Thanks for the feedback! Sorry for the delay in answering, my house got flooded lol and the cleanup is horrible.

For the “revised” raids, brawlers are now a counter to ranged, so the old “shotgun/rifle” starting combo may not work effectively like before. Also makes early sentry guns/crossbows less of an autopick.

That said, will continue reviewing the difficulty, once i manage to reassemble my pc…

From a relatively new player perspective, raids are the part of the game I dislike the most, and due to the big penalties for losing one, basically most of the time when I get upgrades allowing me to make raids easier, it's almost an auto-pick(Incresed dodge chances, more raid money, free trap upgrades, increased spiderbot damage, increased health for test subjects, etc).

Basically due to the way the mini-game is structured, you are forced into mixing defences, and some are VERY VERY underpowered compared to others to the point it's not even funny. Spiderbots are very good general defences. Lasers are good... If you only place two of them, and never more, and if you have a long line to place them on. In fact, lasers lose efficiency considerably the more you place, which is just a design flaw in my opinion. This is due to the fact the laser emitters circle between others emitters to fire the laser. That's bad. The lowered dodge chance is the real prize, so is the damage, not the number of lasers, due to that weird mechanics. If you could link the lasers emitter by pairs, they would be good.
Turrets aren't good. Way too slow, the range doesn't make them good. You need a bunch of upgrade to make them worthwhile, and by the time you get those upgrades, chances are you have probably lost raids.
Crossbows only get good once they get piercing, and even then you need a map that allows you to make good use of it. Again, you need upgrades to even get there, and that's far into the tree. Crossbows also do 1 base damage, which is ridiculous. Spots to put turrets are limited, even if crossbows are cheap, you are pretty much blocking a spot which could be used to place something better.
Floor traps are either too weak due to only hitting one tile, and/or have a way too long cooldown even when they affect a large zone. Or worse, are one use by wave.

So basically, spider bots are the only good thing because affecting all tiles around them make them versatile, they do good damage, and they ultimately get dodge bonus . And barricades somehow. The rest has so far disappointed me greatly and is something I put because it's low price and the increasing price of spiderbots force me to opt for weaksauce defences I would otherwise not use, and makes me feel like I'm being ripped.

The random nature of raid maps also can put you in a situation where your defences won't be able to maximise your killing power.

Tower defences games have a logic to them meaning some options will always be better than others, because some rules are hard coded to the genre. To make all options viable, they need to be fine tuned to all situations. Because we get very little choice in the defences we get in a run, we absolutely need to have tools that can be serviceable to cover all of our bases. And we also need defences which can be good right from the bat, without any upgrades, the upgrades should make something good even better, not make something bad useable.

Crossbow should have higher damage.
Turrets should have faster cooldowns or fire in burst to hit multiple targets.
Floor traps should have either lingering effect, or contamination effect, or be able to slow enemies, or have faster cooldowns. One use floor traps should simply not exist.
There should be a defence which has some kind of chain lightning effect too.

Because each raid lasts only 3 waves, there is very little time to establish a setup that also makes use of compatible effects. The minigame is over before you can really build up, so you need a simple and efficient approach working with VERY limited resources. Player should be able to decide where to put barricades and puddles. Randomly placing them sometimes make them get in the way of optimal placement for others things.

I don't feel like I win or lose due to having a good strategy. I feel like I win or lose entirely depending of if the map is favorable, if the enemy composition is favorable and If I can set up a good laser death trap or not(assuming I get laser at all). And even then, it only holds thanks to some external upgrades like dodge chances/extra HP/Damage resist.

And as I'm sure some people will mention, "you can bribe raids if you don't like them!" . Yes. But here is the deal: It snowballs. Missing a raid means missing on a trap upgrade point. And if you do that, sooner or later, you will have to face the music while still having no or very few trap upgrades points, and then you are absolutely sure to get destroyed. The costs add up, and is slow down your meta game to a pretty big extent. Just as losing a raid does. So basically your only option is to fight, and it's to win. And when you are given no realistic means to do so, it doesn't feel good or right.

I also need to mention after further testing that hackers are absolutely horrible and should probably get removed. You can't possibly have effective defenses without spiderbots, or regular turrets. It's just not possible. You are either the prey of cooldowns or of limited area of effect, when it's not both, and your test subject(s) are just not gonna cut it by themselves.

In fact, either they get removed, or their effect get nerfed bad, or we get actual good traps or non mechanics turrets to compensate. Bottom line, they need a hard counter anyone can use, or their effect needs to be considerably neutered.

I also got the spinning blade trap for the first time, and it's a decent floor trap for once. It's not great, mind you, but it's acceptable.

I will prOcEEd to run... more... sImulAtions~ *Said with GlaDOS voice*

Hackers don't ACTUALLY disable spiderbots/turrets: how it works is, if the spiderbot/turret would target a hacker with an attack, that attack will be cancelled until the next cooldown. They're still annoying, though, so I will look into how unfair they are.

The fact they don't fight and ignore all regular turrets still allow them to zoom across the field at mach speed in a way most others enemies can't match, even the runners, amusingly enough. Okay, I'm exaggerating a bit, but they still pretty much run for it quite fast. From what I noticed, taking damage slow down enemies, which seems to be what is used to keep them stuck in a fight, but as I mentioned when everything fast firing(that's spiderbots and lasers when they do hit), can't hit them, as test subjects aren't that speedy and usually have to contend with a group of enemies, the hackers can slip right past as soon as they have a little breathing room.

