So I've been playing CoC for a few days now. I've gotten the Chaos Crown and I've gotten to level 10 four times. I've had some time to play with the Legendary Heroes and I'm starting to recognize most of these decks simply by the character token they use. Overall, no matter what I say in this thread, I do enjoy this mode quite a bit...but I think it can be even better. Also to keep in mind, I have no idea how reasonable any of these suggestions are on a programming level, but I do think they would make a great mode even better and more fun to play. Suggestion Number 1: Give these heroes some actual names, not just the legendary ones. I know you can do this with the legendary heroes already, and it's no secret that we're getting adventurers from a pre-ordained pool, so why exactly are you leaving their names to the fate of the random name generator? Frankly, and my apologies to whoever designed the random name generator, your random names suck, especially for the dwarves. You have the character portraits and decks already pre-selected, why not just drop the subterfuge entirely and give these guys some actual names? It would certainly make it easier to gripe about them on the forums. Of course, this might get confusing when you get multiple copies of the same hero, but that brings me to my next point... Suggestion Number 2: Stop giving us duplicates. You've got plenty of priests, warriors, and wizards to choose from here, why are duplicates even a thing? Sure, having two copies of the laser dwarf is awesome, but having two copies of the acid geisha is completely useless. I don't even think this would help the players with the RNG all that much, because it would essentially be taking away two extreme cases where you can completely walk a map, or get completely steamrolled by a map. And hey, if you eliminate redundancy like this, you could always just add in more heroes to compensate. Suggestion Number 3: Take out Greenfang and Blitzkinripper (or boost Greeny's hitpoints). So, when it comes to RNG in CoC, there are some matches where you're just going to die. HOWEVER! I would argue that this usually comes across as a case of multiple bad RNG values. Something like getting Adult Wyverns on an open map with bad characters is definitely an impossible situation, but that's still THREE things that need to go wrong with your RNG to get you killed. Blitzkinripper on the other hand, will kill any party you can possibly have in the final confrontation. There is no combination of three adventurers in the entire pool of heroes (legends included) that can beat him. Blitz requires a very specialized set of equipment. You HAVE to have armor removal, you need ways around his stupidly powerful blocks, you need to mitigate his constant freezing attacks, you need to do this while handling the other minions on the field, you need to get around his constant Hovering and Immovable traits, and no combination of three heroes has a chance in hell of beating him. This is not a case of the RNG lining up perfectly to screw you over with six marksmen on an open map against a team of three priests. This is one factor that will just arbitrarily wipe your party when you encounter him, and the fact that it happens on the 10th and final level is really a twist of the knife in the side. The flip side of this coin is obviously Greenfang. When you encounter this 35 hit-point dragon, you're pretty much guaranteed a win on the final map, so long as something else doesn't go horribly wrong. I'll admit, this guy gave me my first victory over CoC, but at the same time I think that's going a little too far in the opposite direction. At the very least you could boost his hitpoints up to fifty or so to make him a damage sponge. Suggestion Number 4: Allow us to 'hold' a hero. This is the big suggestion that I'm not even sure would be possible to implement under the current system. However, I will suggest it on the off-chance that it might be possible, and while it would be a slight boost in favor of the players and not the cavern, I think it would make the Cavern a lot more enjoyable. My suggestion here is to simply allow the player to choose one hero to hold onto after each map and be guaranteed that character in the next map. It's a slight manipulation of the RNG in the player's favor that gives them a small way they can strategically control things that I don't think would break the balance, and it would definitely people feel a lot less cheated on BS party compositions. Combine this with my suggestion about removing the potential for duplicate heroes, and I think it would make the cavern a lot more fun and varied, and you could potentially add in more heroes (both better and worse) to compensate. -- Like I said earlier, I don't know how hard or easy these changes would be to implement, I'm just suggesting them from the perspective of the actual mode itself. If none of these changes get implemented, I'll still play it to death and beyond. I just hope that this isn't the absolute FINAL version we'll see of the Caverns of Chaos, and like the rest of the game I hope it gets even better with time.
