Question about 1.3 and some personal thoughts about Tome

[HousePet]

Unless you are one of the numerous mad people who try to play the game on roguelike mode instead of adventurer mode.

[Marcus Aseth]

I don't really see the point of playing a roguelike game in a not roguelike mode
Like the first time I finished "Dungeon of Dredmor"(which also introduced me to this genre) I finished it on "Going Rogue" with "Permadeath". Is that kind of difficulty that keeps you on allert and make you consider better your moves tring to push for a better resoult on every run and also making you totally feel the weight of your own decisions and mistake,keeping it exciting and challenging...if I want to reload and try again,then there are a lot of better RPG/JRPG that already offer that.
In other words,I don't really see the value of playing/finishing this kind of games without playing them the roguelike style,and is also the fact that is so unforgiving that counter balance for the lack of nextgen graphics and so on


Though I must say,the Z key is both a good thing and a bad thing...sure it cut a big chunk of boring parts where you have to clear again a place you cleared the last 50 runs,but also sometimes puts you in a "rush mindset" which get you killed more than anything else

[HousePet]

The game is balanced for Adventurer mode, and because there is always random stuff that can kill you without warning.

[Castler]

There is nothing forcing you to do all the dungeons or doing them in the same order each time.

Technically, yes, but...

ToME is a long game, so I it very hard to convince myself to skip anything that might maximize my chances for survival. Skipping the last 2 T1 dungeons means I lose out on, at the very least, 2 more artifacts, and there's always the chance of more loot (like that one time I got Garkul's Helm off of a trash mob in my fifth T1) to keep me going back, however uninteresting the dungeons otherwise are.

Maybe this is my own problem; maybe I'm not accurately evaluating my character power and the effects of extra loot on that and so on. But ToME is so staunchly anti-grinding in most aspects of its design - so unwilling to let you trade boredom for power - that the design of the 6-8 (depending on race) T1 dungeons seems out of place.

For ADOM, I tended to always do 1,3,4,5/6,2. The options didn't really make anything except 5/6 as a choice.
4 for example, doesn't actually have a strict time limit, unless you are desperate for a piece of candy.

4's time limit also gives an alignment boost and warm fuzzy feelings. But you're right, I oversimplified.

[HousePet]

Do you also grind farportal levels?

[Castler]

Generally, no. No guaranteed loot and the possibility of dangerous random bosses pushes their risk-reward ratio too high for my taste.

[donkatsu]

Hypothetically, if tier 1 dungeons were boring and risk-free, then completing them is a tedious and optimal. By now I don't think I have to point out why that is bad design. However, personally I don't find the tier 1 dungeons boring, and they're definitely not risk-free.

I don't really like the idea of a "quick start" option either because the first half of the game is generally the most challenging. Once you beat Dreadfell, you're probably going to win unless your build sucks at endgame for some reason. If the early game is too easy, you should probably try playing on a higher difficulty.

I wouldn't mind a quick start option but this is good advice.

[edge2054]

The game is balanced for Adventurer mode, and because there is always random stuff that can kill you without warning.

It's always been balanced around roguelike/normal. Hence the warnings on Bill and vaults as well as the continued balancing of status effects that cause turns to be lost.

That said it's a long game and one bad decision or running across one rare with unbalanced abilities can set you back 20 hours.

But generally a good player can win consistently on roguelike if they don't take a lot of risks (skip late vaults, skip hard dungeons, running from tough encounters, etc.)

Anyway I think a lock-out once three starter dungeons are finished would help the early game a lot. Just say adventurer parties cleaned them out. The player will start tier 2s a bit lower level and with a bit less gear but with the recent strides in improving shops I think it will be okay.

[Marcus Aseth]

Improving shops?

Please Sir,tell me more about this

[edge2054]

For 1.3 shielding runes are more common and there's a tool shop in derth for lanterns and pickaxes. Generally speaking, the shops have just gotten better and better over the years and tier 2 difficulty has remained the same. I don't think being level 12 and having the loot from 6+ tier 1 dungeons is really necessary to start and I'm sure it adds to the length of an already long game.

