Shadowblades and a few general things

[kingvictory2003]

I haven't played ToME since 2.x, and I can say overall I'm really enjoying the direction ToME 4 is taking. I play MMORPGs on and off, and have been a gigantic fan of the Diablo series since it came out--I love the things that cross over from the genre, such as the floating numbers, very unique, activatable abilities with cooldowns, and respawns.

So far I've played mostly Shadowblades and Mages with a sprinkling of the warrior classes. For now, I'll just comment on my experience with Shadowblades, and here are some thoughts so far:

Shadowblades start pretty weak, but once you get enough +attack and a dwarven-steel dagger, things really start to pick up. Their melee capabilities are incredibly impressive, with stuns from dual-wield, dirty fighting, and amazing single target damage in flurry. Sweep and Whirlwind have excellent damage and utility as well.

Defense is a problem, as I don't notice many attacks missing despite defenses of more than 20. Don't know if this is something to rebalance, or actually gets pretty powerful at even higher levels. Along these lines, HP isn't terribly shabby, but I've met many instadeaths from brutal traps taking off more than my max hp in one shot, skeleton warriors getting a ridiculously powerful stunning blow off, skeleton master archers pwning me with anything, getting critted by the shade of angmar etc etc.

Magic, especially starting in the sandworm layer, is *critical* for survival. My first Shadowblade over level 10 actually found the blood of life--and died the first time to suffocation. That same shadowblade later got smacked from 263 HP to -33 HP in a single round in Tol Falas by a regular skeleton warrior. Sense is an absolutely important spell to tell you where the ranged enemies are, identify is very nice to have, and vision is also very nice to have. Of course, as I'm trying to crank Dex for more attack power/accuracy/wielding more powerful weapons, getting enough "spare" points to pump Magic can be difficult. This does indeed add to the diversity to builds, which I enjoy, but to get Sense/Identify/Vision, and adequate trap disarm probably takes around level 19 or so, and would take an amazing amount of patience.

Now, I would have no problem with the time spent to get to level 19-20, except for the extreme danger pretty much any player faces (except for a mage perhaps, but even then)--one mistake, ONE, and your life is forfeit. The shadowblade that went from 263 to -33 HP in a single round by a skeleton warrior was a real eye-opener, as I had survived numerous clashes with the elite archers/warriors/wights/vampires/The Master, pretty much all without dying. Is this a feature of gameplay that is intentional, or will be perhaps rebalanced? With permadeath as the standard (which is one thing that keeps the game exciting) I feel that instadeath should be a RARE occurrence, and not the norm. Right now, the majority of my characters have died within 1-2 rounds of getting damaged. As the furthest I've gotten is Tol Falas, I look ahead with trepidation to the event that takes place afterwards, no matter what character I'm playing.

So all in all, it's been very fun, but I think the danger should really be toned down regarding instadeath from certain common enemies like skeleton warriors, and traps.

If I'm not feeling so lazy later, I may add to the bugs section, but for now, I'm gonna play another Shadowblade

Thanks Darkgod, and here's looking foward to new improved versions to kill my precious time with!

[Nerdanel]

I think the way armor works now is inherently prone to unbalancing the game. I think it was better when attacks simply hit or didn't. The armor values narrow down the sweet spot between too dangerous and too easy. And since the armor values between different characters can vary widely depending on their class and found equipment, that complicates matters further. Armor removing a percentage of damage could work too, but removing a flat number in my experience just invites trouble. I think this is a big reason why melee classes have such trouble in ToME 4.

I have this confirmed by experience.

[darkgod]

Thanks for the comments.
Happy to find somebody that played rogues

Now you are both right that one-shoting is in most cases a bad thing.
The main problem is probably a stunning blow which can then be easily followed by a few normal hits and you are gone.
I am not really sure how to fix it yet...
* I could simply make stuns rare and for boss only but that only shifts the problem
* I could make stuns from NPCs do less damage but that is not the way I want to design the game (getting too many differences between the player and the npcs)
* I could make stuns for both the player and the NPCs do less damage but that's punishing to the players
* I could give all elite rank or better (which the player is) a reduced critial damage modifier (I like that but that might not be enough)

Ideas?

Nerdanel: In T2 (and angband) attacks dont just hit or not hit, armor value does increase both your chance to miss and the damage reduction too. And the problem is not that it is a flat reduction of damage, it is that a successfull stun usualy spells death. (note there is a physical %damage reduction available too but I have not used it much yet maybe I should but again that wont counter the problem)

[Nerdanel]

It's true about stunning, by the way. My level 9 barbarian was stunned by a lone skeleton warrior, bringing about an unavoidable death from full or near-full hitpoints. The worst thing is, I couldn't have done anything to stop that from happening except spend even more time on lower levels until I became tough enough to survive a leveled-up skeleton warrior getting lucky.

IIRC in Angband the damage reduction is a percent that starts to gets applied after AC gets really high, right?