The reasons non spinning blades traps underperform, is that in tower defense, there is one factor which is pretty important, and that's coverage. The second factor being of course DPS.

What makes a good trap/turrets is the capacity to cover a good area which is neither too big, nor too small. A too small coverage area, like traps, makes a trap unable to cover, say, two paths of attack the way a spiderbot can potentially do at crosspoints. A coverage area which is too big, means the turrets/trap has too many targets they can fire on, and will be forced to let some go while it fires at others. So, in some case a very good range isn't good. The problem is compounded when a long range turret has a slow firing rate.

In traditional tower defense, this is why the slow firing long range effects have others advantages. For example splash damage(almost all tower defense have that archetype, be it a missile turret or a fireball turrets). In traditional tower defenses too, there are tower emplacements which are behind the direct contact one, making them perfect spots for such turrets. Without that, a slow rate of fire turret which only have range going for it doesn't manage to really shine.

To come back to traps this is why floor traps in traditional tower defense are usually way cheaper than a turret: You need to put multiple of them to equal the effect of a turret, because if they only affect a tile, even without cooldown mind you, they are inferior. This is also why, some effects have to be given to them to make them specially useful. The most common one is one I mentioned earlier: The capacity to slow down enemies. This is what allows others defenses to maximise the time they can fire on enemies. But there are others ways. Lingering damage, contamination effect, chain-lightning types of effect, push back effect... All that coupled with lowered prices means traps can be a suitable alternative.

The problem of traps becomes even worse when the type of damage they do can be resisted, pyros seem to resist fire damage, so if fire traps is one of your options, well... That's unfortunate. I think some enemies also resist poison from the poison traps.

I could also mention what I think is a bit of lingering design problem: You make turrets/traps more expensive each time one trap/turret of the same type is put on the field, this is, I assume to favorise diversity in traps/turrets types.
But then when you give upgrade points, you give them to assign to categories of traps. Your upgrade system reward specialisation in one, or a limited, amount of turrets/traps types.
See the problem? One design element tells us to go in one direction, the other tells us to go in the other, and they can't elegantly meet in the middle.

I've read a previous problem was people having a go to loadout of traps turrets they always used because it was what worked the best. If so, you can keep the concept of incremental cost for same type of turrets/traps. But then maybe the upgrade system need a revamping so upgrade points spent make every single trap/turret type better in one way.
A possible idea, and I'm throwing ideas randomly, would be to have "archetypes" upgrades path like damage, speed, resilience, etc... Every point in one of those archetypes would give different bonuses to all traps/turrets types. Like a point in damage would make spiderbots hit harder, but give pierce to crossbow, make spike traps give a bleed effect, make turrets fire two bursts in one shot, etc(and the next level the spiderbot could give a small stun, while crossbow gives more damage, spiketraps get more damage too, and turrets also fire a small missile occasionally). The speed archetype would reduce cooldown, give double shot, affect two targets with an effect before a cooldown is needed, etc... And resilience one would focus on either slowing down enemies, making the turrets better able to tank, pushing enemies back, reflecting damage, that kind of thing.

If the effects are different for all turrets and change each level, then it creates decision making. One upgrade for the spiderbots and turrets damage may be very tasty, but then again, an other upgrade may boost both crossbow and traps in a way that's interesting. Everything will always get better at the same time, but the real question is how, in which way, and how does it fit in a general strategy of defenses complementing each other.

It may be a bit confusing but I hope I managed to convey what I have in mind. Players are very good at finding problems, but very bad at solving them, after all ^^ .

At higher level difficulties, I found the saw to be the most efficient in the current iteration of the game.

At first, I was focusing on turrets and spiderbots, then I tried bolts (damage is low)... but I forgo turrets and spiderbots mostly. It's too dangerous because hackers basically dismember them. If I focus on turrets and spiders and there is a hacker, basically, I lose.

Also, at higher level, zone damage basically is all. Single target damage is weak. There are so many enemies... So basically bolt is useless unless it pierces, and so is turret, and saw is kinda pointless unless it goes fast. All three are good though, despite everything. saw struggles with runners (but your test subjects don't, as long as the're in the way), bolt struggles getting enough damage and turret dies to hacker, but it's doable with all three.

Traps are low-tier for me. They nicely complement ranged units and test subjects but can't hold on their own. Way to pricey for the effect they do. Also, some enemies, like the pyro, are completely immune to the damage type of some of the traps, so meh.

In the current game:
- A tier => saw.
- B tier => turrets, bolt.
- C tier => spider.
- E tier => traps.
- F tier => lazors.

Oh yeah, there are lazors. I don't get them. Weak damage, damage zone constantly move around avoiding paths, most of the time, impossible to place because they require 2 or 4 places to do less than other objects do in a single place. Maybe I'm just dumb or something, but with 4 upgraded saws (and 4 test subjects) I clean up most raids. At first I thought that lazors would all bind to one another (so 5 lazors = 10 paths) but the path don't stay constantly lit. Sometimes it stays lit but not on paths.

For me, going further than 3 waves would be ill advised however. Those are already long enough and anyhow, skipping them via paying means getting suspicion reduced.

A year later, raids are still more frustrating than they should be... also frustrating is that while if you lose a raid, you lose a server... sometimes when someone slips through in a raid... they'll just bomb a server anyways! Not only is it frustrating, but unless there's a failsafe that means that you could theoretically lose the run on the first raid if you fail it as they might decide to bomb the servers they didn't automatically blow up.