ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

I just picked up the game and have seen a good amount of praise for the depth of tactics and strategy in the game. The quality of life features like the transmogrify chest and not having to hoard consumable items really make this game stand out among similar ones, too.

However, my initial experience hasn't been as great as I'd hoped. Mainly, I feel like the beginning of the game is too easy- tedious. I tried a bulwark and a berserker, both pretty basic melee types, and they just slaughter everything in the six starter dungeons with basic bump attacks. I have all these talents/abilities/infusions/charms at my disposal, but I never have any reason to use them! It just feels a bit pointless because nothing in Trollmire / Heart of Gloom / Scintillating Cavern / Bear Lair, Mage Den Place / Kor'Pul is really threatening at all. Some of the bosses I didn't even notice were bosses until they died and dropped a lore piece. And the enemy variety is really hindered because most everything dies in a couple hits, there's no reason for me to pay attention to their special abilities or resistances or such.

I know that the difficulty will pick up eventually, making tactics and abilities essential, but it took me a few hours to clear those starter dungeons on a single character just mashing auto-explore and left-clicking every enemy. It seems strange that every time I die- which will no doubt be frequent in the midgame as I learn the ropes- I will have to spend a few hours doing the mindless beginning (especially when I rarely have more than a few hours to play).

This is on normal difficulty, and the obvious answer would be to up the difficulty, but it sounds like the next up- nightmare- is FAR more difficult and not something I should be tackling now. I just feel like I'm missing something, especially when I see things on the wiki like 'Don't attempt to defeat the troll Bill until level 10'... my bulwark and berserker had no difficulty with either troll boss even at level 3/4. Did I choose unbalanced classes, or maybe classes that are weaker in the later game but trivialize the early game? Or is it really that the first few hours of each run have little to offer?

To be honest the mindless click-click-click for hours is really turning me off the game, but I don't want to give up knowing how rewarding and deep it can be later on. Is there any way to make the early game worth playing through without also making the mid and late game far *too* difficult? Aside from deliberately making poor build choices, that just doesn't feel very fun. How do other people feel about the early game? All suggestions and comments appreciated!

Yeah I can see where you are coming from, I have been playing on Insane the last week or so and I think the addition of extra random rares/uniques/bosses makes the game more interesting. Unfortunately you need to win Nightmare to get Insane, also the start of Insane is not really greatly balanced and often can result in some cheesy starting tactics at least for melee. I was ble to start Insane without cheesing stuff on a mage type who had good CC, but for melee I do drown town NPCs and take their stuff.

A powerful build on normal is, IMO, kind of boring. I actually didn't finish the game on my staff SB on normal because it was too easy. Nightmare was a bit better but still pretty easy with that build.

You might consider just playing on Nightmare.

Or possibly you should download the addon which adds in Intense and Brutal difficulties, this basically adds the rare+s of Insane with lower levels and some character buffs.

Additionally you might try certain types of playstyles that are more hit and run, like trying a melee rogue or shadowblade.

Anyway there is no doubt that certain builds can steamroll the game on normal.


However I will warn you that certain areas will not be so easy even on normal for a class like bulwark, you probably will run into some trouble in daikara and if you decide to go into Dark Crypt I expect you might have some trouble as well.

Also I am not sure how you don't feel the need to use Wild: physical infusion, you must be getting stunned. if you don't remove stunned you do crap damage and move slow. Also the kor'pul boss always freezes you which require physical removal and his arcane blast should be feeling painful if you are getting frozen multiple times due to not using infusion.

You'll probably notice that there will be an imbalance for the first 30 levels or so, where depending on the character you play it will be very easy or outright hell. A good example to this might be for example to play a Rogue or Shadowblade through the initial beginning stuff compared to the Berserker or Bulwark you played.

And then with the Rogue or Shadowblade again versus the Berserker or Bulwark, it eventually switches over and the game feels like autopilot where nothing - including the final bosses can touch you, while you need to at least think a bit with the Berserker or Bulwark.

It also depends on finding that one Rare/Unique mob or Boss that will somehow be so overpoweringly strong compared to everything else that it just wipes the floor with you.

Warrior classes are quite easy at the start.
Also, I notice you doing all 6 starter dungeons, which means you have a guide of some sort.
It wasn't designed for people to do all 6+ starter dungeons as you are overlevelled for them after beating two. Hence the skip straight to boss floor thing. Which is there to help get more boss loot to prepare you for the next lot of dungeons, which can be hard without suitable equipment.
If you have good equipment, and its too easy, don't do all the starter dungeons.

Yeah the best answer is: don't do all six starter dungeons. Do two of them, like your starting quest says, but of course now you probably know the areas pretty well so pick whichever two you want.

Then move on to the "Into the Darkness" dungeons: Old Forest, Sandworm Lair, Maze and Daikara.

Then hit Dreadfell.

Alternately, there's a speedrun posted on this forum where the guy hits up the starter dungeons and then goes to Dreadfell to kill the Master, and it takes him all of 30 minutes.

You're right that the starter dungeons aren't too difficult for some classes, but neither does it have to take you very long to get to the East.

That said, it took me forever to get to the East when I started playing (many, many deaths), and I still don't have a roguelike clear to my name, so there's a lot of potential there.