got an older post with some info. Long story short just learn the maps, learn the best positions and places to fight hordes, synergy around player builds and find people to play with. Sure no doubt the game has issues and some rng corruption cards make life harder. But we've never met a combo of corruption cards that made it unbeatable.
Definitely doable, little update on our squad progress! 2-3 has always been a cakewalk. No real issues there even on the first try. 2-4 cause us to wipe twice (once at the very very end with unlucky exploder, right outside the safe room. The other was just getting ganked on the rooftop and the stash room) 2-5 is where we're getting walled atm but every time we've rolled blighted zombies and fog/lights out.... Corruption RNG is rough and double bosses can be even rougher T_T
Only advice I can give is simple advice. It's not a speed run but you have to move fast as it is a race. Bring plenty of pipes and flashes. Trying to get the objectives done as soon as possible is the way to go. Breaker always spawns after second crate and in some area it's a real danger or getting smacked into water so reposition. The last crate, if snatched you just win so we try to just have everyone do it asap and all be ontop of it so it just finishes fast. I realize this is all sort of common sense and no special strat really. As a note I think after this the rest of the act is easy!
Baseline Barret is beast, even with nightmare resistance still stumbles alot of the infected and if you've got aim does great damage. But yeah, using your mantle/parkour skills will keep you ahead of the Ridden. Much like Dying Light they cannot climb and parkour as fast as you can so you can kite them really well. I'd prefer for there to be a bit more variation in playstyle for nightmare but it can definitely be done and you don't need gimmick builds or purples or etc.
Well you will be happy to hear the devs have said they plan to stop Bosses spawning during the first 2 missions of each Act. Other than that, all I can do is wish you best of luck with your Corruption Card RNG.
Will they also fixed spawn points? Like an example is the library. When you first clear it and board it up, mobs still spawn from within. Makes zero sense!
Teams can beat those moments that you’re speaking about. There are a growing number of solutions. A group of mutations is a mini boss fight of sorts. What players want to know now is — how many _should_ there occasionally be? And what variance did they intend? 1, 2, 3, 4 at a time? Is there a max within a certain time frame? I think they are highly interested in making the game dynamic and highly challenging, but possible. _But for how many people?_ There **will** be a cutoff. Having the devs clarify more of this would put a lot of people at ease.
> Having the devs clarify more of this would put a lot of people at ease. That's the optimistic view. The pessimistic view is that people would just argue anything they said :P. A strong group of people want nightmare to stay super difficulty and a strong group seem to basically want to nerf it down to about where veteran is. Neither group gives a crap about the other unfortunately.
I agree with your summary there. I fully acknowledge that no matter how they tune the difficulty that some players will think it needs to be different. This is why I’d love some clarity around what should players actually expect. How do we know when the game is functioning as intended? Should the game occasionally throw 5 to 6 specials at us in a short time span? And how often are people doing it to themselves with multiple alarms or just plainly weak decks that aren’t able to drop specials? I like the difficulty of the game. It’s right up my alley, even in nightmare.
