Delve Event - My Experience and Recommendation for Newer Players

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Okay, this is entirely my own personal experience with Delves and Delve Events. I’ve tried to tone it down. I’ve given myself hours to chillout and calm down. Despite that, it may come across as a rant - it’s not intended that way but despite the hours behind this incident, I’m still p*ssed off.

Disclaimer: This isn’t a statement of what is or isn’t good/bad/indifferent about Delve events.

And not to be an a**hat but anyone trying to tell me I experienced something other than what I say can shove their opinion back into the gaping brown hole it came out of.

I finally completed a level 500 pure faction delve. I did it during the weekend delve event for The Black Heart, maybe not the best choice but I haven’t seen a weekend delve event that wasn’t a newly released delve for a very long time.

I paid money for extra gems because I ran out of gems and sigils, as a first time spend on Gems I got the 100% bonus amount. It isn’t the first time I’ve spent money on the game, just the first time buying those. I ended up buying 200 and then 100 which equated to 400 and 200 with my VIP bonus added on top of that.

I feel ripped off. My own fault for spending and deciding to do this event, but still feel like I got shafted.

Here’s why.

Valravens are rare. They aren’t as common as they are during other weekend events, like towers or dooms. No, their rate of appearance is just sh*t. I ended up buying through to tier 7, the potion of power, just to get to level 500. I never lost a fight and never lost a raven all the way through to and including level 500. And I cleared every room of every level.

By this point I regretted even starting the event. I could see it was going to demand real money to get a pure faction run completed.

Which brings me to the pure faction team. I used a recommendation which was two blackhearts and two of the stealthy assassin dudes. I got destroyed 3 attempts in a row by the 2nd room.

The percentages as listed in the troop description are a lie. Pure fiction. There are actually two different % chances. One for you, one for the enemy. Your chance is the listed % minus the difference between your team score and the enemy team score. The enemies % chance is the listed % plus the team score difference. That may not be the actual percentage changes by the way but it is definitely affected by the team score difference. You can see this in other game modes. It leads to the common idea that the AI is cheating. (There is no ‘AI’ in this game. It is all programmed reaction/response. With some apparent ‘RNG’ elements.)

Obviously seeing my troops getting one shot by the above mechanic and my attempts at one shotting the enemy failing almost 100% I was feeling like GOW was trolling me. And of course I needed more sigils which meant a trip to the cash shop. So not just trolling but actively running a scam.

But I had committed to finishing it. So I paid their ransom demand.

And still failed. That ‘RNG’ mechanic failing me repeatedly. Not just in the first room, but in subsequent rooms. Resulting in a need for more sigils and another trip to the cash shop.

And again, I was too far committed to back out now. Ransom paid.

During all of this, I had upgraded my hoard to 180, kingdom level 17, 2 guild task bonuses plus the artifact bonus from the current event. I was an idiot thinking this would be enough to complete the delve event.

I decided to alter my pure faction team to 4 Blackhearts. Generally the first two would always get oneshot and the remaining two guys would get one shot by skulls dropping from the sky in favor of the enemy team.

So of course I had several potions of power going by this point and I destroyed the first room! No losses. I couldn’t believe it.

Next room, entangle. Couldn’t lose the entangle on my first guy, kept blowing up the board for that extra life and armor but he still died and was only doing minimal doom skull damage because he was entangled. My second troop, also got entangled immediately. I couldn’t get a skull match. But eventually I was able to whittle forest troll down and he died before my second troop did. 3 Troops left, next room.

A joke. Less than a minute I was collecting my ‘failed’ reward.

Two more attempts and actually made it to the boss room. This was my third time making it to the boss, I had 3 troops and finished it with two. At the end I was viciously swearing, “I will never do one of those f*cking events ever again” and many variations.

I have never wanted to quit this game until now. I started playing in November or December of 2016. A long freaking time.

Right now I hate this game.

And I consider myself lucky for not having to go back and buy more potions of power. I think it was 5. Maybe 6. I was so angry when I finally finished it I didn’t think to record exactly how many attempts or how many potions.

So what is my recommendation to anyone wanting to “try out” a delve event? Forget it. Set yourself on fire, it will be more enjoyable and you’ll feel better knowing that the pain and suffering you experience is 100% caused by your own actions.

If you are happy being forced to spend money to complete an event and having the game mechanics obviously stacked in the enemy favor and don’t mind spending hours and hours at it for no real reward, then go ahead. But if you do, you can only blame your self.

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Two thoughts here:

First, Valravens typically show up at reasonably predictable intervals in Faction Assault events, whether that event is a weekend or a Tuesday. After finding the previous Valraven, there’s a compact range of battles fought after which the next one usually shows up. Which is why you can only get through Level 80 on a Tuesday event without any sigil purchases roughly 99% of the time; sometimes you’ll get unlucky and not find the second Valraven before finishing Level 60, one in a really, really long while you might find a third Valraven on Level 80, but it’s generally a set pattern.

