More Shadow Cave Changes Coming

[Pharcyde]

phar,, buy it out lol

Rofl thanks for makin my day!

[Fyrce]

People do do lots of work and leave all the time. I see it in groups and when we were 1st looking for the Cave portal, I cleared 1/2 of VL, then had to leave. Later I cleared all of it, killed a couple shadow prisoners and had to leave. I think if you can't join Caves games or invite in, the Caves will mostly be empty.

How many people popped the portal and did the entire Caves series top to bottom in one session? I managed to do it once, but not since. And I got lucky on the portal. First game after I logged in and the group was excellent. That's not going to happen often.

I love that you have to clear VL (finally!). It'd be nice to see portal appear more often. I don't know whether drop rate needs to be better than Ao3 drops. I think Ao3 VL drop rates were pretty good already. At least in my experience, you don't have to run too long before a good drop. The caves are longer though... I'm guessing this is something to observe as people play it.

[Lesrider]

Even with hosting, if there's no way to save your progress, you're just gonna keep doing the first levels over and over and never get to the last ones.
I agree it should still go in order and not let people skip to whatever level they want. But a way to save progress would be wonderful.

[Lesrider]

People do do lots of work and leave all the time. I see it in groups and when we were 1st looking for the Cave portal, I cleared 1/2 of VL, then had to leave. Later I cleared all of it, killed a couple shadow prisoners and had to leave. I think if you can't join Caves games or invite in, the Caves will mostly be empty.

How many people popped the portal and did the entire Caves series top to bottom in one session? I managed to do it once, but not since. And I got lucky on the portal. First game after I logged in and the group was excellent. That's not going to happen often.

I love that you have to clear VL (finally!). It'd be nice to see portal appear more often. I don't know whether drop rate needs to be better than Ao3 drops. I think Ao3 VL drop rates were pretty good already. At least in my experience, you don't have to run too long before a good drop. The caves are longer though... I'm guessing this is something to observe as people play it.

Read Drew's thread under Suggestions. I think it would solve almost all the problems.

[Pharcyde]

Fyrce does have a good point. Also you can join shadow games in the join game section. I have mooched many free bosses that way .

[Lesrider]

Fyrce does have a good point. Also you can join shadow games in the join game section. I have mooched many free bosses that way .

Just proved my point why they shouldn't be on the "join game" list

[Pharcyde]

Just proved my point why they shouldn't be on the "join game" list

lol nothing like joining a game 20 monsters away from the boss that drops armors. It makes me feel warm inside.

[Fyrce]

I have also been invited in to help clear a boss (witch, several times). Also Anubis (no clue why here). I've also seen groups break up at the boss (mostly witch LOL) and it takes awhile to form another group. It'd be lots harder if it was just all invites.

[Moogerfooger]

Are you sure about this?

I still stand by my original suggestion -- if they're going to purposely make it hard to get in there, the shadow caves games should not show up on the "join game" screen. Why give someone the opportunity to pop into different games just to kill the boss, then leave and pop into another one?

Totally agree. Hopefully they will address this.

[Kalielle]

Read Drew's thread under Suggestions. I think it would solve almost all the problems.

I did and it's a neat idea, but it seems like a lot of extra work for the devs, whereas allowing us to host any of the levels would be as easy as flicking a switch.

Why is it so important anyway to force people to play all the maps in order? What's wrong with just letting them play whichever levels they need for the gear they're missing? I think people will still farm all maps, just like in VL groups farm different bosses depending on what gear the people in the party need (or at least that's what my group does).

[Lesrider]

I did and it's a neat idea, but it seems like a lot of extra work for the devs, whereas allowing us to host any of the levels would be as easy as flicking a switch.

Why is it so important anyway to force people to play all the maps in order? What's wrong with just letting them play whichever levels they need for the gear they're missing? I think people will still farm all maps, just like in VL groups farm different bosses depending on what gear the people in the party need (or at least that's what my group does).

Well, from the way it was designed, it seems like Cinco wants it to be played in order (except for the option to join games). I guess it's up to him if he decides that he no longer wants it that way. But from his other thread, it seems he doesn't want it to be like another ao3, where anyone can create any game they want. Seems like he was trying to go for something different than what we're used to. And im glad he's looking for new ways to shake up the game. The checkpoints would simply allow both hardcore gamers and casual gamers to enjoy the new content.

[Kujen]

The don't need to take away the ability to join it from the "join game screen". They just need to ensure that someone has hosting powers and the ability to boot if necessary. If someone joins right before the boss and you feel it's unfair, boot them. The main problem I've been seeing is when the host leaves and nobody has the ability to boot lower levels and leeches. I think right now if a host leaves, the host powers only transfer when you "go to next level", nobody can become host during the middle of a map. They should make it where it can.

Also, I think when you create a private victory lap game it stays private when you move to the next level, the caves. Public games should always have the ability to join. In private games though...if you still have people you don't want joining it would be because they're on your friends list or a friend of a friend. But that's a whole other topic, like I've mentioned before...it would be nice if there were host options like "lock to friends only (not friends of friends)" or "invitation only" or "password required". And these options should stay in place when you move from one level to the next. So you'd set that when you create a victory lap game, and it would carry on into the shadow caves.

[[Lt] Shiny]

That's cool. XD

[Fyrce]

Remember when to do Nightmares, you had to start at level 1 and play it through each time? And you had to unlock levels? And you couldn't host individual levels? I have no clue how that experiment went, but they opened up level hosting pretty quickly, so I can guess. I'm also guessing some of the choices in Shadows Caves came from their experience on Frozen Nightmares.

