First impressions

[Sradac]

Yep, I only go there when I know I'm pretty much "safe". Oozemancers, Summoners, Archmages, Stonewardens. Classes that have high survivability I won't mind going there.

But if I'm like a Shadowblade, or Archer, or even Alchemist? No thank you. Sure Alchemists can blow stuff up, but I can't handle all those corruptors and demons.

[grayswandir]

I did say the best infusions for speed I found were 176%. why do you say the minimum is 300% is beyond me. even then many times all you need to to run 3 or 4 squares away to get out of Los. But many times you have a long corridor as your only way out of a dangerous room filled with ranged enemies with ranged CC as well. a potion that doesn't gives you a huge movement allowance is not going to save you then.
...snip...
My statements are pretty accurate. If I am saying. I got there. This happened. I had no way out. It couldn't be any more accurate, that's just how it went down!

There is no such thing as a 176% movement infusion. The minimum is 300%. (I just checked the source code, and then entered debug mode and force-generated 100 movement infusions to triple check.) This is one of the reasons I said you're being inaccurate - you're telling me things that are clearly impossible.

Another Example:

So I used the phage door to try and teleport out of the barrier and buy me some time. I teleport 1 square away, the wall there breaks to let me get to that square.

Any kind of teleport doesn't work during the fight with the Weirdling Beast (which I confirmed was what you were fighting). I'm not sure what happened, but you definitely didn't teleport 1 space with a phase door rune. Maybe he knocked you back a space, just as the wall disappeared?

So, not so much that what you're telling me you saw is inaccurate, but that you are misinterpreting what the game is telling you. (Which is admittedly a problem with the game. It is kinda hard to figure out.) Since you're getting a lot of things completely wrong, it leads me to believe that your analysis of the situations is also incorrect.

Basicly all scenarios you probably know how to deal with it, but would you have been able to beat them? Maybe. Perhaps you'd have something I didn't had. Perhaps you'd have more luck. there is a lot of things that can be said in retrospective and in light of. I'd do a different selection of things. it also doesn't means that you wouldn't get thrown a different situation for which you weren't prepared to deal with.

My point wasn't that there are no scenarios I'm not capable of dealing with. My point was that I most likely would've been able to get out of (or avoided in the first place) the scenarios which you described, those same scenarios which upon you are basing your assertion that the game is too random. As such, I have no reason to believe that the game is too random, since I've yet to see any evidence, or even suggestive data, of this.

[Sradac]

...As such, I have no reason to believe that the game is too random, since I've yet to see any evidence, or even suggestive data, of this.

Dat lost merchant tho...

[Elhazzared]

Normally i don't go into dungeons that I don't have a quest for. The simple reason being that i don't know whether or not I'll get a quest for it later, else, so long as I knew it was within my level range I'd be going in because there is loot to be had... And yes, many can say going in is a risk, same as with vaults but let's be honest. Most of the time vaults throw you monsters twice your level, around level 13 when you are level 7. That is ok, you can deal with those provided you don't do something stupid. But levels 22 to 25. i'm sorry, that is just bad game balance. The vaults are there to be explored. they are supposed to be a harder place with rewards waiting. Either way it's obious the game is very much loot dependent so you need to do all that you can to get more loot and more money to buy items. You do that by going into dungeons. Sure you don't have to go into every single one, but it should all be doable. I'm not saying easy, I'm saying doable. Similarly there should be no such thing as unkillable enemies or nearly unkillable. i don't find it particularly fun, nor anyone would for that matter, to be chased through a whole dungeon by something that I can't kill or defend against.

Grayswandir - If I had a screenshot of them I'd show it to you. I did find actually good movement runes on my current run but if I ever trip into bellow 300% runes of movement I'll be sure to take a pic and submit it to bugs.

As for the weirdling fight... No, it teleported me one space. If it wasn't usable in there then the rune wouldn't activate at all and pass my turn. At least that is my current understand of game mechanics. When you can't actually do something it will not let you do it and ignore the command. As the command wasn't ignored, the rune was set on cooldown and it passed the turn. i must assume it teleported me 1 square into the wall and blew it away.

