ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Well, I finally had some free time and thought it was about time that I give T4 another go. The last time I tried it, the game was in the 4th stage of beta testing. Here are my impressions:

-The game looks and feels fantastic. At first, the idea of unlocking races and classes made me hesitant, but when I *SPOILERS!!!* gave that apprentice mage a unique staff that I found *END SPOILERS!!!* I actually found myself saying aloud, "Wow... That's really neat." I had earned something, and that was cool.

-The clouds that come over the areas where you haven't explored is a very nice touch, but when you have explored them and you're running around in that area, visibility becomes noticeably limited.

-There's a dungeon, and I apologize because I don't remember which one it is. Might be the one where you get the "trapped" quest, but it has some rockin' music and it's right near the beginning. For some reason, around the second time through the music, it locks up. The music starts looping and this causes MASSIVE lag in the game. Once I turn the music off, though, the situation corrects itself. Now, I don't know if this is a purely internal matter or not, as my computer has been kinda freaking out lately. But I've got a massive dual core processor and 4 gigs of ram, running XP pro. The game is being run off of a 1 TB external hard drive. I have no idea if this is my computer or the game, but it bears mentioning.

-My first character was an Arcane Blade. Pretty nice thought, though the fact that a caster class had no mana regen and forced me to depend on a manasurge rune several times to get my mana back was a little silly, in my opinion. The character died a bunch, but that was to be expected since I was still trying to get a handle on how the game worked. The mana regen thing just killed me, though. And made no sense.

-Another thing I've noticed is that if I start playing one character, save and quit, then go to begin playing as another character, the content screen (where all the creatures and such are) doesn't update. It gives me a snapshot and that's it. On the level where I first began, I can use the map at the top to fumble my way around, but if I go to a new level, the map doesn't even update, nor does the screen itself. This has been tested in several dungeons and on the world map.

-I'd whine about the lack of any ability to sell arms and equipment in town, but I already know that's been removed from this beta.

-There are a few minor spelling errors scattered throughout some of the quest text, but again, nothing huge.

Overall, DG, you have made an absolutely wonderful game. I congratulate you.

Good to see you like it, Xandor!

Comments (around your comments)

-The clouds that come over the areas where you haven't explored is a very nice touch, but when you have explored them and you're running around in that area, visibility becomes noticeably limited.

This has already been reported and possibly actioned.

-My first character was an Arcane Blade. Pretty nice thought, though the fact that a caster class had no mana regen and forced me to depend on a manasurge rune several times to get my mana back was a little silly, in my opinion. The character died a bunch, but that was to be expected since I was still trying to get a handle on how the game worked. The mana regen thing just killed me, though. And made no sense.

There are quite a few classes that have no automatic mana regen. You raise a valid point here since it is trivial to have a Mana rune why have the limitation?

-Another thing I've noticed is that if I start playing one character, save and quit, then go to begin playing as another character, the content screen (where all the creatures and such are) doesn't update. It gives me a snapshot and that's it. On the level where I first began, I can use the map at the top to fumble my way around, but if I go to a new level, the map doesn't even update, nor does the screen itself. This has been tested in several dungeons and on the world map.

That sounds like a bug, I am at work so can't check, but could you post this is Bugs and get it seen to, please?

I agree, relying on manasurge rune is annoying, though you can get some small mana regen ring later. Though minimaxing the equipment make mana ring not worthy of slot spending. IMHO small inherent mana regen ability and removing starting manasurge rune would make game more smooth for hybrid fighters.

An Arcane Blade would want a manasurge rune anyway, to limit the waiting time needed. And of course they have a sustained talent to get mana regen at level 8. The point to the restriction is to prevent them being easy spell-slingers like mages. I think it works fairly well at present. With natural regen they'd have a very different feel to them.

I think my main problem is that they have NO mana regen at all. Maybe we should give them a very small one, like 0.3/turn or something. The fact that they have no regen seems somewhat silly. After all, pure mages have health regen...

Just resting in a safe place gives back all of your mana no matter how slow the mana regen is. Giving the Arcane Blade inherent mana regen would, in my opinion, make him essentially nothing but a spell caster instead of a combo character. It would certainly make him play differently.

How about somewhat slower regen, but only to 40% full... and after that you need to surge. Then the level 8 ability could up that cap to 100% and increase the regen speed.

jhauser42 wrote:Just resting in a safe place gives back all of your mana no matter how slow the mana regen is. Giving the Arcane Blade inherent mana regen would, in my opinion, make him essentially nothing but a spell caster instead of a combo character. It would certainly make him play differently.

That is not a valid objection. In safe place I can swap mana regen ring and get all the mana back the same. The only difference is annoying ring swapping, which in safe place is only a UI hurdle. Even without mana ring in safe place I can get all mana back by outwaiting rune cooldown.
And only Arcane blade have mana regen talent, much suffered shadowblade doesn't.

It sounds like what some people find annoying is that resting doesn't recover the mana in a trivial manner (either ring swapping or manasurge mashing is required) and not that an inscription talent is tied up (which seems to be what others feel makes sense thematically). Canderel's suggestion to allow natural regen up to a certain point is interesting, but what about this alternative: resting is made more intelligent and will use the manasurge rune, complete with waiting for the cooldown. This offers a clean user experience but keeps the thematic difference. Thoughts?

Actually, Shadowblades do have a mana regen talent available. I believe it's at level 8.

Glad that you enjoy it Xandor!

What if a manasurge rune gave passive mana regen while equipped?
Then again, that could give archmages too much mana.... maybe have a different "manaflow" rune instead?

Or just make the manasurge rune give a passive mana regen only while resting. Kinda similar to what yufra said, but it won't put the rune on cooldown.

Make Mana Regen a starting talent.

I don't know how it works... but that may solve the issue. Give it a twist and turn it into a sustained, passive talent that works when the PC is hit or hits something.

Or just give them a sustain that regens mana...? Um, like they already have?

I don't get the big deal myself. I play ABs a lot and just use Manasurge between fights, just like I use healing infusion. I rarely cast spells, just letting the arcane combat trigger in regular battle. I get Arcane Feed when I can, and a conjurer's ring is nice to have, but mana regen doesn't make a huge difference to how they play.

If you try playing them like mages then you *will* run out of mana a lot, but that's not how they're meant to be played.

madmonk wrote: Give it a twist and turn it into a sustained, passive talent that works when the PC is hit or hits something.

This.
I've always imagined the Arcane Blades as a Streetfighter-like characters. Ha-do-ken!
What you propose here, is how the 'mana' bar fills up in the old Super Streetfighter, and Streetfighter EX games. It fills when hitting, and when being hit.