Casino Feedback

[Oxlazr]

Hi! I just wanted to drop off my initial impressions/feedback from the Casino. I'd guess I'd messed around for 8 hours or so with it.

MnM

First and foremost, the experience / time invested for this isn't particularly good by comparison to match 3. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it's worth noting that if you're looking to rush into the 30+ room, it's a waste of time to play MnM in the low tier rooms.

The group bonuses were nice - I noticed at one stage the regular tables were more advantageous to play at due to all the buff. It's a good mechanic that helps keep the game varied.

There's some adjustments needed with the abilities, I think:

Firstly, Mindgnaw & Skewer should be mutually exclusive with each other.

Let's assume that the second slot abilities (Prey & Execution) aren't considered as they're typically used at the end of a battle.

If you're trying to use Skewer, you're looking for an odd number on your opponent, and it's a powerful ability if you can get that condition. However, Mindgnaw, your only alternative attack, doubles its damage when a roll is below X (6 at rank 1, but it goes higher) - the trouble with a roll being doubled is it always deals an even amount of damage, meaning it's particularly difficult to satisfy the odd number condition on Skewer.

It usually ends up being more strategically viable to simply spam Skewer.

Crushing Blow & Execute are perfectly fine.

Lurk, however, is significantly better than the other attacks - the reason for this is twofold. The opening damage is significant, especially at higher ranks, but of particular concern, the 2d6+X means it has consistent bonus damage that other attacks do not have. So not only is it a powerful opener, it's good as a primary attack.

While my sample size is small, once I hit the pro room I was regularly able to achieve (albeit lose shortly thereafter due to RNG or some such) 7-8000 points.

In order to bring it back in line with the other abilities, I'd suggest keeping the opening damage the same, but changing the extra damage to 2d6-1 (instead of 2d6), so over the course of a game other options are still compelling.

If you're looking to go far, it's nearly always worth ditching a Skewer hero.

Finally, the rewards - they're not great, unless you're after a specific recipe. I did complete a run of MnM and received several tokens and ~17000 councils. It felt like an accomplishment having defeated a wall of RNG, but the reward did not match at all.

If anyone wants to try replicate this sort of strategy:
- Max Lurk as soon as you can.
- If you have execution, it's worth maxing. Use execute if there's even a 1 in 6 chance of killing your opponent with it (as you'll likely finish them off next round without taking damage regardless, you can save a bit of HP here).
- If you don't have execution, instead put those points into potions.
- You can usually safely claim prizes up to around floor 4-5 (with about 4 tokens).
- It's not worth fighting "the boss" (I've only reached this guy once) unless you've explosives to back up your damage - they have a lot of HP and you outright need consumables to keep up with them.

Teddy Bear is A+ though.

At any-rate, this may not be optimal but that's my experience with the system so far. Personally, I don't think I'm likely to spend a large amount of time on the casino in general again, but it was ridiculously enjoyable for an afternoon.

Match 3

So I'm terrible at this, I can't comment on the game-play because I suck at it, but I think that's an issue. It seems the "good" rewards come much later and the average player isn't going to see those levels, yet the rewards are balanced around achieving those thresholds.

Again, due to my ignorance on the matter, I'd personally like to see reward counters not reset when you achieve an award (I.e. Lemon = 20, and Green Glass = 35 afterwards, but once you get 20 lemons, the green glass counter shouldn't reset) - I can only presume this is intentional, but it really makes the rewards underwhelming when you spend 500 councils to get a potato.

30+ Room

I finally got in this room and was ultimately underwhelmed. This is largely due to how you have to excessively grind to enter - you'd anticipate some sort of reward, but it's more of the same.

This isn't inherently bad, but it'd be interesting if "high-stakes" meant something else - i.e. you could play for blessing/curses on your character. It's not so much that I expect to see anything along those lines, but if there were a game to pull those kinds of shenanigans, it'd be project gorgon. It feels like wasted potential.

That said, while MnM isn't significantly improved, it feels almost like a complete waste of time playing slots in the general area.