The game is pretty random. You can have a run where you find nothing but good items and a run where you don't find anything but white items (give or take a little bit of exageration). You can find an area in a run which you breeze though and the next run you get there and the area is super hard with lots of different monsters which are perfectly to murder you in less than nothing. The weirdling isn't consistent. Why would I with 2 beserkers once practicly breeze through it and the next time which while some of my gear was slightly infirior had a major compensation of 11 rounds of invunerabillity be nothing but 100% impossible to beat? This can only be boiled down to RNG. Again, some RNG is to be expected, but some sort of control over it is also expected.

[edge2054]

Normally i don't go into dungeons that I don't have a quest for. The simple reason being that i don't know whether or not I'll get a quest for it later, else, so long as I knew it was within my level range I'd be going in because there is loot to be had... And yes, many can say going in is a risk, same as with vaults but let's be honest. Most of the time vaults throw you monsters twice your level, around level 13 when you are level 7. That is ok, you can deal with those provided you don't do something stupid. But levels 22 to 25. i'm sorry, that is just bad game balance. The vaults are there to be explored. they are supposed to be a harder place with rewards waiting. Either way it's obious the game is very much loot dependent so you need to do all that you can to get more loot and more money to buy items. You do that by going into dungeons. Sure you don't have to go into every single one, but it should all be doable. I'm not saying easy, I'm saying doable. Similarly there should be no such thing as unkillable enemies or nearly unkillable. i don't find it particularly fun, nor anyone would for that matter, to be chased through a whole dungeon by something that I can't kill or defend against.

They are doable. They're just not doable on every character. As you said the game is loot dependant. It's also build dependant. If you're not prepared for a vault and you open it anyway I really don't take pity on you.

The game is pretty random. You can have a run where you find nothing but good items and a run where you don't find anything but white items (give or take a little bit of exageration).

Finding only white items? A little bit of exaggeration? The drop tables, while somewhat random, don't work this way. If you kill a boss you get good loot. Stores don't stock white items at all. Worse case scenario the first boss drops stuff you can't use and you have to go to town to buy something worthwhile.

You can find an area in a run which you breeze though and the next run you get there and the area is super hard with lots of different monsters which are perfectly to murder you in less than nothing.

Out of depth monsters don't spawn in starting dungeons except in optional areas such as vaults (sensing a theme here? quit opening vaults until you have a much better feel for the game). You can easily hit level 10 before venturing on to tier 2 dungeons.

The weirdling isn't consistent. Why would I with 2 beserkers once practicly breeze through it and the next time which while some of my gear was slightly infirior had a major compensation of 11 rounds of invunerabillity be nothing but 100% impossible to beat? This can only be boiled down to RNG. Again, some RNG is to be expected, but some sort of control over it is also expected.

Different builds? Different gear? Mistakes made by the player? Seriously link these two characters and I can probably give you some idea why berserker one was fine and berserker two wasn't.

The Weirdling Beast himself has very little RNG involved in how he spawns. His inscriptions are the same every time. They even have the exact same power and duration every time. Seriously the first boss of the Trollmire is more random.

The only thing random about that fight aside from AI choices is which buffs he strips. Which is something that experience can teach you how to handle (i.e. wait until his buff stripping is on cooldown before using your better buffs). And as for the AI, it's fairly deterministic. He may use talents a bit more often and frontload a bit more from one fight to another. But eventually he's going to run out of cooldowns just like anyone else.

Anyway I understand that this thread is called first impressions but people are trying to tell you that you got the wrong idea about some things and I feel like you're putting your fingers in your ears. There's some feedback that you've given that may change some things (as I said we're looking at one of the tier one bosses) but for the most part it sounds like you want the game to adapt to how you think it should play rather than you adapting to how it actually plays.

That has little to do with the RNG and a lot more to do with your unwillingness to change how you approach the game.

