Thread for MM #22 praises / curses and advice. I feel that most of the time super hard is a synonym to super random when it comes to MM adventures. I hope that in the future, more people would test and give feedback to the MM adventure candidates. That would require a separate feedback thread for each adventure from the map makers and/or proper and sufficient test time and iteration cycle in the test server. Battle 1: Ogre Escort by @adajon Nice story writing. Map is beautiful and detailed. The large figure bug with Muscle Through can make this map a bit awkward. Maybe I got lucky, but I beat this on first try both times I played this. The test build thread has some nice suggestions to make this map a bit easier if people struggle with it. Namely make the bodyguard Ogre a non-minion and/or move the spawn point of the Goblin Hulk a bit further from the narrow rock path. Nevertheless, I liked this module quite a bit! Battle 2: Hammer Time by @Potato Priest Writing was good here as well. The map is pretty plain and still missing one of the corner doodads. I whined about this already on the test server. I really don't like Death Elementals in general and this module pushes all the wrong buttons for me. It wasn't a nail-biting but rather rage-inducing and frustrating experience. Having a good night's sleep helped a bit, however. I still needed 5 retries before finally beating it. Yeah, it's super hard if you don't draw enough heals or are forced to choose from multiple Poison Elemental attacks or moving into Doom range. Hats off to anyone who can beat this consistently over half the time. Spoiler: Some nail-biting moments I thought the expiring Doom would finish me, but Roulette got me first. Got a Quick Jon's Axe for my troubles from the reward chest afterwards, so I guess all that cursing paid off? Battle 3: Space Explorers by @Vlamona Short and straight to the point writing. Rad bite created Hear Them Out And I was able to abuse I'm Here About The Job. Won easily on my first try, so I can't really comment the difficulty.
Ogre Escort: Well designed, the bridge in the middle is a really clever addition stopping people from just Muscling Through blindly, and I like the fact that the lord is on his one at the end. Hammer Time: I did it in one, I was really quite lucky. First turn, two Roulettes destroyed one Portal. By the third turn I had flown over to the bottom portal it drew NEB. Luckily I had a Purging Strike! I destroyed it but got Doomed in the process. It was a race to get to the last Portal with both the Doom duration counter and my health running low. I had also fortuitously drew two Greater Heals. When I got to the top portal it had NEB too but I had a Purging Strike ready too, and won with 1 hp remaining. Very, very lucky. Space Explorers: Fun little end map. As Pawndawan said the writing is hilarious short, made me laugh actually. I lost my first try, second try I tried to be more conservative but I couldn't resist the allure of Rad Pulsing the whole groups of them and also taking advantage of Retaliatory Mutation to the fullest. Very good choice for a last map. My reward: Triple Legendary drop! Though two of them don't really count since they are guaranteed to be legendaries. Reality Warper and Richie's Frigid Laser in club.
I concur with MM difficulty often being plain randomness. My favourite maps are either more puzzle-like where the difficulty is finding the solution rather than playing it, or give the player reliable enough means to make it a test of just playing the cards you get skillfully towards victory. I have at times playtested some maps though not all of them, I might try to playtest more of them and check out a few of the maps that were MM submitted but didn't get a thread. I would suggest anyone thinking of submitting an MM to first make a thread, there can be valuable commentary and insights from the perspective of a player of a map since they play the map differently than its creator might. Ogre Escort: I had a bit more trouble with this map than in my previous attempts, it took three tries to win rather narrowly. That bridge is definitely the most difficult part of the level, it's hard to get around and Mindless Battlerage can be a big hazard in such close quarters. A bit of a shame about the wonky Muscle Through mechanics on 2x2 mobs but a nice map otherwise, nicely designed and with good flavour text. Hammer Time: I've already done a fair share of ranting about the map in the test server forum, and it took me several tries to win this map again, though on my winning attempt I got majorly lucky, with the Death Elemental Rouletting two of the Doors to death and the Doors holding off on spawning Poison Elementals until the second round. I still think Death Elementals haven't been used properly in either of the MM maps which they appear in and think the map needs more visual polish, but I do like the flavour text at least. Space Explorers: I've been noticing a trend where the third map in a MM tends to be both the easiest and most fun map (interesting correlation ) and it continues here. It's a fairly simple map with a cluster of enemies to unleash Charges, Retaliatory Mutations and Rad Pulses on and it can make for some amusing RNG. A highlight was Rad Pulsing in the middle of all the enemies and seeing one of them pull a Laser Spray, that gave me quite the head start. Got the guaranteed Legendary drop which was useful in the second map of Belly of the Beast as well as my second Final Sword in the loot club slot. Not much of a Final Sword if there's two of them, but that hasn't stopped the Final Fantasy franchise either.
