Too many elites, too deadly

[donkatsu]

Re: the Shade
I don't think Freeze is the problem; new players will have to learn that stun/freeze immunity or wild infusions are required to survive or else they'll just die a frustrating death later on. It does a lot of burst damage, but I don't think anybody actually gets one-shotted by Freeze alone. The problem is that it is then immediately followed up with Manathrust which also does a large amount of damage, and that one-two punch often kills people who aren't prepared for it. If the Manathrust wasn't there to kill them the very next turn, new players would have the chance to figure out that they can use their starting physical wild infusion to get out of frozen status, or at least try to fight their way out.

And more randomness in the early game would be nice, if there weren't some critical artifacts with no substitute for the entire rest of the game. I'm talking Withering Orbs for melee characters, Wintertide Phial for undead, and Summertide Phial to combat the NPC Darkness talent (I know of no other way to get rid of magically-induced darkness). Some non-artifact substitutes would be nice, or at least more artifacts that serve similar functions when one of these game-changing artifacts fail to drop.

[Grey]

Withering Orbs are critical? A bit odd considering they've not been in the game long. Did everyone just die without them before?

[bricks]

It's not that the Shade is impossibly difficult; it just seems to require an inordinate amount of caution and prior knowledge for what is supposed to be the second racial dungeon. It does help that the default Wild infusion now removes "frozen." I don't think the Shade is a successful wake-up call for massing stun/freeze resist, especially since you can't really stack stun/freeze resist until you start getting artifacts and high-level equipment. (Why are immunities material level-dependent anyway? How is 5% Blind Immunity at level 10 equivalent to 20% at level 40?)

But that's getting well off topic. I just recall most of my "not-fun" experiences when starting ToME involved the Shade.

@Grey: Versus Dreadmasters? I know I did. Unless I stair-scummed.

[donkatsu]

Withering Orbs triple your damage output against a class of enemy that are otherwise very dangerous. Think about how crazy that is for a second. Or are you suggesting that Dreadmasters sans Withering Orbs are easy to deal with as a melee character?

[darkgod]

The Perfect Strike talent also gives blind_fight your know

[donkatsu]

But it costs a bunch of talent points, and it lasts for like 6 turns out of 25. Often you won't be able to kill a single dreadmaster in that time. Downtime is even longer when you get Burning Hexed, which dreads spam incessantly. Withering Orbs, on the other hand, cost no talent points, lasts for 25 turn out of 25, and is unaffected by Burning Hex. Plus you're unlikely to have a great alternative amulet by Dreadfell, so opportunity cost for the Orbs is low. Often, you end up wearing Withering Orbs even if you're not fighting dreads.

While we're at it, you could mention sun infusions, vision runes, and Piercing Sight. But all of these things come with a significant opportunity cost, be it talent points or inscription slots. Having Withering Orbs improves a melee character more dramatically than any other early game artifact by a long shot. I mean, imagine if there was an early game amulet that gave you permanent 50% global speed. Yes, Blinding Speed can also give you that for a few turns, but the hypothetical amulet would still be inordinately good and there would be a huge difference between the games where you got lucky and it dropped, and the games where you got unlucky and it didn't.

[Chozo]

b40, registered just to say it is unacceptable to go down the stairs and get hit by 160 blight damage in one turn on an early dungeon. There is no way whatsoever to deal with this and it completely shuts off the dungeon because of it.

[Vastin]

My problem with rares isn't so much in the very early game - losing a lvl 5 character to an unlucky rare spawn is annoying but whatever...

My problem is in the 12-18 range, where I find myself now frequently having to deal with status effects of a magnitude I normally wouldn't encounter until I reached the Prides or later! I had one elite ghoul that was cycling 8 turn stuns AND confuses on a cool-down rotation far shorter than their duration - to say nothing of the slows and dots he was throwing in on top of all that.

There's nothing fun about that for a melee character, nor are there any particularly good answers for that kind of CC juggling until quite a bit higher level. Frankly, most builds simply can't get stun immunity that early (if ever), and near immunity is about the only thing that is going to make such huge duration stuns manageable.

As the game stands, only standoff characters like archmages or builds focused entirely on passive protection such as defense and CC immunity are likely to be viable - armor, healing or shielding setups are dog meat as armor provides no protection against CC, and healing/shielding can all be forced onto cool-down permanently with no recourse.

[Vastin]

TOME is really a wonderful effort, and my cautions here are really aimed at keeping it accessible to new people. There is always a tension between pleasing the veterans and keeping a coherent game design that respects players with different approaches.

THIS!

I just spent the other day telling my friends about Tome4 as I'd just started playing again after a hiatus, and now after a very long and frustrating evening, I'm very much regretting urging them to check it out in its current state.

It's simply not very accessible any more. Having the entire game revolve around how fast you can jack up CC immunities is not the first thing people are expecting when they see a game with dozens of stats and resistances, and it obliterates the fun of trying out different build and equipment combinations.