[jotwebe]

Normally i don't go into dungeons that I don't have a quest for. The simple reason being that i don't know whether or not I'll get a quest for it later, else, so long as I knew it was within my level range I'd be going in because there is loot to be had... And yes, many can say going in is a risk, same as with vaults but let's be honest. Most of the time vaults throw you monsters twice your level, around level 13 when you are level 7. That is ok, you can deal with those provided you don't do something stupid. But levels 22 to 25. i'm sorry, that is just bad game balance. The vaults are there to be explored, they are supposed to be a harder place with rewards waiting.

Seriously, what made you the expert on what vaults are for all of a sudden? They are there to provide a challenge, and to give you an interesting choice where you estimate the strength of your character build against what you've come to expect from vaults in the particular dungeon you're delving. But if you die from whatever you find in a vault, it's not a cheap death, it's one you asked for.

Either way it's obious the game is very much loot dependent so you need to do all that you can to get more loot and more money to buy items. You do that by going into dungeons. Sure you don't have to go into every single one, but it should all be doable. I'm not saying easy, I'm saying doable.

And it all is. Your problem is that you are encountering complex and dangerous situations, but fail to prepare for them, to recognize before it is to late, and fail to handle them correctly. Which is all nothing to be ashamed of and only to be expected; there is a lot to learn in this game and sometimes it fails to communicate important stuff clearly. But the first step to learn is willingness, as long as you blame things happening that you didn't understand on "the RNG" and put them down to bad luck, you will have a hard time improving.

Similarly there should be no such thing as unkillable enemies or nearly unkillable. i don't find it particularly fun, nor anyone would for that matter, to be chased through a whole dungeon by something that I can't kill or defend against.

According to whom? I've had some of the best fun videogames provided me chased by an unpronounceable, invulnerable tentacle-thing through the tunnels beneath Lake Nur.

The game is pretty random. You can have a run where you find nothing but good items and a run where you don't find anything but white items (give or take a little bit of exageration). You can find an area in a run which you breeze though and the next run you get there and the area is super hard with lots of different monsters which are perfectly to murder you in less than nothing.

To some extent this is true of the early game. But as the game goes on, things almost always even out. It is, to say it again, a lot less random than FTL or even Dredmor.

The weirdling isn't consistent. Why would I with 2 beserkers once practicly breeze through it and the next time which while some of my gear was slightly infirior had a major compensation of 11 rounds of invunerabillity be nothing but 100% impossible to beat? This can only be boiled down to RNG. Again, some RNG is to be expected, but some sort of control over it is also expected.

It also comes down to what equipment you had, and your reactions subsequent to your stun failing put the weirdling beast's healing on cooldown. And so on.

[Elhazzared]

For the wierdling I had different equipment on both runs, i had the exact same build. I probably had less 12 penetration even if a higher damage output weapon on my second run. I also had better armor but I do consider that penetration loss a big deal anyway.

First beserker goes there, starts beating it with all the abillities i had available at every opportunity. When I got to half life I used a regeneration. I kept beating it and survived with a third of my health.

Second beserker went in and it's as I told you. Not even a chance despite the difference between them being minimal. Again i'll also point out that despite the fact that it has a shield spell, the first time I got there I never had to break the shield, my attacks went in so I assumed it only reduced damage by a certain amount. The second time the shield just absorved all damage until it broke (it never broke the first time).

I am not sure how to link the said characters. The first one I belive I can't since I hadn't registered at the time. In fact I only registered once I started thinking about hitting the foruns... However I tend to make all my characters with the same name and it asks me if I want to re-write it which I say yes... Not sure if that deletes old records of runs. At any rate the character was under the name of Ryla.

As for vaults. No, they aren't there simply to provide challenge and nothing more. If that was the sole purpose there wouldn't be loot in there. They are harder areas which contain loot. They should be harder yet doable. Almost always they are doable but again enemies 3x+ your level is just unacceptable... It's pretty much a cheap death no matter what you say.

As for unkillable things. I was quoting what someone had said about there being one monster that was either unkillable or nearly unkillable. and sure, having a tentacle monster after you somewhere in the game isn't necessarely bad. So long as it is only looking for a good time and NOT out to kill you.

