Today I was instagibbed by.. *Help us Balance Random Elites*

[Suslik]

@SageAcrin
Indeed it was that 2x2 box vault. Funny thing is I was unable to cast any activatable protections prior to digging, because the digging takes 19 turns and most protections last shorter than this. That was certainly a very unexpected death, because this char has never had any problems before that accident(900 max hp by level 30, mindslayer's defenses, very decent equips) and I kinda did not understand what happened when it did.

[grmblfzzz]

Ah, actually looked at the background instead of just the text in his pic. I love that vault! I think things like that are a perfect example of roguelike problem solving. The reasons: 1) It's optional! I don't think anyone really has conceptual difficulty with optional things being a jump in difficulty... You can always come back later, mind you. 2) You can easily check what's in each of the little rooms by arcane eye-ing/right clicking. This means you can plan for/see how much damage you could take, and whether you could survive opening it. 3) Figuring out that you should always, always, open things at a diagonal if possible when doing things like digging (Pretty sure you always can, in this case, such that onlly 2 squares in the room can see you). 4) You actually can throw up defensive stuff before you dig, just have to wait for a better digger

[Suslik]

I was am so using arcane eye was a problem. Did not have meditate + nature's eyes neither. I've learnt the lesson of digging diagonally(never thought about that actually), but is it normal to consider right-clicking area you can't see a fair scheme? Because it seems quite abusive and more of a bug for me.

[grmblfzzz]

Actually, any form of track can see through the diggable walls. I'd be quite surprised if you got pretty deeps into dreadfel without some form of track available to your guy, whether you ended up getting it or not!. Anyway, basic gist is that I don't see how *avoidable* vault mobs that you *can* see/anticipate and deal with strategically, is a balance issue really

I mean, many problems people have that are similar to this is of the nature of getting gibbed due to never seeing something before, not planning for/anticipating the situation/not building for them. Exploring a new vault and encountering shenanigans is no different than getting to a new stage in the game and encountering a new boss. They can get you if you're not prepared, but there's always ways you can deal with it if you know what you're doing, as a rule.

[SageAcrin]

Personally, I think the vault's tedium is a pretty big problem, aside from this discussion, anyways.

Does anyone actually enjoy digging that many times...?

[supermini]

Personally, I think the vault's tedium is a pretty big problem, aside from this discussion, anyways.

Does anyone actually enjoy digging that many times...?

Secret doors and diggable walls should be gone from vaults in my opinion. Secret doors feel out of place in ToME, and they encourage digging through the game files. Digging walls just makes it tedious and causes other issues (enemies getting a free turn).