I’m teaching a week-long beginning programming camp this summer for 3rd-4th graders and will be introducing CodeCombat to the students. As the instructor, I’m working my way through the examples using a free account and I’m now to Backwoods Brawl and am a little worried. Up to this point, I’ve not encountered the archers and am having trouble surviving.
Have I missed something? Were archers covered in the PAID lessons? I can probably do some digging and find the right code or figure out some other commands, but I’m trying to work through these lessons as if I were a student… and right now I can’t see how a student (using a free account, at least) has been given enough information in the previous lessons to survive for 60 seconds.
Again, if I missed something… please point me to what I overlooked. The school may be paying or a one-month subscription for each student, but I don’t have confirmation of that yet and am worried students will reach this point in the game and become frustrated. Thanks in advance.
Backwood Brawl is a repeatable level. U can play it times after times, and will everytime get a new reward. Is your problem of Beeing an archer or do u have problems fighting against these? For backwood Brawl good EQ is recommendet, but with good code you can beat it too.
The problem is defeating the archers. As my hero moves towards them, they get 3-4 shots off. The goal is to survive for 60 seconds, which is not happening.
So, is the goal here to TRY and win by clicking the Submit button but failing and then moving on to the next lesson? And then come back and defeat the archers once you have the right knowledge? If so, that seems strange. I would think you should be able to win the initial attack (survive for 60s) and then find ways to increase your survival time as lessons go on. With the way it stands, I haven’t seen any additional training in the free lessons to survive this level and move on to the next.
if you have enough time, try to submit once. you will get a new random seed, and maybe sth changes and you can win.
Create new loops for searching for archers or else. (dont know if loops are introduced yet)
You just hit the nail on the head with your statement “try searching for archers.” I haven’t learned how to do that yet. If the lesson can’t be won because I can’t seek out (or defend myself from) archers, then that’s a problem for kids (and this adult).
I have not seen any lessons that had archers in them or showed code for how to search and target archers. If this does exist and is in the Premium/Paid accounts, then that’s fine… but it means someone moving through the free lessons will hit this lesson and not know how to solve it.
Sure but archers are enemies. What kind of glasses do you have? There is findNearestEnemy, findEnemies and finally findByType. The last one would allow you to specifically target archers. I’m not sure if it’s explained well enough(for me it is).
The other thing would be equipment. One needs to be wise spending earned(gathered) gems to get sufficient weapons, arrmor, shield and accesories(like glasses).
One could say that I’m over skilled for this game but I’m a free user and I’m at 4th level of Backwoods Brawl.
This is a game after all. Kids play a lot of games where you gain experience pick abilities and this sort of things.
In this game this is as important or maybe more important then the code itself.
In my opinion subscription users do not gain any significant advantage over the free ones. It is mostly in gems hence equipment but all the levels are perfectly playable(and winnable) for free users. The non-free advantages would be more practice(but not knowledge), access to all walkthroughs and more gems. The last one meaning advantage in equipment(being able to afford one) which simplifies some levels and gives you upper hand on multiplayer arenas(not all). Of course I’m am a free member so I can be wrong, am I?
I have the +10M Wooden Glasses, but they don’t offer the findByType ability. I could see that being useful, but I also don’t see any more powerful glasses able to be purchased right now. Maybe those become available some time in a future lesson and cannot be purchased?
Appreciate all the help, folks. I’m just trying to find areas where my campers may get frustrated. I’ve yet to find any amount of programming that lets me survive this lesson for 60 seconds with just the attack, shield, and cleave abilities. I’ve got to either be missing some bit of code that’s already been covered OR users are NOT meant to defeat the 60 second clock at this point and must just continue forward.
Indeed, I’ve looked into it. The first time the game asks you to search for enemy type is in Endangered Burl (early in the forest) which is a paid account only. But I tried to find another level that does so, but couldn’t. None in the forest, and in the desert, the Yaks are usually not adressed by their type.