--

Basically, the casino games are exceptional but the rewards are lackluster. My main concern is that eventually, as players learn and understand the mechanics, the rewards will consistently be better, but new players will always be lagging behind; I don't want to see the casino become a hub of infinite money or anything of the sort, but I feel like having some daily diminishing returns on rewards would help make the place more appealing long-term.

I.e. The loot tables for match-3 slowly decline as you play (starting from more valuable items to potatoes), or a daily counter for MnM where rare events can occur with unique rewards, and each time one of these rewards triggers, you're less likely to see them until tomorrow.

Another option would be special tables that require tickets that drop from monsters, for example.

The casino needs to feel rewarding, but if it's overly rewarding players will quickly burn out - we need some sort of compromise here, I think.

Like I said, it was fun for an afternoon, but I just can't justify sitting there for another X hours, and if I did I'd quickly burn-out.


Anyway, they're just some initial thoughts - at the end of the day I had a bunch of fun and overall it was well worth the wait.

[Kryshael]

The casino needs to feel rewarding, but if it's overly rewarding players will quickly burn out - we need some sort of compromise here, I think.

Like I said, it was fun for an afternoon, but I just can't justify sitting there for another X hours, and if I did I'd quickly burn-out.


This is me exactly. I really loved MnM, but thought that the skills need some additional balancing. ( still have not figured out how to actually get items from this game )

Match 3 seems to be where the xp is at. Granted, I never got any good items other than a couple of flowers that I could appreciate.

~~

I will eventually try to get storage space here when/if I ever really need it and once I get clarification from people exactly what you get; BUT, atm I don't see this as becoming a hub for me or even remotely make me want to consider leaving Serbule.

[Murk]

For my part I won't want to be playing any of the casino games again. I find it totaly boring. If I wanted to play candy crush or bejeweled, I would. It's not for me, I just can't do it. So I hope that there isn't something I will need from the casino by playing the mini-games.

The monster match fighting is somewhat interesting though, but I wouldn't go there for it, rather just turn up if other people are there. It might be interesting to do player v monster, too.

Not fond of the cheesy music either. heh :-)

[NickzMagic]

I really like the M&M but it needs a change I think

Either make it faster(faster animation on dice, you+monsters have higher damage to speed up games) or make it spit out more rewards/allow a higher entry fee. Like you can pay 500/1000/2000 to play it because right now it is very slow and durdly feeling

Alternatively if it stays the same pace make it more RPG like, just one more 'RPG' mechanic - Something like being able to visit a shop(that isn't a random encounter) and buy potions/grenades or when you level up have increasing hp an extra option, something along those lines to make it more engaging.

I also think there should just be a lotto or slots that cost casino tokens and pay out in tokens.

[Tagamogi]

Bah, I had my feedback all planned out for when I woke up this morning, and then Oxlazr beat me to it. Again. :) But hey, here are my casino impressions:

Match-3
First of all, I really feel this game needs a catchier name, just because I can never remember whether it's supposed to be match-3 or 3-match or maybe mat-3-ch... Of course, the only thing I could come up with was "Magic Match" which isn't all that impressive either.

I'm probably one of two people in the game who's never played Candycrush. My experience with digital tilematching games begins and ends with me sucking at 2048 a couple years ago. Visual pattern matching and planning ahead is not something I do well, so I expect to similarly suck at m-3-tch, but the game board still looks fun. However:

I found the flashing tiles really annoying and distracting. I was trying to figure out what's on the board and how to use it and having something constantly flash in the corner of my eye shouting "pick me" was so not helping with that. This flash is the reason I didn't even bother using all my game tickets yet.

As a total noob, I felt the game could use more instructions. Things that I thought were happening but either weren't spelled out in the instructions or I failed to read them:
- You can only switch tiles if you get a match, so there's no wasting a turn on a no-match in order to set up a fancy 5-match next turn.
- When tiles are matched, they get taken out of the game and replaced ... from the top?
- What controls items shown on the board?
- Once an item is marked with a checkmark to right, I assume it can't be matched again for a second item to keep after the game finishes?

IIRC, I won like two violet bracelets on the game. Whee.;) I'm fine with sucking at the game, but I think my incentive to ever pay 500 councils to play it is zero. I do appreciate the free tutorial machines being around though, and if the flash can be turned off, I'd be happy to give them another try.

