ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Being that Shaloren are obviously more powerful than other races (more noticeably on higher difficulties) due to Timeless, do you think measures should be taken? Suggestions? At the very least, I thing they should have the highest XP penalty, being immortal and all, though that wouldn't really be much of a problem solver. Nerf Timeless? Beef up other races? One thing that really strikes me about this is that, as someone already pointed out, Shaloren are better Highers than Higher, being able to abuse no-resource-cost better.

It's really not that big of a deal, I just wanted to hear other peoples opinion on the matter. Maybe there's a build other races are better at than Shaloren? Maybe Shaloren were intended to be the Oozemancers of the Racial List?

Also, I've always found their first racial to be a lot better than most others, though not anywhere as near as Timeless is. Ooh, and passive crit?

Shaloren get incredibly rough start and have the lowest, irrc, life rating besides Yeeks.
So, *shrug*.

Since Timeless is a time-related skill (see description), I think an easy and thematic fix would be to add a damage penalty to it, ? la Fade From Time. The rationales for both talents are quite similar when you think about it.

I think that mechanically, Timeless is really cool. So I'd be sad to see its effect get cut back. However I do think it could use a nerf along the lines jaumito describes - keeping the time-related as effects as they are but attaching a penalty. The other haste and crit racials would probably be just fine with a numbers tweak.

I'd rather not see Shaloren given a higher XP penalty. Currently those penalties are really clustered at the high end of the spectrum. You have the ostensibly-neutral Cornac, but really everyone except one gimmick race has a higher penalty, which feels somehow wrong to me. Shaloren currently smooth out the curve a little - although perhaps they could swap places with Dwarves and/or Halflings or something. Since a lower penalty usually just means doing a few extra farportals, though, I don't know if that's as much a balancing mechanism as a "having the game follow a consistent internal logic" mechanism (not to say that's a bad thing).

Also, since higher difficulties was referenced, exp penalty is meaningless. On insane everyone is level 50 by the end of the prides anyway, no farportals needed. (Not sure about skeletons, don't play them). A timeless fix could involve any of:

Dropping duration
Making it only do 1 of the 3 insanely good things it already does.
Losing the racial speed bonus from the first skill
Making it do the less damage thing suggested above.

Personally I hate that on higher difficulties I am gimping myself if I don't play them...but they are simply too tooooo powerful.

Seriously, I was just in a discussion on chat the other day about why Thaloren and Skelly have a much bigger exp penalty than Shaloren, which is the most OP race in the game right now? Give shaloren a 50% exp penalty and leave as-is, or nerf the crap out of Timeless and they can keep 25%.

Furey wrote:Also, since higher difficulties was referenced, exp penalty is meaningless. On insane everyone is level 50 by the end of the prides anyway, no farportals needed. (Not sure about skeletons, don't play them).

That's another really good point. Thinking XP penalty is the wrong way to go about it. It could be thematic, but it won't balance things as they are now.

I don't see a problem with them, just like doombringers or oozemancers, its a single player game so balance isnt required. If you dont like how powerful they are, don't play them. I personally find them boring which is why I don't play them.

I don't have a problem with the Shaloran being a bit stronger perhaps. Thematically this can make sense since the Shaloran are a quasi-immortal race that an elven and not liked by the other races. I'm not against them perhaps having their experience penalty risen / other races having their experience penalties dropped though as that seems like a minor adjustment.

I'd like to nerf timeless so that there's a limit on how many things it can do - say, up to the talent level. So at talent level 4, if you have 3 status effects on you (good or bad), it'll alter those, and then it'll spend the 1 remaining point on reducing talent cooldowns.

0player wrote:Shaloren get incredibly rough start and have the lowest, irrc, life rating besides Yeeks.
So, *shrug*.

Shaloren get the same start as everyone else except they have to press up and then walk over to Trollmire. The life rating difference amounts to maybe 1/5 of a heroism infusion.

I say nerf Timeless. If you have nine things that are way better than one thing, then it makes sense to bring the one thing up to par, but if you have one thing that's way better than nine other things, buffing the nine things is not only more work, it's blatant power creep.

In the git draconic will and unstoppable are 'other' type effects, meaning they can't be extended by timeless.
Draconic will also have a fixed cooldown, which can't be reduced by timeless.
Those were the two most powerful combos, so that's an indirect (and substantial) nerf. I'm not sure what else has a fixed cooldown as I didn't go through everything, but I've seen quite a few talents like that in the new chronomancer classes.

Whether it's enough of a nerf is open to debate. I'm happy with it.

Furey wrote:Also, since higher difficulties was referenced, exp penalty is meaningless. On insane everyone is level 50 by the end of the prides anyway, no farportals needed.

I don't agree with this. Yes, eventually you will be level 50, but you have to survive until the eventually. The xp penalty (or bonus) is most meaningful in the early game, when the game is also the hardest (up to and including insane, I don't know what it's like on madness). Getting your abilities earlier makes a significant difference. On nm and insane, difficulty tends to drop off after about level 30 and it doesn't really pick up again until High Peak, at least in my experience.

Shalore tends to be so much stronger throughout the game that the extra cost of levelling slower isn't significant in comparison, but when comparing something like cornac and thalore...I tend to notice the difference.

Furey wrote:Also, since higher difficulties was referenced, exp penalty is meaningless.

I'm sorry but this makes zero sense. If you play a hard character combo on insane or any combo on madness, then you are going to need all the help you can get. Exp penalty isn't really that big for shalore currently but if you want to say something about the effects of shalore exp penalty it's that exp penalty makes the most difference in higher difficulties.

About Shalores: They are clearly the best race. I think I once said that they are probably the best race for every class except oozemancer. At least I'm having a hard time thinking classes on which they wouldn't rule supreme, mindslayer mayhaps? Higher necromancers may be better than Shalore after DW nerf.

Timeless: It is really neat. Harnessing its true power takes some thinking which is why I like it -it's not as straightforward as an ability like "boost your crit chance for x turns" or "+ "resists all and blight resist passively". So I would hate to nerf it into oblivion because I think it is one of the most interesting racial abilites. That being said, things like draconic will + timeless is pretty insane (pre-nerf).

General thoughts about strong racial abilities: With very good racial abilities there is the general problem of knowing pretty much excatly what you will invest in them right in the beginning of the game. I mean, you will go 1-5-1-5 with a Shalore. I feel this takes away choices which is way I like cornacs.

Additional point about comparing Shalore to some other races: Comparing Shalore to the undead, for example, doesn't automatically mean that Shalore are too strong. I mean, the undeads have actualy disadvantages compared to other races. So comparing originally gimped races to the best race isn't very fruitful.

Summa summarum Timeless is very good in general and exceptionally good with some abilities like DW (which is already being nerfed). Maybe nerfing these few master timeless combos is the way to go. But I think the undead sucking is just as big of a problem than shalore being too good. So maybe some boosting of other races racial abilities is also in order.

I'd agree with Mankeli. Better to make more good options than get rid of some. That being said, the races do need to be more balanced, since a lot of races are either bad or just kinda... Not very good. Hell, that's part of the reason I love playing as Yeeks-they might be bad, but they're fun.

I guess that's what it comes down to-a decent amount of races just don't feel very fun. I'd rather some things, like Money Is Power, for instance, change to a less powerful but more interesting active ability.