Defense Grid 2 Beta

Yeah, should be out on the 23rd, but just having a look and it appears all the campaign is there, 616mb download happened.

DG2_early.jpg

DG2_early2.jpg


DG 2 Early ;)

The 'Free DLC Register Here' bit doesnt work yet, probably cos its 3 days too soon.

Also, whatever they've done, its not showing the full tower bar on the left, its missing the top half where all the stats are.
DG2_early3-50%25.jpg
 
Last edited:
from steam forums

"Spoke to them by email earlier today asking about this.

They confirmed the game is available early so that they can catch the final bugs and on tuesday everything's perfect.

I already reported a couple of missing strings on the menu. Loving the game so far."
 
Seems as though my issue with the tower menu stems from the fact that despite offering a 21:9 resolution, their GUI doesnt know how to work for it.

All the map loading screens, instead of being centered & full width, its over to the left hand side, and when i pick an inferior resolution for windowed, its fine (1776x1000) as im guessing thats a 16:9 res. Im guessing at 21:9 its aligned to the bottom left, and then scaled by the horizontal pixels, which is a crazy way of doing it really, but it means the tower menu isnt fully visible, so i cant see how much something costs, or how much i've got available at the time (i have to leave the tower window) to see.
 
Getting sick & tired of mission 7, its a real P-take!

I've got all the way through the first 6 missions on hard, no cores lost, in a matter of hours. Then comes #7, and its just a joke.
I've managed to get to wave 30, the final wave, without losing a core, but theres 3 sets of pure evil aliens.
You've got regenerators, which go out in 2's, which heal themself and their buddy (made worse around temporals), and then theres a single Juggernaut who's about 4x a Crusher.

Theres also a 2nd path, and balancing the firepower between both sides is just impossible. The tough as nails stuff comes down the closest lane (sheilds, crushers etc), and the far lane is all the fast little swines. If you focus on 1 lane, the other lane hammers you, if you bulk up the middles, they get distracted easily.

What makes matters worse is ive got to the final wave without losing a core, tried backtracking to change stuff to deal with the final wave better, and after at least 1h of simply repeating W20-30, i did too much damage and couldnt get back. Now ive started from scratch, must have put in about 5-6hrs the last 2 days, and im not even sure ive managed to get to wave 15-20.

Im guessing the game wants you to complete it on all the boring difficulties, get all the tower abilities, and then the proper difficulties are actually manageable. I'd dread to think what Elite is like though, it honestly wouldnt surprise me if you've got no chance of making it past wave 10.
 
Getting sick & tired of mission 7, its a real P-take!

I've got all the way through the first 6 missions on hard, no cores lost, in a matter of hours. Then comes #7, and its just a joke.
I've managed to get to wave 30, the final wave, without losing a core, but theres 3 sets of pure evil aliens.
You've got regenerators, which go out in 2's, which heal themself and their buddy (made worse around temporals), and then theres a single Juggernaut who's about 4x a Crusher.

Theres also a 2nd path, and balancing the firepower between both sides is just impossible. The tough as nails stuff comes down the closest lane (sheilds, crushers etc), and the far lane is all the fast little swines. If you focus on 1 lane, the other lane hammers you, if you bulk up the middles, they get distracted easily.

What makes matters worse is ive got to the final wave without losing a core, tried backtracking to change stuff to deal with the final wave better, and after at least 1h of simply repeating W20-30, i did too much damage and couldnt get back. Now ive started from scratch, must have put in about 5-6hrs the last 2 days, and im not even sure ive managed to get to wave 15-20.

Im guessing the game wants you to complete it on all the boring difficulties, get all the tower abilities, and then the proper difficulties are actually manageable. I'd dread to think what Elite is like though, it honestly wouldnt surprise me if you've got no chance of making it past wave 10.

stuck here also, can just about get through it but the final wave hammers me every time. (iirc i had the same problem on DG1 with multiple pathways :( )

someone has posted a play through of mission 7 on youtube (not had a chance to look through it, but might be some tips in there)

why did they made complicated game? DG1 was so simple use.

whats complicated?
 
