Custom Map #2196: Mystical box madness. By: Hypnotic22

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This topic is for discussion of map #2196: Mystical box madness


Author: Hypnotic22
Size: 192x140

[alche]

Loved it, bit of a mess at the start but once you get it is fun.
i think the order of the boxes is fixed, so you can save and load each time if you need to place certain structures together, so i tried to play this without saving..

i managed to beatg it in an hour, but had to keep playing till i got a beacon...cos i couldnt complete the nullify objective..

also, are the berthas and the spining laser thingy in the loots? i got only tons of airships...

keep em coming :)

[cornucanis]

Loved it, bit of a mess at the start but once you get it is fun.
i think the order of the boxes is fixed, so you can save and load each time if you need to place certain structures together, so i tried to play this without saving..

i managed to beatg it in an hour, but had to keep playing till i got a beacon...cos i couldnt complete the nullify objective..

also, are the berthas and the spining laser thingy in the loots? i got only tons of airships...

keep em coming :)

Spoiler

Yeah, if you roll good loot (30% chance) the reward odds should be 1/7 sweeper, 2/7 airship, 2/7 berthas, and 2/7 ern pack (5-10 erns)

[close]

I tried running a test on this map and I also had to burn 15+ titan boxes before seeing any good rewards other than airship, but they did show up eventually. It must just be the RNG seed for this map.

[Grabz]

i think the order of the boxes is fixed, so you can save and load each time if you need to place certain structures together, so i tried to play this without saving..

The order of the boxes is determined as soon as the game is unpaused at the beginning, so if you restart the level you will get a different order, but after the level has already started the order will have been pre-determined.

You are right that you can save, peek at what comes next, then load and prepare for it. I figured that this was better than being able to save, see the result, if it's a result you don't like, load and get a different result. I'm happy with how it works right now and it is entirely up to the player if they wish to give themselves some assistance by peeking at their next reward, or if they're willing to take it head on.

Glad you enjoyed it! I've been having tons of fun making (and playing) it :)

I will look into the dark tower - beacon synergy for future versions. I was lucky enough to get a beacon before I had to deal with a dark tower on my playthrough, but I can imagine if you're very unlucky you can end up spending a while trying to find it. I believe that a dark tower spawn is still going to be disruptive even if you have beacons, as it will temporarily disconnect stuff around it, so I will most likely increase the chance of finding some beacons.

[Deadl0ck]

Love the concept, absolutely hate the execution.

You don't get enough snipers quick enough to survive the onslaught of blobs/skimmers, even with rows of towers as sacrificial tokens, or eventually fall to the rise of creep due to the increase of friendly box costs. mystery boxes are just too unbalanced, Yeah let's just put down emitters or massive creeper bombs or airsacs next to my base, when I'm already desperately trying to hold on, hardly have any snipers nor missles. Haven't even been able to make it to titan boxes.

Tried this map 5 times, after wanting to punch my screen in because yet again I got screwed over by mystery boxes and started falling to creep levels, I decided to give up. RNG is fun when making stories. Not like this. To me at least.

[hypnotic22]

Love the concept, absolutely hate the execution.

You don't get enough snipers quick enough to survive the onslaught of blobs/skimmers, even with rows of towers as sacrificial tokens, or eventually fall to the rise of creep due to the increase of friendly box costs. mystery boxes are just too unbalanced, Yeah let's just put down emitters or massive creeper bombs or airsacs next to my base, when I'm already desperately trying to hold on, hardly have any snipers nor missles. Haven't even been able to make it to titan boxes.

Tried this map 5 times, after wanting to punch my screen in because yet again I got screwed over by mystery boxes and started falling to creep levels, I decided to give up. RNG is fun when making stories. Not like this. To me at least.

love that you comment and share your opinion but hate that you complain about RNG  ;)

unfortunately not only RNG is at play here, how good you are at the game is important to.
you are smart to use towers as sacrificial tokens but i do wonder what you use the ERN for?
the onslaught of blobs/skimmers as you say can be defended by one sniper whit a ERN and you have that from the start.

at the start be afraid of the mystery box and hope that the RNG god is good to you, don't get greedy and don't try to open more the one at a time until you know what to expect.
this is not just some fun custom unit, it is pure evil. you need skill, luck and a good strategy to open a mystery box.

i can understand your frustration, nice concept but why so evil !!!
the amount of fun i have had opening boxes is priceless and i am sad you did not.