M & M
This one's fun for me. Possibly too fun. I spent 5-6 hours glued to a single table, playing this game last night. Not sure when I started, but I definitely stayed up two hours past my bedtime without even noticing. It's got this "just one more game, I'm sure I'll do better that time" feel for me, which combined with the leaderboards made it very addictive. It also *felt* like I was winning and making money but I suspect that was factually incorrect - I'll need to check my starting and ending gold next time. I did end up with 60 casino tokens, so that was probably good?
Anyway as a casiono game, it works at turning me into a gambler. :p Not sure about its repeat value yet, but I think I got quite a few more hours of fun ahead of me yet.

Despite my lengthy playing time, I still didn't finish reading the instructions for the game or do more than a quick in-my-head odds calculation, so take my comments with a grain of salt:

Prey felt too weak to me. Let's say I'm facing an enemy with 4 health left. I could:
- Use Execute 1, and have a 50% chance of not taking any more damage. If Execute fails to kill the mob, it will still do at least 2 damage, which means that in the next round I can use Execute again and I'm guaranteed to kill the mob in that second round with no further damage to myself.
- Use Prey 1, and have about a 30% chance of healing myself which may or may not heal me for more than the mob will damage me. Also, I have a 38% chance of not killing the mob that round, including an 8% chance not to damage it in any way whatsoever, leaving me to do the same math over again on the next combat turn. To me, those odds stink.

It's possible to build up prey, but by the time I get to the higher levels, the mob's damage seems to solidly outpace what Prey can do, so even if the heal happens to go off, it's less than the damage the mob did. And since I spent my level up points on Prey rather than a damage dealing ability, the fight lasts longer, leaving me with what feels like a net loss.

Other than that, everything about the game feels like a very nice mix to me. I'd rate some abilities as stronger than other, but since this is a gambling game, I'm fine with it, and there's something neat about a lucky hat find or great table buff offsetting what I considered less than optimal starting abilities.

Lurk feels possibly a bit too strong to me. It's an awesome starter and then becomes a strong and steady damage dealer after that. I kind of prefer not seeing it nerfed though since I really like having an ability that does regular damage without being quite so luck-dependent. Crush tends to drive me crazy with its refusal to go off, and at higher levels, 3 failed crushes in a row often spell doom, while lurk would have been steadily crunching away at the enemy with those 3 rolls.

I wonder if it would be feasible to have a mini history inside the game, just going back 1 turn. Just something like hit "H" and get a display that reads: "Last turn, rogue had 23 health and you had 15 health. Rogue rolled a 2 and did 3 damage, you rolled 5 + 2 and did 8 damage.". I sometimes click past the dice roll too fast or there's some text over the die that prevents me from reading it, and that can get awkward when I'm trying to figure out whether the mob can kill me on the next round or not.Not strictly necessary though - in the long run, it's going to be easier if I write down which damage mobs deal anyway.

The abilities to have bombs do more damage and potions heal more seem to be not worth it. By the time I got to them, I usually needed to eat after nearly every fight anyway and I only had 0-3 potions/bombs, so it seemed taking either of those abilities was just wasting my chance to get full health back for little reward.

For the table buffs, the one I'd consider most powerful is the bonus die when eating a mob. That means I can nearly always get my health back to full after each fight and that is a huge help. Still, the buffs rotate in and out, and I'm happy getting any of them. It might be nice to know what the odds of getting a hat or potion are, so we know how much better a 10% chance of getting one is... (Apologies if that's in the part of the instructions I didn't get to yet.)

The damage dealing hats don't seem to be worthwhile to me. The chance to roll doubles feels pretty low (ok, ok, I know it's 1/6 but it feels like it doesn't go off much), and the extra damage done doesn't seem notable. It feels like I could have the same effect with just a single lucky regular die roll. The healing hats feel much better - while I still want them to go off more often, when they do, their heal is something I can't duplicate with my regular abilities.

I didn't realize there was another version of the mantis game until I read Oxlazr's post. I'm rather sad I missed that one now. Although if it takes 30 gaming skill, that's not happening anytime soon. I was at 16 after my monster gaming session last night and holding the top two slots on the M&M leaderboard for a precious half hour.