You’re never going to be able to finish a Faction Assault event to Level 500 without spending a ton of Gems (plus the necessary amount of time and effort). That’s just the way things are right now.

Second, The Black Heart is an obnoxious delve that’s more highly biased towards RNG success (or failure) than strategy and raw stats. This is further exacerbated by TBH being one of those delves where you have to clear five rooms to beat the delve. As opposed to something like Stonesong Eyrie which can be done in three.

I can understand the frustration at this; I cleared this particular faction without potions and had to fight the RNG much of the way as well. But the percentages aren’t working the way you “claim” them to be above; that’s simply how random probability works. You remember many of the sequences where it seems to work against you – and you’ll always get some “bad beats” if you’ve done that many attempts at Pure Faction – but you probably aren’t recounting the times where you scored a kill (or three) with every bit as low a probability.

And if all you might have been doing was spamming spells without planning? It’s no wonder you felt like you were getting hosed. But there is an amount of strategy to properly prosecuting TBH with a faction team and knowing how to manipulate the probabilities to make your odds of success greater than they otherwise would be.

As for feeling “mugged” and obliged to pay real money to finish this? That’s a “you” issue, not a “them” issue. Nobody has a gun to your head forcing you to pay money and keep fighting through this. It’s not anybody else’s fault if you engage in behaviors that make you unhappy and may even be destructive to some extent.

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Most pure faction runs are difficult those with RNG based mechanics are by far the worst. Buying at least 7 tier 7 upgrading your hoard level as high as you can and having the kingdom and power level bonuses can help stat wise and give you more sigils but it will always be a risk if you are spending the gems to complete the run or be left feeling salty especially for a more difficult delve such as this one.
Usually I suggest making sure you have the gem resources to ensure you can make the run even if it takes you an extra 15 tries before bothering to spend any resources on a PF attempt but if you feel comfortable spending money for gems in order to get it done that is an option though I would never do so myself.
This is just one of the many reasons we players have been asking to buy potions for factions outside of faction assaults. Having a limited window and spending gems for a temporary boost that comes with a lot of risk feels bad even if you do manage to get it done and do not spend any money on buying the resources. Ever since they announced at some point this year they would be making adjustments to the delves I refrained from progressing them to see how the update changes things first and then evaluate what my options are. It seems like they are next month adding deep delves and treasure hoard potions to the options so maybe it is a way we can bypass this scenario you found yourself in. Even if the cost of potions is slightly higher than it is during a faction assault having the permanent buffs without the time constraint will feel less like a gamble and allow us to progress at our own pace. If the potions end up being permanent for that faction also would feel a lot less like the gems are being wasted on a one time purchase that is not there for the faction in the future.
For some of the delves raw stats can help a lot buying 7 or more potions of power and having all the stat boosts and hoard levels can really make it easier for ones like this the stats help but RNG makes more of a difference so it can take many tries even if you had way more potions and hoard levels than you did. All it takes is one bad roll in one room and there goes a sigil. I really hope the delve update coming soon will be all that we players have been asking for. Permanent potion upgrades for that faction to allow us unlimited tries at pure factions using our 3 sigils a day at a fair cost. I get the feeling if this were the case you would be a little less upset about your experience doing PF 500 as you could take as many tries as it takes and not feel like your gems were being held ransom.

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Yeah, probably a bad choice of delve because it is obnoxious but like I said, I haven’t seen a delve weekend event that wasn’t a new release for a while. Or did you not read the post?

Do you honestly think I could play this game for more than 6 years and just spam spells? Do you honestly think I can clear every room with no losses by just spamming spells? Please, take your opinions and shove them in that gaping hole I mentioned at the beginning.

And maybe read the post while you deal with your opinions. I made it VERY clear from the outset that it was my choice and mine alone.

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Part of the reason for doing this event was the fact of the upcoming changes. Maybe the changes will be good. Maybe.

This is a game where past promised improvements have been complete and utter [insert expletive of choice].

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The best way I’ve found to deal with PF 500 (specifically potionless, using daily sigils) is to expect to not win - if we keeping throwing our pile of leaves at the brick wall, it will eventually fall down someday, statistically (okay, not always that simple, but you get the point). Stonesong took me too many tries to count and was a complete RNG fest. Devs have mentioned in the past that AI proc rates are higher than the player’s, I believe, so that does play into it.

It’s your choice how to play and when to pay, but I’d encourage you to consider if paying is adding enjoyment to your experience. If not, hey, don’t sweat it, keep that cash for another time. :smile:

PF 500, if done during an event, is meant to cost thousands of gems. It’s worth saving up if you plan to complete one during an event. Of course, with the upcoming potential to buy permanent potions, everything may change very soon.