Last edited:
stuck here also, can just about get through it but the final wave hammers me every time. (iirc i had the same problem on DG1 with multiple pathways :( )

someone has posted a play through of mission 7 on youtube (not had a chance to look through it, but might be some tips in there)

The only version i can find is for normal difficulty.
Im also wondering whether sometimes the tower abilities work against you, for instance i have 'target strongest' on all the big hitters (only one i have) and it feels like if theres 10 aliens with 1/100HP and an 11th with 100/100HP, then they'll shoot whoever has the most health, and all those easy picking aliens with 1HP left just coast on by, while the guns all chip away at someone they cant kill.
It also means that instead of them shooting at the same target till it dies, it'll switch to the alien next to him because he's now got more health, then the row behind etc etc, and so most guns get their first hit on an alien as it enters range, and moves onto the next.

I can understand the idea of a gun focussing on a Crusher or Juggernaut, but when they're all shooting at him, theres possibly a dozen little aliens walking by, getting cores, and getting them half-way out when another wave comes and has half the journey to scoop them up.

Im having the same issue with one i unlocked last night, the gun tower, the ability slowing the target down when hit (with a load of gun towers it works like a temporal) but the problem is in a group of 10, the guns only slow who's being hit, and they focus on the lead alien, so when you've slowed down the first row of aliens, the 2nd row overtakes, they get shot at a bit, then row 3 overtakes them.... you end up with this big clump, and again you're doing slow group damage, not focusing on 1 and killing them 1 by 1, you're attempting to kill them all with 1000 paper cuts.

The only abilities ive seen which im not on the fence about are the shield based ones, 40% damage goes through the shield, 20% more damage to shielded targets, stuff like that.
 
Im going through the first 3 missions on Elite, and im actually finding the gun tower w/ Tachyon Bullets (slowdown + 15% dmg) used heavily with Inferno tower (no unlocks yet, this & concussion have none, the rest have either 2 or 3!) really works nicely, because of the fact that it clumps them together and slows them down and holds them in the AoE & DoF the Inferno does. I think it works best in the mid-late end of the map, if you can red & yellow that area, wherever you can best group a load of towers together really.

Done 1 & 2 using this without loss of cores, #1 i'd tried 3-4 times (and a few last night with the 'fixed resources' mode) and could only manage to hold half the cores, 80% gun, 15% fire, with 1 cannon iirc, worked a charm on the first attempt.

Whats annoying me somewhat at the moment is the unlocking of the tower abilities, i dont know if its random, based on medals etc. You do a map on an easy mode and get nothing, Hard seems to get one more often than not, but ive also not got one for just doing #2 on Elite no cores lost. That said, ive also not been notified of abilities given (usually you see them on the victory screen) but then ive noticed i have a meteor ability i havent seen pop up.
 
Finally managed Mission #7 on Hard, the defining moment was getting access to the Laser's wide beam (#2) which meant they were hitting multiple targets on the 'fast' lane, and that meant i could just focus on more cannons on the 'shield' lane, and then hopefully drop the shields and laser them.
The difference between difficulties with decent tower abilities is significant. I suspect Elite would be doable with a few of the towers i used having higher rated abilities available.
 
The only version i can find is for normal difficulty.
Im also wondering whether sometimes the tower abilities work against you, for instance i have 'target strongest' on all the big hitters

Not sure why, but I had 2 options when doing that mission, the other option slows the targets down as the laser hits them, great for bosses.

What's everyone's thoughts on those base units, I like them because they can remove the alien shields. However I was watching a video on Youtube for mission 7, the player didn't use any and got a better score than me.

Also, I'm only getting 21 FPS. :o
 
Not sure why, but I had 2 options when doing that mission, the other option slows the targets down as the laser hits them, great for bosses.

What's everyone's thoughts on those base units, I like them because they can remove the alien shields. However I was watching a video on Youtube for mission 7, the player didn't use any and got a better score than me.