As for bad runs because of items. I've had them. I've actually cleared trollmire and the second place and I had absolutly nothing better than green and white. Everything that dropped off bosses were actually not good for my class and even then only bossess droped something that wasn't white or green.

As for when i say sometimes areas just throw things at you that don't even give you a chance. Well think of something like old forest. Sometimes I stumble upon certain places filled with really tough monsters and most times old forest is easy. No i don't means vaults inside.

[Sradac]

It also comes down to what equipment you had, and your reactions subsequent to your stun failing put the weirdling beast's healing on cooldown. And so on.

Also, if you were re-activating your sustains every time you could. And your accuracy. As we identified earlier, Inspect the weirdling beast next time you see him. He has very specific talents that, if you understand them, he becomes much easier. You can't fight him like you do most enemies.

[grayswandir]

As for the weirdling fight... No, it teleported me one space. If it wasn't usable in there then the rune wouldn't activate at all and pass my turn. At least that is my current understand of game mechanics. When you can't actually do something it will not let you do it and ignore the command. As the command wasn't ignored, the rune was set on cooldown and it passed the turn. i must assume it teleported me 1 square into the wall and blew it away.

As I've been telling you, your current understanding is wrong. Who said anything about it not being activable? In that room, anytime you activate a teleport effect it goes through, takes a turn, and fails to move you at all. Furthermore, why are you assuming it blew the wall away, instead of the wall just disappearing naturally?

[Plak]

You're blaming the RNG for losing to a boarding ship on FTL, and claiming that the whole game is just about being lucky enough to never encounter one.

This game is long, much longer than it would seem at first. Luck will determine how early an inexperienced player will stumble on something he doesn't yet know how to deal with, so I understand how it can look like this game is RNG-centric. However, the game is long enough that all these "unlucky" encounters are guaranteed to happen during a complete run, several times. This game has a chat (and these forums), so the next time you die, just make note of what exactly killed you (and why you weren't able to retreat) and plenty of people ill be happy to give you some advice.

[Marson]

Dat lost merchant tho...

Ok, that's one instance where the RNG can be horrific, and the bastard won't take refunds.

But really, when we have a wide spread of possibilities like in the case of item generation, we can't really expect to get what we want. Well, we can, but we'll be disappointed. But yeah, I want to string him up more often than not.



As far as the teleport/phase door goes, they won't destroy walls. The Prodigy 'Massive Blow' will knock an opponent back and destroy the wall behind them if there is one. I can't remember if there are any talents that do that. Pulverizing Auger doesn't have a knockback, but it will punch through walls.

[Elhazzared]

I've said it before, it was a wal created with that cape that gives the stone wall around spell. i did messed up and forgot to move a step away before casting it but then i remembered that i could just use the phase door to teleport out of the wall somewhere else in the room and muy myself some time. What happened was the teleportation putting me one square away in the place where one of the walls was before, thus destroying the wall... As for the eventuallity of a knockback of the weirdling, I don't think a knockback would break the wall? Could be wrong but I think not. I've also never seen him use knockbacks at all but I've never seen it's full range of capabillities. In any case what bothers me most is that shield of his. I don't understand why one time it took a very long time to break doing 0 damage to the creature but the previous one it I could hit the creature and did nothing to the shield... and i'm sure the shields were there both times cause I at least checked which effects were on it. I also think the first time it had nowhere near 1000 life. But I can't be absolutly sure on that.

On a different note since you guys do have more experience there are a couple questions I'd like to ask.

Which dungeons are level 1 and 2 and 3. Or in words, can you give me a list of easy to go at dungeons and then dificulty progression along them? Which dungeons are particularly dangerous and should wait to level up a bit before trying them. or you know, if there is a list like this somewhere just give me a link.

A second question. How viable would an archmage be going for mag/con. I'm a bit worried on the possible shortage of mana but seems like the only viable way to avoid being randomly one hit.