[alche]

i managed by building lots of small boxes, and then setting up a kill zone with snipers, missiles and towers, and start open mystery boxes there, so in case something bad appears, i can deal with it quite easily

[Deadl0ck]

love that you comment and share your opinion but hate that you complain about RNG  ;)

unfortunately not only RNG is at play here, how good you are at the game is important to.
you are smart to use towers as sacrificial tokens but i do wonder what you use the ERN for?
the onslaught of blobs/skimmers as you say can be defended by one sniper whit a ERN and you have that from the start.

at the start be afraid of the mystery box and hope that the RNG god is good to you, don't get greedy and don't try to open more the one at a time until you know what to expect.
this is not just some fun custom unit, it is pure evil. you need skill, luck and a good strategy to open a mystery box.

i can understand your frustration, nice concept but why so evil !!!
the amount of fun i have had opening boxes is priceless and i am sad you did not.

Love that you replied, hate the smarky tone and implication I suck at the game.

I used the ern for: Initially in a cannon as immidiate defense, then in turn: kept it in cannon, chucked it in sniper (which didn't work for me, at all, as it just runs out of ammo) , used as range upgrade, used as energy upgrade, and last time was at a range upgrade again, as that was the best stragegy I found. I only started opening mystery boxes after I have the whole starting side of the map under my control. Then the crimson waves start to hit, friendly boxes hit a cost of 1000+ and my only recourse is to open multiple mystery boxes at once because I start losing units, and need to replace them or I'll lose anyway.

[InwardChaos]

RNG in my clear was very weird. I used savescumming to check the contents of my boxes for better placement and strategizing what needs to be done to handle the bad boxes.

My first two mystery boxes were both energy storages, followed by an air sac. Knowing this, I decided to wait until I had air defenses up before opening that box.
... I never got a single Redon deposit, even after opening enough boxes to have the cost be over 3k, and only got enough missile launchers to handle the air sac at around the 2.5k mark. I got 7 Bluite deposits and a ton of cannons, mortars, sprayers, snipers, and even 4 additional ERNs, but my air defense was completely non-existant.
Only upside was that the amount of weapons and ERNs made completing the map possible, and once I actually was able to defeat the boss air sac, the next two boxes were a refinery and Greenar Mother that allowed me to complete the optional objective.

The next mystery box was a jackpot bot box (the ones skimmer factories spawn on mesh, I just forget their name), that not even 5 erned snipers could handle before they flung creeper all over the map. The Titan box was a jackpot rain, that obliterated the entire map when I opened it after finishing the map.

[hypnotic22]

Love that you replied, hate the smarky tone and implication I suck at the game.

I used the ern for: Initially in a cannon as immidiate defense, then in turn: kept it in cannon, chucked it in sniper (which didn't work for me, at all, as it just runs out of ammo) , used as range upgrade, used as energy upgrade, and last time was at a range upgrade again, as that was the best stragegy I found. I only started opening mystery boxes after I have the whole starting side of the map under my control. Then the crimson waves start to hit, friendly boxes hit a cost of 1000+ and my only recourse is to open multiple mystery boxes at once because I start losing units, and need to replace them or I'll lose anyway.

.

did you not see me saying that you are clever for using towers as sacrificial tokens?....  Deadl0ck you don't suck at the game but you might be average.

i am truly sad you don't have fun with the map but i knew from the start that some are gonna have bad luck and a bad time.
nothing i can do about that. if you love the concept, craft your own maps  ;D

in the end it is up to you. i'll love to help you, give you tips but it seems you are here only to vent your frustration...   :'(   and not to improve your game play
which is fair enough, the boxes are evil.

still i wish you good luck and good health.

[Deadl0ck]

Played the map in total 15 times now, only the last was a (partial) succes. (Still didn't get the optional goal.) Like I said, I love the concept.

I'm not sure why you claim you need skill to win this map. There's no skill involved, it's literally random luck in getting the right units and resources. The last time I was lucky enough to get a few erns out of the friendly boxes (First time that happened in 15 games, I wasn't even aware they could spawn in friendly boxes up until that point.)  and enough useful units to hold off the waves of creep as I turtled my way through mystery boxes.

Just a shame I had to resort to savescumming to get through it, but based on the comments, that's not unusual. Shame, as having to resort to that does seem to indicate an inbalance in the design. Weighted or better balanced spawn chances come to mind to help fix this , for example, don't allow the same resource to spawn for 5 or so boxes, after one just spawned. As well as increased mobiliy. Let players reposition solar panels, refineries, rift gates. If need be with a moving unit that costs 10 energy per grid moved or something.

Still have no clue where to get greenar from though. I suspect from the titan boxes, but the 7 or 8 titan boxes I opened after getting the main objectives done were all giant glop explosions, and I got bored.

[Durikkan]

Yeah, I'd say the random box is interesting, but a bit too punishing.  The concept is good, but the rng needs a little bit of organization to make the maps more fun. 

