Ok, so I finally decided to give a solo Hell on Earth a try. Here's my thoughts about the new difficulty setting and balance changes in general.
Firstly, transition from old suicidal was barely noticeable in gameplay. My old strategy was just fine. Start as a demo to get GL and pipes, on wave 2 switch to berserker to buy a katana, then stick to medic for the rest of the game. Medic gun for crawlers and sometimes sirens in close quarters, later to be replaced by SCAR (after wave 5).
I thought that katana nerf will be something hard to deal with - but no. Gorefasts still appear quite stunned when you chop off their heads, and you can still one-hit kill anything else from the trash tier (at least if you have a good 90%+ headshots ratio). In the early stages, the only noticeable difference is Husk close combat - as the power strike won't break his attacks anymore. Sure, I miss chopping helpless Scrakes, but that's nothing that a SCAR mag to the face won't fix.
The most noticeable change is the money. They are tight at all times, so I had to forget filling up my ammo. Luckily, I rarely use more than 12 grenades and 5 SCAR mags per wave. Which brings me to another matter:
Fleshpounds. My patented strategy is to lay a pipe bomb 4-5 meters in front of it, and quickly backpedal and enrage him when he's directly standing on it (giving the pipe needed time to arm) with SCAR mag to the chest. Given the current pipebomb price for non-demos, this proves to be quite expensive tactic, as you will have to deal with 5 FP's during a long solo game. I almost thought that I'll lose the game when I accidentally wasted one pipe on some bloat, but in the end, I managed to get the needed amount of dosh every wave.
The unbreakable clot grab is quite brutal on the other hand - one mistake at swinging katana and you're grabbed, and presumably, 50% of your armor is gone before you'll break out from the fray.
On a side note, this may be a coincidence, but I noticed more Husks spawn throughout the game.
The Patriarch was a pure formality. I went demo, laid one pile of 10 pipes (a good side of limited funds
), then put three rockets in his arse when he was running away. Flawless victory, not even a scratch taken.
So, for the tl;dr's: I expected it to be more brutal, but in truth, solo HoE is not very different from the old, good suicidal.
Firstly, transition from old suicidal was barely noticeable in gameplay. My old strategy was just fine. Start as a demo to get GL and pipes, on wave 2 switch to berserker to buy a katana, then stick to medic for the rest of the game. Medic gun for crawlers and sometimes sirens in close quarters, later to be replaced by SCAR (after wave 5).
I thought that katana nerf will be something hard to deal with - but no. Gorefasts still appear quite stunned when you chop off their heads, and you can still one-hit kill anything else from the trash tier (at least if you have a good 90%+ headshots ratio). In the early stages, the only noticeable difference is Husk close combat - as the power strike won't break his attacks anymore. Sure, I miss chopping helpless Scrakes, but that's nothing that a SCAR mag to the face won't fix.
The most noticeable change is the money. They are tight at all times, so I had to forget filling up my ammo. Luckily, I rarely use more than 12 grenades and 5 SCAR mags per wave. Which brings me to another matter:
Fleshpounds. My patented strategy is to lay a pipe bomb 4-5 meters in front of it, and quickly backpedal and enrage him when he's directly standing on it (giving the pipe needed time to arm) with SCAR mag to the chest. Given the current pipebomb price for non-demos, this proves to be quite expensive tactic, as you will have to deal with 5 FP's during a long solo game. I almost thought that I'll lose the game when I accidentally wasted one pipe on some bloat, but in the end, I managed to get the needed amount of dosh every wave.
The unbreakable clot grab is quite brutal on the other hand - one mistake at swinging katana and you're grabbed, and presumably, 50% of your armor is gone before you'll break out from the fray.
On a side note, this may be a coincidence, but I noticed more Husks spawn throughout the game.
The Patriarch was a pure formality. I went demo, laid one pile of 10 pipes (a good side of limited funds
), then put three rockets in his arse when he was running away. Flawless victory, not even a scratch taken.So, for the tl;dr's: I expected it to be more brutal, but in truth, solo HoE is not very different from the old, good suicidal.
