Overpowered random enemies

[Marson]

I haven't looked at the code, so I don't know if it could work exactly like this, but making some assumptions...

I'm guessing the game checks LOS on each enemy whenever you move, including autoexplore. On each check, if a boss-type enemy is within range 10-12 (33% change for each), or always if 9 or less, then display "Your Rod of Recall vibrates with a disturbing energy" or something similar that would be lore-worthy. This would stop auto explore, but not display anything different on the map. Current talents could keep their functionality, but wouldn't be required to prevent a surprise death if you have a well-developed character out for an auto-stroll. Well, that particular kind of surprise death, anyway.

[bpat]

I haven't looked at the code, so I don't know if it could work exactly like this, but making some assumptions...

I'm guessing the game checks LOS on each enemy whenever you move, including autoexplore. On each check, if a boss-type enemy is within range 10-12 (33% change for each), or always if 9 or less, then display "Your Rod of Recall vibrates with a disturbing energy" or something similar that would be lore-worthy. This would stop auto explore, but not display anything different on the map. Current talents could keep their functionality, but wouldn't be required to prevent a surprise death if you have a well-developed character out for an auto-stroll. Well, that particular kind of surprise death, anyway.

I don't agree that such a solution is necessary and I believe it defeats the purpose of light radius. If people want to see stuff from range 10, they should equip a better lite or just Arcane Eye, Track, or another scouting talent. On Normal difficulty, I have been oneshot from outside LoS less than five times (most to things like prenerf Shardskin and Ritch Queen, which have since been nerfed, or Farportal bosses, which are supposed to be very dangerous) and I played Normal exclusively for about a year. On Nightmare, you should buy more defensive gear out of fear of being oneshot, but with reasonably good gear it shouldn't be a problem. On Insane or Madness, you should be aware of the danger of being oneshot and prepare accordingly (Insane is the first difficulty where Track is necessary). A better solution than this would be to make a lite shop in Last Hope or another town so people can grab the health and brightness egos to help them not get oneshot from outside LoS. Another solution would be to buff Vision Runes, making them work like Track in addition to some of their current capabilities (Vision Runes are the only Inscription other than Insidious Poison that I never see used, so they could use the buff).

[Plak]

Yes, we know that, the issue is that using Track all the time is extremely tedious and yet required on higher difficulties. It's not just about light radius either, as you can be surprised by rares around a corner as well. Having Heightened Senses or the Rod of Recall stop auto-explore with a warning when a powerful monster is close would not replace light radius or scouting tools, as you still need some way to actually see the monster you are being warned about. The only difference it makes is that instead of having to spam your scouting tool at every corner in order to not get one-shot by rares, you only need to use it when the warning pops up. It wouldn't actually change the balance of the game in any way since relying on the warning would be strictly inferior to the Track spamming we are currently required to do, while still being sufficient to solve the problem at hand. Rares are really the only really we need to suffer through this tedium.

[HousePet]

So maybe the rares need balancing on higher difficulty levels?

[bpat]

Yes, we know that, the issue is that using Track all the time is extremely tedious and yet required on higher difficulties. It's not just about light radius either, as you can be surprised by rares around a corner as well. Having Heightened Senses or the Rod of Recall stop auto-explore with a warning when a powerful monster is close would not replace light radius or scouting tools, as you still need some way to actually see the monster you are being warned about. The only difference it makes is that instead of having to spam your scouting tool at every corner in order to not get one-shot by rares, you only need to use it when the warning pops up. It wouldn't actually change the balance of the game in any way since relying on the warning would be strictly inferior to the Track spamming we are currently required to do, while still being sufficient to solve the problem at hand. Rares are really the only really we need to suffer through this tedium.

Track is not necessary at all on any difficulty lower than Insane, and playing on Insane or Madness requires a certain amount of patience and caution (Madness bosses often have over 100,000 health) so it's fair to require scouting. I agree that Heightened Senses could use a buff though, so maybe adding that detection to it would be a good idea.

So maybe the rares need balancing on higher difficulty levels?

I agree to some extent. Having played Insane quite a bit now I think Summoner, Doomed, Necromancer, Solipsist, Oozemancer, and Archer rares could be nerfed a bit and most other rares could be buffed. However, most of the fun of Insane and Madness comes from the challenge, so hopefully rebalancing rares won't make them too easy.