Suggestion Number 5: Stop giving the lizard priests, adult wyverns, goblin hulks, and other non-boss monsters 3x Card Draws It's already bad enough that the Adult Wyverns are pretty much guaranteed to draw two sets of Grounding Plates in their opening hand, rending them nigh unkillable unless you've got the Piercing Warrior or the Acid Geisha on your team, but giving a group of two three card draws EACH is some serious overkill. They have a deck of about eighteen cards, meaning that they're pretty much guaranteed to get multiple copies of Fly, making them unreachable, their most lethal spark spells, making them damage hoses, and they'll always hold onto their armor, making them near invincible. Frankly, I'd take them out entirely, but I don't think pushing their draws down to two (like it is for virtually every other monster group in the caverns) is going to cripple them. Goblin Hulks have a slightly lesser version of this problem. The big grievance I have with them is that with six card draws, they're pretty much guaranteed to bull rush your party every single time, trumping you with repeated movement cards and making it impossible to keep them at range, which is usually the best way to deal with them in the normal game, and they'll usually have cards in the 8-11 damage range once they get close. Again, pulling them down to two cards per monster isn't going to seriously cripple them and it would make things a lot less unbalanced. Finally, the Lizard Priests. Why are they such a big deal? Because their go-to spell is ALWAYS Unholy Curse, and they're pretty much guaranteed to get a lot of them since they draw through their entire deck every couple of turns. Against lizardmen that's manageable, but often times they get paired with sprites, wisps, imps, and other such abominations that make it a nightmare to deal with. They're the least troublesome of the three, but I don't really see why they should get three card draws per monster when even Trolls and Mind Flensers are limited to two. Again, it would hardly be crippling to them, but it would stop making things blatantly unfair.
Suggestion Number 6: Add some hard counters to the wyverns or throttle back on their lethality Anyone who has played CoC for even a small amount of time has figured out that the Wyverns are by far the most deadly enemy outside the 10th level, both the impossible Adult versions and the slightly less impossible regular versions. That's because there is only ONE character (on the first seven levels) that has any sort of hard counter to them (that counter being Resistant Hide). No one has Sundering or Shredding Strike, and I only really remember one instance of Boiling Armor floating around. The Acid Geisha's majority of armor removal comes in the form of Acid Terrain that will never really work against the Wyverns, and even when it does, they're pretty much guaranteed to draw it again within the next couple turns. Add to that the consistent damage reduction, powerful electrical spells, and their ability to fly, and even when you have the ONE warrior who has a deck full of Penetrating attacks (the one from Vein Drinkers), you're still more than likely to lose. My suggestion? Spread around some Grounding Plates and Resistant Hides. Give some characters Sundering Strike. Or, if you don't want to alter the decks, change the Wyverns themselves. Make the regular Wyverns only spawn in a group of two with three card draws and the Adult Wyverns preferably not spawn at all. Suggestion Number 7: Add in some wildcards Caverns of Chaos seems like the perfect place to cut loose with cards that would never see the light of day outside of it. The legendary heroes are certainly fun, but why stop with a small group of people that you aren't even likely to see unless the stars align perfectly for you and you make it to at least the eighth level and get lucky on your RNG? I'm not talking about making more legendary heroes, but rather altering some of the heroes we already have away from their 'Starter Kit' roots. Considering all of those characters have a unique figure, why not embrace that a bit? For example, everyone I know hates the Caveman Wizard, but what if he had an on-theme card in his deck like Cave-In or Rockfall? A one-shot awesome card that a player would normally never get to use, but could be used to great effect in CoC if you're smart about it. And what about the Slime Warrior? He's probably the worst warrior of the bunch, but what if he was given a single copy of Amorphous Body? It's a fun, on-theme card that gives him a lot of resistance in exchange for mediocre attacks and the inability to use Controlled Overswing, since it would likely discard that very armor card. With the multitude of damage types being thrown around, he wouldn't automatically be immune to everything (hell, not even most things), but it would give him a wildcard that can make him amazing in the right situation. Ultimately, what I'm suggesting with this (and my first suggestion) is that I think CoC can be a fun module with a chance to experiment and play with cards and characters that we normally couldn't get. We've done this with the legendary heroes and I really do appreciate those offerings. Even if they don't turn out to be effective, the very fact that the play so much differently is enjoyable and a fun break from normal, so why not try to do this to even a small extent with ALL the heroes? I am certainly NOT saying to make them all more powerful, just that it would be more fun if they were all 'unique' in some fashion, even if it's just because of a couple crazy cards in their deck.
