Chaos Mission 2-1

[Heckin' Chonkosaurus]

Hey folks!
Just played the first Mission of the second chapter of chaos for the first time, and i have to say...it frustrated the hell out of me!
First everything went easy, clearing the tunnels, getting the poison bombs and giving them a chaos makeover. Then, when i tried to get up on the bridge, the enemy heroes already ran down, blocking every possible path next to them.
So, basically, my whole warband was trapped and ready to get killed, when i realized that the new chaos bombs wouldnt to a damn thing without the oil i couldnt get because the path was blocked by people i cannot defeat without the oil.
Anyway, i let Merga die, cut my losses and are now hoping that the devs are noticing that that kind of "story-mission design" is clearly game-killing.
Or is it possible that my Chaos Spawn "triggered" all enemys accidently by using perception and spotting them trough the cave-roof? Because normally, in story mission, enemys dont do a thing until they got spotted, right ?

[Wendek]

Yes I've had the same problem and it's honestly one of the worst level designs I've ever seen in my whole life (made even worse by the kill-bot AI that rushes you on the stairs). And I've gone from playing 40 hrs/week to 1h max because it's boring to play when I know I won't finish the campaign anyway.

I'd like a fix too but I'm honestly not sure if there'll ever be one.

[ChemicalBacon]

Originally posted by Wendek:

Yes I've had the same problem and it's honestly one of the worst level designs I've ever seen in my whole life (made even worse by the kill-bot AI that rushes you on the stairs). And I've gone from playing 40 hrs/week to 1h max because it's boring to play when I know I won't finish the campaign anyway.

I'd like a fix too but I'm honestly not sure if there'll ever be one.

Same here, the story missions are horrificly designed.

There is a lot of bugs and problems still in this game there were there from the beginning, i'm on the verge on uninstalling.

[Wendek]

Yeah the devs can answer on the forums and be nice and all (though since release it's mostly to say "We'd really like to do that, but we can't"), and I really enjoy the concept and I've spent a huge amount of time on the game already...
But none of this changes the fact that this is basically a late beta with some makeup to pass for an actual release. Producer said "release now", and they did, even if the game needed at least another entire month of Early Access polishing. But one more month would have pushed the release into mid-december which is not a good timing if you want to bank on Steam Winter sales.

[ChemicalBacon]

Originally posted by Wendek:

Yeah the devs can answer on the forums and be nice and all (though since release it's mostly to say "We'd really like to do that, but we can't"), and I really enjoy the concept and I've spent a huge amount of time on the game already...
But none of this changes the fact that this is basically a late beta with some makeup to pass for an actual release. Producer said "release now", and they did, even if the game needed at least another entire month of Early Access polishing. But one more month would have pushed the release into mid-december which is not a good timing if you want to bank on Steam Winter sales.

Yeah, i'm still getting errors and impossible rolls such as 4 95% misses, I'm convinced that there is something wrong with the roll system because it happens far too much to be just bad luck.

Plus i'm still getting spawned in houses or buildings that have no exits, meaning that the unit in there is completely useless.

Combined with Skaven still being absurdly overpowered and the game being an uphill battle you can never win, it goes beyond "a challange" and into "completely unfair"

It's like playing chess but on turn 1 your opponent swaps their pawns for knights....

[Kanjejou]

dont forget the pc critting like a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ boss at least 30% of the time. whenyou usually crit 10%. most story mision are abdly made

[Biggles]

Does anyone have a guide to this level? I tried it for the first time and had the same problem as the original poster.

Thanks

[armyofmarkness]

bring a bunch of oil with you (can buy it from market once unlocked).

[Biggles]

Originally posted by armyofmarkness:

bring a bunch of oil with you (can buy it from market once unlocked).

Of course! Thanks

[Uthak]

haha this mission just got me to stop playing the game all together again. The design is so terrible its hard to word. And yes, i love a challenge, and yes i understand the mechanics. but its terrible and plain no fun on all levels...

