Well what a wonderful improvement first of all so much more balanced thanks to all involved but I also feel there are some parts of Caverns that are either flat-out unwinnable even with great positioning or winnable only when you find the correct card combo, e.g boiling armor for wyverns with double grounding plates, or fireball for large numbers of low HP mobs. Also there is the thing of maps too. Open maps at higher levels with to new of ranged mobs = prepare your funeral. Tighter maps with fliers/scamperers means you often get surrounded. If said fliers /scamperers then have sneaky bloodsuck/pickpocket then you are guaranteed more frustrating fun! So I realise there are positioning /strategy etc to counter this to some degree but I just feel at higher levels it can still get ridiculous. Or you can just get three preiests who draw heaps of buffs and heals but only 3 attacks between them over three round, SWEET. at least a legendary character like Wym or Quick Jon definitely helps sometimes. Sometimes I think whoever designed Caverns is a bit of masochist! Regarding specific monsters, trolls and oak bombardiers I find particularly hair-wrenching. Trolls always seem to have an extra move like charge, which they save til last-minute, and their armor itself is a movE. Plus if they have troll regen +thick hide armor they're basically invincible to EVERYTHING, besides fire/punishing attacks. And they have 40hit points which is only 10 less than the troll king. Sweet. Can you even think of another non-legendary monster which has even 30hit points? I can't. Can we just have one troll instead of two please or nerf hit points? Oak bombardiers. Acorn barrage. I've had enough of Savage Curse + Fireball, wipe your team by turn two - tee-hee! In ranked games. Why do I have to face it agai on Caverns!!!!! And you CAN'T REACH THEM til you've killed ever other monster on the map first, they have violet spin to avoid volcano ..arggghhh why??? So I would really like to see, if there is a way to program it, that when a dangerous combination of monsters like above OR a weak combination of characters appears (like above three priests), if that combination can be "re-rolled"? Thanks for the good work.
Beating CoC requires both skill and luck. With amazing luck, one might win with mediocre skill. With horrible luck, even the most consummate skill won't win the day. I believe this is working as intended. I don't recommend CoC for anyone with a low tolerance for frustration. If it could be tracked, I'd like to see BM offer a 1,000 pizza prize to anyone who beats CoC three times in three successive attempts. I doubt it would ever be claimed. It would be even better if they could also track how many computers were rage-destroyed by players seriously attempting the feat.
You're right Sir Veza. I'd just like to see those times changed where horrible luck isn't so horrible, so that winning with skill can actually be possible at those times.
I understand your point, and sympathize. Flax may tweak it a bit if the win rate is too low, but I don't foresee it ever becoming a "sure win" for even the best players. It's more like a wall that may (astonishingly) collapse if you bang your head against it often enough. Then go back to being a wall.
ANd what's the deal with those thought-munching dolphins?? They can cast mind munch {not wind worm, friggin mind munch}, as a FREE action? I got chartwell lvl 9 to start and had two reflect missile and thought this could be good with a nice map and firestorms to come.. then after much passing I poisitioned hijm in an alley facing only one of THREE dolphins that were on the map, they cast mind munch {as a free action}, he blcoked the first mind munch I thought TAKE THAT DOLpHIN. Then as a free action they cast again, he reflected it again, annoying but at least I don't have it attached. Next turn, ANOTHER MIND MUNCH. SWEET. THen double-rook brutal chrage he gets rook blasted twice and he's dead by on the second turn. SECOND TURN DEAD LEGENDARY CHARACTER???. I just nwatched on ct5's latest video where has Mokad, and I think Mokad and the whole team was dead by 5th or 6th turn. No chance. I count myself as a decent strategist. But I feel so frustrated when, after 40 mins of hard work to get to lvl 8. 9 or 10, my heart sinks as I am dealt a horrible combination. Do I waste another 40mins of my life to try again? One of the reasons I say this is that for me as a veteran CH player and decent strategist, if I am finding it frustrating I have no idea what it must be like for relative newcomers. Hell on Earth? Lol. {Yes I realise this is for more advanced players but new guys will surely try it, and with short attrention spans of current generations they will be more turned off CH}. So sorry for shouting, but please nerf mind munch too. And the number of dolphins from 3 down to 2. And / or the fact that they can do mind munch as a friggin free action. List of things that I would like to see nerfed / balanced. -General Rerolling of uinfavourable combinations of maps / impotent characters / too many ranged monsters such as: - Especially 3 priests {except maybe on the lowest map levels} - 2 or more Elf Wizards - 3 crossbowmen or more -Trolls {details previous post} -Thought Dolphins {above} -Oak Bombardiers {lowering of hp, lowering of acron barrage damage} There's only one thing worse than winning unfairly, and that's losing unfairly...
