'Which difficulty is the game balanced for?'

[HousePet]

Bpat: You neglected the tuning of build. However that is a fair point about Nightmare being trivial, it is essentially the same as Normal. Why is that never suggested as something to be addressed?
You recently posted that you have started to learn that defense and saves are actually okay. From this I simply have to conclude that nobody actually understands ToME's balance enough for you to consider their opinion worthy of consideration, not even you own.

Tryble:

A character winning without the largest and most influential resource pool they possess, means that a character with those resources is absolutely so much more powerful than required to win that they can be called overpowered.

An alternative interpretation is that class talents are effectively meaningless. Or simply not needed.

Still not following how Claim 3 gets different answers when the components are independent of difficulty.

Something I missed from my previous post as I forgot to retype it:
Is 'Which difficulty is the game balanced for?' even a sensible question? What does balancing for a difficulty actually mean? How can it even mean anything when the balanced jumps around almost every update anyway?
Given the amount of noise the question generates, I put forward that it means very little. If it meant a lot, each persons personal view would be small compared to the main point, so there would be general consensus. This appears not to be the case, which suggests the difference between the options is small. Consider a terribly hyperbole set of scenarios. 'Would it be good if the Sun didn't come up tomorrow?' and 'Is Blueberry jam superior to Strawberry?'. Which question is more likely to have more disagreements?

And finally: What is the intention of 'Balancing for Insane' anyway? How is it any different to 'Balancing the game'?

[Sheila]

I have never heard anyone who actually plays Insane ever complain about balancing for Insane. So the only people who do complain about it aren't actually aware of what they're talking about. This is a pointless debate because opponents of balancing for Insane fundamentally don't understand what balancing for Insane even means. Until I see a single example of something tuned for Insane that ends up breaking Normal, I won't bother taking "balancing for Normal" comments seriously, and considering how often this topic gets brought up, you'd think someone would have come up with a good example by now if there was any validity to it.

HousePet you're incorrect about tuning build/difficulty based on experience, since Nightmare is trivially easy on all classes for most Insane players while low tier classes on Insane are very difficult for them still. On Normal, playing a "good" or "bad" class just means there are more or less opportunities to get yourself killed by making a silly mistake.

I don't see the point of discussing this at all, since complaints about balancing for higher difficulties seem to come exclusively from people without a good understanding of ToME's balance in the first place.

Pretty much this.
Also agree with Tryble's conclusion regardless of the needlessly convoluted way he used to reach it .
People who start these arguments usually have no idea what balance is like bpat said, and they call you elitist in a sad little attempt to ad hominem because they have no argument or knowledge on the matter, they will also bring up ad populum very often. Maybe an inferiority complex?

It's worth noting that every person who works on the game has a different goal in mind, but in the end it's normalized to be viable for insane since that's a really good benchmark for how good a class is. Shibari is one of the people who have the best understanding of balance out of anyone and he most definitely balances around insane, as he has done with sun paladin and brawler, that's where he runs his tests and it works, those classes are strong in lower difficulties and hold up on insane and sometimes madness.

If the game was balanced around normal then every class would be as strong as rogue and that's simply not how it works.

Balancing around insane means that classes will perform acceptably well on Insane and maybe have a chance at madness while being fully viable on lower difficulties no matter what, unless the person playing lacks experience. This is what balancing around insane means, people need to understand this and that it's a good thing. It does not mean that you'll make a class that can oneshot everything on insane or lower and be easymode, nor does it mean that people playing lower difficulties will find the classes unplayable, so literally everyone benefits from this.

Unsure why it's so hard to understand that a difficulty that can be won with no talents is irrelevant as far as balance goes from the start. And by the way, shesh was the one who originally won with antimagic archmage on nightmare and on ROGUELIKE, not posetcay who did it on adventure

Like bpat likes to say to me, League of Legends isn't balanced around silver and bronze players. That works great, and I think it works the same way here.
This argument needs to stop coming up because it gets nowhere, and the people entertaining it are usually the kind who struggle with lower difficulties because they don't care to learn and think they're always right, or the kind that has a few normal wins and that's how far their knowledge and experience goes, but they think they know everything there is to know.

[HousePet]

One problem is that we can't be sure that Insane isn't beatable with an antimagic archmage. Just because we have no record of it happening yet, doesn't mean it can't be done. And what do we do if it is done? Declare that the game isn't balanced for Insane?

Sheila's definition of Balanced for Insane is quite interesting. You could chop off the "for Insane" and it still makes perfect sense. So really "Balancing for Insane" makes as much sense as "Lollygate" or "Towering Inferno" in that its more of a media terminology extension to hype something up than a meaningful difference.