I'm assuming everyone is free to pose suggestions in the thread, so I'll throw in my suggestions after playing CoC quite actively for the last week or so. I do want to first state though that I really do enjoy CoC as it is, sometimes it can be frustrating, but some runs bring up really interesting combinations of maps, enemies and characters that wonderful things can happen. Just so long as there's no Wyverns in sight. I do like suggestions 1, 3, 5, 6 and 7 so far. Especially 7 is one to my liking, I do think CoC would be the best place to give the player access to a few crazy things. I find the card-based decks from the legendary characters much more interesting to play as than the built-for-MP decklists with some minor revisions which often leave much to be desired, and even the ones which seem to be based on items feel more thematic and more interesting to use than some of the currrent characters, such as any discard-heavy wizard or anyone from the Stormbringers party. Unique mobs: So far the only unique mobs I've come across were Lord Stafford in low-level nodes and a unique mob accompanying the boss in the final node, but aside from that they never seem to show up, which is a shame! There's a variety of unique mobs which would add more to the variety and chaos of CoC if they would appear outside of just the lowest the highest level nodes. These could just be unique, 'true monster' mobs such as Morvin or Garcotto, but I could also see them being characters from the more ranked-MP like boards or the final map of the Citadel expansion. Their omission actually seems so odd to me that I have to wonder if it was considered at some point but it was decided not to have them in there? More card variety: This ties in a bit with the 'add in wildcards' suggestion, but even aside from that there are a lot of cards in CH accessible to players that aren't on any CoC characters, the total lack of ranged laser attacks seems like the most jarring in this regard, there is a Citadel Elf who has an interesting deck with lots of terrain and even a Stone Pillar, but nobody uses any lasers, not even the ice wizards who could really use some Supercooled Lasers. Armor-removing melee cards are similarly missing, and I can't think of any warriors who specialize in chops, or any character who has any chops at all really. Victory squares: I know victory squares from maps are taken directly from the regular versions of the map and then get replaced with red victory squares, and I think those maps are among the most fun to play on since they de-emphasize the killing of all emphasize and open up for interesting tactics to win with tactics that normally don't accomplish nearly as much such as using the acid wizard to keep enemies at bay or making Priests feel much more useful rather than making them drag out matches with their defensive buffs but lack of offense. I don't think every map needs victory squares, or even a majority of them, but having more maps with victory squares would add to the number of viable characters and strategies, or even just an alternate way to win in long, gauntlet-like maps where at the other side of the enemies is one sole victory square. More (legendary) characters: This one is more for the future once the things already in CoC are settled down, but having more characters, legendary or not, would be nice to have, as the selection of characters is much more limited than the selection of enemies and maps, meaning it's not rare to see the same character carry over for multiple maps in a row, which doesn't seem like it fits the whole chaotic theme. There's tons of figures, deckstyles and cards that can be put together to form interesting decks. These could of course be based on anything, but if I could suggest any specific set of characters then I think I'll go for Gary, Melvin and Karen. I could see Gary adding them to the table of possible characters as rare characters. Those are all the suggestions I have at the moment. I realize they are rather broad, so I don't know how useful they are exactly, but I do think it'd be interesting to see more people post suggestions to see what they like about CoC.
Some interesting ideas here, I strongly agree with point 5. Overall I think some minor rebalancing is in order, but I wouldn't want to see CoC turning into something too easily "farmable". So far I made an habit of dying on level 8-9, I'd like to see epic drops from floor 7 instead of 8. Give me a prize for making it into the nightmare nodes!
I'd like to see victory squares appear in more (if not all) maps. The battles with victory squares in them are significantly more fun to play IMO, particularly when given a team that is low on damage output.
My opinion on suggestion 5, I think we should add a armor removal card or two to each character and reduce that acid wizard's amount of armor removal cards.
I really love Caverns of Chaos, and I've pumped more hours into it by now than could possibly be healthy. I haven't won yet, but I'm too stubborn to stop playing. If there were going to be some changes, there are a few things I'd really like considered, but I don't want to sound like I'm not having a lot of fun with the content because I am: I really think the lack of armour tearing on player characters is painful a lot of the time. There's the one acid wizard, but she obviously isn't someone we can rely upon rolling when we're against wyverns or armoured skeletons or something. The slime priest often feels like a disappointing character to roll especially - when does anyone ever need that many Surestrike Blessings? And flight is only useful very rarely, so he's often just dead weight, which isn't so fun to play around with. He doesn't have to be the most incredible healer the game's ever seen, but at the moment I go into every level hoping he isn't there. Anyway, the reason why I'm making this post is really because of the next point, which is partly because it just caused me to have a fairly annoying wave 9 loss (mentioned in spoilers, feel free to skip to avoid loss rant): Spoiler So we were against trolls, blinking wisps, lightning imps and sparklers on that completely open map. Fairly nightmarish scenario. We somehow managed to outlast everything until the trolls were left. We pushed on, and managed to kill one. It was really taxing. And then, we were feeling really happy that it had somehow worked out for us, until this happened. Travelling Curse (especially on the Acid Geisha, who already has Fright, and doesn't have any armour at all to help endure the damage). The games that we're playing can often be slogs towards the end, and losing because of the timebomb we didn't choose in our deck just isn't very fun. I can understand the vampire having loner - it's relevant to the character, and isn't quite so self-destructive. But I don't really like how Travelling Curse can effectively impose a time limit on battles that often need a lot of careful timing to be won. We had a priest when we lost, but sometimes you don't have any healing potential at all, and it can be crippling. I don't know. Maybe this is a subjective thing. Maybe I'm frustrated because I'd almost beaten a horrific troll level. But eh. I really don't want to see CoC changed too much, though. I really like that it is so absurdly difficult. It's a huge draw for me. /essay.
