Free Gamer thoughts

[charlie]

Hi, I'm one of the authors of Free Gamer (http://freegamer.blogspot.com) which recently featured TE4/TOME4. You've created a gem of a game and I look forward to future releases.

I play mostly with the mouse due to using a laptop i.e. no numpad.

Some thoughts:

1. The characters that ask you to guide them to their portal are downright suicidal and often impossible to save if you can't block them in, which is a bit annoying. Given they approach you saying they fear for their lives, it might make more sense if they did not try to run through that army of trolls or snakes that is in their path.
2. Sometimes just a few too many clicks/keys are required to deal with simple monsters. An autofight option would be great (CTRL-click maybe) which fights until a significant event occurs (a talent finishes or becomes available, your health goes low, or the creature dies) which would make dealing with a large crowd of mundane monsters a much less tedious experience.
3. Some of the path finding is a bit off, and sometimes in the forested areas it is a bit tricky to know which tiles can be moved to. I often end up using the minimap to do movement. Some kind of cursor-based feedback would be great i.e. a cursor with feet or 'go to' sign or a '?' (unknown / no route) or 'x' (not accessible) or highlight the square in green (can go) or red (can't go).
4. The AI is a bit weak sometimes. Monsters will back up if they can't get directly to you, rather than take rather obvious routes and try to surround you. Some A* path finding would make the game more challenging.

Great game. Those criticisms are meant to be constructive.

[Nori]

1. Has been brought up before, and I think many would agree with you. It is even more frustrating when you get really close to their portal and they run off to attack a snake (who then poisons them and they die) or if they spawn on a boss level.
2. I can't think of many circumstances where I would want a autofight system. But then I rarely play a heavy melee character (except for cursed, love that class). I don't think I would like it because fights can change turn to turn so you might get into trouble.
3. Pathfinding can be wonky. I hate it when I'm playing the cursed class and I click to go somewhere and my character goes the completely wrong way, wasting my hate pool. But it is something DG is always working on.
4. The normal mob AI is pretty basic, but there are special enemies that are smarter... And have nasty talents.

[darkgod]

Thanks for the comments, and the post on freegamer

1) Contrary to common belief if the portal is in unobstructed LOS of the escort she/he will beeline to it, even with hostiles in sight. But yeah the quests are not easy, if they were made easier the rewards would need toning down
2) I'm with nori here, it would be far too dangerous, you can't really make the code stop correctly, unless you write a full fledged borg but then you dont need a human player at all
3) Hum I like the cursor change idea based on passability .. hum
4) As nori said, jsut wait until you meet some smart orcs

[charlie]

WRT #2, I said option, rather than change the behaviour to. When killing a bunch of trolls who do no damage and you have to click on them 20+ times, it is very tedious.

[onyhow]

Use keyboard and hold down direction key...but really though, what if when you're doing the automatic attack and then suddenly some out of depth monsters (or just mages) came from nowhere and killed you...that's not fun...it might probably be able to exist as an option, but if that happened...yeah...

[charlie]

A bit of sense please.

An autofight option would be great (CTRL-click maybe) which fights until a significant event occurs

A new monster appearing is a significant event. Come on.

[Pyris311]

A bit of sense please.


A new monster appearing is a significant event. Come on.

Replying like a conceited jerk won't get you anywhere around here.

[Canderel]

Counter-retort. (Bash.org)

Anyway back to topic on no 3; if hovering over a spot could actually indicate the path you'll be walking (maybe when holding the shift key?) Might also enlighten as to why it's walking funny as well as be a nice visual cue.

[tiger_eye]

An autofight option would be great

You mean kinda like the little ascii dude in the background of the main menu when you first load ToME? He (she?) seems pretty bad-ass--I wonder what's behind its actions...

[Grey]

Well, that feller is unable to die... Still, you could have a key that just lets the AI take over your char for a turn. Hold it down and you have auto-fight, which would actually behave reasonably intelligently with all the AI stuff in these days.

[Dwarf_Hammer]

Dungeon Crawl has a simple autofight feature. I never used it, because losing focus in a roguelike will quickly lead to YASD.

1. The characters that ask you to guide them to their portal are downright suicidal and often impossible to save if you can't block them in, which is a bit annoying. Given they approach you saying they fear for their lives, it might make more sense if they did not try to run through that army of trolls or snakes that is in their path.

Ask them where the portal is and tell them to stay put. Then, you can clear most of the path for them. And don't enter certain dungeons, until you're strong enough to easily deal with the mooks. I haven't lost an escort mission, since b21.

[bio_hazard]

Dungeon Crawl has a simple autofight feature. I never used it, because losing focus in a roguelike will quickly lead to YASD.

1. The characters that ask you to guide them to their portal are downright suicidal and often impossible to save if you can't block them in, which is a bit annoying. Given they approach you saying they fear for their lives, it might make more sense if they did not try to run through that army of trolls or snakes that is in their path.

Ask them where the portal is and tell them to stay put. Then, you can clear most of the path for them. And don't enter certain dungeons, until you're strong enough to easily deal with the mooks. I haven't lost an escort mission, since b21.

If it isn't too spoily, how do you actually talk/command them? I never knew this was an option.

[Dwarf_Hammer]

If it isn't too spoily, how do you actually talk/command them? I never knew this was an option.

Right-click on them.

Warning: They don't stay put for long and sometimes they ignore you.

[Zonk]

CTRL+TAB is also the default keybind for dealing with party members.

[bio_hazard]

Cool, thanks!