I agree with Bpat, Sheila and others about a lot of their suggestions for fixing underperforming mechanics, but they kinda inflamed the whole "Insanegate" situation by drawing a line between Insane difficulty players and Normal difficulty players with stuff like Sheila's first paragraph above. In what difficulty does it makes sense to enrage npcs and use silly taunt attacks, when you want them to like your suggestion?

Tryble: I thought of an interesting counter argument. Its sort of proof by contradiction/induction.
Assume the original argument is correct.
Now add in a new difficulty which is harder than Insane, but easier than Madness, but still intended to be winnable.
Following the original argument through again, you conclude that the game is balanced for the new difficulty and not balanced for Insane.
But the game nor Insane was not changed. So how is the result different?

[bpat]

I still have yet to see any instance of balancing for Insane going wrong. If no one's going to present an example then I don't see the point in debating this at all.

On the point of tuning builds, you can tune a build to be intentionally worse like Storm Archmage or Gravity Paradox Mage (which is kinda silly but whatever) but you can't magically make Archer strong so it's doesn't really solve anything.

[HousePet]

Yes, but nobody is aware of what stuff was supposedly balanced for Insane, so nobody can answer your question.
Or possibly nobody cares, as it appears likely that you will just say that you can't take their answer seriously and that there is no point discussing it.

[bpat]

I know for a fact that I have said this least once to you before, but literally every balance change Shibari makes (which is a lot) is tuned for Insane. He worked on stuff like EoR and AoU classes, Brawler rework, Sun Paladin rework, Plague nerfs, Momentum nerf, AB losing Battle Tactics, weapon ego buffs, crit mult nerfs, and staff accuracy bonus nerfs.

When I asked you for an example last time we had one of these threads, you said the following.

Brawler damage reduction would be an example of something OP on normal. How is it in Insane?

Aside from that being so vague it has no real meaning, nothing Brawler has is OP on Normal. In fact, Brawler is far better on Insane than Normal because talents like Grapple, Axe Kick, and Combination Kick are more valuable higher difficulties. If you can't come up with a real instance of something going wrong with balancing toward higher difficulties, then what's even the point of you posting in this thread at all? Arguing for argument's sake isn't really interesting.

[jenx]

I used to play normal, then nightmare, then insane and now i almost always play madness.

And I play lots of classes and races, except alchemist and archmage because I don't like them for some reason. Not sure why tbh.

My overall impression is that the game is very well balanced OVERALL. There are a few classes that can win madness, most experienced players can win with most classes on insane. And everyone can win on normal and nightmare with perseverance.

I think maintaining a RANGE of challenges of class and difficulty combos is crucial.

[HousePet]

Sorry, I am a huge grump at the moment due to medication change. -_-

[grobblewobble]

This is not a black and white thing, you know. But I do think there has been a tendency towards powercreep.

Among the oldest classes in the game are rogue, archer and alchemist. No surprise: they are now considered as "underpowered", when they started out as defining classes. Over time new classes where added, and the general tendency was that they became stronger and stronger. They became so strong that you had to turn up the game difficulty if you wanted a challenge, and the harder game difficulty became the new benchmark.

Since you are asking for examples Bpat, I will mention the new sun paladin (especially in combination with the new ogre race) as an abomination on normal difficulty. It feels like you can't die, no matter what you do.
Yes, I do understand what you're saying with "a good class on normal is an idiot proof class". There is some truth to that, and you could say I mention sun paladins here because they became too idiot proof.

But on the other hand, let's face it, classes like oozemances are just objectively overpowered if you consider rogue and archer as the standard.

Personally I can see value in the arguments for viewing Insane as the benchmark difficulty, but at the same time I think it is a really bad idea to dismiss any consequences for normal difficulty as completely irrelevant. Since normal difficulty is where the majority of players are. And yes, I do play insane difficulty too and won it.

Although in the end, the real question that should be discussed is: do we mind powercreep?

[Dopaminka]

I agree with Davion Fuxa and HousePet on all points.

Additionally in my opinion the thread is mostly pointless discussion with logical fallacies hidden behind "academic logic" facade.

w: The game is not balanced for difficulties below the highest winnable difficulty
Recently, posetcay cleared Nightmare (not Normal!) difficulty with an antimagic archmage, found here. In other words, a character won without the use of a single class talent. I believe this is completely indefensible as far as 'balance' goes.