So much is wrong about this: if you are just a tat unlucky you will get engaged with invicible heroes before getting firepots and can immediatly fold. if you manage to bring firebombs/make some, but get caught, these rank 10 heroes slap you rank 6 or less heroes to death in a single turn.
Ok, my band has real hard hitters and avoidance. i kill them too. quickly enough you get 2x rank 10 HEROES (not the usual little henchmen re-inforcements) who make it to your troop the turn they spawn. and again. hit like trucks.

Trying to rush and swarm the ogre shows to be futile. my spawn hits for 80-120 on normal enemies and avoids 3 attacks at 115% every turn. he messes up anything he faces. untill now. he hits the 800 hp ogre for ~20 dmg per turn. fair enough there are globes to throw. then this bumbs up to ~50-60 dmg, fair enough. now two things: the ogre needs to be kept burning to not regenerate crazy 50 hp per hit (attempt), plus the given 20 he gets for any attack HE makes, but also w/o the globe debuff his armor leads my heroes to hit for 3-5 dmg, and henchmen at 1-3... ok. there are many globes in the caves. sure enough i brought ALL of them up with my henchmen. now two things happen, every turn (after killing the invincible heroes) the AI spwawns 2 more guys who seek out your softies and it doesnt take long for a posessed to kill my HEAVY armored henchmen when he hits me for 60-80 and 3 times per turn... like WHAT??? they respawn so damn quick. i killed 6 (rank 10 heroes) lost 1 henchmen, and couldnt even set up to fight the ogre who luckely was buggy and stuck....

aside of the buggy being stuck: ok, runing out of time fast with 2 heroes respawning every turn, so i need to slap that ogre. then the above mentioned toughness comes to show. no problem, i think, throw some globes. It shows any hero can apparently only ever throw 1 per turn (Merga with 4 of them and 1289 movepoints throws one and then watches on) but WAY MORE SEVERE: you CANT throw them WHEN ENGAGED... what bloody design intern came up with that full blown jackass idea. there i stand. encircling the orge, who is burning in a strategical place, enabling 4 of my guys NOT to burn but attack (including my spawn), when the ogre starts CLEAVING and regenerating live with his hits. while all my guys with globes are now engaged and i no longer can brake his armor....

i tried this mission 2 times, took me ~5 hours, dint get anyone killed, couple of wounds and stuff. lost the first 2 times in that warbands history, and lost all joy in play. as this mission is entirely stupid. So many ways to make it a good and challenging mission w/o ruining the game. And yes, ruining. A game that has perma death, loss of gear and all other kinds of fun coming from that is zero fun when grinding up against Darksoul-like scenarious, where you just get weaker and weaker and weaker as you try, not to mention losing 20+% of your top-gear every trial. Sure as hell wont keep farming 3 missions to attempt another time to kill that ogre...

seriously, what a joke.

either of these things would fix this:
dont spawn max level heroes at 2 per turn rate, fast enough to engage any of your heroes on spawn
Ogre at 400 HP, or even 500 HP, 800 is entirely uncalled for and not "fun" but just a meatgrinder when even my Spawns nearby 200dmg crits hit him for not even 80.... i had my entire gang on him for 5 turns and got him down to 120 hp... losing 4 henchmen, my spawn and my 2 heroes..... i missed him maybe 2 times...

well... guess im done with this game for good. it was fun thus far

[tired798]

I have also tried this mission and it is definetely tough. I came close to beating it on the second try but no still didn't win it. I do know that you must absolutely take firebombs on at least some characters for this mission and that is even before you start fighting Thag. The problem with this mission in my opinion are twofold. First the practical requirement that you bring fire bombs is very expensive because even with mission rewards it still is hard to accquire enough of them. The second problem is the perpetual hero reinforcements which come in on a 2000 rated mission. (The only other mission I have encountered so far with perpetual hero reinforcements is a 2800 Palace of Profane Pleasures for mercs.) If these two problems were toned down, say maybe with only one hero who required the special firebombs to touch or toned down Thag's hp it would likely be fine. I am not saying the challenge isn't there but my real concern is the fact they say this is worthy of a 2000 point warband rating because I hate to see what the 3200 point for chaos would look like. One other thing that might make this mission a little more bearable may be to simply remove Thag's healing entirely after you use the special globes. In my experience even under these same special globes' effect he does heal based on combat damage he does to you so even then he is still too much tank for too little weakness. Hopefully missions like this will be a thing of the past for the new game but something tells me it may take another 2 or three tries before I find the right formula to win it.

