> *Originally posted by **[Alphamale2467](/forums/1/topics/383683?page=3#posts-7923405):*** > Lots of things can go sideways on anybody’s job, **that does not in any way release them from accountability for dates and timelines…** particularly when they set them themselves…no less than SIX times. Oh hey, guess what. [It actually does.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force_majeure)

> *Originally posted by **[hamuka](/forums/1/topics/383683?page=3#posts-7924692):*** > > *Originally posted by **[Alphamale2467](/forums/1/topics/383683?page=3#posts-7923405):*** > > Lots of things can go sideways on anybody’s job, **that does not in any way release them from accountability for dates and timelines…** particularly when they set them themselves…no less than SIX times. > > Oh hey, guess what. [It actually does.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force_majeure) Being too lazy to finish your game would likely not apply to that rule.

> *Originally posted by **[hamuka](/forums/1/topics/383683?page=3#posts-7924692):*** > > *Originally posted by **[Alphamale2467](/forums/1/topics/383683?page=3#posts-7923405):*** > > Lots of things can go sideways on anybody’s job, **that does not in any way release them from accountability for dates and timelines…** particularly when they set them themselves…no less than SIX times. > > Oh hey, guess what. [It actually does.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force_majeure) It actually WOULD if a typo in a line of code IN ANY WAY qualified as ‘Force Majeure’. So much for a brilliant legal career.

It’s here.  [http://armorgames.com/play/15760/gemcraft-chasing-shadows](http://armorgames.com/play/15760/gemcraft-chasing-shadows) Be forewarned, the and the loading screen take a while. …also, it crashed for me within the first few minutes of play, which is not encouraging. : /

[object Object]

How are you supposed to progress in this game? I’ve been stuck unable to do H4 in order to unlock M1 or E6 for ~3 hours now and I’ve only been playing the game for 6. I’ve been spending shadow cores and angering waves to grind up levels…from level 20 to 26 now, but I’m not getting any stronger because of skill level caps. And doing acheivements just gives me yet more nearly worthless skillpoints I can’t spend. Are we seriously supposed to grind shadow cores and random drops here? It looks to me like this game is designed to be afk overnight macroed.

> *Originally posted by **[LordBucket](/forums/1/topics/383683?page=3#posts-7925963):*** > > It’s here. > >  > > [http://armorgames.com/play/15760/gemcraft-chasing-shadows](http://armorgames.com/play/15760/gemcraft-chasing-shadows) > > Be forewarned, the and the loading screen take a while. > > …also, it crashed for me within the first few minutes of play, which is not encouraging. : / YES!!!!!!!

> *Originally posted by **[LordBucket](/forums/1/topics/383683?page=3#posts-7926646):*** > > How are you supposed to progress in this game? I’ve been stuck unable to do H4 in order to unlock M1 or E6 for ~3 hours now and I’ve only been playing the game for 6. I’ve been spending shadow cores and angering waves to grind up levels…from level 20 to 26 now, but I’m not getting any stronger because of skill level caps. And doing acheivements just gives me yet more nearly worthless skillpoints I can’t spend. Are we seriously supposed to grind shadow cores and random drops here? > > It looks to me like this game is designed to be afk overnight macroed. Skill points passively increase your initial mana. More mana – better gems at the start. So, don’t max everything, drop unused skill to 0. I think you stuck because you don’t use your “Bolt” spell effectively. It gives permanent “Ignore armor” in trap and 14 very wide ranged stunning shots for gems in tower. Get 4 towers+trap around tome chamber, upgrade equally. At last waves combine gems into two big monsters and buff them with Bolt. Trait – orblets only.

This game is AMAZING. No difficulty so far, and I absolutely love it!!

I’ll give it a whirl, hope it’s not just a level pack of lab. edit: seems alright. edit2: and much like the last game, it kinda sucks without premium. When it comes over to kong, I will prob drop 5 on it, but I think I’m done for now.