Ogre Escort by adajon Took me two tries, because I restarted after finding out that the enemies respawn. But as almost all of adajon's maps this one was a pleasure to play - original idea, great aesthetics, good story and requiring some strategic thinking! Hammer Time by Potato Priest I wasted 75 gold on this - gave up counting how many times I had to restart. I have to say, I really did not like this map - I understand the tactics we were supposed to use to win, but that required extreme luck in drawing the perfect card. This was not fun just got frustrating after a while, there were so many times that I lost one round away from winning and that if after I played my cards perfectly and even got very lucky draws - in the end I had to draw 3 Greater Heals, 3 Purging Strikes and 2 Flys all over 3 rounds and even then almost lose - luckily one of the doors did not attach negative energy and the death elemental killed it with two roulette's. It could have also done with some more doodads. The only redeeming aspect of this one was the story - I was having a hard time trying to figure out why the doors appeared in the first place, but it did make me chuckle a bit. Space Explorers by Vlamona This took quite a few restarts too, but it was not at all as frustrating because of the randomness of the radiation cards. This could have also done with some more doodads and less enemies, but good story and gameplay.
I spent 90 gold on revives on the live server. But some of that was because I was playing poorly due to frustration and not wanting to start over some other day. The trick to the first map is knowing when to kill the enemies. They respawn on odd numbered turns, so that's when you want to kill them. On even number turns you want to try to get them behind you, else they'll respawn in front of you. For the second map, stay out of LoS or more than 4 tiles from Death to avoid getting Doomed. If possible, also try to stay more than 3 tiles from everyone else to avoid Toxic Pulse. Also, only use Greater Heal on a portal if you're sure you can finish it off this round. The third map took me several tries, but part of that was because it was late and I was tired and frustrated. Start off hiding until you get Retaliatory Mutation and Radioactive Pulse on the same char, then send them into the middle of a bunch of enemies. I didn't get much use out of the charges because the oozes were immune (and werewolves and spirits are mostly immune) and most of the time when I tried to set one up someone would move into my way.
Map-by-map breakdown: @adajon @Potato Priest Ignoring Death Elemental: Killing Death Elemental first: @Vlamona
Or rather, Death Elemental practically killing itself. Anyways, good job. I applaud you for your patience.
In case people are still raging about this, here's some more strategy: Ogre Escort by adajon Don't kill anything, because you don't want enemies respawning near the VP when you're trying to rush Stafford through. Move the ogre to the banks of the river, up against the wall on the right side. He's the bait. The two goblins on the right and everything that crosses the bridge will zero in on him, and once they do you can try to retreat him along the wall. The two goblins on the left will probably try to box Stafford in, so bash and parry them while you wait. Store up two moves on Stafford and hope that you draw another one or two. Once the northern goblins have crossed the bridge and are busy smacking into the ogre, rush Stafford past and to the VP. Hammer Time by Potato Priest The first time I did this, it took two tries. The second time, about eight. It's a tough map. Don't engage the poison elementals at all, and know that if you try to take out the deathie, he'll doom you most of the time. You only need to kill the doors. What you don't want round one is for the door by itself, at the base of the map, to spawn any poison elementals, because it screws up kiting around the blocking terrain in the middle of the map. You want the poisons to be chasing you in one big group. To help this, if I drew a greater heal in round 1, I always used it on that lone door. Your most important cards are fly and greater heal, always keep these at the end of a turn, unless you have enough health and a clear path to a door with NEB attached, in which case keep fly and purging strike. Space Explorers by Vlamona Wait for a rumbler to draw retaliatory mutation and rad pulse, then phase them into the group of monsters. How easy this is depends on what drawbacks the mobs draw. A couple of laser sprays will win it for you almost in one turn, but a 'here about the job' or walpurgis will probably lose it for you. Even so, it should only take a couple of tries for the cards to fall right.