In short, Thag and heroes seem to be a little too powerful and the rewards for this mission are not even worth the cost in practically required consumables such as firebombs. Overall this mission is not unwinnable but the artificial clock seems to be a tad ridiculous at this warband rating too.

[Uthak]

jupp agreed. A good challenge is much appreciated. but my 2k rating warband didnt stand a chance. i mean i got the ogre far down on the 2nd try, but at the prospect of 2 rank 10 heroes per turn who instantly are in combat, and my group having already lost a couple of guys and overall health at only about 30-50% there would have been no way for me to finish the mission (finding the crates thereafter)... It didnt help that my 2 heroes were drilled with 90% Webs of steel that did absolutely nothing against all the rank 10 heroes with mutations, as they completly ignore my parry chance. easy slaughter both times.

My warband prior to that was so geared and massive (literally not a single lasting injury) and left the fights losing over 8 purple items, dropping one of my rank 9 heroes dead and leaving 3 of my henchmen dismembered/maimed. This troop was able to EASILY crack "Brutal" and even "Deadly" enemy warbands with 0-2 losses and overall easy dominance.

I tend to say that Chaos in general is OP (in this meta), and the campaign could be overall more challenging. but mission 2-1 is not challenging. its just a chain of drop-dead-mechanics that are not demanding, but actually rely on pure luck and the player drafting his entire warband prior to this fight FOR this fight. its all about warband-skills, having firebombs, and even more so grind your warband to 2.5k rating+ prior to attemtping the fight...

As said here: the problem is not that this mission is "challenging", as it isnt really. Its actually fool proof. you kill the rats, kill the small guys, kill the big guys and then collect 4 things. the problem is that there is NO preparation for this mission. Unless you read guides in advance (and how much fun does that leave you with) EVERY single player will lose his first go at this mission, as it has simple auto-lose mechanics. all it takes is one of the immortal enemies blocking both accesspoints w/o you BRINGING firebombs and you auto-lose 100%. no skill required, you will never kill the roadblocks but they will you eventually.
The Ogre is what it is. stupid that is. 800hp. generates 20hp per hit, can cleave everything around him (so ganking is just as painfull + also here he regens health). Add in that if not hit by a necro bomb (which conveniently you can only throw from range, not in CC.... thanks for NOT telling me this when swarming the ogre and having all orbs locked in CC on heroes who cant dissengage)... THis leaves your whole team dishing out 1-8 dmg per hit, the ogre regenerating 60-80 hp per turn, of his 800 while easily non-critting your whole gang for 60-100 dmg per turn...

The constantly respawning rank 10 heroes (never any injuries btw) are actually just icing on the cake to make sure any of your guys not engaged with the ogre will get slaughtered in the backfield... I have no idea why no one called this out in QA, make it possbile to finish this mission with skill rather than dying 100% and then re-organizing your warband, buying must-have items and outgearing the mission by 500-1000 points to make the ogre and respawns bareble...

the most frustrating thing is that this mission ruined my perfect winning streek without any injuries (2 KOs overall) on my warband, and not because i messed up, or did something wrong, but i literally only got engaged prior to having flame bombs at the head of both access points and basically had to let them slowly slaughter their way through me untill i couold finally route... no fun, no challenge, no good design, no desire to proceed.


Game: Hey, play this mission. Skill prevails and you should be able to beat its 2000 rating with your 2012 rating warband if you know how to play.

Me: OK, lets do it!

Game: Oh, i forgot to mention you will lose this mission regardless of how well you play or what you do, but see on the bright side i will show you where you made mistakes building and equiping your warband PRIOR to even ever seeing this mission :) have fun and i hope you dont lose to much high quality gear, injuries and deaths :)

.... maybe just introduce freak events like market rotation where random members of your warband get seriously injured or die at random or "thieves" steal your weirdstone and gear between matches... same effect as a pointless waste of time attempting this mission for the first time...