[Plak]

Yeah, I'm just talking about Insane and higher, of course. Rares rebalancing would always be welcome as there are obvious disparities between classes, but I don't think that alone would solve the problem of tedious scouting being objectively the best option by a large margin, and probably still a necessary one. I love ToME4 because it's a game specifically designed so that its difficulty doesn't devolve into tedious grinding or scumming, but scouting on higher difficulties is the exception to that rule.

[ohioastro]

No.

Just no.

I'm a vet here too, but TOME has a philosophy that means something. And that philosophy includes rejecting cheap and unavoidable deaths. The absolute worst feature of traditional roguelikes is the way that they demand hyperconservative play, which means in practice slow and tedious.

The rares are flatly unbalanced, and this can even happen on normal difficulty. Fix them or warn people; either works. Doing nothing is doing harm to the game.

[HousePet]

In which case, we need to identify how rares are being generated unbalanced.
Which means we need to collect data about these rares that are nasty.
Wasn't there a thread in the development forum for this?

[bpat]

No.

Just no.

I'm a vet here too, but TOME has a philosophy that means something. And that philosophy includes rejecting cheap and unavoidable deaths. The absolute worst feature of traditional roguelikes is the way that they demand hyperconservative play, which means in practice slow and tedious.

The rares are flatly unbalanced, and this can even happen on normal difficulty. Fix them or warn people; either works. Doing nothing is doing harm to the game.

On Normal, rares are absolutely not a major problem. If you're dying from outside LoS a lot on Normal, you should adjust your gear to make you less of a glass cannon. Just look for Eyal, Resilient, and Tenacity egos and you shouldn't have any problem with getting oneshot. On Normal and even Nightmare getting killed in one hit is not a major problem. Rares could use some rebalacing but I don't believe the problem is as big as you're saying.

[nogardark]

not all rares are problematic so the need to fix case by case, for me the problematic rares are:

early game: oozemancer(too much damage at too much range impossible for early melee characters), summoner (you need to reach the flamespitter, then you need to kill it in 2 turns or you are toast), corruptor( soul rot has no counter play too fast projectile speed and seems to scale hard with lvls cause one crit and you are toast), shadow blade(if it has shadow step OHKO).

late game: necros(pet skelletons have all the skills as normal dungeon skeletons, bone shield and reassembly. Rotating between those skills make them immune to the normal decay when they are outside the necrotic aura, making hit an teleport nonviable), doomed(some classes have a very hard time vs doomed mostly classes that don't have aoe attacks nor invulnerability, the shadows laugh in the face of single target high damage attacks).

this only applies if you don't have good aoe attacks if you have them disregard all this.

[ohioastro]

I have a number of winners up on the boards; I know how to play. I don't like being forced to the style of play that is apparently favored in this version of the game, which is a different issue from not knowing what, in principle, to do. It was not as important in earlier versions, so this is closer to a comment that some of the recent version changes have side consequences. This is partially related to powering some player classes up, since the same skills are used by NPCs.

Particular issues are

farportal bosses seem overtuned relative to prior versions;

assasin-type mobs;

oozemancer-class mobs.

At difficulties above normal the shadows (and monsters that call them) are quite overpowered too.

[bpat]

not all rares are problematic so the need to fix case by case, for me the problematic rares are:

early game: oozemancer(too much damage at too much range impossible for early melee characters), summoner (you need to reach the flamespitter, then you need to kill it in 2 turns or you are toast), corruptor( soul rot has no counter play too fast projectile speed and seems to scale hard with lvls cause one crit and you are toast), shadow blade(if it has shadow step OHKO).

late game: necros(pet skelletons have all the skills as normal dungeon skeletons, bone shield and reassembly. Rotating between those skills make them immune to the normal decay when they are outside the necrotic aura, making hit an teleport nonviable), doomed(some classes have a very hard time vs doomed mostly classes that don't have aoe attacks nor invulnerability, the shadows laugh in the face of single target high damage attacks).

this only applies if you don't have good aoe attacks if you have them disregard all this.