Other
Uh, what other stuff? I was busy playing M & M. I dimly remember petting some cows and needing just one more bottle for milk. Nice cows. :)

I also ran past the arena and placed a 100 council bet on the sports game. Not sure what happened to that one and whether I lost or whether the server reset. Probably the former. It might be nice if I got some kind of message that my fighter lost? This is the same scenario as the raffles for me: I will occasionally get a raffle ticket or place a bet because it's there, and then I'll wander off because there's nothing I can do to influence the outcome and then hours later, I dimly recall that I'd bought a ticket and I wonder what happened to it. Getting a "you lose" message might help provide a timely reminder and keep me more interested. Or possibly not, not really my kind of thing. While I'm on the topic though - do you need to stay online to collect on your fight/raffle wins? Do you need to stay within the same zone or within a certain radius of the arena/raffle box?

Edit: Reading Oxlazr's post again, I think I totally misunderstood how skewer works this whole time. I assumed it dealt more damage if the enemy's health was an odd number after my roll, not before. Well, that may explain why I didn't see it go off...

[Tagamogi]

Edit: Oh yes, I picked up a work order for great cloth gloves. Nice to finally see that in the game!!

( Oops, sorry, meant to tuck that at the end of my previous post, not make a new one. Oh well, more tailoring work orders at last are exciting. Or would be, if I could take time off from M&M to do tailoring... ;))

[Grobyddonot]

Edit: Oh yes, I picked up a work order for great cloth gloves. Nice to finally see that in the game!!

( Oops, sorry, meant to tuck that at the end of my previous post, not make a new one. Oh well, more tailoring work orders at last are exciting. Or would be, if I could take time off from M&M to do tailoring... ;))

Which is bugged, because it wants you to craft 10 slippers, you make them and you turn the Great Cloth Slippers in, not the Gloves. Even in the description of the work order it reads: deliver 10 great cloth slippers.

Ofc I reported the bug in the game via "!" as soon as I found it out.

[Tagamogi]

Which is bugged, because it wants you to craft 10 slippers, you make them and you turn the Great Cloth Slippers in, not the Gloves. Even in the description of the work order it reads: deliver 10 great cloth slippers.


Thanks for the warning, I appreciate it!

[jackybah]

I have cast a look at the new Alchemy Recipes available from Ragabir (in one of the small siderooms of the Arena area of the Casino)

I would please ask one/some of the other experienced players to hover over those recipes.
I have the feeling that there is a balance-mismatch in the ease of the availability of the ingredients


Some recipes only require easily available ingredients like the animal-parts that dop after killing certain types of animals and Fire Dust, etc.

Other recipes require items that drop much more rarely. (beaks, specific Oils, Guano). To my knowledge those items are also not available from Bartering options


I'd like some other players feedback on that please.

[spider91301]

Me personally I prefer the crafting recipes and the npc quests that got added

Only downside to me is it wasnt in the dwarf city like I thought it would be and theres nothing to kill in it


Can totally skip the gambling aspect and not feel regret

Also when I put a minor pancree in the trashcans I think I should get more then 1 civic pride xp point

[Ashreon]

I have cast a look at the new Alchemy Recipes available from Ragabir (in one of the small siderooms of the Arena area of the Casino)

I would please ask one/some of the other experienced players to hover over those recipes.
I have the feeling that there is a balance-mismatch in the ease of the availability of the ingredients


Some recipes only require easily available ingredients like the animal-parts that dop after killing certain types of animals and Fire Dust, etc.

Other recipes require items that drop much more rarely. (beaks, specific Oils, Guano). To my knowledge those items are also not available from Bartering options


I'd like some other players feedback on that please.

You can buy beaks... :). Guano is also a fairly common drop from Kur Tower basement, so those are not the biggest of issues.

[duane]

I like the concept for another zone. The Casino could use more mission content. The Casino needs more dirtbags around it causing problems and skirmishes.

The games I am not thrilled about. M&M animations are too slow and the game I find boring.

The other game I love the concept, but the time invested and paying 500 councils to get an Apple SUCKS. Not worth the time and effort.


