YMMV / Tower Defense Simulator

• Abridged Arena Array: It can vary depending on mode and strategy.
  • Hardcore: See Wrecked Battlefield? Good luck trying to get in, as that is pretty much the ONLY map that people play Hardcore on.
  • Survival Mode: Typically Harbor, Marshlands, Badlands (because Cowboy), Grass Isle, Cyber City, Deserted Village, Crossroads, Portland, Autumn Falling, Farm Lands, and Abandoned City are the ones that are chosen the most. Mainly due to their length, amount of space for towers, or the fact that there is a ton of cliff space for Rangers.
    • Many teams typically queue up for the Special Modes, which are Nuclear, Badlands, and Pizzeria, since those promise increased rewards as well as make the game harder for them.
    • Hidden Wave Trigger (REMOVED, but was available by speedrunning Fallen Mode): Harbor and Marshlands are most likely the ones to go for.
• Good Bad Bugs: There are four infamous ones, and all have been patched.
  • The first one was the Toxic Gunner's ability to slow down ANYONE, regardless of enemy size. Even bosses would be given the full slowdown effect.
  • The second one was the Military Base/Crook Boss Lag glitch, which would immensely slow down ALL units and enemies on the path, while the spawn rate was normal and towers kept their fire rate. This would be abused by many to triumph Hardcore Mode.
  • The third was the Invisible Axe glitch, which could be triggered by selling an Executioner while the axe would still be in the air, causing it to stay on the track and auto-target enemies. Because the Executioner detects flying enemies, which is exclusive to Events and Hardcore, many would abuse this glitch on those modes. It was patched shortly after its release, though.
  • The final one was the Pizza Party Matchmaking Bug, which sometimes sends multiple teams of up to four to the same server, which made the match way easier, as there were more people who most likely had the best towers, which meant that the boss, although it had HP scaling, would be easier to beat.
• Harder Than Hard: Hardcore. And all three Special Modes (Nuclear, Badlands, Pizzeria). Let's see all the modifiers that make all harder than Fallen Mode.
  • For all modes:
    • Maximum base health of 100 or 200 depending on the map, no matter the players' levels.
    • New enemies that are way harder than those in Fallen Mode, which will test your mastery of the game.
    • Stuns by enemies everywhere.
    • Flying and Lead enemies exist only in these modes (besides Events). As a reminder, these cannot be damaged by most means.
    • Three out of the four modes are extremely hard to the point of most strategies that can triumph this mode will require the Accelerator, which you get by purchasing it with gems. Which are obtained by playing Hardcore. Which you need to be Level 50 to enter. Which requires a lot of XP. And the place where you can get the most XP? Polluted Wastelands II. Which you need to be Level 25 to enter. As of right now, the Pizzeria Mode does not need Accelerator to triumph but could serve as insurance if things go south.
  • For Hardcore:
    • Tower placement and upgrade costs increased by 50%.
    • Maximum of 3 players per game.
    • Maximum troop placement of 25 per player.
    • 50 waves.
    • The Void Reaver having 1.2 million HP. And they can damage the base.
    • Multiple major bosses, including those from Normal, Molten, and Fallen.
    • No shared cash, unlike all other modes.
  • For the Special Modes:
    • Almost all enemies, even most of the minibosses, are replaced with stronger variants depending on the mode, which will make the entire game even more painful.
    • As each wave goes on, all enemies will gain more Shield HP, which does not give money. This can be mitigated by the Cowboy (Golden Preferred), which also gives cash every few shots, no matter what they damage, whether it be normal or shield HP.
    • The Nuclear Monster, Gunslinger, and Wox The Fox each have HP pools that are larger than the Fallen King's.
• That One Achievement: "Western Action" used to require clearing the limited map "End of the Line" and "Badlands". However, an update removed the ability to play "End of the Line" and buffed the requirements to clear "Badlands" on Fallen Mode, which is the hard difficulty of this game. Because of the way enemy spawns worked, this can easily put a massive strain on resources to the point where soloing it is downright impossible, and was only possible on MEGA servers, leading to the infamous "MEGA FALLEN BADLANDS" being spammed across lobbies to the point of becoming a meme. Oh, and this was the only way to get Cowboy, and by the time you cleared it, with the exception of certain maps that don't allow farms, you practically cleared every Fallen map. It was only after an update in which enemy spawns were divided between lanes in which it was made much easier to the point where soloing it was now possible. Now since Badlands was replaced with Badlands II, it has made getting the achievement harder, since there are three lanes from which enemies spawn, and new enemies have replaced the Fallen enemies.
• That One Level: The Beginner Mode for most maps is infamous for how deceptively difficult it is, especially if you are a new player. While Beginner has 10 fewer waves than Molten, this results in the game throwing tough enemies much earlier than expected. The Speedy enemies show up on wave 3 instead of 5, and the first major boss shows up, which has 10x the hp of the previous enemies, spawns at wave 7. This gives players barely any time or money to prepare for the threats, especially for newer players who don't have farms unlocked and don't know how to efficiently spend their money. To add insult to injury, Beginner has worse rewards for a triumph when compared to Molten and Fallen.