I am not going to modify monster decks, cards, or hit points for CoC because they are in other modules. In theory I could make modified copies, but I'm not going to—it clutters up our monster database, and would make new scenario creation more confusing. I am willing to remove or add groups, or change the number of monsters in groups. Isn't Chartwell an elf wizard or something squishy like that?
Yeah, I hated those in Elder Mind, too. I don't play the 18s anymore because I found the annoyance quotient more than doubled the fun value, and this was one of the reasons. YMMV. I'm still wondering why you made Chartwell an elf. An inside joke? Tavern Talk: Barkeep: " 'Ow's yer new wiz workin' oot? 'Eard 'e sizzled 'isself." Adventurer: "Sizzled, 'ell! Chart black, 'e was. Chart well enow fer an artis' crayun. Gimme a pint to clear the ashes."
I think reducing most groups to 2 members would help a lot, especially monsters with ranged attacks or monsters that don't have minion versions.
The problem with the dolphins is that there are too many of them, meaning they get a never ending stream of thought munch. The same problem happens with the yellow oozes. There are just too damn many of them compared to how strong they are.
I think reducing overpowered ranged mobs from 3 down to 2 would be a great start. And since it will be difficult for you to nerf cards or hit points, please reduce troll number from 2 to 1? If you need a poll, I am willing to do a poll. But Flax I'm sure you've played a few Caverns runs and trust you agree. I have played 20 or so games of Caverns the last month and can count easily 5 games where I have lost mainly to trolls. And of those 20 I made a careful note of how far I progressed each time- Lvls 2-6 - 3 Lvl 7 -7 Lvl 8 - 4 Lvl 9 - 4 Lvl 10 - 2 No completion of lvl 10. So although we've improved Caverns I still don't feel these numbers are right. And I do not accept that Caverns is a brick wall that occasionally breaks. Lets make this something to entice relative newcomers rather than repel them. For 20 games, Why not let it b closer to- Lvl 2-6 -1 Lvl 7- 5 Lvl 8 -6 Lvl 9 - 6 Lvl 10 - 3 Back to friggin trolls. Either: -you dont draw a fire /burning terrain wiz while they have troll regeneration active most turns -you spend all your resources dealing with them owing to their threat level , and then have no attacks left to finish other mobs and get overwhelmed OR MY FAVOURITE -they unexpectedly reach you last minute with charge/walk/thigh hide armor then you lose your best blocks and armor thanks to staggering blow, take a ton of damage and are naked next few rounds Thanks Flax and team.
I like caverns as is. I wouldn't mind the epic chests starting a little earlier, or the legendary characters appearing more often but I think it fits the theme nicely if you can cruise to an easy level 10 but get boned on level 4 the next run
I beat the caverns recently, so I have no major complaints about difficulty anymore. The special cards on the characters are interesting but not too strong, and the changes to the weaker characters are very nice. My only suggestion would be to include at least one character with Punishing Bolt, if there isn't one already. It would be a really fun card to have for the larger mobs, and would also provide a way to damage the larger Golem groups more effectively.
I think we can agree you don't want non-minion trolls. Maybe you don't want trolls at all! As Melvin says, Gary, nobody likes a troll.
The only complaint I have is that there's still a few characters who have unconditional damage-inflicting drawbacks which makes the time-honed strategy of running around hoping to draw that one card you need a lot less viable. I guess if Trolls were gone that the biggest source of that would be gone, but it's still sour to lose because you pulled Demonic Revenge or there's a Traveling Curse causing havoc among your Elf Wizards. There's also a few archetypes that don't seem represented much or at all like chops, laser magic and punishing attacks, but I realize most player decks so far already are roughly themed around something and adding new decks might be out of the question. I think CoC is as it is a lot more fun than it was just as it was released. I just wish I could win at it for once.
Blizzy Jr. is a cutie-patootie and I really want him as an option in custom matches!!! For those who haven't faced him yet, the changes are Named is changed from Blizkenripper to Blizzy Jr. (THAT IS THE ACTUAL NAME) HP dropped from 70 to 50 Alabaster Wyrmhide replaced with Mystical Wyrmhide (the purple one that no one ever uses with 1 armor) the really big attacks are been removed, leaving Blizzard Breath, Frost Bolt, Massive Jaws, and Dragon Claw seems to have less toughness, but that might just be me still has his blocks same figurine, but just seems incredibly cute somehow?!?!
