Returning to TOME [b41]

[necronomist]

I’ve just returned to TOME b41 and just wanted to say how impressed I am with the game and the constant stream of significant updates. To Darkgod and all other contributors, a heartfelt thank you for making one of the best roguelikes our there. A few specific points of feedback on the changes I noticed since I last played (b37 or b38, if I recall correctly):

Remade Meditation skill: this is a fantastic change for Wilders, making Equilibrium management much less of chore; the increased healing factor also provides interesting tactical choices especially with…

Fungus tree: Just wow… A defensive tree that gives Celestial/Light a run for its money. This addition made going anti-magic a very strong option for non-spell users and elevates Wyrmics to natural tanks (sorry for the bad pun!).

Mindstars and the formally instituting mindpower as a power source: These were huge changes for Summoners, Mindslayers and Doomed. Mindslayers in particular have received a significant boost in power, so much so that I think they are currently a bit over the top.

Changes in ranged combat/ammo management: Skeleton archers are much less deadly now, very good change for less durable characters in the early game. I didn’t have much experience playing with archers before but I found the new system quite easy to adjust to when playing my Temporal Warden.

Changes in Temporal Wardens: I never had much luck with this class before, but picked them up now and they are a joy to play. I don’t exactly know what changes Edge made, but, boy, they now rock! Always a ton of interesting options in combat, highly mobile, deadly both in distance and in melee, but with their unique set of shortcomings-never enough attribute and skill points, light on defensive skills. I have no clue on how they scale in the mid- and end-game (currently my TW is about to enter Dreadfell after having saved Melinda, but early game was exciting. Overall, I am very pleased to have given them another go.

New traps: these are very interesting as they open-up new gameplay considerations and make positioning even more important. They do need some tweaking (spinning traps can easily one-shoot you when autoexploring, the damage of blasting traps is difficult to predict making missteps deadly, poison and cold traps can be annoying when autoexploring), but overall a big step in the right direction.

Also, it is really good to see the number of people contributing to this game increase-I can’t wait to try out the new classes that Daftigod dutifully collated in a single add-on. All in all, I don’t think I’ll have time to play anything else but TOME this summer!

[XLambda]

Amen. This will be a busy summer.