I would play these games if they were mobile on a phone and the benefits still went to my character account. I sometimes have downtime away from the desktop PC.... I would consider playing more.

[Daguin]

I am woefully inept at all of the casino games so far, but I had lots of fun at the M&M tables this weekend.

After about five hours of constant play(s), I finally won a crown! :D

Match-3 is still really confusing to me, although it seems like it should be simple (I never played Candycrush....)

I've only won a single arena bet (5k>9.5k) so far, but I think that with the hot tips taken into account, it could be a good way to make some extra money. My only question is if multiple NPC can have "hot tips" about the same fighter, and would this increase the likelihood of them winning more than 10%?

I have yet to utilize the garden, storage, cows, etc., but it seems like the NPCs offer up some nice stuff (especially the new shamanic recipes, alchemy potions, and excursion quests). Favor costs are quite high, but that's to be expected in a higher-level zone.

[Sasho]

First of all I'm enjoying the casino so a big thank you to the Devs!

Some thoughts:

I honestly only use Match 3 for the gaming xp. The items aren't very valuable for someone my level but hey! It can't all be about me :)

M&M is a lot of fun! Wow! Thank you for this game! I don't know if it would break the game but it would be nice to be able to pay (at the start) an addition 100c or something to re-roll any of the 3 abilities. Right now I'm just dropping and restarting the game, or conceding to the fact that I'll be lucky to get 1 artifact if I'm stuck with something like mindgnaw/prey/skewer. As said above, Mind and Skewer work against each other, and Prey is flat out aweful. About Prey, I'm not a math major but the way I see it is the average die roll is 3.5 (the average between the integers 1 and 6) and the health proc is 1/3, so 2D-3 + 2D-1 health (where D is damage and H is health) = {D[(3.5 + 3.5) - 3] + 1/3H[(3.5 + 3.5) -1H]} = Basic Prey attack does an average of 4 dmg and heals an average of 2 health. The average damage for a level 1 mob with 1 die is 3.5. So at Level 1 Prey is statistically pretty even to Skewer (which does an average 9 damage to every -3.5 health) giving 4 damage and -1.5 net health. But without showing the math, Prey is pretty garbage after the first few mobs. Devs, can Prey can be scaled better so it does more damage and/or heals more aggressively so it can handle level 3+ mobs who start hitting for 2D?
In regards to potions upgrades, they fall short because they are overshadowed by getting basic skills up to speed, or healing after a fight. Potions can’t be upgraded until they are obtained so the upgrade isn’t usually an option until mid-game. I think if 1) Potions dropped more often, or 2) a potion upgrade also came with extra potions, then that would make the upgrades enticing.

Note: The daily Casino quest is awesome.

I'd like to have the new +20% potions increased to 1 hour durations. A 30 minutes buff doesn't quite suit the difficulty to 1) get the favor/alchemy skill to make the potion, and 2) collect the rare ingredients. Not to mention they only stack in 5, so a high end player could blow through a stack in 1 run of GK.

I’m sorry to say this but the layout of the Casino Marketplace is a disaster. Too many nooks and crannies makes it extremely difficult to find a shop even with the help of the golems.

I'm having a ton of fun with M&M regardless. Thanks again for the patch.

[spider91301]

There is officially only one thing I despise in this update after I went digging the hidden recipes all take fae felt which is rare af in large quantities I literly can grow cotton faster then I can farm fae felt this is the only thing in the game that has truly pssed me off in its entire existence surpassing the moment when they nerfed necro which was more inconvenience then anything to rage about but this is some major bs never going to touch those recipes fk this this is like saying oh you finished the quest but you get a bunch of none existant usefull items that cant be used without this which you have to farm for hours just for 1 fae felt if your luck sucks or 20-60 minutes if your lucky but you will never be able in a reasonable amount of time get large amounts of said item we laugh at you internally another example of this is you win a contest win millions and little did you know because you inherited your mom and dads house the millions of dollars of debt they owe is yours to pay off and they take all your winnings from the contest and your flat out broke again and all you can do is stare at the loan sharks while they take away your cash
https://media1.tenor.com/images/b2a8fff009952ad471b4c989cb0f0936/tenor.gif?itemid=5613086



Ps. Scenery 2 is from manga The Legendary Moonlight Sculptor but the concept is basically the same

[3lfk1ng]

I'm not a fan of the casino games myself but admittedly that's a personal problem. I don't like card games, board games, match3 games, phone games, or even gambling.

