The Lost Temple

Lost Temple is a new zone unlike any other, released in the massive Jan. 21st patch. The entire map is essentially the final showdown with The Architect, the main villain and ultimate boss in Battle Camp's storyline.

This showdown comes in the form of a series of raids. Unlike the quests in other zones, these fights require your entire troop to participate. The Architect will pick an element, and your troop will have to complete a series of raids against monsters of that element. Each attack costs a player 3 energy. After attacking, the player then has to wait a few minutes before attacking again (the wait time varies between raids).

(This wait timer slightly decreases the power of gold on these raids, but gold can still make a difference - the timers are shorter than the 30 minutes it would take to naturally recover 3 energy).

Much like the raids on the Troop panel, there is a time limit for defeating each element's raids. Succeed in less time, and you can move on to the next element. If time runs out, you'll have to try the same element raids again from the start. Additionally, the entire area has a 7-day timer. When that timer runs out, your troop's progress is completely reset, regardless of how far along you were.

Once you've defeated all of the elemental raids, you fight the final boss. Beat him within the time limit to complete the Lost Temple.

Of course, you can always fight these battles again, and you'll need to if you're interested in 2nd evolution. 2nd evolution requires new ingredients that can only be acquired in the Lost Temple - Fire, Water, Leaf, Rock and Wind Crystals, and Super, Ultra and Epic Crystals. To perform a 2nd evolution, you'll need crystals of the element and rarity that match your monsters.

There are already a couple top-tier troops that have defeated the Lost Temple (and even a couple players who have done a 2nd evolve). I think for the rest of us, this will be a much more long-term goal. And considering the cost of 2nd evolution, I think for many, getting more monsters simply perfect evolved and maxed will be a more reasonable proposition.

PvP Event

The PvP Event is a regularly recurring event in Battle Camp. As of the Jan. 2014 update, the format of this event changed slightly, so if you've played it before, you'll notice some differences.

First, you'll need to understand the differences between player vs. player (PvP) combat and player vs. environment (PvE) combat.

1. In PvP, each of your monsters have an individual hit-point bar (instead of the single team HP bar in PvE). Combos of 3 and 4 hearts only heal one monster. Combos of 5 or more hearts still heal all your monsters.
2. PvP is nearly real-time. Like raiding, it pays to be quick. Getting your attack in before your opponent is often the difference between life and death.

To participate in PvP, you need to head to the PvP Fort. You'll find a platform in the center of the area, where the Battlemaster stands. Talk to the Battlemaster to queue up for a PvP battle with another player.

The Battlemaster determines how "strong" you are by looking at all your monsters (even those in storage) and picking the 5 best. So even if your team consists of low-level monsters, if you have an inventory full of epics, you'll be facing tougher opponents. Your PvP rating (determined by your PvP win-loss ratio), is also taken into account.

In the past, PvP matches cost a flat 2 energy, but this has changed. You can still start a match for 2 energy, but you can also pay more - up to 11 energy. If you do, your trophy rewards, and the experience gained for victory, will be ramped up accordingly.

You may have to wait for a while to be matched up. The wait can be very short during peak hours, and can be several minutes during quiet periods. Then you'll be thrown into battle. If you lose, you get no experience for your match. You also get a considerably decreased amount of trophies and a single Valor Token. If you win, you get more trophies, five Valor Tokens, and experience.

Another new feature is "double down". When you win a PvP match, you get the chance to "double down". You pay the same amount of energy for another battle. Winning that one gets you the usual trophies, plus extra bonus trophies. Continuing to win matches earns you more and more bonus trophies. The downside is that losing any of these "double down" matches will cause you to lose ALL the trophies you've gotten from that string of wins. 

However, if you do lose, you can buy yourself a second chance to save your trophies by paying a fee in gold. The cost depends on the amount of energy you've spent.

The final part of the event is the part that requires troop participation. If you've played previously, you'll remember that the event used to have troops donate their Valor Tokens to unlock a raid monster. It was always kind of odd for the PvP event to culminate in a PvE battle. Now, however, the raid monsters are gone, replaced with a new mechanic.