[darkgod]

Yes it was some weird not obvious to the user formula :/

[greycat]

Well, I tried a shadowmage. He did 4-10 points of damage per attack. That didn't last very long. He died. The end.

[kingvictory2003]

Most recent one got to level 17, and was dual wielding a slime-covered galvorn dagger and a slime-covered dwarven-steel dagger, had a steel mail armor of stability (which if works as advertised, seems CRITICAL to survival)...and teleported right into the center of a 3x3 money vault in Tol Falas. Needless to say, about 0.5 milliseconds later, I was seeing the death screen.

Well for that one, I guess I can say that was one of those crappy luck, unavoidable, risky teleports, but it still was very saddening. For the record, slime-covered weapons are awesome!

Still having fun, although the instadeaths are really getting a bit old

The key to surviving early btw, is to crank weapon mastery every time it is available (even levels) for to-hit, get dual wielding at level 1, and flurry at level 4. Pumping knife mastery is also essential. Early on, Flurry is really a key workhorse in killing things quickly. Dual wield/Flurry is a superb combo on any single target.

[darkgod]

Yes slime weapons I neat And sexy !

Very bad luck with your teleport Which is why you should always have a phaase door available (or you where insta-gibbed in which case, veery very bad luck ;> )

[kingvictory2003]

Yeah I got instapwned in that teleport instance

But.......



I just beat it with a Shadowblade!

Played extremely cautiously, and actually died to a skeleton archer AGAIN in Tol Falas (what a nasty nasty place)...but was able to rez due to that secret item.

Almost escaped in the special event, but was one step away and didn't make it. Great fun though! I also did the secret dungeon and got the item from its boss, but although my character could use it, it didn't suit my talent choices.

I ended up using the bottom two levels of the Old Forest for safer leveling, and got some decent items there, even an artifact. Sandworm layer was as obnoxious as usual, but not a huge problem with the impressive offensive capabilities of the rogue skillsets.

Sex: Male
Race: Nandor
Class: Shadowblade
Level: 21

Exp: 81%
Gold: 133.58

Life: 415/415
Stamina: 222/222
Mana: 375/375

STR: 26
DEX: 48
MAG: 28
WIL: 21
CUN: 18
CON: 21

Attack(Main Hand): 87
Damage(Main Hand): 165
APR (Main Hand): 9
Crit (Main Hand): 15%
Speed (Main Hand): 1.00

Attack (Off Hand): 87
Damage (Off Hand): 71
APR (Off Hand): 9
Crit (Off Hand): 13%
Speed (Off Hand): 1.00

Spellpower: 24
Spell Crit: 3%
Spell Speed: 1

Physical damage: 23%

Fatigue: 19%
Armor: 14
Defence: 44
Ranged Defence: 44

Physical Resist: 18
Spell Resist: 19
Mental Resist: 16

Cold Resist: 25%
Nature Resist: 10%

Number of NPC killed: 2727
Most killed NPC: white worm mass (171)

[darkgod]

Well done!
I'll try to improve chardumps

How did you like the special dungeon ?
There should be more randomly encountered places ?

[kingvictory2003]

Thanks

The special dungeon's last level was quite...vast. I think the enemies in it are quite unique, which was fun, but the sprawling nature of the last level was a bit much in my opinion. I'm not sure how I would've functioned at all without Vision.

In terms of more random dungeons, I think that would be fun! Maybe you could make some more random encounters like the mage quest--bump into Tom Bombadil or other notable NPCs to give quests and such.

[Shoob]

I always crash when I try to enter the special level I want to do it though...

I get this...

Code: Select all

Lua Error: /engine/resolvers.lua:64: unknown talent type technique/2hweapon
	At [C]:-1 
	At [C]:-1 assert
	At /engine/resolvers.lua:64 ?
	At /engine/Entity.lua:146 resolve
	At /engine/Zone.lua:220 finishEntity
	At /engine/Zone.lua:192 makeEntity
	At /engine/generator/actor/Random.lua:67 generateOne
	At /engine/generator/actor/Random.lua:84 regenFrom
	At /engine/generator/actor/Random.lua:41 generate
	At /engine/Zone.lua:470 newLevel
	At /engine/Zone.lua:405 getLevel
	At /mod/class/Game.lua:266 changeLevel
	At /mod/class/Game.lua:572 ?
	At /engine/KeyBind.lua:178 

ah... I fixed it... mummy.lua was lacking

[registeringislame]

Oh, look a snake... I can kill that...


Anaconda hits Tilde for 48.00 physical damage
Anaconda hits Tilde for 47.00 physical damage
Anaconda hits Tilde for 47.00 physical damage
Anaconda hits Tilde for 49.00 physical damage
Anaconda hits Tilde for 51.00 physical damage
Anaconda killed Tilde!

This from full health!

[darkgod]

They cant attack 5 times unless:
- you were stunned
- there was a bug (check the log)

[registeringislame]

I don't believe I was stunned... the only other enemy around was a king cobra.

I can't find the logs, aren't they just spat out on stdout/err?

Also, wilders failing to meditate because of equilibrim sucks.