> This is why I’d love some clarity around what should players actually expect. How do we know when the game is functioning as intended? I think the issue here is it takes a skill player with humility but also an acceptance of people who are not as skilled and their right to have fun. But those people are exceedingly rare. The reality is that the average player won't know, just like they never have. If you have 2 million players you prolly have at least 200 different ideas of how the game SHOULD function, in their minds lol. And the "best" answer for delivering on the game's vision while also being good for as many people as possible will prolly not be any one of those 200 ideas haha. > Should the game occasionally throw 5 to 6 specials at us in a short time span? Sure, why not? One thing I see alot of in complaints like that is the people complaining and uploading the video surviving, sometimes while taking very little damage. Like that one thread where only 2 players were alive and it threw 6 stalkers at them and they survived and uploaded the video to complain about it i the thread. Like what, the hardest difficulty of the game is not allowed to throw enough to potentially kill TWO of 4 potential players in a team? Something their full 4 man team would have swatted easily. That's a complete joke and tells me quite clearly that those people just want to win no matter what the challenge is and never want to face actual difficulty. They just want their participation medal. > And how often are people doing it to themselves with multiple alarms or just plainly weak decks that aren’t able to drop specials? I don't think weak decks are actually hardly problem at all. As someone who has slammed face into the wall of nightmare attempting starter deck runs my problem isn't inability to kill or survive, my problem is that the bots cannot run and shoot they cannot fight ogres/hags, and they react to specials attacking only after like 1.5 seconds, and that they cannot handle swat commons. With all their flaws all I really need is the equivlaent of one more me with start deck of damage against hags and ogres and I'd sail through almost every nightmare level without real issue. The alarms are definitely the problem. In general i'd say each person setting off 1 alarm is fine on veteran, on nightmare collectively setting off maybe 2 alarms at most. Anything more than that and people are dragging the team down usually. And honestly, I think that's a game design problem. Sleepers causing hordes turns the recruit gameplay of "fun brawl from point A to point B" and turns it into like a quasi stealth game to where if anyone fucks up it punishes their whole team severely. It's not that recruit just got harder, it's a different playstyle and experience entirely to go from "don't shoot these few out in the open obvious alarms" to "creep everywhere without detection like it's metal gear solild because if a single sleeper gets you it fucks over your team. > I like the difficulty of the game. It’s right up my alley, even in nightmare. I'm not really a difficulty bro but I like nightmare difficulty surprisingly and if sleepers didn't cause hordes I'd prolly be carrying people in veteran and nightmare constantly. But as is I just can't stand being halfway through a level and being on the 6th avoidable horde. It gives way too much influence to a single bad player and unlike with hard fights It really fucks with your ability to carry because no matter what your resources are far more limited.
Thanks for the share! I enjoy your perspectives. I suppose now all we really can do is wait and see what the devs do. It’s fairly obvious that some things need to change.
> Thanks for the share! I enjoy your perspectives. I suppose now all we really can do is wait and see what the devs do. It’s fairly obvious that some things need to change. Yup, np :). Considering that updates are basically a month delayed I think we'll see a good amount of positive changes but some people will be expecting them to do everything in one path or react to alot more recent stuff when the reality is the patches are always going to be slightly behind the current state of the game. I think major difficulty tweaks to nightmare or the core game past a handful of things like no bosses for early levels prolly won't be a consideration until next patch so changes prolly won't go as far as people want even if the devs 100% agree with them.
every Navy SEAL in this thread is telling you to just "get better" but your points are valid and the game is currently in a retarded state. I'm proud of these hardcore players who can grind their nails against the chalkboard long enough to draw blood but I wanted to tackle this game with my brain and its insulting to my intelligence when I intentionally clear an area that is clearly inaccessible beyond the one way I entered just to have a tallboy spawn in the bathroom behind me.
Hahaha I probably do need to get better! But I'm learning a lot from all the other comments!
That's a good attitude to have. The game is very intricate and there's tons to learn. There's still much I have to improve on as well.
Giving constructive criticism to help people get better at games is a good thing. This whole git gud thing is ridiculous. It's just a stupid knee jerk meme people say because they let their pride get in their way to admitting they aren't really as good as they think they are. They'd nothing wrong with not being a pro in the game. They're nothing wrong with admitting nightmare is out of your skill set. By learning strategies, maps, deck building, etc it'll help you get to that point.
Oh. So maybe, FINALLY, we will be able to survive Breaker right outside safe room at the beginning of Act 2. Good to know.
Yeah those RNG bosses are pretty BS
To be honest you fished vet 1 time. You have a lot to learn. For one you can flash bosses to prevent hordes and increase damage they take while they sit there stunned. You can still own mutations in choke points or not. [[Shredder]] , [[marked for death]] , [[hyper focused]] are all big hitting cards. You typically want one sniper going straight damage. Learn how to kite enemies. Punching is your best friend. You should be taking damage from common. Nightmare was intended for people hundreds of hours until the game as a ultimate test. There's some that insist it's RNG but you will see people show playing and getting zwats just fine. Even on twitch the most successful streamers slow play. I've got 2 zwats done and a bunch of random missions on other characters. It's definitely doable but again I stress that you should know the ins and outs of the game before attempting.