Now, donating Valor Tokens unlocks a "rift" for one hour. While the rift is active, everyone in your troop earns double trophies from PvP matches. Winning your matches while the rift is open earns Rift Tokens. Getting enough of these tokens before the hour ends activates a "deep rift", which grants even more bonus trophies. So, it pays to coordinate with your troop-mates.

The PvP event uses the same trophy rewards systems as the other recurring events. You can win immediate rewards from hitting certain quantities of trophies. You can also win individual and troop rewards at the end of the event, based on where you rank compared to other players and troops.

Strategy

• Talk with your troop and try to get everyone participating when rifts are active. The rift automatically opens when enough Valor Tokens have been donated, so only donate the final tokens when everyone is ready.
• If you're going to spend gold, try to do it during rifts to get even more out of it.
• Boosters do work during the event. It feels a little cheap, but it can make a big difference.
• If you have Event Tokens in your inventory, remember that you can trade them for energy, specials, event monsters, and trophies. Talk to the trader in the PvP Fort.
• Teams that include multiple monsters of the same element can be very powerful in PvP. As long as you have 5 or more gems of the appropriate element on your starting board, you can start the match with a very powerful attack against all of the enemy monsters. The downside is that a bad starting board can spell disaster, as you burn useless gems while your opponent kills you.

Player vs. Player Event Starts Today

The PvP event started today, and will run until Tuesday. As noted in the big patch notes earlier this week, the format of this event has changed a bit. I'll post a guide tonight or tomorrow.

Huge New Update!

Winter is over in Battle Camp, and the snow, lights and candy canes have been replaced with hearts and arrows in preparation for the Valentines Day event. But that's only the tip of the iceberg. Today's update introduced a host of new features and improvements that PennyPop has been hinting at for quite a while on their Facebook page.

• The Lost Temple area is finally open, after months of taunting us on the map. Lost temple isn't an ordinary area: there are no common monsters to fight and capture, and the standard quest chain is missing. Instead, the Lost Temple gives us the ultimate showdown with The Architect, the villain that all the previous quests have been leading to. Troops can tackle a series of raid battles to earn boosts, new supers, and ingredients for...
• 2nd Evolution! Many monsters can now be evolved a second time by fusing 2 of their evolved versions along with new special ingredients from Lost Temple raids. Right now, only some monsters have 2nd evolution forms, but supposedly there will be more added in future updates.
• Passive Leveling has been added, changing the way that passive abilities work. Stars no longer denote the "quality tier" of a passive ability. Instead, all of these abilities have had their power tweaked, and all of them can be leveled to increase the number of stars, and the percentage of benefits the ability offers. To level a passive ability, simply feed a monster with the same passive.
• Additional changes. Mystery eggs let you spam your Facebook friends even more, giving them a random monster once per day. Monster happiness is a new stat that makes your monsters more powerful for a few hours after they've been fed. It also temporarily increases the amount of experience they gain from feeding.

The update notes also offered a little info on upcoming events. 

• The PvP event, which will start Jan. 23, is going to work differently. Players will now win more trophies for stringing together victories in the arena, and valor medals can now be used to boost the amount of trophies players win for their matches. It's not clear yet if there will still be a boss raid mechanic.
• A Chinese New Year event will be happening (presumably around Friday, Jan. 31). It's described as a "special Tower Event". Does that mean a variation on the standard Celestial Towers event, or something entirely new? I guess we'll have to wait and see.
• A Valentines Day event is also in our future. It involves breaking Cdr. Cupid's arrows, if that means anything to you.

As you can see, that's a whole lot of stuff. Expect to see posts on each of the major improvements over the next week or so, as I dig into them. And, of course, I'll have detailed explanations and strategies for the events as they roll out.

Acquiring and Spending Gold

If you look it up in the App Store, you'll see that Battle Camp is free to download, and ostensibly free to play. But there's no such thing as a free lunch, and PennyPop isn't really giving the game away. They make their money through gold, the in-game currency of Battle Camp.

