ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

In previous versions, it was smart to put an Aether Beam trap inside a wall primarily to ensure nobody walked on it, since walking on it destroys it.

However, this had the unfortunate side-effect of allowing Aether Beam to shoot through 1-thick walls, which is too clever for the poor little dumb AI to handle.

Now in recent versions, Aether Beam must be cast on walkable terrain, which means it's getting "disarmed" much more frequently. IMHO this is a nasty nerf for one of the core Aether Archmage talents, so I want to discuss ways to fix this nerf without unbalancing the game.

The three ways I could see for a fix are:
- Making it a real trap with a balanced Disarm threshold.
- Doing something nasty if the Disarm check fails.
- Not destroying the "trap" if the Disarm check fails.

Are all 3 of these too much? How high a Disarm check should be set (relative to the caster's Spellpower)? Any other ideas?

I'm putting the above 3 ideas in the next Nulltweaks addon, so feel free to kick the tires before voting, or change your vote after trying this out.

Thanks!

I find the description of Aether Beam very confusing. Nowhere is it detailed that the skill creates a trap. I don't feel that it should even be a trap; it should just be a spinning set of beams with an epicenter.

I agree that it shouldn't count as a disarmable trap.

It makes the most sense that it be persisent, more like Aether Breach.
It's easy enough to make it non-disarmable, while still being a trap (so that it can't be placed in same tile as other traps.)

maybe make it so its not actually a trap. Glyphs cant be disarmed, why the hell can my portal into the aether realm be disarmed? Its not even mechanical, it is pure arcane energy being unleashed in a wild torrent

Sradac wrote:maybe make it so its not actually a trap

That sounds like another interesting option, though right now I kind of think it's cool that a PC with Survival has an option to mess with a rather potent Arcane spell, and that the Archmage has to use different tactics on Rogue NPCs than on Trolls.

Could we have dispellable but not disarmable traps?

Yeah but how often do you encounter an enemy mage using aether beam? Almost never. Its much more of a detriment and pain in the ass than "oh cool, one out of 30 characters I can disarm one of these!"

Also rogue vs troll dosent seem to matter every damn enemy disarms mine, even slimes and snakes

Sradac wrote:Yeah but how often do you encounter an enemy mage using aether beam? Almost never. Its much more of a detriment and pain in the ass than "oh cool, one out of 30 characters I can disarm one of these!"

Yeah it's more of a tactical choice for Archmage players, and a small perk to Rogue players.

I have had Aether Beam cast at me by a High Peak boss.

Sradac wrote:Also rogue vs troll dosent seem to matter every damn enemy disarms mine, even slimes and snakes

If you're using Nulltweaks, that won't be the case.

I like the idea of it going boom on disarm, for silence + arcane damage.

But it makes no sense that it can be disarmed at all.

This thing shouldn't be a trap at all. It doesn't make any thematic sense, doesn't match the talent description at all, and makes for unfun gameplay ==> triple fail.

HousePet wrote:Could we have dispellable but not disarmable traps?

Sounds good, but it's not obvious to me how to do that. If you can see how to do it, please do!

Also dispelling "magic" traps in general would be kind of cool.

Also also Shadowblades need a way to do that, since they should be good at trap stuff and magic stuff and therefore the world experts on magical traps.

evouga wrote:This thing shouldn't be a trap at all. It doesn't make any thematic sense, doesn't match the talent description at all, and makes for unfun gameplay ==> triple fail.

Yeah nobody really likes how the core game works, that's why we're trying to fix it.

Let's try to stay constructive.

Thanks.

Crim, The Red Thunder wrote:I like the idea of it going boom on disarm, for silence + arcane damage.

But it makes no sense that it can be disarmed at all.

This! I answered the low and high damage on the poll, but the ideal solution I think is a debuff fitting to arcane theme. Daze comes to mind though it might be a bit too lightning'y.

Doctornull wrote: Yeah nobody really likes how the core game works, that's why we're trying to fix it.

Let's try to stay constructive.

Thanks.

I'm voting for an option that's not on the poll, "don't make it a trap." If you don't like this solution for whatever reason, that's fine, but it doesn't make it non-constructive.

evouga wrote:I'm voting for an option that's not on the poll, "don't make it a trap." If you don't like this solution for whatever reason, that's fine, but it doesn't make it non-constructive.

It is already a trap. The core game makes it a trap. Nobody is proposing "making" it a trap because it already is a trap.


If you're saying "change it so it's not a trap" then that would be constructive.

Cheers!