If one person breaks the game it doesn't automatically make the game trivial and unbalanced. Speedrunners can often beat a 20 hour long RPG in 20 minutes, powergamers find the most absurd ways to cheese the most elaborate systems. If one person beats the game in a way it was not intended, then it doesn't suddenly make it "intended way to beat the game which was definitely balanced with this in mind".

I agree with Bpat, Sheila and others about a lot of their suggestions for fixing underperforming mechanics, but they kinda inflamed the whole "Insanegate" situation by drawing a line between Insane difficulty players and Normal difficulty players with stuff like Sheila's first paragraph above. In what difficulty does it makes sense to enrage npcs and use silly taunt attacks, when you want them to like your suggestion?

10/10
Sheila, the primary symptoms of inferiority complex are overcompensation (acting superior and devaluing opinions of people perceived to be "lower") and over sensitivity to criticism. From what I saw in your posts and chat messages I honestly believe you are the last person in this community who should throw such accusations.

As grobblewobble mentioned - the classes you guys consider "balanced" are absolute unkillable powerhouses on normal difficulty. I would think that Darkgod originally intended the game to be "balanced" for normal, but then people like Shibari somewhat changed the development direction. In the end it's "balancing for Insane" that will make Normal/Nightmare actually trivial if more classes reach Archmage/Sun Paladin levels of cheese.
As in competitive multiplayer titles like the mentioned League of Legends or Dota 2 I believe a happy medium should be preserved, where the game is balanced with casual players in mind AND also makes good material for professional tournament play.

Also, almost nobody mentions the differences between Adventure and Roguelike, while I think it's way more relevant for this kind of debate than nightmare-insane differences.

[Davion Fuxa]

I don't think there is much to debate in regards to the lives system shown between Adventurer and Rogue-like - typically because one of those modes is like playing with 'insurance' against the chance of that one rather mean and unexpected rare or unique popping out and killing you - due to the RNG nature that can occur with how random enemies like that are generated. However, even outside of that, the games main and expansion campaign are both fairly long - long enough that you'll likely require a few sittings to beat either campaign; which is typically not a good thing if you are running with just a single life.

[Sheila]

Dopaminka you are literally the kind of person that I'm talking about in my post, so it's no wonder you say things like that.
You play lower difficulties, you go into threads and call more experienced players elitists for having an opinion or knowledge that you don't agree with so I don't think you're in place to say anything.
I'm open to critiscism when it makes sense and comes from people who know what they're talking about, but lower diff players in tome have a tendency to think they know everything about the game after having won once or twice. They're also very defensive towards helpful advice and call people elitist when their limited experience is tested or have something they like called bad or weak. We call bad things bad but we're far from elitists, most of the time we're trying to help people play better.

And as far as the point you tried to make goes, yes I believe ogre is overpowered and needs to be gutted and nothing is really unkillable until you can achieve a certain level of play, even if it's fairly low with certain combinations, but hindsight is 20/20.
And antimagic archmages aren't breaking the game in any way, shape, or form, what the heck? It's just beating the game with minimal tools meaning anything beyond that could be considered unnecessary, the difficulty is so easy that it makes this possible. There's honestly nothing to even argue here.

[Lyoncet]

Dopaminka you are literally the kind of person that I'm talking about in my post, so it's no wonder you say things like that.
You play lower difficulties, you go into threads and call more experienced players elitists for having an opinion or knowledge that you don't agree with so I don't think you're in place to say anything.
I'm open to critiscism when it makes sense and comes from people who know what they're talking about, but lower diff players in tome have a tendency to think they know everything about the game after having won once or twice. They're also very defensive towards helpful advice and call people elitist when their limited experience is tested or have something they like called bad or weak. We call bad things bad but we're far from elitists, most of the time we're trying to help people play better.

This isn't an accurate reflection of the post in question. I don't think you're making things better by doing things like putting the word "elitist" in his/her mouth. (A word which has been used four times in this thread so far, and exclusively by you.) Further, I see nothing defensive about the post you're responding to apart from the "inferiority complex" line which, forgive me, doesn't seem unwarranted - although not necessary and IMO not productive. If you see things differently, correct me by all means - but as I see it, your response isn't making things better.

I think Dopaminka's post has some very constructive points. Particularly, bringing attention to the power creep that's made Normal easier and easier over the past years. As someone who never touched a difficulty other than Roguelike, my first winner was a 1.2.5 Wyrmic. It was a bit tricky, but my first winner, I wasn't sure what I was doing. After that, I won with a Skeleton Archmage, which was laughably easy. Same for my Temporal Warden (pre-rework) and Paradox Mage (post-rework). I've played much less since then, but kicking it up to Nightmare has still felt far easier than I'd like. I don't think beating Insane will change how I feel about that.