On Normal and even Nightmare I have never found Corruptors to be overpowered, since on those difficulties you really shouldn't be getting dropped in a single critical Soul Rot unless you have little to no health from gear and low health per level. Although one of the two times I've been oneshot in Nightmare has been to Soul Rot in the Dark Crypt, I entered knowing I'd be fighting overleveled enemies and it's not the game's fault I died there (the other time I've been oneshot was to a Rogue rare that was 100% my fault).

I agree that Oozemancer rares are too good early, but they aren't unmanagable even on Insane. If they're proving a serious problem at very early levels, I recommend picking up a Mindblast Torque from Zigur to help you out.

Shadowstep isn't a instakill talent from my experience, maybe you just got really unlucky. The only trouble I've really had with Shadowblades is their ability to apply annoying statuses like silences. They are one of the stronger melee classes, but I'm surprised you rank them as a bigger threat than Rogue or Cursed.

Necromancers aren't that bad since very few summoned minions are actually threats (Master Archers and Mages). Unless you get unlucky and the Necromancer summons six Skeleton Mages, I'm usually fine with hit and run as ranged or charging in with Heroism as melee, quickly dispatching the rare, and disengaging with talents or Movement Infusions.

I have a number of winners up on the boards; I know how to play. I don't like being forced to the style of play that is apparently favored in this version of the game, which is a different issue from not knowing what, in principle, to do. It was not as important in earlier versions, so this is closer to a comment that some of the recent version changes have side consequences. This is partially related to powering some player classes up, since the same skills are used by NPCs.

Particular issues are

farportal bosses seem overtuned relative to prior versions;

assasin-type mobs;

oozemancer-class mobs.

At difficulties above normal the shadows (and monsters that call them) are quite overpowered too.

I was under the impression that Farportal bosses were supposed to be borderline overpowered, though if they aren't supposed to be this could be looked at I suppose.

I used to think Bandit enemies were impossibly hard on high difficulties until I started using massive armor. If you're using heavy or massive armor with high Armor Training they do very little damage, and if you're not, you should still not die in a hit and have some good defense or kiting because hopefully you're ranged (if you're melee and wearing robes you shouldn't complain about getting killed by these guys).

Yeah, Oozemancers are a bit strong early. They aren't unmanageable though, even as melee, you just need to have a Wild Infusion or Shielding Rune. If you're still having trouble, pick up a Mindblast Torque at Zigur.

Doomed are very annoying on high difficulties, but Nightmare and harder have the word "unfair" in their descriptions, so this isn't entirely unreasonable. It would be nice if rares were a bit better balanced on high difficulties but none of these are really unmanageable.

[nogardark]

Shadowstep isn't a instakill talent from my experience, maybe you just got really unlucky. The only trouble I've really had with Shadowblades is their ability to apply annoying statuses like silences. They are one of the stronger melee classes, but I'm surprised you rank them as a bigger threat than Rogue or Cursed.

Yeah I know what you mean everything is manageable but there are some classes that have an easy time vs those treats and other classes that are miserable, the early game should be smoother for everyone, the only thing that makes those unbalances bearable is that when you die to an early overpowered rare you don't lose much progress.

Shadowblades are cheaper than cursed because they have access to stealth I have been one shotted without chance to even know what killed me, just picture an orc master assassin with rush and unseen actions, if rush hit like a truck too.

[bpat]

Shadowstep isn't a instakill talent from my experience, maybe you just got really unlucky. The only trouble I've really had with Shadowblades is their ability to apply annoying statuses like silences. They are one of the stronger melee classes, but I'm surprised you rank them as a bigger threat than Rogue or Cursed.

Yeah I know what you mean everything is manageable but there are some classes that have an easy time vs those treats and other classes that are miserable, the early game should be smoother for everyone, the only thing that makes those unbalances bearable is that when you die to an early overpowered rare you don't lose much progress.

Shadowblades are cheaper than cursed because they have access to stealth I have been one shotted without chance to even know what killed me, just picture an orc master assassin with rush and unseen actions, if rush hit like a truck too.

Is this on Nightmare or Normal? I've never had difficulty with Shadowblades on Normal and even on Nightmare they're not that bad as long as I'm not a total glass cannon (I use lots of health boosting gear). I find Cursed rares much worse than Shadowblades because of Rampage and Beckon, and because you can't remove Gloom stuns with a Physical Wild.

[HousePet]

Oozemancer is being adjusted.