You can choose to play without ever touching gold, but you will miss out on some things. And ultimately, at very high levels, Battle Camp is pay-to-win. If you want to be in the top tiers of events, you're going to need gold, and lots of it.

On the other hand, for those of us who aren't worried about beating thousands of other players for that first place medal, a little bit of gold can go a long way. And you don't even have to spend any real money.

Spending Gold

There are currently three uses for gold: storage space, extra energy, and grabs.

Buying storage is straightforward. If your monster inventory is less than the maximum size, you can buy more slots. Additionally, you can buy storage lockers, each of which holds 10 monsters. Your default storage is pretty small, so many players will want to save some gold for these upgrades.

Buying energy can be done at any time, but most people will save it for events. More energy during an event lets you get more trophies, and thus get into higher tiers for better rewards. It can be especially beneficial if you've already used elemental damage boosters to increase the power of your team.

Grabs are essentially just a pull on a slot machine. Getting something good from a grab is a matter of luck (although you are guaranteed to get something). Be aware that you can also acquire free grabs from event and quest rewards. There are many types of grabs, some of which are easy to find, and others that are slightly hidden.

Grabs Available in Store Tab:

• Monster Grab - 5 gold - Common, Rare, Special and Super monsters, and Super puzzle pieces.
• Ultimate Grab - 50 gold - Rare, Special, Super, Ultra and Epic monsters.
• Avatar Grab - 25 gold- Avatar clothing (this grab is only available as a quest/event reward)
• Event Grab - 50 gold - Rare, Special, Super, Ultra and Epic, including "event monsters" that do bonus damage during the event (this grab is only available during an event).
• Avatar Store - This is the one place you can actually buy something, rather than taking a gamble. You can purchase outfits and clothing pieces.

Hidden Grabs:

• Lucky Grab - 50 gold - These offers pop up on your screen occasionally, and are basically an Ultimate grab, but with a 300% better chance of getting a particular monster (usually an Ultra or Epic).
• Special Grab - 25 gold - Offers only Specials. You can get to this grab by visiting your pet in the troop hall, tapping on it, and then tapping on the little "store" icon on the specials donation tab.

Getting Gold

There are three different ways to acquire gold:

• In-app purchase
• Watching video advertisements
• Completing TapJoy offers

All of these options are available in a window that opens when you tap on the coin symbol on the status bar at the top of the app.

In-app purchase is the most straightforward. You give PennyPop real-world money, and they give you gold. Options range from $3 (US) to $100. The more you spend in one transaction, the better deal you will get.

To earn gold watching ads, tap the "watch video offers" button. For each video you watch, you'll receive 2 gold nuggets. Nuggets are stored in the "items" section of your inventory. The Nuggeteer, in the bottom right corner of the "Camp" zone, will trade one gold for 20 nuggets. So you have to watch 10 videos to earn 1 gold. In my experience, there are usually 10-30 videos available per day.

To earn gold through TapJoy offers, tap the "complete offers" button. These offers can be a variety of things, including buying something, signing up for a website, downloading and running an app, taking surveys, or watching a video. Offers earn anywhere from one to hundreds of gold.

TapJoy also has an app and a mobile website. In my experience, the best offers are only available on the website. For example, On the website I sometimes see offers of 5-10 gold just to download and run an app, but these same offers never show up in the TapJoy app or in BattleCamp. If you want to get gold without spending money, these offers are your best bet.

Ultimately, if you want gold, you're going to have to spend either time or money. 

Troop Wars Again

Only two days after the Towers event ended, we're doing a weekend of Troop Wars. I don't think I'm the only one who would like a few more days between events so we can level and evolve our pets.

If you haven't done Troop Wars before, see my summary to learn how it works.

Celestial Towers

Celestial Towers is a regularly reoccurring event in Battle Camp. Players battle their way up two towers full of monsters, to earn tokens that let their troop battle the raid boss in the center of the map.

