Many informations, feedbacks and critics to Chaos Wastes have been already expressed in other topics.
This one is a tentative to collect all of them, with my personal opinion about this game mode. I played it a lot lately, both in Legend and in Cata, either in premade and in PUGs.
I’ll express my considerations in a point by point basis for clarity’s purpose.
General Concept
The idea is quite fun: a series of semirandom maps, from rags to riches, acquiring coins to get stronger. It gives you a sense of growing and it’s a nice alternative to the adventure mode.
Maps
The maps are in general quite good.
Events while repetitive are quite engaging and not boring.
I like the fact they are semirandom with different paths (with some notable exceptions in some maps).
My only complain is about Pit of Reflections which is too stingy with coins.
Curses
This is the first problematic point.
While the general idea is quite nice, the implementation is not.
I understand the need to vary the game because it’s a roguelike mode, so we can have different layers of difficulty.
But we have a too wide range of curses.
Nurgle are in general boring and annoying. Khornadoes are just unfun .
Tzeentch’s curses are just plainly bad. Slaanesh’s bubbles are the farmer’s dream.
Weapons’ system
The fact you need to pay the full price for upgrades regardless the rarity of your weapon is just bad game design. You are forced either to play with white weapons for a long time or to be short of money when getting Boons, so you can fall back the other players and feel weaker and not necessary.
Boons
Boons are the most discussed feature and with reason.
They range from outrageously good to very bad.
Some of them are so situational that requires specific weapons or careers to be functional, otherwise they are just a waste of money.
Other ones are so good you can speedrun all the levels.
The gap is too wide.
Conclusion
While interesting and fun, Chaos Wastes is mode flawed by some poor choices regarding game design and need a bit more polishing.