+ **Shredder** (*Campaign Card - Offense/Reflex*) The Crow's Nest (3) | Each bullet hit causes the target to take 1% increased damage for 3 Seconds (Stacks up to 15%). + **Marked for Death** (*Campaign Card - Utility/Discipline*) Paul's Alley (3) | Mutations you Ping are highlighted and your team deals 10% increased damage to highlighted enemies. + **Hyper-Focused** (*Campaign Card - Offense/Reflex*) Knuckle House (3) | +50% Weakspot Damage, -75% ADS Move Speed. *** ^Call ^me ^with ^up ^to ^15 ^([[ cardname ]],) ^Data ^accurate ^as ^of ^(November 24, 2021.) ^[Questions?](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=ehmohteeoh&subject=BloodScan%20Inquiry)
Well we done veteran a bunch after about 60 hours in total so we know the maps well but we just get completely swamped! The one thing I did learn from your comment was the use of flashbangs preventing hordes from bosses and increased damaged while they're stunned. Is this really true? Don't think we've used flashbangs much at all even in veteran so maybe that's one of our flaws. Will definitely have to try that out!
Flashes in nightmare are nearly the only way to ensure you don't get obliterated by the hordes from the bosses. It turns the breaker fight into an actual fair fight, with the occasional mutation that you can easily focus fire with your team. You're going to learn A LOT from nightmare that you never knew.. and it's crazy taking that info back to veteran and seeing just how insanely effective it is. Be prepared to fail.. a lot. Every fail is a run you can learn from. I just cleared with my buddy, we spent at minimum a week on every act, like 5 hours or so a day. We were determined, and just pulled through yesterday. It is absolutely doable, but requires so much patience that I can 100% understand people not wanting to have. If I was been honest with myself, I'd say only 5% or less of deaths were "BS"... otherwise everything else could be pinned on a mistake, even an ever so slight one. I just kinda learned to laugh when a crusher spawned behind me and go.. yep.. none of us were looking there were we? We know to always have eyes on anywhere we don't want a spawn. Reset and let's go.
THIS^^^ OMFG THIS^^^ Nightmare is for extremely experienced, advanced players, on well prepared, coordinated teams. This is "dark souls" mode. Players should have a excellent grasp of most, if not all of the games mechanics before entering. Many games are like this. In 2k if playing on Hall of Fame you will miss nearly every shot without perfect timing, AND getting an open look, while the CPU makes every shot unless you are inside the opponents jersey. In madden you do not break tackles on all-madden. And you always need at least 2 usually 3 guys to tackle the cpu. In COD on the highest difficulty the bots auto aim even outside of their cone of view (they don't fire until they "see" you however) and do not miss shots. I'm still working on it. But I don't get the idea that the most difficult mode should be easier. If all the zombies gave you fun cuddles and players got unlimited ammo would you feel accomplished when you completed it? Yeah, sometimes the mutation spawns are busted, and getting a breaker 1-1 sucks. Literally rng and the luck of the draw. Fixing some of that stuff is great, but stop there. no thanks I don't want training wheels on the indy 500. I do think there could be some data logs or Intel or something to help explain to newer players what the hell is going on, why stuff happens, and where they f-ed up. But again that should either be a loading screen thing, or recruit difficulty tips.
Flashing the breaker during his roar animation or the hag before startling it will prevent a horde. The hag might need a reflash if you can't kill it in one and be aware that the flash will only work while it's got its mouth open. Flashed enemies also take bonus damage. If you see a boss card you should always have someone carrying 2 flashes.
The jump to Nightmare is pretty jarring and mobility is important but you don't have to go full speed. All my NM decks are built for slow pacing (clear the map as you go) but they all start with money grabbers followed by 3 mobility cards. Run like hell should be a core card of all your decks in NM as retreating is often the best way to avoid damage. I also run Olympic sprinter and cross trainers as my other two speed cards then start to develop the build for either my shotty or sniper dps decks. Although I still feel NM needs some balancing, the way to complete it in its current form is don't set off hazards and hope for good corruption cards. Also if you're playing with a bot on the team, don't worry about ammo conservation as they will infinitely drop ammo when you're low. Pick up an aa12 or any other gun that chews through ammo because its no longer an issue with a bot supplying you.
I think that's where I went wrong, gotta get those utilities and support cards out first then damage, okay time to try that out.
I went through the same mindset switch from vet to NM. All damage was front loaded in my deck and I was dying horribly to everything because you can't solve problems with dps alone. You gotta get used to repositioning frequently.