I even avoided Gwent like the plague in Witcher 3.

Even though I love the game, this patch and it's content feels like mostly filler. It makes for additional content and having more stuff to do, and I'm sure that people will appreciate the addition of more mini-games in the future, but the three month wait for this patch was sort of lost on people like me.

I'm really looking forward to more meat: better art assets, better animations, mounts, more dungeons, additional classes, etc, etc.

It never hurts to have more content though.
Just wanted to add some feedback.

[Kryshael]

There is officially only one thing I despise in this update after I went digging the hidden recipes all take fae felt which is rare af in large quantities I literly can grow cotton faster then I can farm fae felt this is the only thing in the game that has truly pssed me off in its entire existence surpassing the moment when they nerfed necro which was more inconvenience then anything to rage about but this is some major bs never going to touch those recipes fk this this is like saying oh you finished the quest but you get a bunch of none existant usefull items that cant be used without this which you have to farm for hours just for 1 fae felt if your luck sucks or 20-60 minutes if your lucky but you will never be able in a reasonable amount of time get large amounts of said item we laugh at you internally another example of this is you win a contest win millions and little did you know because you inherited your mom and dads house the millions of dollars of debt they owe is yours to pay off and they take all your winnings from the contest and your flat out broke again and all you can do is stare at the loan sharks while they take away your cash
https://media1.tenor.com/images/b2a8fff009952ad471b4c989cb0f0936/tenor.gif?itemid=5613086



Ps. Scenery 2 is from manga The Legendary Moonlight Sculptor but the concept is basically the same

Blah, blah, blah...

You know what pisses me off? A grown man who doesn't know how to use a comma ( , ) or a period ( . ).

[spider91301]

Blah, blah, blah...

You know what pisses me off? A grown man who doesn't know how to use a comma ( , ) or a period ( . ).

Every post I make you seem to target me you sure you arent part of mesky boys friends club ingame in that case heres a video that should help


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByC8sRdL-Ro

[Rick Sanchez]

Im all about the skill grinds in game and found that the extra recipes, quests and the added feature of an economy sub system in the casino tokens is awesome. The thing Im really thrilled about though is that this shows the added complexity they are looking to throw our way down the line by breaking out and doing things that are going to be unique to PG and make me happy to be a Gorgonite for a long long time. While there are aspects Im not the happiest about I think its an update well worth the wait and has already given me hours of fun.

Also a hint for anyone looking to get favor without a lot of trouble on Mandibles. Just take the Rahu portal and run to the north end. In the water you'll find plenty of seaweed which can be gifted to Mandibles for a decent favor boost.

Thanks to everyone at Elder Game and keep it coming!

[Sasho]

I tried to start a new casino quest, and even though I didn't have one active it said I did, so it wouldn't give me a new one.

[Fred]

I really enjoy the new Casino area. Otis being part of the BIPED OUTREACH PROGRAM made me feel more welcome. I liked the storylines and even the little things like Eveline Rastin's shop standing out when going down the hall by having drapes. It adds to the personality of the character. I think the recent changes to the Mantid game giving cashfall tickets for close calls is great. It may even be too much. But with it giving better xp and cashfall tickets, I haven't played the match-3 game at all since. It wasn't useful to play that game and have my inventory fill up with random items of questionable use. I saw in the patch notes some things were changed, so I need to try it out again.

Things I would suggest
1) If a mantid table has 10 players and you die, it should hold your spot to be able to play again like the instructions suggest. The other day I unlocked 2 table buffs and whenever I died, it'd take a minute or two of clicking to get back in the game. Maybe table buff unlockers always have access?
2) When a new arena match is set up and the announcer says he is taking bets, it'd be nice if he told us who will be fighting.
3) I'm not 100% on this, but I don't think I could hear the announcer in the high roller room. Can the announcer be made to be heard in a larger radius? Only other thought I had (and it'd probably be too much work to bother with) is to have the high roller room above the arena. Maybe with a section of transparent floor. That way people in the high roller room could watch the fight below, and the people who don't have high roller access can look up, feel envious, and wonder what's in there.