[ghostbuster]

I've said it before, it was a wal created with that cape that gives the stone wall around spell. i did messed up and forgot to move a step away before casting it but then i remembered that i could just use the phase door to teleport out of the wall somewhere else in the room and muy myself some time. What happened was the teleportation putting me one square away in the place where one of the walls was before, thus destroying the wall... As for the eventuallity of a knockback of the weirdling, I don't think a knockback would break the wall? Could be wrong but I think not. I've also never seen him use knockbacks at all but I've never seen it's full range of capabillities. In any case what bothers me most is that shield of his. I don't understand why one time it took a very long time to break doing 0 damage to the creature but the previous one it I could hit the creature and did nothing to the shield... and i'm sure the shields were there both times cause I at least checked which effects were on it. I also think the first time it had nowhere near 1000 life. But I can't be absolutly sure on that.

Weirdling beast does not have Stone Wall. Maybe you were using some (fun but extremely extremely dangerous) addons that give extra talents to mobs.

Which dungeons are level 1 and 2 and 3. Or in words, can you give me a list of easy to go at dungeons and then dificulty progression along them? Which dungeons are particularly dangerous and should wait to level up a bit before trying them. or you know, if there is a list like this somewhere just give me a link.

Level 1: Trollmire, blighted ruins, Heart of gloom, Norgos, Rholren camp, Scintillating caves, and some others only available for some races and/or classes.

Level 2: Maze, daikara, sandworm lair, old forest

Level 3: dreadfell and many others.

All the information is in the wiki http://te4.org/Wiki in the zones section.

A second question. How viable would an archmage be going for mag/con. I'm a bit worried on the possible shortage of mana but seems like the only viable way to avoid being randomly one hit

Every char should invest in con. It is vital for warrior, but to a lesser point also to casters. In general, for an archmage, I raise magic and then more or less simultanously CON and WIL. And I adjust the amount of each depending on my sustains, mana shortage, and my difficult to survive.

[kravarnik#]

Elhazzared, you seem to be too eager about getting good at the game. Well, I've been playing it for well over a year and guess how many times I've won it. Twice. I may be bad, but boy, you need experience in order to handle the things you complain about. The things you mention(aside from the information issue) aren't broken, flawed, half-done mechanics, they were tough situations that you weren't prepared for.


Play the game some more. As your death count goes up, so is your comprehension about the game. There isn't anything better to teach you how to play the game, than playing it for yourself. You can ask for directions, of course, but there are no clear cut instructions how to win it, or be successful at it. The more you broaden your understanding and comprehension of the game, the better you will be prepared about situations - meaning, you will build your characters more optimally as your understanding of the game grows.

For example, you get a character going. You enter Daikara too early and you die. You start a new one, once again entering Daikara too early and oops, there's the death reaper. So, based on what you just did with these 2 characters, will you go to Daikara too early? No. And it's just one example, about a dungeon. The skill trees, the attributes, the learning curve is the same. Trial and error, trial and error, till you get it right.

[NemesisZeru]

I've said it before, it was a wal created with that cape that gives the stone wall around spell. i did messed up and forgot to move a step away before casting it but then i remembered that i could just use the phase door to teleport out of the wall somewhere else in the room and muy myself some time. What happened was the teleportation putting me one square away in the place where one of the walls was before, thus destroying the wall... As for the eventuallity of a knockback of the weirdling, I don't think a knockback would break the wall? Could be wrong but I think not. I've also never seen him use knockbacks at all but I've never seen it's full range of capabillities. In any case what bothers me most is that shield of his. I don't understand why one time it took a very long time to break doing 0 damage to the creature but the previous one it I could hit the creature and did nothing to the shield... and i'm sure the shields were there both times cause I at least checked which effects were on it. I also think the first time it had nowhere near 1000 life. But I can't be absolutly sure on that.

Weirdling beast does not have Stone Wall. Maybe you were using some (fun but extremely extremely dangerous) addons that give extra talents to mobs.

Kinda sounds like HE was using the Wrap of Stone, and trapped himself? Iunno