However, the method .type is available without specific stuff. For example :
loop{
var enemy=this.findNearestEnemy() ;
if(enemy){
var type = enemy.type ;
this.say(type) ;
}
}
worked perfectly for me in the BackWoods Brawl with only the first glasses on.
In the level Rich Forager, which is free (later in the forest), you’ll learn how to use Flags, and you can use this to move closer to archers when they pop. But I don’t think for 4th grader you’ll ever need the complexity of the .type method. As an example, something like :
var flag= // find flag.
if( flag ) {
// move to the flag
} else {
// define variable "enemy" as the nearest enemy.
if( enemy) {
// kill enemy
}
}
is a very efficient structure for a loop body in any lvl 1 brawl.
That’s exactly what I think this level is supposed to do. Brawls are optional. They are side quests. This is a difficult level, as you experienced. But I think it’s intended in order to reward the kid with the satisfaction he defeated something impossible before, with the knowledge he learnt along the main campain.
New items unlock with leveling up. Hardened Steel Glasses offer findByType, I don’t know since which level they are availble.
Still you can get the type as VincentMaths said(by enemy.type).
To win a brawl I think you simply need a nice sword, nice armor(breastplate, helmet, shield) and go attack all the time. Other equipment, like glasses(better then basic of course) are unnecessary. At least on lower levels.
That is actually quite interesting since I’ve completed Endangered Burl level and it was not subscriber level only. It seems that there has been some changes since I got the Village Guard level undone and the levels Endangered Burl and Thornbush Farm are now subscriber only. I’ve played both of those, they were free.
Running is also a survival skill . . . (after all, it doesn’t say you must kill things for 60 seconds, only that you must survive…)
Hmm, this looks like the first place where you are really given a choice of where to go next. Levels along the road continue the main progression line, levels not along the road are optional, they give more practice, more challenge, and more gem earning opportunity.
Among the optional levels are two types that lend themselves to returning to . . . repeatable levels and multiplayer levels. The repeatable levels get harder every time you submit and succeed, so you may need better code and/or better equipment to succeed again (don’t be fooled by the cheaters with really high scores, on the repeatable levels I don’t think there is a legitimate score above around 7-8 tops). For the multiplayer levels once you beat the simple AI, your code goes into a “ladder” and competes with other peoples code (and equipment, so to speak) . You of course come back when you have better equipment and/or coding ideas. You are able to work on your code directly against a submitted opponent of your choice or watch any two submitted opponents compete. (see here)
I’d suggest that nothing be purchased until you must, to be able to continue. This will help you and your students not make unwise purchases, that halt or slow down your future progression. The whens of items becoming available for purchase has recently been tweaked to help in this regard, but prudent spending is always advised.
Thanks, all… some great comments and ideas to ponder.
Personally, I don’t think it’s possible for a free user reaching Backwoods Brawl for the first time to survive 60 seconds with just cleave, attack, and shield abilities. Maybe I’m wrong, but the moveXY ability doesn’t really help because during the run to a specific point, your hero can take damage and doesn’t stop and return damage until it gets to the specific spot.
I’m thinking this level should be explained a bit more to novices who might get very upset that they just cannot win it. Having encountered it now, I’ll be able to give my group a heads-up warning, but I do believe this level should be looked at again in terms of frustration level for novices versus the lack of clear explanation of how to win it (if it truly can be won this early in the tutorials).
Replying to Vlevo and James at the same time. One of the highest score on BackWoods Brawl is actually set by Kevin Holland. Hats off @sotonin for kiting this well such a ridiculous army.
I didn’t try it with a 0 stuff account on brawl level 1, but give a try to kiting. I could totally work.
Kevin’s code consists of 90% running. All you need for running is a flag. And that’s explained few levels later.
Fun to watch, but much of the code I saw in his program is WAY beyond what a novice new to Code Combat will have learned by the time they reach this level.
And that is quite amazing. I love the code, running in circles, brilliant. I guess I should try that. It reminds me of the time I played Destruction Derby 2
Now, time to fix my brawls code. How to run so to not get caught.
