GemCraft: Frostborn Wrath, defend that path, do that math, take a gem bath

Have you spent a lot of skill points? If so, reset and barely spend any. They contribute to starting mana in a major way. Super important. I leveled the skill that gives mana on kill to 5, and the fusion skill to 5, and I only have a point in my other skills (of which I only have 2 or 3 more ATM). I have like 240 unallocated skill points or something.

Also, I almost exclusively use bonus starting mana puzzle pieces, and I do recommend upgrading them. Even the low tier ones. You can’t have enough starting mana; it’s sort of a gemcraft tradition. I also wouldn’t fool around with endurance too much until you clear V1 trial (the V field tile will be the third one you get to IIRC). It’s got a hugely important battle trait that greatly increases the # of enemies (but also amps up mana gains). Some trials have fixed traits but once you unlock a trait like this you can use it anywhere. this can be set to something like 12 different levels and it’s a huge xp gain multiplier once you start putting it into use.

I’ll tell you, I’m bored as fuck with the new Gemcraft. Too much grinding. Do some levels, redo the levels on endurance, redo them on trial. Fail, go do a new map, rinse & repeat.

To make matters worse, the maps rarely give you more than 1 or 2 gems to work with and so far at least, you don’t unlock any new gems to go back on a previous map and do it with newfound gems.

I mean, I’ve got 3hrs into this and only on like the 9th or so level (I think on the 4th map). No new gems and I can’t stand the choices they have done on limiting the gems so far.

I mean the old CS, you felt like you were at least making progress unlocking new levels / new maps.

BORING

If I remember correctly, the last one started with very few gems as well. It took hours until you had them all. It was 10s of hours until you could make a proper mana farm wasn’t it?

I haven’t been spending a lot of time on trials, but as of now they have important skills. That’s changing though. If I don’t beat something I just move along. I have had to grind though.

Still, about 5 hours in and loving it. Not as good Chasing Shadows, but hopefully they fix it.

At least. I am assuming that getting the invidual gem skills will unlock them for all maps (Save trials, natch) this time around. Can’t remember if Chasing Shadows did it that way.

I’m also really enjoying it.

I also picked it up and have been enjoying it alot.

I also picked up and played the prior game fairly recently (4-5 months back) and think those of you guys comparing this unfavorably with the prior game have some rose tinted glasses on how slow the early game was in Chasing Shadows. I think the new game steamlines a few things and the ramp up more gradual. It is still pretty unforgiving later on, but that’s pretty consistent with the series

Not to speak for @Tman, but he may just be burnt out on the mechanics. It’s been about 3-4 years since I played Chasing Shadows, which I really did burn out on, so it’s still new again for me.

I think you’re right though @Ex-SWoo, CS was really slow at the beginning as well. This one does seem more difficult though.

The fact that you tend to start them (this was true of the past few flash versions) with few skills/etc and no knowedge of where the next skills were coming from honestly needs a little bit of revisiting. I wouldn’t necessarily give more right off the bat. But as part of the plot, e.g., you could say that there were 4 apprentices you need to track down and have them as glowing motes off in the unexplored areas of the map and then indicate the general direction to get to them. as well as state the things they have to offer. Simply choose, from a design standpoint, a few strong skills/traits that can help people really jumpstart and then let the player go get them.

This new Gemcraft is so fucking stingy at everything. @Ex-SWoo is wrong in that I’m not looking at rose colored glasses. To prove it, I went & reinstalled CS and here I am on the FOURTH level and I’m already creating level 5 gems. My mana pool easily gets to level 3 or even 4.

In the new Gemcraft, getting a level 3 gem is so fucking rare. You can’t afford to more often than not. You try to save up your mana pool but it’s so fucking stingy, I only got to a level 2 mana pool b/c I stopped spending skill points to get my bonus large enough.

So, I’m going through the levels BUTS ITS BORING AS SHIT BECAUSE ALL I’M DOING IS LEVEL 1 AND LEVEL 2 GEMS.