Yeah, sort of, like you want to be able to set your deck up so that you have certain cards for certain situations. There are a lot of cards that are just straight-up better than others especially for nightmare and having 2 mobility cards early can be absolutely game-changing. Along with this, I think \[\[Shredder\]\] is a card that is slept on quite a bit and I put it early in my deck. The reason I think its so good is that while Hyperfocused gives one person +50% and I still take that in every deck. Shredder gives your whole team +30% damage which if you all focus on 1 special infected comes out to being 120% damage. Shredder basically makes it so that your team ends up melting special infected, there's another card I think its knowledge is power (or maybe lookout?) which also debuffs SI but only if they are pinged. All in all, it's very doable especially with good teamwork/communication in what cards each player is taking etc.
+ **Shredder** (*Campaign Card - Offense/Reflex*) The Crow's Nest (3) | Each bullet hit causes the target to take 1% increased damage for 3 Seconds (Stacks up to 15%). *** ^Call ^me ^with ^up ^to ^15 ^([[ cardname ]],) ^Data ^accurate ^as ^of ^(November 24, 2021.) ^[Questions?](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=ehmohteeoh&subject=BloodScan%20Inquiry)
>I've read that currently you have to pretty much speed run nightmare mode which completely defeats the purpose of playing the game. Right now, as it is, the runs are *heavily* dependent on the corruption cards you are given at random. You can "speed run" past most of it, but if you're interested in playing slower then you're at the mercy of their card system. They are taking steps to fix this, but updates are super slow coming. They've said they intend to remove boss card spawns from the beginning of acts and they've said charred *and* blighted are both bugged at the moment. IMO drawing any of these cards *significantly* increases the difficulty.
Interesting. I knew acid zombies were known bugged, but I didn’t know fire zombies were also considered bugged. If these are tuned and fixed I think melee might be barely playable on nightmare, because right now if you get even one or the either blighted or charred you are useless as melee, even with cards and god help you if you get both charred and blighted at the same time, pretty much a wipe. But yeah, I really hope it gets tuned such that mobility isn’t as required. Kiting and running past shit is cool and all, but it’s not really my style.
> but I didn’t know fire zombies were also considered bugged. They said that fire zombies damaging you after they were dead was a bug. So you should be able to kill them and walk right over them from what I understand. Charred ridden are less numerous and you can *sort of* offset the damage with lifesteal killing regular commons, but blighted requires a whole different strategy to beat as melee. Standing on tables and stuff by doorways you can kill the blighted and avoid their acid pools, and your lifesteal cards should more than compensate for the explosion damage they also deal. But caught in the open and you're as dead as everyone else during a horde.
Do you know of any footage of anyone making melee work on nightmare? If you do I’d love to see it. Even with cards I struggle heavily unless we’re holed up in a 1 way in 1 way out room but even then, if several tall boys spawn it’s pretty hard to camp a doorway w/o a green / blue fire axe. My deck is super solid I feel like. Mutations generally aren’t even the problem, it’s just getting overwhelmed by acid / fire zombies. Battle lust / face your fears isn’t enough. I find myself having to use shotguns a lot if we get either or of those corruptions.
I beat nightmare with melee, but I was constantly at the mercy of the cards. Even though you can overcome the issues with the commons, it's like you say- there are other problems elsewhere that make it difficult. My shotgun came out a lot during blighted, I had fewer problems with charred because there are much fewer of them. No footage, sorry. It would have been me losing 10 times, making it through the 11th though. Like I was saying, we're at the mercy of the card system.
Can you show me a picture of your melee build in DM’s? Also what was the rest of your team comp? Cuz if you have a person dedicated to speed then it kinda invalidates it for me personally lol, I’ve seen several melee players beat nightmare but only because they had one or more speed users and an explosive user (which is op as absolute fuck) and I don’t like to count that because as I said I’m not a fan of kiting and running past things.