[ChemicalBacon]

I haven't played this game in years. It's sad to see that the singleplayer missions haven't been improved on.

[tired798]

Uthak,

I agree with you on the 2500+ in fact I think my warband was about in that range around 2550 (Including consumables and injuries when I first attempted it.) The second attempt saw my rating at almost 2700 hundred including the REQUIRED firebombs which I brought on the second try and still no dice. Suffice it to say I wish the game did give a little more heads up, but to be fair the game does warn you (Of course only via Merga's dialogue prior to going in) that fire may be a good option.

As for using guides, the option is there but I find that struggling with the mission twice I really don't even want to attempt using them at this point. Perhaps this last bit is stubborn pride beyond anything but as much time as this mission takes, I think it will be sufficient to say that once I am able to beat it my warband will literally be ready for (almost) anything at least in pve. PvP is of course an entirely different kettle of fish but something tells me this mission could pass for a pvp band very easily.

I will say one final thing. I wish I could import my 3000+ Sisters warband into this fight and see how well they did. Obviously that cannot happen but as I completed the campaign for sisters using the same warband it would be interesting to see if the 2000 for chaos is comprable or even worse than the 3200 for sisters. I know I will never find out, but it would be interesting nonetheless.

In short 2500+ rating may not even be enough, guides could help but players (such as myself) may decide not to use them after one or two attempts. Finally as a dream, which absolutely could never happen, would be to see IF my sisters band rated around 3200 ish would be able to take this mission. We will have to see but I hope this mission is tweaked in some future development but it will be a long while too.

[Uthak]

Well. as said my 2k rating band got the ogre down to 80 hp and then got routed (had killed all nessecary hroes, but didnt collect weirdstone crates yet)...

And again, i LOVE a good challenge. a mission that is challenging and demanding. this mission is neither. it doesnt need any higher strategy, any well handled switches, any riddles, any push and grab, a maze, nothing. Technically you dont even need to BRING fire bombs and can make them. but whether you get to do so and take a shot depends 100% on luck and PRIOR, impossible to have knowledge. a challenge is giving university level tests to middle schoolers, this is more like asking a fish to climb a tree...

A higher rating for sure would help a bunch in getting the ogre down, and more so not loosing to many guys to the constant swarm of respawning mutants (rank10). When making a game hard you should take known concepts and make them harder to deal with, not introduce never before mechanics that dont make the game "harder" but simply add an entirely new and unanticipated mechanic that renders 5 (very STRONG) oponents not HARD to kill, but pracitcally immortal (as they will always regenerate back to 50 HP, even when dropped to 0 HP) - which in itself is one thing. but creators ignored that this mission is played by chaos. of my squad only 2 guys even have the possible chance to dissengage said immortals. the rest will be tied up untill dead. no questions asked. there is no skill involved. its just dumb. you get engaged in a bad location and the mission is automatically lost. 100% no matter what you do (unless you have flamebombs, of which, of course, you couldnt know in advance)....

this mission is no struggle or challenge. its simply bad.

[tired798]

I have to say yes and no to the point of not bringing fire bombs. The reason I say this is because the ones you can make in mission do not have the duratiuon of effect necessary to always guarantee a kill. I believe their duration is one round, plus a second round of fire persist. While this may be enough for the warriors it isn't a guarantee and this of course completely still leaves a huge question mark for Thag if you run out of the few you can make. (I believe the map has natively 10-12 but if you get blocked assuming only 2/3 are accessible at all) Either way I don't think it is advisable to not bring fire bombs unless you beat this one first try and I will add that I am leveling a fresh chaos band who will eventually face this mission.

Totally agree on the analogy of a fish climbing a tree (at least the first time) but something else which scares me also is the possibility of seeing these regenerating mechanics on other missions. I have only played a handful of brutal missions and even these I win about 2/3 of the time but if the healing mechanic of these story missions came into the normal missions I would be quite unhappy. If anyone has seen this healing mechanic on a brutal or deadly missions please let me know. I honestly hope this is only a one-off storyline specific thing but I could see a possibility where it wasn't. Thank you to all for your time