There are two towers - the Sun Tower and the Moon Tower, each with 10 floors. Players must start at floor one in each tower. By defeating monsters on a floor, the next floor of that tower is unlocked. (Progress is reset for all players each time the event happens, so any progress you made last time is lost.)

Each floor is similar to the cave quests that show up on the regular maps. It costs 3-5 energy to start battling on a floor. Each floor consists of several "waves" of monsters you have to defeat in succession. All waves have to be defeated in order to clear the floor, unlock the next floor, and earn rewards.

As in caves, tower monsters are never captured when defeated, so there's no opportunity to level your monsters while participating in the event. Floors get harder as you go up, with significant difficulty increases at level 4, 7, and 10. Also, higher floors have more waves, so expect them to take longer.

All tower monsters have a chance to drop Event Tokens (these are the general-purpose tokens with an "E" on them that can be used across different events). Additionally, clearing a floor gets you an Event Token, trophies, and some amount of either Sun or Moon Emblems, depending on the level you're on.

The boss monster, the Warden, sits in the middle of the main Celestial Towers map, between the two towers. This monster requires a donation of either Sun or Moon Emblems in order for your troop to raid against him. What type of emblem he demands for a given raid is random, but each successive raid will require more donations. The boss gives the troop a large number of trophies when defeated, spread between players based on who did the most damage.

Rewards

Like most events, there are three ways to earn rewards in Celestial Towers:

1. Trophy rewards - These are set rewards for earning certain quantities of trophies. These are the only rewards that are payed out immediately, as soon as the player has accumulated the necessary amount of trophies.
2. Leaderboard rewards - These are rewards for the player's individual performance in the event, as compared to all the other players. All players are ranked on the individual leaderboard, which is separated into tiers. For example, the ten players with the most trophies are in tier one, and the 11-40th place players are in tier two. Leaderboard positions are finalized at the end of the event, and shortly afterward each player earns a reward based on their individual tier.
3. Troop Leaderboard rewards - These work the same as the individual leaderboard rewards, but ranks are based on an entire troop's performance, as compared to other troops.

All rewards can be viewed from the Events tab of the Quests menu. Current individual and troop trophies, ranks and tiers can be viewed in the Leaders menu (which only shows up during the event). Your individual trophies and rank are also viewable from the blue ribbon on the left side of the screen. However, be aware that ranks can take several hours to update. 

Strategy

• All of the monsters on a given tower floor will always be of the same element. If you fail to beat a floor, you may have an easier time by swapping in monsters of the opposing element.
• If you run into a wall, where you simple can't beat a level, don't keep wasting energy on it. The tower difficulties ramp up quickly, and your team may simply not be strong enough to move beyond that point. Better to get some tokens and emblems by beating a lower floor, than to waste energy failing a higher floor repeatedly.
• Don't save up your emblems. The boss will randomly demand either Sun or Moon Emblems, and you will sometimes have a long streak where he only demands one type. If your troop donates enough to start the raid and you're stuck with a pile of the ones he doesn't want, that's essentially wasted energy, sitting in your inventory.
• Celestial Towers is an event that can earn you a lot of Event Tokens. Remember that these tokens have uses in each event, so you can always save them up for later use.
• On the other hand, if you have a lot of Event Tokens you're willing to spend, this is a great event to use them. The event vendor sells leaf, water and fire specials, as well as trophies and bonus energy, for relatively low quantities of event tokens.

Celestial Towers Event has Started!

The Celestial Towers event started this evening and will go through Monday. I'll post an overview shortly.

Interesting to note, this time around Freezaur gets 150% bonus damage against the boss, and it's evolved form, Freezerex, gets 200% bonus damage. This is the reward super for the first raid, so many relatively new players will be able to get lots of damage in.

EDIT: According to the Battle Camp Facebook page, "Inkwell, Lochnessy, Freezaur, and Wotter all do 150% bonus damage against the Warden unevolved, and 200% evolved!"

