ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Twice now (as compared to zero times in previous versions), my Stone Wardens have been one-shot from 500-600 health by enemies they never saw, and couldn't have seen without talents they didn't have. The second time was by an enemy-spawning trap in the Unknown Tunnels, so no character (barring a very high trap detection skill) could have survived. I'm also taking massively more damage from shadows and other melee enemies.

Again, this isn't just the normal "Insane is called that for a reason" shenanigans - I've been playing Insane Stone Wardens for a while now, and this is new. The rescaling of talents has made melee enemies massively deadlier. Stone Wardens are one of the best anti-melee classes, with large amounts of armor and health. If I'm getting repeatedly and unavoidably one-shotted while playing a Stone Warden, then there's not a whole lot I can change, strategy-wise.

Hooray!

Well it is good that melee enemies are scarey now.

But it is quite likely that the difficulty levels might need fine tuning after the rebalancing.

I'm gonna guess that it isn't the rescaling of talents - those would actually strictly make insane and madness more reasonable. I think the problem you're seeing is the bonuses for excess accuracy.

No, those have caps.

None of them can boost damage over 10% or so, give or take.

It's true, though, that my instadeaths were both from rogues. I had another rogue-related almost-instadeath in my current game (something like 600ish HP in one turn from a trap at level 16.) If there are problems with the accuracy bonus system, you'd expect to see it with rogues first. Can rogue types be equipped with something other than daggers? Alternatively, maybe the armor penetration had a disproportionate effect?

As I understand pre 1.05 NPC rogues were broken, and were not doing the damage they were supposed to be doing. (there is a note in the changelogs) now they are "fixed" and are able to do the full amount of wrecking they were supposed to do all along.

Not saying that their one shot potential is acceptable or just - I dont play insane. But thats the reason for the sudden increase in Oh crap moments.

Enemies benefit more from the "infinite scaling" mechanism. This is making insane more insane.

Infinite scaling means things scale LESS wildly

darkgod wrote:Infinite scaling means things scale LESS wildly

I see. I thought "scaling much better" means scaling much higher...

It means that there's a smooth diminishing returns curve on abilities past L5, trying to reach a preset point but never quite making it.

So, less 25 range attacks.

That diminishing returns curve starts at lvl 1, actually. It's nerfed a *lot* of skills.

It has always started at level 1