One solution of course is to beat Nightmare and just play on Insane, but I think the underlying question of power creep and whether/how to manage it are also worth talking about. The flattening of difficulties is IMO detrimental to the game, so let's discuss it.

As for the OP's question, I just work under the assumption that the game is meant to be beatable on Insane with any class/race combination with the right expertise and care. Within that, I'd say it's preferable to have decent balance between classes used optimally - so leveling the playing field between tier Bulwark/Archer/Rogue and tier Temporal Warden/Archmage. Beyond that, I think there's plenty of wiggle room for making the lower difficulties more compelling, especially when different abilities/mechanics effectively scale up or down in power between difficulties.

[Sheila]

Dopaminka you are literally the kind of person that I'm talking about in my post, so it's no wonder you say things like that.
You play lower difficulties, you go into threads and call more experienced players elitists for having an opinion or knowledge that you don't agree with so I don't think you're in place to say anything.
I'm open to critiscism when it makes sense and comes from people who know what they're talking about, but lower diff players in tome have a tendency to think they know everything about the game after having won once or twice. They're also very defensive towards helpful advice and call people elitist when their limited experience is tested or have something they like called bad or weak. We call bad things bad but we're far from elitists, most of the time we're trying to help people play better.

This isn't an accurate reflection of the post in question. I don't think you're making things better by doing things like putting the word "elitist" in his/her mouth. (A word which has been used four times in this thread so far, and exclusively by you.) Further, I see nothing defensive about the post you're responding to apart from the "inferiority complex" line which, forgive me, doesn't seem unwarranted - although not necessary and IMO not productive. If you see things differently, correct me by all means - but as I see it, your response isn't making things better.

I think Dopaminka's post has some very constructive points. Particularly, bringing attention to the power creep that's made Normal easier and easier over the past years. As someone who never touched a difficulty other than Roguelike, my first winner was a 1.2.5 Wyrmic. It was a bit tricky, but my first winner, I wasn't sure what I was doing. After that, I won with a Skeleton Archmage, which was laughably easy. Same for my Temporal Warden (pre-rework) and Paradox Mage (post-rework). I've played much less since then, but kicking it up to Nightmare has still felt far easier than I'd like. I don't think beating Insane will change how I feel about that.

One solution of course is to beat Nightmare and just play on Insane, but I think the underlying question of power creep and whether/how to manage it are also worth talking about. The flattening of difficulties is IMO detrimental to the game, so let's discuss it.

As for the OP's question, I just work under the assumption that the game is meant to be beatable on Insane with any class/race combination with the right expertise and care. Within that, I'd say it's preferable to have decent balance between classes used optimally - so leveling the playing field between tier Bulwark/Archer/Rogue and tier Temporal Warden/Archmage. Beyond that, I think there's plenty of wiggle room for making the lower difficulties more compelling, especially when different abilities/mechanics effectively scale up or down in power between difficulties.

It's fine if you don't know what you're talking about, but I do find your response unwarranted.

I'm against power creep myself, but people tend to be incredibly against nerfs when you actually propose them and will find any number of nonsensical reasons to counter the fact that things have gotten too easy.
When I propose a nerf in chat or elsewhere it's practically always met with "I think we should buff everything to Shalore's level instead" almost unanimously, that's how power creep happens (especially considering shalore is pretty much always considered the best choice for everything, so imo it also needs a nerf). It's actually a very small portion of the players that actually want the game to be balanced towards difficulty and viability but prefer to keep their favorite things and comfort zones as they are.
Some people are against change in general, as proven by bpat's thread on buffing bad prodigies, for no reason at all other than to argue. It gets tiring arguing with people who don't know left from right as far as balance goes, and that's most people on lower difficulties.

But yeah agreeing with you on your last point, that's in theory how insane is supposed to be, and I'm also personally of the belief that there's a balance zone between ghoul and shalore and the classes like rogue and archmage/pm/temporal warden that can be hit reliably for balance and it should be, that's ideally what I'd strive for.

[Lyoncet]

I'm with you on all counts, Sheila. I don't know what the best solutions is. Let power creep march on uninhibited? Ignore the cries and tone things down? Make Normal the new Easy, and introduce more gradiations of difficulty while bringing up the underperforming classes/races? Accept that Normal is just the introductory difficulty and not much of a challenge if you know the basics (and don't rush it)? Who knows.

These questions aren't exactly on point for the OP topic. But it's definitely relevant in terms of the fallout of balancing for Insane; that's where the major pain point is from what I can tell.