> *Originally posted by **[Gremlion](/forums/1/topics/383683?page=3#posts-7926915):*** > Skill points passively increase your initial mana. More mana – better gems at the start. It’s so little, though. It’s like 6 levels worth of skillpoints to get a grade 2 gem. The game was clearly balanced for premium players with endurance. Those of us without endurance mode need to spend shadow cores to get more xp on a level. It’s incredibly discouraging to look at a level and see that if I spend ~50 shadow cores and beat it, it will give me enough xp for half a wizard level. I did eventually get past H4, but I did it by farming F1 for talismans and shadow cores to level them all up. With a 50% damage bonus to reavers and 16% to giants, it was much easier. And then 20 minutes later I was stuck again. Without endurance if I want to get stronger it’s difficult to do that because of the skillcaps. Sure, I can spend 100 shadow cores over several levels to get a couple wizard levels, but most of the time all that gets me is a couple hundred extra mana at the start of the match. I’m up to 1600 mana at match start now. Do you really think starting with 1800 is enough to make the difference between winning and losing a match? Even if you say yes, do you see that grinding easy levels for shadow cores in order to do hard levels for an hour to give me that 200 extra mana is not the most fun thing in the world? I think shadow cores for level difficulty was a mistake. For non-premium players, it pretty much means either lots of very tedious grinding, or afk macroing. Do levels with no shadows cores once the first time to unlock map tiles, then get stuck unable to advance and go back and do it again spending maybe 5-10 shadow cores for enough xp to open to be able to advance, get stuck again, go back spend 25-50 shadow cores, come back again when you have more traits unlocked…then again when you finish the game and you’re trying to max everything and you’re easily spending hundreds and hundreds of shadow cores on a single level? I realize this whole mechanic was intended to give players incentive to get premium, but I’ve already found myself needing to grind shadow cores just to get where I am, and it’s looking like that’s going to happen more later on too. Especially the way traits and trait caps are slowly unlocked. I can already imagine doing the same level with none, the 5 then 20 then 50 then 100 then 200 then 400 shadow cores, along with all the all the afk macroing that will be needed to get all those shadow cores. > I think you stuck because you don’t use your “Bolt” spell effectively. No, bolt and now freeze are the only things allowing me to even finish most levels now. In original gemcraft, the winning strategy was to use pure gems. If Chapter zero, the winning strategy was to use red/orange supergems in traps. In labyrinth, it was to use yellow lime in towers and amps. So far as I can tell in chasing shadows the winning atrategy seems to be to micromanage spells while on pause.

I think LordBucket gets it and sums up the frustration I’m feeling now. I have nothing to spend shadow cores on and the new talismans I’m getting aren’t any better than the ones I have. Grinding for wizard levels seems completely absurd and was not something you had to do in the previous games. Hopefully just a timing/balancing issue that should be resolved by the time it hits Kong. Otherwise it’s really just P2W. Grr. What I originally came here for, however, is that each level seems to have 3 spots for lights and beating it normally gives you one light. How do you get the other lights? Does it even matter (do they unlock something)? Has anyone figured that out yet? Thanks in advance!

For context, I have about 30 levels unlocked, I’m at wizard level 25…and the levels now are just nuts. For the last 5-7, I barely survived the first 5 waves with lots of pausing and bolt. I mean really – enemies with 40HP and all I can build are 2 T2 dual gems with my mana? Yikes!

24 Hours into the game and they already patched the only good non-premium way of easy experience, sigh.

> *Originally posted by **[EpicLeinad](/forums/1/topics/383683?page=3#posts-7928914):*** > > 24 Hours into the game and they > already patched the only good non-premium way of easy experience, sigh. What was that? I haven’t refreshed. If there’s an easy way to get xp, let me know. Also…since my last post I tried experimenting and spent 100 shadow cores on field F6, played the whole thing on slow over like 40 minutes and got 90,000xp and 4 wizard levels out of it. I think afk macroing shadow cores is going to be the way to go here. > each level seems to have 3 spots for lights and beating it normally gives you one light. How do you get the other lights? I haven’t unlocked whatever it is, but I’m guessing it’s the difficulty setting. If you check near the upper left of traits when you select a map, there’s an option for “Looming” and the achievements list glaring and haunting as other (presumably unlockable) options. Though I think haunting is premium only. Don’t know what unlocks glaring. > I have about 30 levels unlocked, I’m at wizard level 25…and the levels now are just nuts. It gets worse. I’m wizard level 41 with 39 fields unlocked. Start doing achievements. Only one skill point each, but they add up. I’m at 125 skillpoints from achievements out of 275 unspent. That’s almost half my starting mana from achievements. You pretty much need them to survive.

> *Originally posted by **[LordBucket](/forums/1/topics/383683?page=3#posts-7928921):*** > > *Originally posted by **[EpicLeinad](/forums/1/topics/383683?page=3#posts-7928914):*** > > > > 24 Hours into the game and they > > already patched the only good non-premium way of easy experience, sigh. > > What was that? I haven’t refreshed. > > Also…since my last post I tried experimenting and spent 100 shadow cores on a single level, playe dthe whole thing on slow over like 40 minutes and got 90,000 and 4 wizard levels out of it. I think afk macroing shadow cores is going to be the way to go here. Replaying easy levels with high haste and beacon storm trait with the strategy of only investing the mana gem bombing your orb, I guess it was kinda OP since it did a lot of damage, they patched so it no longer does damage.

