Modes and difficulty, by the numbers
Five modes are badge-tracked: Easy (20 waves), Medium (30), Hard, Insane (50) and CRAZY. Official holders run 615,739 for Easy, 227,059 for Medium, 169,541 for Hard, 144,891 for Insane and 102,184 for CRAZY — the real wall is Easy to Medium, where less than 37% of players continue.
Alliance Tower Defense has five difficulty modes, and — unusually for a Roblox tower defense — the game publishes its own completion data. Every mode has an official Roblox badge, and the badge API reports how many players hold it. That turns "which mode should I run" into a question with real numbers behind it.
All figures on this page were read from the badge API on 18 October 2026.
- Welcome1.36M holders
- Easy615,739 holders
- Medium227,059 holders
- Hard169,541 holders
- Insane144,891 holders
- CRAZY102,184 holders
The five modes
Easy — 20 waves. The learn-the-loop mode; public runs show the HUD reading 1/20 through 20/20, with Auto Skip from the first wave.
Medium — 30 waves. A tighter cash curve and the mode most players settle into; roughly one in three Easy clearers holds the badge.
Hard — 40 waves. The first rung where the badge count falls off a cliff: 169,541 holders, down from Medium's 227,059.
Insane — 50 waves. A long-form test of the same defense rather than a new rule set.
CRAZY — 60 waves. The longest mode in the game and the smallest badge on the board, with the same rules and far less room for error.
The four maps, and the mode each one is built for
The match-setting screen pairs every map with one difficulty, and the wave count scales with it:
| Map | Mode on the card | Waves | Card value |
|---|---|---|---|
| City | Easy Mode | 20 | 100 |
| Canyon Bridge | Medium Mode | 30 | 275 |
| Wild Desert | Hard Mode | 40 | 500 |
| Camera Lab | Insane Mode | 50 | 850 |
The fourth column is the number printed on each map card, and it climbs with the difficulty the map is paired with — the long modes are both the harder and the better-paying ones. The same panel also sets your queue size, from one to four players.
The map you pick fixes the mode — "play City" and "play Easy" are the same instruction — and CRAZY is queued from the mode list rather than a map card.
What the badge numbers actually tell you
| Mode | Badge holders | vs Welcome | vs Easy | Awarded in the last day |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Welcome | 1,357,249 | 100% | — | 30,012 |
| Easy | 615,739 | 45.4% | 100% | 13,874 |
| Medium | 227,059 | 16.7% | 36.9% | 8,930 |
| Hard | 169,541 | 12.5% | 27.5% | 7,380 |
| Insane | 144,891 | 10.7% | 23.5% | 3,778 |
| CRAZY | 102,184 | 7.5% | 16.6% | 3,983 |
Two things jump out. The Easy-to-Medium step is the real wall: less than 37% of Easy clearers clear Medium. And the top three rungs sit close together — Hard, Insane and CRAZY hold 169k, 145k and 102k badges, a tighter spread than Easy to Medium, which means a team that clears Hard usually clears Insane.
The daily numbers are a health check on the ladder: roughly 13,874 Easy badges and 3,983 CRAZY badges were awarded in the last day, so all five difficulty modes are being cleared every day.
Choosing a mode by what you want
- Learning placement and economy: Easy. Twenty waves is short enough to run twice in a sitting.
- Testing a new team: Medium. Thirty waves exposes whether a defense holds after the opening.
- Chasing badges or the leaderboard: Hard, Insane and CRAZY, at 40, 50 and 60 waves — all three need a team you upgraded, not just summoned.
The rest of the difficulty system
Difficulty is not only the mode name. Three other systems move the same needle:
- The map. City's tight streets and Canyon Bridge's open lanes play differently at the same difficulty.
- The team you queue with. Servers hold up to 35 players, so a public CRAZY run is partly a coordination problem.
- Auto Skip. Leaving it off on a mode you have stabilised is the same as choosing a longer, easier mode.
Next: Bosses and late-wave pushes or Badges and completion rates.
