Caverns of Chaos

After many frustrating Lvl6 attempts, I just made it Lvl9 and got smashed Had Chartwell (sp) the mouldy wizard, elf vamp priest, elf warrior. They just proved too squishy and Chartwell proved absolutely useless.

However, I won't complain because I'm loving the randomness factor of this adventure, and it's netting me a good few Legendaries along the way.

 

Seems like level 7 is where I tend to hit the wall:

 

If I dont have too many Oak Bombardiers it is the same for me. I have no clue how people beat that adventure.

 

1. Beat head against wall.
2. Goto step one.

 

Warning: Loop control variable is never changed inside loop.

 

Got to Renown 15 yesterday, tried to bring a lv 15 party into CoC.

Meet with 2 Oaks that throw out 8 damage nuts and a bunch of zombie-dolphin-mind-eating thing and sparks.
Didn't have long range setup to deal with them...

Second attempt.
Bunch of kobold spears and 2 bishop pieces...and I brought my Firestorm setup this time...
ez mode

Although I ended up derping on 5th battle, where I let my guys try to push their way through the large main path instead of the narrow side path to limit how many enemies can attack at once...

 

Made it to the final battle finally. I think this was my tenth run since CoC has been released, or something like that.



It was a fun battle, but wasn't able to end up victorious. The trolls immediately drew regeneration, blind rage and charged forward. That + the constant rain of arrows, coupled with kinda-meh draws on my side (seriously Pain, 3 rounds and not even a single Fireball? puah) turned an otherwise fair, if prob still very rough affair into a true mess.

Next time dudes, next time.

I sort of agree some amount of variance is welcome, but I think it's a bit too much on the excessive side as of right now. I do like a good challenge, and I certainly wouldn't like trivial end-game content. But you do sometime end up with impossible scenarios, which is very un-fun.

Ideally, you do want at least some very slim chance of victory at all the times, while as of right now the RNG can far too easily present you with a no-hope scenario.

Granted, I only ran CoC a handful of times, so my perspective on things is still pretty limited.

If anything else, powerful ranged opponents (archers ) are way too deadly when coupled with tank-style grunts. Refining the monster tables (which monsters are allowed to spawn on which level, and in what number) could help mitigate the slot-machine syndrome. Maybe some of the playable characters are a tad too focused, and hence the player have a hard time adapting to a variety of enemies as things currently stand.

That being said though, I think CoC is in pretty good shape, for a first prod-release. I'm pretty sure that, with time and by collecting more data, the devs will be able to fine-tune it further.

 

I know I'm not the average player, but I like the difficulty of CoC. It was a legit challenge to beat, but had the chance of being not so bad with some luck. This combo actually has had me back playing multiple times since beating it, just for fun, unlike most SP adventures that are one and done and only ever see me again for the LF. (Ironically I have no interest in replaying RtCoC even though that one's in theory easier.)

 

I'm with Scarponi on this. I find it much more satisfying to eventually complete something difficult rather than a trivial win. It can be pretty frustrating, sure, but that makes the eventual victory all the sweeter. The heroes are a really good addition too, I'm always delighted to see one of them turn up. The bosses are very variable in difficulty however, Blitzy is on the impossible side, whereas Grendel is easy enough (depending on the minions), possibly they could have health shaved off/added on.

I think RtCoC should be unlocked without having to complete CoC though. Personally, I haven't even bothered trying it, because the random characters are a large part of the fun for me, but a fair few people seem to complain in chat about not being able to use their own characters.

 

She only has 3 Fireballs in 36 cards. *shrug*

 

Hit my second successful run just now, pulled both Xander and Wym on the final battle with Oak King as the boss (Monkey Cheiftan, Carrion Skuttlers, Goblin Hulks to fill out the rest). Ironically it wasn't either Legend character that won me the day. My third party member was a standard dwarf wiz who drew Adaptable round 1. That wiz then was able to soak up the repeated beatings of the Oak King (all crushing damage) so that I could survive long enough to finish him off.

 

Congrats Mr Scarponi!

I would like to second Bandreus on the crossbowmen point. It isn't just their range, but the fact that they also have a ton of extra move cards to get you pretty much no matter where you move! Sending a melee dude after them early on is suicide (if you can jump through the hoops to get close enough to them and avoid a ton of damage aka nimbus + flight aura/armor), so the only way to kill them early is with wizards, which they then might have jump back for your mighty spark .

Otherwise it's like Scarponi says, you are just taking a rain of arrows. I'm singing inthe rain, tralalaaa!!

I propose they only get walk as defaukt move, don't get jump back, or both...ad have range attacks limited to 5 only??

Edit- just realised you mentioned you will only make moderate changes Flax so I propose just one of the above changes. I guess since jump back is so flavorful we keep that, so maybe limit their range attacks to 5, besides the elite crossbowman, since they are crossbow men but not archers.

(Longbow Archer will be a new character you will make in the future ) he will have range 8 unblockable venom arrow )

 

Just so we're clear regarding this suggestion, Christofff, you have the right to remain silent. Anything you say Flax can use against you in a cavern without law.

 

Does anyone know what pool the CoC maps come from? Are they from all SP maps, including MM ones and old maps not in use anymore? Are there any SP maps that aren't in there? Are there any maps from MP? Are maps in any way tied to node level?

 

Maps aren't tied to node level currently.

There're a lot of SP maps, but not all of them. There're a few of MP maps too.

 

Co-op Caverns level 10 with @Flaxative:

warning: lots of profanity from one of the devs in this video

 

Some context...
Of the nine levels we beat, I think 3 or so we won with 1 character kiting strong ranged enemies. We had one 70+ round match where the AotA elf warrior, primarily equipped with bludgeons, faced off against three green jellies, cycling his deck for his one Healing Dashe while seeking cover on Batford's Kitchen. It was a really epic journey into the caverns...

 

You should make playing co-op in CoC reward the players with +1 item (rather than the +2 from LF - just +1)

 

Sounds really unsuitable for farming, as you intended.

 

Disable pausing for enemy cards, set animation speed to 99999 and those 70+ rounds might go by a lot faster than you'd expect.

During my I-Don't-Want-To-Even-Know-How-Many CoC attempts I recall only one occasion with an absurd turn count which involved cycling an elf wizard's deck over and over again to fireball wisps (with ranged blocks, ugh) and sprites behind a corner. If I made even the slightest move they'd charge in and get a line of fire. My winning run also involved lots of running away on level 9 where my two elf wizards got obliterated pretty much right off the bat and the remaining vamp priest (who, fortunately, is by far the single best regular char in CoC easily even outclassing many legendaries) had to solo basically everything.

The last couple of days CoC has thrown an absurd number of epics and legendaries at me but I'm not really sure if that's due to good loot rates or the ridiculous amount of time I've spent miserably failing. I didn't keep count but I can assure you I cleared level 1 easily >100 times before getting my crown.