I was actually debating whether it was even worth it to get the medium level boxes after the first 15 things were just single doses of anticreeper, a couple solar panels, and the rest were all enemies.  Eventually I started getting some units out of it.  Then it's like lets try opening a 3rd tier box, see what's inside -- A complete wipe of all friendly units, forcing a map quit. 

[Deadl0ck]

Yeah, I'd say the random box is interesting, but a bit too punishing.  The concept is good, but the rng needs a little bit of organization to make the maps more fun. 

I was actually debating whether it was even worth it to get the medium level boxes after the first 15 things were just single doses of anticreeper, a couple solar panels, and the rest were all enemies.  Eventually I started getting some units out of it.  Then it's like lets try opening a 3rd tier box, see what's inside -- A complete wipe of all friendly units, forcing a map quit.

In short: No. The medium boxes aren't worth it, but you need them because otherwise you'd sit for 4 hours getting enough units out of the lucky boxes. The third tier is absolutely pointless, as far as I can tell. by the time you have enough units to deal with the negative, you've also already completely beat the map.

[hypnotic22]

Played the map in total 15 times now, only the last was a (partial) succes. (Still didn't get the optional goal.) Like I said, I love the concept.

I'm not sure why you claim you need skill to win this map. There's no skill involved, it's literally random luck in getting the right units and resources. The last time I was lucky enough to get a few erns out of the friendly boxes (First time that happened in 15 games, I wasn't even aware they could spawn in friendly boxes up until that point.)  and enough useful units to hold off the waves of creep as I turtled my way through mystery boxes.

Just a shame I had to resort to savescumming to get through it, but based on the comments, that's not unusual. Shame, as having to resort to that does seem to indicate an inbalance in the design. Weighted or better balanced spawn chances come to mind to help fix this , for example, don't allow the same resource to spawn for 5 or so boxes, after one just spawned. As well as increased mobiliy. Let players reposition solar panels, refineries, rift gates. If need be with a moving unit that costs 10 energy per grid moved or something.

Still have no clue where to get greenar from though. I suspect from the titan boxes, but the 7 or 8 titan boxes I opened after getting the main objectives done were all giant glop explosions, and I got bored.

Deadl0ck you don't need to " sit for 4 hours getting enough units out of the lucky boxes" you can just go win the map  ;) no savescumming and only friend box

all the boxes are made for fun, nothing more nothing less.
if you cant do the map in over 10 attempts and still claim no skills are needed........  what am i supposed to say?
clearly you need skill to do the map and you don't have them.
once more, i'll love to help you get better but you just complain.
why don't you start out by asking about the boxes balance or asking if we are interested in changing the balance, answer to that is no. we enjoy how the boxes are and it is a 1000 times more important that we have fun then trying to make random people on a forum happy. hope you can understand that and respect it.

im sorry to do this but you brought it upon your yourself, you catch more flies with honey but your opinion no longer matters to me at all

once more i wish you good luck and good health.

[Harlequin13X]

Yeah, I'd say the random box is interesting, but a bit too punishing.  The concept is good, but the rng needs a little bit of organization to make the maps more fun. 

I was actually debating whether it was even worth it to get the medium level boxes after the first 15 things were just single doses of anticreeper, a couple solar panels, and the rest were all enemies.  Eventually I started getting some units out of it.  Then it's like lets try opening a 3rd tier box, see what's inside -- A complete wipe of all friendly units, forcing a map quit.

In short: No. The medium boxes aren't worth it, but you need them because otherwise you'd sit for 4 hours getting enough units out of the lucky boxes. The third tier is absolutely pointless, as far as I can tell. by the time you have enough units to deal with the negative, you've also already completely beat the map.

Yeah I would say this is completely accurate. The friendly boxes need to increase in value a LOT slower, considering that they are generally terrible contents. You have to place a TON of them for any kind of stability. sometimes you can get 8 bluite deposites and one sprayer, or 18 (this happened to me) sprayers and never get a single bluite. Considering their general uselessness, they are WAY too expensive too quickly. Even playing smart, you can't really achieve stability, so it's not even like you can put it on 4X and wiat for more boxes to open.

As an experiment (I got bored af waiting for friendly boxes) I said "to heck with it" and opened about 40 mystery boxes. I pulled about 5 snipers the rest was bad or useless. literally, got several airsacks, lots of forbs, a dark tower, several creeper dumps and 4-6 refineries with no greenar on the map. So unfortunately, mystery boxes are not the answer. playing the game while actively babysitting so you can juggle units around fo 100 hours or getting very lucky with RNG (which I am never lucky with RNG) is the only way to win. I even built power-pole walls to counteract for the utter lack of snipers. worked ok, but required a lot of babysitting to repair and defend.

really cool idea, requires a little tweaking. The OC doesn't seem interested in notes though, so we may have to just hope someone else picks this up and improves on it. Still, really cool that he made this, he's obviously quite talented :)