Suggestion Number 8: Replace all copies of Demonic Revenge and Traveling Curse with something else Both of these cards are stupid. Demonic Revenge especially is the type of card no one ever puts in their deck. True, part of the point of this mode is using cards and characters you normally wouldn't that come with baggage you have to work around, but those two particular cards tend to put a rather unfair time limit on the player when a lot of these battles, especially those on open maps, can take far longer than any of the constructed modules. Wandere's image up there is not a unique case. Probably the most BS example, certainly, but I've had characters die to Demonic Revenge and Traveling Curse right as they were about to win maps for me. This isn't helped by the fact that all of these particular handicaps are put on the weakest, frailest characters in the entire pool. Traveling Curse on Acid Geisha who has no armor, Demonic Revenge on Pain, Traveling Curse on the Step-Attack elves...all of these are already frail characters that usually can't stand up to a barrage of ranged enemies, and not only is this handicap remarkably unfair to the player, there's no possible way to play around them like you can with the 'Loner' handicaps in the Vampire's deck. In keeping with my theme of putting some Wild Cards into the mix, why not give Acid Geisha Festering Guts instead of Traveling Curse? It's a fun card that can create some unique situations that can either spell disaster for the player, or help them come out on top, and it fits in with here theme of acid-based attacks. As for Pain? Ouch would be a far more on-theme card rather than Demonic Revenge. I realize that her theme is that her deck is made up of everything that has 'Pain' in the name, but unpreventable damage to an Elf Wizard is just stupid. Unless she had Punishing Blast. Then I wouldn't care. For the Step-Elf? Fright would be my first choice if we're doing a direct swap. She runs a lot and I could see her occasionally not wanting to run into combat. For a clever card though? Mad Dog. Her fighter token is from the Ancient Set after all and Mad Dog is a pretty feral-type of handicap. Just like Festering Guts it's a card that can both help or destroy you depending on the situation.
Suggestion Number 9: Laser Robots yes, Laser Turrets no As frustrating as they can be sometimes, I've actually found the Robots to help me more often than they hurt, their 15 damage beams sometimes obliterating entire groups of ranged enemies even though my characters got caught in the blast. Even on open maps, there are great ways to take advantage of their friendly fire consequence, and the fact that the first robot will sometimes pick out an advantageous shot, only for the second one to completely obliterate his allies instead is absolutely hilarious. My point is, despite their danger, they're an unstable element that you can potentially manipulate to your advantage, whether by damaging them to face them a certain direction, potentially sacrificing your characters, or just making sure that they don't take any shots by manipulating your movement so that there are always more enemies than allies in their cone of fire (since they'll take a 2-1 shot, but not a 1-1 shot). Laser Turrets, on the other hand, have no such handicap. There are only two possible outcomes when these things hit the board. Either they're out of the way and completely ineffectual, or they're in the way and will tear your party to pieces as you try to fight the other enemies. They don't hit their allies, they don't have to charge up, and if you're unlucky enough to start in their range, you can pretty much be guaranteed to eat at least twenty damage. They're not fun, they're not interesting opponents, there's no real strategy you can use against them (other than just staying out of range), and the fact that they don't have friendly fire is completely overpowered in this setting, especially on open maps. So what should be different? Well, aside from just removing them entirely, perhaps they could be replaced with the rogue turret enemies instead. The ones that rotate randomly and fire off in different directions in a cone shape. Just like the laser robots before them, you can manipulate their targeting and position to your advantage, or you can get utterly destroyed, but I think they would ultimately be a lot more fun to fight and a much more reasonable foe.
Here's a suggestion for CoC that will be fun: What if the heroes could be transformed to monsters? So instead of humans, elves and dwarves you played i.e. with goblins, slimes, wyverns? The caverns are supposed to be chaotic, aren't they? I understand that there would be a bit of a problem for large enemies (that take 4 squares) in small maps without wide passages but I don't believe this is an unsolvable matter.