Also, I'm only getting 21 FPS. :o

You're talking about the tower abilities, right? You unlock various abilities for different towers, and different lvl's of that ability as you play.
What i was talking about earlier was that almost every ability i had for a tower was to target whoever was 'strongest' (which i believe means has the most health) so as they walk out, instead of focusing on whoever is closes to leaving (furthest ahead) it fires a shot at whoever has the most health.
If you have a wave leaving with cores, and a new wave coming in, those towers will shoot at the new aliens because they're stronger, so those near-dead aliens with your cores walk out.

There are anywhere between 3-6 different abilities you unlock for each tower, and each ability has 5 levels.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=317480243

Because of these tower abilities, the way a map plays out can be completely different with abilities which work well, compared to those which have little impact.
The first time i completed #7 on Hard, i used gun towers with 'shield buster', however this level has 2 very different types of lanes, the far one has fast aliens (some invisible, never shielded) and i used a yellow gun tower on that lane, and not on the closer lane, which is slower tougher aliens (some with shields) so bringin a 'shield buster' ability and not using it on the shield lane, meant that ability offered nothing, compared to 1 ability which slows the target and does more dmg per hit, and another which does burn damage and more dmg per hit also.

So when you first start playing, its probably impossible to do many levels on the Hard difficulty, let alone Elite. Unlock useful abilities for the towers you use, and it can make a big difference. I love laser towers, and normally use an ability that can cut through a shield, meaning i dont have to worry about placing towers to remove the shield. However on #7 i used an ability that spread the beam dmg wider and did multi-target dmg, and thats what made the difference between this level being IMO impossible (with what i had) and easily repeatable with what i'd now got access to. With high tier abilities, im sure Elite will be doable too.
Also, while that laser ability worked great (it basically made the 'fast lane' need less towers) it also meant i needed to break the shields else they'd do very little damage. So it completely changes how you plan a layout too.
 
Last edited:
No I didn't mean the upgrade options for the towers. I mean the base unit that costs 50 credits which you can put towers on top. Just wondering what peoples thoughts on them is, as you can upgrade them to remove shields from aliens, or increase the power output of the tower on top etc.
 
Ahh the boosts, i tend to build them out of habbit, and then fail to actually apply a boost on them, so really they're 50cr wasted, and a tower you could have placed sooner as a result.
I prefer to have the option, i dont know about doing a mission without using them, and that being an optimal strategy. I think if you know where your focus points are, its better to have the 25% dmg boost there, if you're only going to green or yellow, and no interest in upgrading to red, then its probably not worth bothering.
Temporals are one i often dont put on a boost, but in some missions i've done that and either placed a disrupter (disables shield & shows hidden aliens) or a score boost if i know i can walk it, as those are usually placed where a lot of deaths happen. That tends to be on missions ive completed, and im just redoing it for ability unlocks and to try and improve my score at the same time.

-edit-
its also worth pointing out that guns shoot based on their angle, so sometimes a booster under them raises them to be able to hit more (the 2x2 area in #7) however it also means a lot of towers struggle to hit the square directly infront of them as the angle is too steep. Same with the 2x2, all on boosts, the ones at the back will struggle to shoot near targets. So it can be useful to not raise towers, so more towers can hit a target. The deeper they are, they less they see.
 
Last edited:
Just managed gold & no cores lost on #7 Elite.
Having the right abilities to cater for a specific map is the key.

I've been doing #14 (Surface Tension, small map from the beta) on Elite, it doesnt take much effort to beat and it only takes about 15min, and with 3x thats 5-6min all in all, and after every 3-4 runs i'll take a look at what new unlocks have landed.
Its a bit weird though, if you unlock an ability you're already using, say going from #1 to #2, when ive gone to look it says 'none' and i dont know if thats happening when i go back to the loadout screen or if it happens straight after doing a run.

Im not sure if doing Elite gives better abilities, ive had quite a few new ones, but i think they've always been lv1 rather than lv4-5 to reflect the difficulty, but im pretty sure if i've always got an unlock, whereas on say easy theres a random element it seems.
 
Back
Top Bottom