RNG mocking me

[paboperfecto]

Took a break and never played b18, but 19 is a ton of fun! Anyway, my characters NEVER find the blood of life. I'm not sure why, I get them to the far east, and yet the never, ever find it. Of course as soon as I roll up a new ghoul archmage and step outside that first chamber what is sitting on the ground? A bloody phial. Sigh. At least I can sell it if I escape.

[Final Master]

Oh please, that's nothing.

Today, I was playing my [now] favorite character, a Ghoul Berserker focusing entirely on maxing constitution.

I have NEVER beaten the ambush, nor have I ever successfully completed the spellblaze, hobbit ruins nor the temporal rift. Time to break it down -

I choose the "wrong" option with talking to the yeek after I saved him - and I didn't get the unlock.
I got abandoned in the temporal rift due to a bug and had to implement cheat mode to to do it - didn't get the unlock.
I am playing on roguelike, and have no means to resurrect - I have no issues doing any dungeon, mowing down dungeons with npcs more than 10 lvls higher than my own - I then get to the ambush, and kill EVERYTHING but the archers, 1 warrior and the unique in 1 blow [battle call + death dance + shattering impact + berserker + murder blade] - and about five turns later I kill the unique and warrior - leaving just archers - Running out of resources and everything on cooldown, I finally get down to a single archer and myself - the archer then kills me... at -7 life. Fine, right? Really... it's... okay, sorta - until I impliment cheat mode to resurrect to revenge my death on the archer and search the loot left behind. Where the unique was killed [nothing else was killed on this tile] - ... was the ring of death ... you know, the one that resurrects you. I COULD have gotten that and picked it up and used it during the fight and kept playing... but I didn't think to look at the loot during the fight... the RNG SERIOUSLY was taunting me there...

[Grey]

Yeah, that's sheer RNG cruelty right there :) Archers are the worst thing about that ambush - I always try to take out the majority of them first.

[darkgod]

On the other hand you are not supposed to be able to die there .. hum

[Grey]

I believe the problem is when the boss dude dies first his lackeys can finish you off. Perhaps it should be changed so that the rest of the orcs flee once the boss is killed?

[marchewka]

I can confirm something like this happened to my dorf fighter too - killed the orc boss, and then died the "true death" to his minions.

[darkgod]

Ah yes once Ukruk goes you're on your own

[marchewka]

So basically it now punishes good and efficient play (removal of biggest threats first). Or in other words, in this ambush, everything is of "bigger danger level" than the Uruk himself. Too bad this becomes evident only after one looses life/character there, or spoils himself in the bugs forum. Maybe some sort of ingame hint could be made about that? Or maybe the "death protection" could last until the end of the ambush?

[kazak]

On the topic of RNG a-holery...

I just had a really annoying run with a berserker. After suiciding a couple characters due to mysterious Zigur-quest fails, I realize that escorts using magic is a problem. So I then grind my next character through the maze, the sandworm lair, avoiding all escort dungeons until i get antimagic.

Having accomplished that miserable, laborious chore, I find no escorts in Trollmire, none in Kor-pul, only two towards the end of Old Forest (neither of which have magic). Don't actually really start getting escorts until Daikara, where they all die miserably and largely unavoidably.

Yay.

[HesDeadJim]

The RNG laughs like a giggly little school girl every time an escort spawns in Daikara. Every time without fail a boulder thrower shows up when we are mere steps from the exit portal and pulls chain knock-back that ends any chance that poor lost soul had at making it home to his wife and kids.

[Karzon]

I had my first victory a day or two ago (sort of) with a cursed. Never found a controlled phase door rune on that character - or any other yet. Oh the difference it might have made:

I took out one of the final bosses - barely, he was really nasty and I had quite a few close calls, and he actually recovered from about 3% hp to 35% at at least one point. The other boss had a phase door rune, and regeneration, and healing. So he'd teleport out of my sight, and by the time I even found him he'd teleport again - then the next time he'd pop healing and regeneration and be at 100% by the time I could get in melee range with him again - I equipped boots of speed and some damage gear (and had to swap something around since someone in that fight loved using knockback), and would use blindside or reckless charge, could get in maybe one more attack before he teleported, and the process would repeat.

I tried it like that for maybe 15 minutes, leaving a gate open so I could use the stream of enemies to fuel my hate/regeneration/enhanced speed talents and had no luck. Then I closed that with the hope that aeryn's help might make the difference (since she was busy with the other enemies) and kept trying for several more minutes until I ran out of hate - meaning no more mobility talents at all. The boss was too busy teleporting out of my sight to stop and actually attack me much, so it would have just been a stalemate forever. I finally cheated his life down and don't feel sorry about it at all, especially since I heard how they're changing inscriptions in the next version

Briagh was much the same way (without the teleportation), although I was able to to do it honestly - slowly. I could keep his health at a roughly steady percentage using everything I had, and then get it a little lower each time I used rampage (100 turn cooldown!) - so it took about 500 turns altogether. Luckily, his constantly summoned minions made tasty snacks or I'd have run out of hate and health regeneration.

The RNG laughs like a giggly little school girl every time an escort spawns in Daikara. Every time without fail a boulder thrower shows up when we are mere steps from the exit portal and pulls chain knock-back that ends any chance that poor lost soul had at making it home to his wife and kids.

Oh, don't forget the wretchlings or whatever they're called. In Daikara I thought I had an escort safely behind me, while he decided to stand around in an acid pool and get killed. I think it took only two of them to do that from full life, and there were another five still waiting and laughing.