ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Just wanted to mention that the Wretched Thing is kind of an awful spoiler boss for Thalore Archers - which are a pretty logical new player build that otherwise works fine throughout the early levels.

Filling a room with summoned teleporting backstabbers pretty much eliminates any and all of the archer defenses at that level, and barring great equipment drops, the only really correct answer is to skip the dungeon until 8th level or later - or to employ very specific tactics that require in depth knowledge of the mob's abilities and game mechanics.

Having a strong challenge in the early dungeons is fine - but such a class specific spoiler seems out of place.

It's not a required dungeon, and it's not even where you start, so it doesn't seem like that big of a deal. Archers do suffer from being incapable of handling lots of nearby foes, for sure, and the high defense on the shadows can be an issue. It does seem like a tough encounter for archers, but most of the second-tier starter dungeons pose difficulties for certain classes, especially at low levels.

If you're going to complain about very difficult race/class/early dungeon combos, Shalore Anything (Except Maybe Alchemist) is probably a bigger offender.

..not to mentioned dwarven cursed, or yeek almost anything - neither of which have a way to escape the doom that awaits them.

On the other hand, I do see a point here. Someone who walks into the game thinking "I like archers" is going to naturally gravitate towards Thalore, naturally run the first two dungeons right next to the Thalore town and... die horribly at the second boss. On the flip side, this is an Angband variant. Dying horribly early on over and over again, especially as you're starting out, is kind of assumed.

dwarven cursed

Actually was one of my first successful characters. Dropped it after "permanent confusion" bug, though.

yeek almost anything

...Yet Yeek temporal warden is especially awesome: was unable to get out of trials even with +5 debugged levels.

Sirrocco wrote:..not to mentioned dwarven cursed, or yeek almost anything - neither of which have a way to escape the doom that awaits them.

On the other hand, I do see a point here. Someone who walks into the game thinking "I like archers" is going to naturally gravitate towards Thalore, naturally run the first two dungeons right next to the Thalore town and... die horribly at the second boss. On the flip side, this is an Angband variant. Dying horribly early on over and over again, especially as you're starting out, is kind of assumed.

ToME differs enough from the fundamental structure of Angband that that's not a good argument. Angband has unlimited content, no internal lore to speak of, permits grinding, and has no bosses. ToME has limited content, lots of lore concealed by gameplay, attempts to remove grinding as an option, and pretty much requires you to kill bosses to get experience and items. I don't think they thematically appeal to the same audience anymore.

Atarlost... are you saying you *don't* expect raw newbies to die horribly a few times before they get their feet under them? Are we playing the same game?

Sirrocco wrote:Atarlost... are you saying you *don't* expect raw newbies to die horribly a few times before they get their feet under them? Are we playing the same game?

I now have two winners in this version of ToME and still die horribly within the first couple of dungeons more than half the time I start a new character.

Angband has unlimited content?
ToME has limited content ?
Uh ?

I think he means that there's infinite randomly generated floors.

...Granted, if you get far enough in ToME, it has that too, but you do have to get fairly far to know that.

Sirrocco wrote:Atarlost... are you saying you *don't* expect raw newbies to die horribly a few times before they get their feet under them? Are we playing the same game?

I've spent most of the weekend being a newbie to this game, and I still get into seemingly unwinnable situations all the time.

I've only encountered a Storm Drake (not hatchling) once in the Maze - and that cost me a 3-4 hour character. Haven't seen that enemy in that dungeon again - random fluke?

But because of things like that, I find myself always putting category points into inscription slots, to attempt to prepare for any encounter. Of course that makes my characters more limited. But seems to me there are too many "essential" inscriptions/runes/infusions for a berzerker, so even 5 aren't enough.