At the end of the day, play for fun, and play your way! Don’t take it too seriously and the losses won’t feel so soul-crushing. It used to upset me losing over and over to the same PF for weeks on end, but now I just go into it expecting to lose, bettering my strategy and upgrading my Hoard stats over the days. Keeps me a lot calmer :joy:

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Yeah hard to know how the changes will effect things but they did mention in a semi-recent post months ago that these weekend faction assaults would be rotating through. There will be a new kingdom in a few months and probably a new faction some time after. So far the only other weekend faction assault they gave us was the one for nexus which was not long after the weekend faction assault for the first release. Until then the weekend faction assaults had been limited only to the release of a new faction.
I am hoping the update will be as straightforward as the language diff seems to imply. You get a faction to lvl 100 turn it into a deep delve and then can unlock the ability to purchase the potions which upgrade the delve attempts for that faction from that point on (I am assuming they will not have any effect on the faction assault stats though but it may)
Either way giving more options for how to handle delves will be welcome as right now the options are limited and not that great as I am sure you can agree.

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I can understand your frustration. PF500 runs are tough and subject to RNG.

My advice would be:

  • Newer players should start with some of the easier delves that you do not need potion for, and do not need a hoard level >100.
  • If time is not urgent, then work your way up with three free delves per day (~17 days to reach 500 room)
  • Never spend RL money on completing a delve. If it is a tough delve which needs potions, then hoard gems from the hourly tributes and vault events, and ensure you have enough for 10 potions of power (in case u have really bad RNG)
  • Get associated Kingdom Level to 14 (+50% stats). [which you did]
  • Do a PF at LvL300, so you get a Legendary Pet when u do LvL500 with non-faction. This is a boost for your PF500 run. It also gives u good practice at using a faction team.
  • Change medals to suit each battle on PF runs (sometimes Medals of Orpheus are not required, so switch them to Seasons, or Nysha. Generally Anu doesn’t help on PF500 runs as that’s not gonna make the difference)

And for perspective, I did almost all delves without potions including the harder ones such as Hell Gate, Fang Moor, Dark Pits, Sea of Sorrow, The Warrens, Werewoods, Dripping Caverns, Eldrazhor.

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For the benefit of newer players, never attempt a weekend pure faction 500 run unless you have a minimum of 3k gems in the bank that you are willing to throw at buying potions. For the Tue one day ones, I’d say at least 3.5k-4K. You might not need all of them,but getting stuck like the OP did having committed but not having enough reserves to see it through is a nasty spot to be caught.

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Better advice than mine.

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…as in Gems? But if you’re just after the Vault Key and 2 Orbs of Chaos in the reward ladder, all you need is about 8-9 runs clearing all rooms which can be done not too difficult with an optimized team setup (and when you’re lucky, a Valraven or two).

(My first Lv.500 clear was Silver Necropolis using a Shield of Urskaya+Paladin strategy, but that puts me in a small bind because now I can only do a faction team run at Lv.50 or Lv.500 and nothing inbetween. I’m working on avoiding that with other factions, like Emperinazaar)

Yeah this is true for ALL events, whether it’s Tuesday, Thursday, the weekend, or a new week.

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The context of the threads is trying to get to 500 and complete a pure faction run, so yes, the figures I suggested are gems for doing that, not just getting the event rewards, which is much much easier

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So is getting to 500 during one event some kind of challenge run then?

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What is being discussed is doing a pure faction 500 team. If you look at the faction info you will see there are categories for how to collect points. Doing a pure faction 500 run means using a whole team with only that factions troops and will get you the rest of the points you need to finish that factions rewards. If you look at the overall faction rewards you will see that you gain things like ingots per day but most importantly eventually unlock permanent stats like attack life armor and magic. So the reason you want to do these pure faction runs is for those stat boosts. Because you are only doing the pure faction team to do so it is extra difficult for some factions and the boosts and stats from the potions help a lot. Normally pure faction runs are done at 300 and then 500 because at 300 you get enough points to ensure that when you do 500 normally you unlock the faction boost pet to legendary and then you do the 500 pure faction run with the boosted stats for the final points you need.

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Many players don’t want to attempt level 500 delve with pure faction team. And the only way to do 500 with potions is to do it all during the event. The OP was trying to fully complete the delve, so that’s the subject of the thread here.

+1 to this. As long as you know what you’re getting yourself into (a massive gem sink), these events can be… I hesitate to say rewarding. But if you get your renown high enough, the extra stats and ingots can be really nice. Not to mention the lack of frustration of being blocked on kingdom power because you’re missing the faction pet or renown, that’s the biggest draw for me.

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Currently the only way to do it with potions is during a faction assault next month there will be another option available to us.

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So today I completed my second PF delve, Deep Hive. Without potions. Hoard at 120, kingdom level 15. This delve is one the new players should try at first. I beat the last room at my third try.

First PF delve I did was Gardian Chambers with potions a couple of weeks ago. Took a good part of the day and I put at least 2000 gems on it. I was prepared so I didn’t lose a single fight.

I think the next one I will go for is Wild Court.