ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

So I just started playing tome4 again after a very long hiatus. Last played on the beta a couple of years ago and bought it during steam summer sale.

Playing as archmage, the new areas for early levels really make it easy to survive up to level 14 or so. Then I started getting some problems with dying from mechanical carelessness instead of strategic / tactical errors:

- First death is from the hidden room in Trollmire. Killed the troll boss then used auto-explore to pick up all the items in the area. I pelted a random troll with spells thinking its just one of the usual goons but then he one-shot me. Turned out the guy was a level 28 elite troll or something.

It'd be great if there was an option to have some visual indicator that an enemy is much higher level than you. Enlarge the sprite or make it surrounded by flame. Something that make you stop and re-assess the current situation.

Brief pause after major damage.

Died 2 - 3 times to some random elites because I was moving around i.e. I would press right and up keypad then sent immediately to the limbo. On the first move I would get damaged by more than 50% and since I did not notice it, the enemy finished me off when I moved again. Purely my fault for not paying attention, sure. But I'd argue that dying to mechanical error like this is much less exciting than a dying after a hard fought battle where you get to use all your tactical options but just couldnt make it.

Is there an option to have a brief pause after taking major damage (>10% hp) ?

usually, if you have seen something once, you should be able to remember its capabilities.
the naga myrmidon for example... ah how many times did that bastard kill my adventurers and of other people...
but, that's assuming you see him at all. but if you don't, its useless.
i just need something like a tracking lantern. those are useful.

also, at what point do OOD monsters stop being OOD and become standard? will the indicator go away then?

Radon26 wrote:usually, if you have seen something once, you should be able to remember its capabilities.

also, at what point do OOD monsters stop being OOD and become standard? will the indicator go away then?

It was a very high level troll. If I recall it looked very similar to the other trolls in the area.

As for OOD, someone probably will come up with an acceptable formula.
Example : in the early levels (<10) even 2-3 levels above can be considered OOD
It relaxes as you grow in power that later on (say by level 40) it takes 10 or 20 levels to be considered OOD.

PS
As for this character. Crazily enough he had no trouble dispatching the master, wrecked the orc ambush, even clearing the overpowered wyrms of Vor. Maybe that's just the difficulty curve for Archmages.

I think "monster's minimum level is higher than the current or maximum level scaling of the zone" would be fine for determining OOD.

More interesting in getting a popup when your smacked for a shit ton of damage, if your being lazy and spamming movement keys really fast that can kill you if your not paying attention.