Finished my first 4Player Pub Twine Endurance since the trap updates…

Lots more killing. Lots less pushing and moving. When we started I had 2 available pieces left to place. We didn't need too many repairs throughout, and one of the randoms that joined brought with them a full set of durability survivors which (along with changes to extend drop reloads) prevented us from needing to re-trap areas.

Some things I noticed during the run:

-Wall/Floor phasing is happening all over the place.

I noticed this anytime husks would build up in a tight area. It was typically a normal husk making it through but there were some instances smashers just seemed to phase right through walls in their march toward the objective.

There are also a few areas that are completely enclosed away from spawn points that would suddenly have husks spawn in them. Of course the little guy would then want out, and start trying to take down walls that typically aren't a worry.

-For my build, AFK isn't an option yet. I could probably avoid moving my base through the first 15-20 rounds, but the damage that would be done would likely allow the later rounds to break through. Once the husks PL was > 500, even fully upgraded (PL144) traps not covered by base seemed to become fairly ineffective.

-Based on above, I had to run with mega base in the lead to get the best coverage for the supercharged traps team perk. This left walls a little more, which did require some diligence to keep up with repairs towards the end.

-Miniboses get absurdly insane. In early rounds they aren't too bad to kill or at least occupy, but in later rounds where you have takers everywhere and a miniboss (or 3) just going nuts on your walls, it gets a little tense. Even worse would be when I catch one in a bull rush, but it teleports to safety before my run ends. I had a few times where I ended up in lava and the miniboss just teleported away safely.

-Speaking of lava, it seems blasters are immune to lava? Maybe I just never noticed this before when playing, but there were several times where a blaster was launched into the lava and had no problem just walking around on it while still blasting away.

Playing it with a focus on killing instead of stalling was a lot of fun. In addition to actually needing to play to survive, the amount of mats that dropped was pretty good. I was a little frustrated to see still a ton of T4 mats popping up everywhere though. I'm pretty sure if the husk is going to come at me with PL 600+ then they should be dropping some worthwhile rewards.

Finished the run with a great team score, easily hitting the L6 Loot box which came with a nice boost of Hero XP, re-perk, and leg perk up – which is all kinda useless, but thats on me for playing way more than I should.

One thing I found useful since the CC trap change is pulling up floor freeze and tarpit traps except in a very few locations, then using edited floor pieces to keep husks moving zigzag. This slowed them down and let the wall and ceiling traps do their jobs, while also typically avoiding instigating a smasher into charging. Not only did this save on object placement counts by not having floor traps, but it also helped reduce the reliance on CC traps. I focused on CC traps typically around entry points, especially hills and sploader zones, and a few areas where I would push something off a path that would require them to circle back. Of course, anything that put husks into a looping path just needed a way to kill them before they continue to loop, or the 2nd/3rd time they will just walk by untouched.

In a lot of the kill tunnels I moved to using low walls on the main path with Dynamo's, and then a space out on both sides put up full walls with wall-darts. For the floors I used edited floor pieces to keep them zigzagging, and on the ceiling above the primary path I used ceiling zappers with electric fields down the sides. When timed right, husks would take hits from- 2x Wall darts + 2 Dynamos + ceiling zapper + 2 ceiling fields – without considering the ceiling traps ahead/behind you that could also join in.

So hows it going for everyone else? What changes are you making to account for the CC trap changes?

I've noticed there seems to be a lot more people willing to do public endurances since the trap changes. Not sure if Epic is reviewing data related to this, but I would think the increase in mat drops and new focus on kills over jails is inspiring more play.

Thanks to everyone that helped through the numerous failed attempts as I worked my way through this redesign. Honestly, rebuilding my twine SS was probably the most fun this game has thrown at me in a while. I only wish there were more large-scale challenges in the game, and even new and bigger challenges where the difficulty isn't only increased by jacking up the husk PL.


leave a comment