[grayswandir]

In my opinion the solution to this is throwing some serious randomness into the dungeon,meaning that never has to happen that I enter a dungeon already knowing what level range of opponents I'm going to face,so maybe I could end up in a run where the weak level 3 monsters are in the graveyard and the badass lvl 30 beasts are in the minotaur labirinth. This way,each run must be carefully thread as it's own unique situation requiring exploration/scouting and a lot of care.

This actually sounds really fun.

What if a couple of the T1 dungeons (that aren't in your starting quest set) got random buffs to their level range? This might help break up some of the monotony a bit.

[Skafsgaard]

Even though I suggested the quick start option in the first place, I probably wouldn't use it myself, much like how I appreciate that there are non-permadeath options, even though I always play with permadeath on.

However, I will say that I'd much prefer what's been suggested in this thread about having all T1 dungeons be empty after having cleared a set amount of them (3-4 seems good). I think that'd be a much more elegant solution then a quick start option.
Indeed, as has already been stated, the last half of the T1 dungeons are quite monotonous, in that they pose no real threat, but it's foolish to skip them, due to that small bit of extra exp, and more importantly the possibility of loot that could save your life down the line.
Making the last few of them empty would cut out a great deal of what's essentially just grinding. Additionally it has the benefit of posing new interesting choices: for instance, will you skip Kor'Pul because you lack a good lantern or other visibility options, or will you dare enter it because it almost always yields a vault which can be used for storage? Making the T1 dungeons more diverse would add to this as well - like making one of them easier, but not having the possibility of having a vault or having a low loot yield, and making others more dangerous but ripe with better rewards, etc.

I think this would be a very elegant solution to getting rid of the grind, while making the early game less monotonous. Additionally, the same could also be done with the T2 dungeons, by making the last one empty, after having cleared 3. If Daikara and the Maze were given significant rewards as well, then you'd also have an interesting choice in whether to pass up on the Heart of The Sandworm Queen, access to the Lake of Nur and the Sher'Tul Fortress, or the rewards from Daikara and the Maze, which would have to be equally valuable.

Obviously this would increase the difficulty of the game somewhat. If that side effect is unwanted by DG, then a simple solution would be to increase the exp and loot yields of the T1 dungeons, as well as a smaller increase for the T2 dungeons.

I think that solution would be goddamn beautiful.

[Mordy]

Having the game empty a couple T1s after you do the others might have some unwanted side effects though, namely, what is the trigger for clearing? If it's killing the boss, players might be tempted to clear all dungeons except bosses and do those last. Also, I bet some T1 will just never be done at all anymore.

[donkatsu]

The trigger could just be entering the dungeon. Norgos + Heart of the Gloom would be the pair that everyone would skip, but NPC Shadows in general and the Withering Thing in particular need to be looked at anyway. Once that's been fixed, they'd be more or less even. Interestingly, this would also make the Shalore and Thalore starts actually matter, instead of being purely a flavor thing.

[Skafsgaard]

The trigger could just be entering the dungeon. Norgos + Heart of the Gloom would be the pair that everyone would skip, but NPC Shadows in general and the Withering Thing in particular need to be looked at anyway. Once that's been fixed, they'd be more or less even. Interestingly, this would also make the Shalore and Thalore starts actually matter, instead of being purely a flavor thing.

Honestly, I think I'd do Norgos and Heart of the Gloom most of the time. I rarely have too much trouble with them - in fact, I'd probably be skipping Kor'Pul most of the time, and possibly the Rhaloren Camp, because I'm afraid of the dark - it really screws me over a lot, when I can't see my enemies, and I'm unlikely to have a nice lantern or a vision-type skill at those low levels. Kor'Pul and the Rhaloren Camp do seem to yield vaults the most of then, however, which still makes them attractive. I think the choice would end up being very interesting.