> *Originally posted by **[EpicLeinad](/forums/1/topics/383683?page=3#posts-7928926):*** > Replaying easy levels with high haste and beacon storm trait with the strategy of only investing the mana gem bombing your orb, I guess it was kinda OP since it did a lot of damage, they patched so it no longer does damage. Doesn’t get around the shadow core problem though. I’m to the point where it’s 112 shadow cores to max a level’s battle traits. Was that really all that abusable? I’d think it wouldn’t work on any level with giant waves, meaning pretty much tile F only which has very low xp values. 6 battles, 100 shadow cores each, so sure…spend 600 shadow cores for maybe 10 easy wizard levels. Did that really need patching?

> *Originally posted by **[LordBucket](/forums/1/topics/383683?page=3#posts-7928955):*** > > *Originally posted by **[EpicLeinad](/forums/1/topics/383683?page=3#posts-7928926):*** > > Replaying easy levels with high haste and beacon storm trait with the strategy of only investing the mana gem bombing your orb, I guess it was kinda OP since it did a lot of damage, they patched so it no longer does damage. > > Doesn’t get around the shadow core problem though. I’m to the point where it’s 112 shadow cores to max a level’s battle traits. Was that really all that abusable? I’d think it wouldn’t work on any level with giant waves, meaning pretty much tile F only which has very low xp values. 6 battles, 100 shadow cores each, so sure…spend 600 shadow cores for maybe 10 easy wizard levels. Did that really need patching? Don’t max them all , just haste and beacon storm. The first tile I succesfully did this was on M2.

If you are using cores to max traits, you are doing it wrong. Better to play normally with only 1 point in each trait, that way you get bonus exp and still gain cores, instead of wasting them in looming F fields.

> *Originally posted by **[Oktavia\_witch](/forums/1/topics/383683?page=3#posts-7928982):*** > > If you are using cores to max traits, you are doing it wrong. > Better to play normally with only 1 point in each trait, that way you get bonus exp and still gain cores, instead of wasting them in looming F fields. Are you premium or non-premium? If premium, how much xp are you getting from endurance runs? Because when I spend only a couple cores to like you’re describing, most levels are worth 2-5 thousand, and the most of any level I’ve done so far is under 10k. Even fields that I can barely do like A3 nd A4 with 40-50 waves and ~50 hp start values are typically 6-9 thousand xp. Maxing shadow core expenditures on easier fields has gotten me over 90k xp on a level. And either way…investing shadow cores into battle traits appears to be the only way to get good talismans. Take a look at the drop rarity range on any field, then spend 100 for the rarity booster, then max all your battle traits and check again. For me at my wizard level, boosting traits gives about the same benefit as the rarity boost for similar cost. If I’m going to spend 100 shadow cores anyway, I may as well get boosted xp from it too. And if I’m spending 100 shadow cores at a time I may as well do both for a third tier talisman rather than second tier. I don’t see any way out of the spending lots of shadow cores problem. There’s no way I’d made it as far as I am without spending them.  That cost me roughly 300 shadow cores. 112 for battle traits, 100 for the rarity boost, and the rest upgrading it to level 4. And I got it from field F2 which also gave me 77,000 xp. Compare to I6 for example, which I spent only the 1 each like you’re describing on, which ended up giving me only a trash drop ~3000xp.

I believe you get the Glaring difficulty setting in a Tomb Chamber on K4. I’ll check to make sure.

well they just lost my interest. the orb no longer can fight back.

How far did you get?

> *Originally posted by **[LordBucket](/forums/1/topics/383683?page=3#posts-7928955):*** > > *Originally posted by **[EpicLeinad](/forums/1/topics/383683?page=3#posts-7928926):*** > > Replaying easy levels with high haste and beacon storm trait with the strategy of only investing the mana gem bombing your orb, I guess it was kinda OP since it did a lot of damage, they patched so it no longer does damage. > > Doesn’t get around the shadow core problem though. I’m to the point where it’s 112 shadow cores to max a level’s battle traits. Was that really all that abusable? I’d think it wouldn’t work on any level with giant waves, meaning pretty much tile F only which has very low xp values. 6 battles, 100 shadow cores each, so sure…spend 600 shadow cores for maybe 10 easy wizard levels. Did that really need patching? It works on the first 3 sets of tiles or so, I only did it fully in one level (E1) earlier today and it got me 3.5 million exp, which put me from level 46 → 86. I imagine I would be level 150 if I could do it to the rest of the levels in the starting tiles.

Don’t click the button which makes you lose 100 shadow core if you aren’t trying to get talismans because you can’t get the shadow core back.