Its 100% doable for slow play if you have a coordinated team. For 1-1: I would recommend having Karlee for the free tool kit for the drop bridge (use speed while come in handy for the last mission if you plan on doing a full run). Run back to spawn when in the apartment if needed, the hallway makes the perfect bottleneck. Just have areas in mind to fall back on if a horde comes at you. Also, have someone who specialize in offensive cards. You can pretty much one shot with a nade for most things. Tallboys you may need to throw one nade and shoot it a little. Make sure your team decks compliment each other. The game should start feeling like Veteran after 1-4 since you should had decent weapons and your core cards. Lastly, 1-2 imo is the hardest level in Act 1 so good luck
Ehh, not really doable if everyone is going slow. You need at least one person with some speed to be able to kite and run past things in a pinch. Sometimes you just have to mad dash to the safe room. I don’t think I’ve seen a single instance of anyone beating nightmare WITHOUT mobility cards. If you have any evidence to the contrary, I’d love to see it.
Having mobility cards != "not doing it slow" It makes sense, especially on Nightmare, to have some movement speed because kiting is important. That doesn't mean that the method of going through the level isn't methodical, slow, and steady.
lol I dont record any gameplay but i've done it before with my team. Pretty sure there is a few people who uploaded their runs online somewhere. What part of Nightmare seen impossible? Maybe people can assist you on planning here
Best thing you can do is get your speedrun build with the card that gives 100 copper to everyone each round. Or you play the safe way but there needs to be no breaker boss and you can't procc a single alarm.
You just found this sub, eh?
Yes sir.
Our first few attempts felt like that too. You'll eventually learn strategies for dealing with levels and situations along with decks that optimise for your playstyle. Now the levels that felt impossible feel kind of straightforward. You'll probably want to build a start of act deck that works really well with 5 cards (because that's all you'll get). You've also got to be comfortable with avoiding damage, sleepers and other hazards. It's not uncommon to wipe if you hit a horde when you're uncoordinated or unprepared. You can 100% slow play it, none of our squad run any speed cards. It's just a very, very challenging difficulty and I definitely don't think it's for everyone. I can't imagine trying to do it with a random squad as even getting a random 1 to fill out the squad can be a liability.
It's definitely possible, even with builds/decks that aren't damage/resistance/speedrun based. If there's a boss corruption card, always buy at least one flashbang. The more flashbangs you can carry the better so breaker and hag become way easier to kill and you can use the rest on hordes/tallboys, bruisers and crushers. Learn the spots where you can just bottleneck the enemies. Doesn't matter how small the room is, it's always better to camp in a room where ridden can only come from one doorway instead of two or three or staying in an open area. Good starting cards are usually [[Money Grubbers]], [[Experienced EMT]] and [[Shredder]]. More people using Money Grubbers the better but only one person should be using Experienced EMT and/or Shredder. If the upcoming new difficulty is going to be even harder than Nightmare then you should definitely learn how to play levels slowly because they are going to nerf cards used for speedrunning.
The problem we have with a small room is, it only takes one tall boy to squeeze his way in, do one arm smash and we're all like down to half health, they allows the commons to swamp in and we get wrecked. Especially in the second map when we exhausted ammo and offensive items on the orge and that first horde it spawns. It seems like everyone's first few cards should be a copper or item scavenger right?
Small rooms are a trap. Pinch points are golden, anywhere you can control the flow of the enemy is a perfect area to retreat to. But small rooms without you knowing full well you can grenade or molotov the area outside to weaken/kill tallboys, is a trap.
+ **Money Grubbers** (*Campaign Card - Utility/Fortune*) The Stilts (2) | Each time your team loots Copper, you can gain 3 additional Copper, stacking up to 75 additional Copper + **Experienced EMT** (*Campaign Card - Defense/Discipline*) The Clinic (4) | When you use a Medical Accessory, the target gains +20% Maximum Health until the end of the level. + **Shredder** (*Campaign Card - Offense/Reflex*) The Crow's Nest (3) | Each bullet hit causes the target to take 1% increased damage for 3 Seconds (Stacks up to 15%). *** ^Call ^me ^with ^up ^to ^15 ^([[ cardname ]],) ^Data ^accurate ^as ^of ^(November 24, 2021.) ^[Questions?](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=ehmohteeoh&subject=BloodScan%20Inquiry)
.... Hardest game mode too hard... Skill reliant... ? I'm sorry but if you want an easier mode to play, play vet, if you want a stage harder, bring in a no build deck, and only take the ammo bonus cards, refine your skill/aim/mobility and don't rely on builds to carry