I'd say leave it as it now or a slightly more frequent portal spawn. And set bonuses would really get people to clear VL in which case, , you probably won't need the more frequent portal spawn. When there's stuff people want, they can really go after it!

[SilverDog]

I hope this update is better then yesterdays... Thought it was really crummy that the portal was rare (Tried 25x before one showed up). When I finally got in, I was pissed to find out that most of the bosses where not around. And Even more pissed that all that was being dropped was the same as a typical Mummy/D'jinn in AO3. And with how much coins got spent on health potions and Elixirs... And to make it worse, the D'jinns got harder (in IV and V, it was a joke) with nothing being dropped.... Made the Shadow Cave not really worth playing since it was costing so much in coins... In the long run, it's much cheaper to buy the gear in the market then it is to go and get it yourself. It doesnt seem fair that for a while people got to loot like mad there and for those of us that where not able to play the game during this time (or was a high enough level to make it in), we get the crap-dipped short stick of the deal. (pardon my language). I wont be able to play until later tonight, possibly even tomorrow.. so I hope this new update that SpaceTime as put out is better. (I'm not going to spend real money, or even get spacetime more money from the tapjoy until I feel it's fair again. I hope it's soon or I may have to start giving it a low rating and no longer vote for pocketlegends)

[Balgreta]

ok from a fun point of view, we had 2 shadow witch's on the 3rd map.. in seperate areas at the end. one shadow witch also had a shadow prince and a shadow genie (i think genie) with her and one was solo with a few mobs.

we spent near 20k on pots, countless deaths but they all died in end... yeah it was fun because it was so hard, yeah it was super super annoying and pointless that we had to use over 25 hp pots or more each per boss (i was only mage) and yeah it was even more annoying not one of the 4 boss's we had on the 3rd map dropped anything more than yellow loot !!

btw first two maps didn't drop any pinks either.

So, we are almost there, the challenge is awesome, but the loot is dire - i personally wont be going back in there the way i feel at the moment - sure the hardness was cool but i do also want some reward for killing 3 boss's at the same time and another clone of the hardest boss in game by herself for no reward, it was a kick in the teeth for the 20k of pots that each player bought while we figured out teh kill order.

not to mention the 10man hrs invested into a game that is meant to be able to be done when you have a spare half hour. If i wanted long raids i would just play mmo's on a pc and enjoy better graphics tactics and rewards!!

[Timmeee]

Lol lol lol lol lol

[StompArtist]

Here's a little heads' up on upcoming changes to the elite Shadow Cave based on your feedback...

1 - The One-Way Path Problem - You will now be required to complete 'Victory Lap' before the 'Shadow Cave' teleporter has a chance of spawning.
2 - Teleporter Spawn Rarity - I made the 'Shadow Cave' teleporter more likely to spawn (since now you have to clear VL
3 - Bosses - Making the bosses not spawn sometimes was a very bad choice. The elite 'Shadow Cave' isn't fun without them, so now they're back.
4 - Drop Rates - Boss Monsters keep their drop rates (offering pink items more rarely than AO3 bosses do). Just mentioning 'cause you might be wondering
5 - More Multi-Boss Encounters / Tougher Bosses - I really enjoyed fighting pairs of Shadow D'Jinn. So I added several additional encounters with groups of bosses that are a bit more challenging.

Since there are more bosses it follows that there will be a higher chance of getting boss loot. Not a much higher chance, but a *somewhat* higher chance. Tested all night and it feels pretty fair given the effort of taking down the groups of elite bosses.

Access to the 'Shadow Portal' feels a lot more rare than it did when you just had to wipe out T'Paxx... now that you have to clear VL. However, I feel that it balances out the abundance of boss content in the 'Shadow Caves.'
(You'll see for yourself soon...)

Hope you enjoy it!

- Cinco

Can you rename the level from "shadow caves" to "ever changing caves of message board opinions"? lol The caves look great and it's a good job just a bit of implementation hiccups...Now a bit too time intensive to get to.

[Moogerfooger]

Amen! I love the challenge of the new update....but after dropping 40k in pots to clear all 5 levels, to get nothing better than a green drop in our entire party the entire way through...really? Why am I going to bother? A gray Menhit Shield for beating a boss? Really? Back to VL for me.

Good = Challenge level; harder to get to theoretically; better overall than initial patch
Bad = Tragically bad loot. I mean, Plasma Pyramid's loot is better if you want to look at it that way.

we spent near 20k on pots, countless deaths but they all died in end... yeah it was fun because it was so hard, yeah it was super super annoying and pointless that we had to use over 25 hp pots or more each per boss (i was only mage) and yeah it was even more annoying not one of the 4 boss's we had on the 3rd map dropped anything more than yellow loot !!

btw first two maps didn't drop any pinks either.

So, we are almost there, the challenge is awesome, but the loot is dire - i personally wont be going back in there the way i feel at the moment - sure the hardness was cool but i do also want some reward for killing 3 boss's at the same time and another clone of the hardest boss in game by herself for no reward, it was a kick in the teeth for the 20k of pots that each player bought while we figured out teh kill order.

not to mention the 10man hrs invested into a game that is meant to be able to be done when you have a spare half hour. If i wanted long raids i would just play mmo's on a pc and enjoy better graphics tactics and rewards!!

[noobmigo]

ARe the prices going up now? Bcuz last i check, they were cheap as crap