I think I'd have been a lot happier having the second map first: there's so much luck involved in winning that even if you play roughly "perfectly", you're probably going to have to pay some gold for restarts, and/or redo the first map a few times. If the portal map had been first, it would still have been exceedingly random, but at least when it was kicking me in the face, it wouldn't have felt like it was with spiked boots.
So I finally "got lucky" on the second map; I managed to finish off both the portals on the left, the green elementals were still over there, the death elemental was the other side of the pillar, I was one move away from the remaining half-dead portal (with NEB), with a purging strike and powerful bash in-hand, and with 18hp, though poisoned. New turn starts. I lose 3hp to the poison, but get the attacks I need (an all out attack helps). I move next to the portal, get death rouletted once, use the purging strike (with all-out attack), get death rouletted a second time and very nearly bodily insert my keyboard into my monitor screen. I don't know how many times I've lost to this map, and the only times that felt fair were the first two or three while I worked out the cards. Edit: Having finally got through the second map due to lucky rouletting of the portals, I'd say that the third map, while also massively RNG-heavy (as previous posters have pointed out, drawing Walpurgis or Here About the Job makes winning much, much harder), it's also much more entertaining to play. In retrospect, I'd have put map 2 first to make losing it no particular punishment other than losing time, map 1 second, as although it takes a bit to learn, it's also the easiest once you consistently win once you've got the hang of it, and map 3 where it is, as it's entertaining enough that losing due to rng doesn't feel quite so frustrating.
I really don't like the design of map 2 here, for several reasons. Interesting maps force you to make decisions and weigh up options, but the randomness means there is only one approach to win. Also with the death elemental and the passive traits a lot of this map is watching animations or NPC moves rather than playing the map. Maps where you have one character against a mob have this problem, and the random nature of it also increases the sense of player frustration. There is no point manuevering poison elementals to your advantage because it will probably become a heal. Plus there are only a few cards you need to keep in hand, so you don't need to think about what cards you may need. I just got the last portal down to 2 hp and then was killed by a roulette. There is nothing I can do differently in my next game. A fun challenging map lets me learn from a mistake and do something differently. Here there is too much chance, so past the initial few goes I'm not learning anything from my failures. This is when it becomes a grind rather than a series of challenging decisions.
I elected to go straight for the death elemental and kill it round 2, knowingly getting Doomed. You then effectively have 3 rounds to draw the Bruiser trait card (not too bad odds); just go in for a septic bite and toxic pulse and no more Doom. After that it's easy. Wound all three portals, kill the elementals, finish the portals.
I puttered around with this one a few times, but quit whenever the game offered to sell me a retry. I was bored with it by then, anyway. (I don't buy retries on the premise that if I need them, it means I haven't really figured out what I'm supposed to be doing. I may have to make an exception if I want to complete more 1 hp quests.) Tonight I made it through map 2 using only one free retry. The only rough spot on map 3 was when one of my mutants got Hear Them Out, and couldn't escape the gaggle. It also had Retaliatory Mutation, and drew quite a hand before expiring. (The things you see when you don't have a Punishing Bolt.) Its compadres zipped back to their hole and spent the 2 rounds waiting for listening time to end rumbling with the archers who followed them. After that, it was cake. I, too, would have preferred Hammer Time in the first slot.
I signed up for these forums specifically to say that Battle #2 is terrible, and whoever designed it is either [Redacted by mod], or both. I'm well into 20+ attempts. Last time I got hit by Roulette twice in the same turn. Instantly dead. I haven't drawn any healing cards in three or four attempts. I am lucky if I draw a single fly card on any given round. **** this garbage level.
This was not a fun series of maps. Now that they are done, there is no way I will ever go back to these.