Here I am on the EIGHTH level of the new Gemcraft and it’s so god-damn stingy with giving me TWO FUCKING GEMS.

In CS, I’m having 3 gems on the 4th map!!!

The new gemcraft is preventing me from playing the stupid game, holding back gems and stingy mana rewards for killing creeps is preventing anything cool from being employed. BORING.

To me, a strategy of plunking down 5 level 1 gems all over the field and trying to save up mana to get a level 2 made and then rinse and repeat is BORING. Give me enough mana to actually do something cool.

No it isn’t. I was getting level 3 gems a few maps in and haven’t looked back. I was hitting level 5 gems sometimes before V1 the first time.

I had enough mana to do something cool well before V1.

If you don’t like the game, fine. But you are way off base.

If I’ve never played any of the games in the series, which game should I start with?

Chasing Shadows. Its not pretty, but it’s polished. Plus it’s a bit easier to get into. The new version is a little tougher; there are a lot of complaints on the Steam forum that it’s too difficult. Be warned the game has a steep learning curve, there is a lot going on.

@Tman I am not sure why it matters what level gems you’re using, its about the beating the missions for me. Figuring out how to beat it and then doing it better. That said, most missions I am using level 3-5 gems, I am never using just level 1 and 2 gems, so I don’t know what we are doing differently.

Fair enough that you don’t like it.

Great, I must be doing something fundamentally wrong. Take V1 and show me a level 5 gem and your talisman & skill upgrades on the journey level.

I have 3740 starting mana, since I’m significantly past V1 in the game. When I did it the first time, I believe I started with a T3 and a t2 (and the two towers, of course ,although first time through I maybe didn’t get to do tower #2 and gem #2 right away).

@Tman what is your starting mana? Are you loading up on +starting mana talismans? I get like +430 mana from mine (3014 from unallocated skillpoints, IIRC). Not a huge amount comparatively, but I’ve been over 300 forever and it’s a huge factor early (although still helpful now).

I have ~1100 starting mana and this is after grinding a LOT. No way I could create a level 3 gem out of the gate:

60+60+300 = 420 is Level 2 gem
420 + 420 + 600 = 1440 is level 3 gem

How you get a level 2 and a level 3 gem to start? Impossible with my setup and I’ve got 5 talisman puzzle pieces.

Now I’m not saying this is hard mind you, I’ve done several more levels today but it’s stupid boring with such a limited # of gems and no mana pool that is allowing anything remotely interesting. Trying to grind to get more mana is just pointless.

I haven’t paid 300 mana to combine gems since before V1, I’m fairly certain. I left 5 points in fusion for the small reduction (-3%) to combine costs, I’m not sure where the rest of is coming from (I pay 233 currently, and 347 for a Level 2 gem right now). Must be something to do with mana pool although it doesn’t show anything in the tool tip. I do have 5 points in streaming (I haven’t gone over 5 in anything). I’ve had those points allocated since I got the skills.

So maybe I started L3+ L1 (or maybe L3+ 2nd empty tower and started gem built up quickly). I did not grind a ton before V1 (I tried the endurance level of every map but didn’t do much replaying; I tried to beat what trials I could), in part because Grinding becomes a lot easier once you do V1 trial (which isn’t that hard, just specific) and get whichever the trait is (Overcrowding, maybe).

Yeah, but CS wasn’t much different. It did start slow and took dozens of hours before you had everything at your disposal. Its just going back to square one seems weird again.

Yeah, I backed off some skill settings and was able to progress. I think my old Gemcraft rule of thumb on starting mana was to reserve 10x my wizard level. Obviously not adequate for this game. Another good reason for having more starting mana in Frostborn is now that the old poolbound trait is always in play, starting at mana level 2 or 3 gives you several advantages from the start.

If you scroll up and see my post earlier today, I loaded up CS and it’s a LOT different than FW in progression and ability and it isn’t that slow.

I did, but it wasn’t exactly fast. Like I said, I remember it maybe being faster, but not that much so.

If you’re bored with it, put it aside and wait to see what they do with it in patches I guess.