A Noob's Guide to the Crypt

By Axiom — Originally posted in Discord

This guide shares a few things I've picked up starting the crypt.

• As so often with this game: good gear & bad code > good code & bad gear. You can get away with bad code if your gear is good.
• The crypt isn't hard to do – but some monsters are hard to kill 🙂

• You MUST have good tanking-ability (which means gear)
• Optional: You should be able to AoE (for Spike)
• I opted for Priest / Warrior / Warrior, simply because all 3 can tank and 1 can heal. It's the most resilient combo I have available.
• A lonely monster is an easy monster!
• Avoid monsters that are close together.
• Have a good blacklist!
  • Found an easy mob but Orlok (or some other tough mob) is close? Blacklist!
  • Found a hard mob with the healer attached? Blacklist!
  • Found an easy mob with the healer attached? Go for the healer first!
• Yes, by blacklisting a ton of mobs you lose out on loot
  • But: You also stay alive, you don't enter a death loop, and you don't spend 2 hours in the same crypt!
• Remember, this is the noob's guide to the crypt! 😄 We ignore hard challenges and go for low-hanging fruit!

• You must be able to open a crypt instance
• You make the instance ID available to all characters so they can join it
• You should track the mobs you already defeated
• Record the time you enter the crypt and delete the instance after X time (30 minutes? 1 hour?)

All of the above (1-3) can be solved via `localStorage`.

Housekeeping: Delete the instance if you killed all monsters (tracked in step 2) or if you've spent too much time in the instance (tracked in step 3).

• Is there a Crypt-ID in localStorage and you're not already in the crypt?
  • If you're far from the crypt door, move to the door
  • If you're at the crypt door, enter the crypt using the ID from localStorage

Make sure all characters go to the same spot.

An easy spot is at the vbats – it's the only static spawn in the crypt and always at the same location.

• If nothing else, kill all vbats and delete the crypt instance from `localStorage`
• Repeat!

Congratulations! You can now farm `crings` & `ceaarings` — vbats drop A LOT of them.

If you only farm vbats, you’ve likely already got loot worth more than the crypt key (which usually goes for 3–5M).

• Find out what you can kill safely
• If it's in `parent.entities`, go there and hammer away! 😄

You’ll soon find there are a lot of edge cases:

• There’s a healer that can make an easy monster like Bill undefeatable when attached

Write targeting logic AND safety logic:

• Does the mob you want to farm have a healer (“a5”) within X pixels? → Ignore it
• …But maybe attack the healer? 🙂
• Is the monster leveled? → Blacklist!
• Is the monster named Orlok? → Run!! 😄

Do this well, and you can farm most things.

I *can* farm everything except Orlok — *if* the monster is alone.

Pathfinding is hard to do — and even harder to do well!

One of the most dreaded parts of the crypt is that all monsters (except vbats) roam around. Their location changes every run.

But I figured: What is pathfinding? It finds a path from A to B.

We kind of have that already with `smart_move()`.

We know A (our current position), But we don’t know B (the next monster).

So… let's roam!

I chose the most inefficient but simple solution: Just visit all or most intersections of the crypt and record them!

• Make an array of waypoints
• The array must be ordered
• Start from the middle of the crypt
• Keep adding waypoints until you complete a full loop

Simple rules!

If the current character is the master/tank:

• Find the closest waypoint
• Are the other 2 characters close?
  • If not → Stay at current waypoint and wait
  • If yes → Move to the next waypoint
• Can't find other characters with `get_player()` (they may be dead)? → Go to `waypoints[0]` and regroup

If the character is not the master/tank:

• Can you get the master with `get_player()`? → Move to him!
• If not → Go to `waypoints[0]` and regroup

And that's how you roam the crypt the easy way! 😄

It’s inefficient as hell, yes. But it gets the job done — you’ll cover the whole crypt. 😄

I hope you enjoyed!

The crypt is full of edge-cases. It’s what it’s famous for!

• Monster X is easy! Let's attack!
• Oh, this time it has a healer…
• Oh, now it's next to Orlok too…

So how do we noobs deal with it?

Yes! Simply ignore the edge-cases! 🤣

Here it comes:

• Do not write code to handle edge-cases.
• Write code to find good cases!

Your target selection should reflect what a safe monster is.

• If it matches your “safe” definition → Attack it
• If not → Ignore it

This is the easiest way (that I found) to get decent target selection with minimal code — for a wide range of targets and situations.

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Originally written by Axiom in Discord. Minor formatting applied for wiki readability.