Also interesting is that almost all of the instant trophy rewards are either free energy or event grabs. Unfortunately, even if you get enough trophies to get an event grab, it's probably not worth leveling an event monster in the middle of the event, when you could be spending that energy on the event itself (unless you're already sitting on some leveled specials you can feed it).

Troop Wars

Troop Wars is a regularly recurring event in Battle Camp. It is a raiding event, but with a little bit of PvP flavor.

First, troop admins must select times to battle. Slots are available every four hours, and a troop may sign up for as many as they wish. Each battle lasts an hour. Slots are selected in the Events tab of the Quests menu.

At the start of the battle, each troop puts their pet in the arena, to defend their flag. Then each troop attacks the other's pet. Players can also donate specials to their pet to heal it. Players earn trophies by dealing damage to the enemy pet.

If your troop defeats the enemy pet, you are able to attack the enemy flag. The enemy's flag can absorb infinite damage, and all damage done to it earns twice as many trophies as damaging the pet.

At the end of the battle, the troops are rated by the number of trophies they've earned. (Player totals are added up to get the troop total.) EDIT: The troop total is also multiplied based on wins and losses. If you win, the number of trophies for that battle is doubled in your troop total. If you lose, only 70% of that battle's trophies are added to your troop total. Whichever troop has earned more trophies during the battle is declared the winner. Winning earns bragging rights, but not much else. Ultimately, it will be the total number of trophies at the end of the event that determines event rewards.

Rewards

Like most events, there are three ways to earn rewards in Troop Wars.

1. Trophy rewards - These are set rewards for earning certain quantities of trophies. For example, for the current Troop Wars event, a player who earns 100 trophies gets a 250 stone reward. These are the only rewards that are payed out immediately, as soon as the player has accumulated the necessary amount of trophies.
2. Leaderboard rewards - These are rewards for the player's individual performance in the event, as compared to all the other players. All players are ranked on the individual leaderboard, which is separated into tiers. For example, the ten players with the most trophies are in tier one, and the 11-40th place players are in tier two. Leaderboard positions are finalized at the end of the event, and shortly afterward each player earns a reward based on their individual tier.
3. Troop Leaderboard rewards - These work the same as the individual leaderboard rewards, but ranks are based on an entire troop's performance, as compared to other troops.

All rewards can be viewed from the Events tab of the Quests menu. Current individual and troop trophies, ranks and tiers can be viewed in the Leaders menu (which only shows up during the event). Your individual trophies and rank are also viewable from the blue ribbon on the left side of the screen. However, be aware that ranks can take several hours to update. 

Strategy

• Leveling your pet (by feeding it specials outside Troop Wars) will increase its HP. This will force enemy troops to spend more damage defeating it, and they will have less opportunity to damage your flag and earn double trophies.
• All pets are Leaf, Water, or Fire element. When attacking the enemy pet, it pays to use monsters of the opposing element (i.e. use fire against leaf, water against fire, and leaf against water).
• Event monsters (from the event grab) are extremely useful in Troop Wars. Each time the Troop Wars event comes around again, you are able to reuse them, and you'll always be facing the same fire, water or leaf pets.
• If your troop does have players with event monsters, they should lead the charge against the enemy pet. If other players can save their energy until the enemy pet is dead, they can earn double trophies against the enemy flag.

Troop Wars has Started!

Welcome to the first Battle Camp event of 2014. It started late in the day and people couldn't get into the first battle until it was half-over. Hopefully everything will go smoothly from here on out.

Tomorrow I'll post an overview of this event.

Gather 'Round!

Welcome to The Campfire, an informational blog for the mobile game Battle Camp.

Battle Camp is an easy game to start playing, but there are some aspects of it that aren't well-covered in the tutorials. I've had to figure out many things by myself, or from more experienced troop mates. I will attempt to address those topics here. I will also be covering current events, and any improvements, bug fixes, and other changes as they happen.

So pull up a log and sit by the fire. Let's make some s'mores and talk Battle Camp.