[Sasho]

Maybe with a section of transparent floor. That way people in the high roller room could watch the fight below, and the people who don't have high roller access can look up, feel envious, and wonder what's in there.

You know in some of my load-outs I'm wearing a skirt ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

****

M&M Review (UPDATED) & TIPS TO WIN

I've been playing M&M a crap ton (no casino pun intended). Within a 60 minute time frame I was able to beat it 3 times by repeating strategies, and only one of those victories had a table buff bonus. However - this was done at the high stakes table which gives a slight advantage (or maybe my higher gaming level contributes something behind the scenes I can't see). I'm level 47 in gaming, hoping to hit 50 by today and 90% of my gaming xp came from M&M, so I got somewhere near 20+ hours at those tables.

Prey is still a completely useless skill. If I don't get execute I restart.

Skewer isn't as bad, but it's not game winning. Generally it doesn't get past level 2 or 3, especially if bundled with Prey. DON'T LEVEL SKEWER

Mindgnaw is also useless if going for a game past level 2 or 3, especially if bundled with Prey. DON'T LEVEL SKEWER

Crush/Execute/Lurk are the winning skills. But don't be upset if you don't land all 3. In fact, landing all 3 isn't any better than just getting 2 of those (as long as execute is on the table). The game's mechanics are ideal for only leveling 2 skills: execute and crush OR lurk. If you try to level all three you'll be set back because your losing points you could have put into utilities. Those extra levels are best put into throwing bombs. If anything, Crush/Execute/Lurk can be nice if you want to still level Crush and Execute but use lurk just for the first couple levels for the bonus damage. When leveling Crush or Lurk those have to be maxed to level 5. Execute can function fairly well at level 4. ---Note, this is why Mindgnaw/Prey/Skewer aren't worth leveling if you are going for a longer game/win. You can still win having Skewer or Mindgnaw, just ignore it the entire game and focus on the other 2 skills.---

Two conditions HAVE to be met in order to win:

1) A really good hat. Preferably one that gives a crap ton of healing. Always take the healing hat over the +dmg or plain +health hat. No hat? No win. If you're at a point where you keep getting beat up in battle and can't level a skill, then just keep eating the mob until you eventually land a hat.

2) Mushrooms. Eat the mushrooms. Yes they can kill you, but they are also needed to win because they can boost your health significantly. All times when I won it's because I had 45-55 health going into the final boss.

Few other tips:

Use the first 2, or ideally, 3 battles to just level up skills, and not eat the corpse. Rocky 4 it and just say "If I die, I die." It's rare that you'll even die for starters and quickly getting damage on the board is critical. After those first few fights you'll may tread a little water by fighting/healing/fighting/healing. But this is where getting a healing hat comes into play. Once those doubles start healing you then you'll be good to pick up the pace on leveling skills again. No hat? Well then consider cashing out.

It's also good idea to "Attack the Injured Orc" if you are low on health. Makes for a quick fight so you can heal sooner than later.
Also befriend the sheep for the potions. Eating it is tempting but think about the long game. And think about the sheep.

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I wanted to share my tips to help people out, but also so the mods can see what some players are doing with their game. If there's a different direction or more directions you want us to have, you can then adjust accordingly.

Happy Gambling this weekend!

[DamageIncorp]

I agree with most of what you wrote Sasho.
The plus 9 plus 9 hat is amazing. I beat the boss using mindgnaw, execute, lurk. Mindgnaw is actually quite good at level 5. Crush can spell the end of a run with a few rolls of 4,5,6. It also has huge upside. I prefer mindgnaw for more consistent damage.
Totally agree skewer and prey are useless.

[Sasho]

--per recommendation I deleted this comment and will make a new thread.

[Niph]

You might want to put that in a spoiler tag. :)

Actually, now that I think about it, maybe make a separate thread with SPOILER in the title, so we can comment.

[Sasho]

That's actually a good idea, Niph.

I'll delete it, start a new thread with SPOILER in it. Comments and criticism is happily accepted.