ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

For example, you will trigger Dark Crypt on level 24, but no way can you beat it on insane by that time since everything is level 50. And you won't have the option to enter later. This makes absolutely no sense to me.

Skipping Dark Crypt then, but for madness,

Madness is actually good experience at first, since you rarely get bored. Normal and most rare mobs are easy fights, but in madness you have to be careful and focus all the time, thing is challenging as hell. I'd argue don't scale the zone 150% more, it is already "impossible" when: But then you will be meeting some lvl 50 zones after old forest, at around lvl 20, and this time it's not skippable. That's straight up suiside.

Sure you can try and enter every zone possible, just to "lock" the levels, but why force player to do those unnatural moves?

Dark Crypt is usually full of enemies that are far higher level then you even on Normal. Insane/Madness just make the difference more noticeable. That said, zone level doesn't mean quite as much as you think it does. It mostly just inflates some stats without actually changing what monsters spawn or what difficult abilities they have. The real danger on high difficulties are the randbosses with ridiculously high talent levels.

That said, it'd be nice if there was a way to have insane-level difficulty in a way that wasn't just "Turn up a bunch of numbers".

Level is not the problem, number of rare+ is the problem. I think you overestimate the importance of level when you say "no way to beat a zone full of level 50 when you're level 24".

Dark crypt is more dangerous than the other dungeons when you usually trigger it, that's true in all difficulty. There are still some classes who can consistently beat it on insane (ooze, demo, ano for example). Not all class will be able to do it easily, maybe some not at all but not all classes have the same power level. Knowing when to fight is part of the game, and you don't have to kill everything. That said, I almost always enter then just ROR out if I see it's hopeless.

If you are concerned about monster levels why play insane and madness when they bloat those? Dark Crypt is a challenge area, all classic roguelikes have a zone like that. It's not meant to be beat by every character on every playthrough and you can always try diving to Reknor at 23 and do it after you return from East.

The only broken on those difficulties I can think of is ID after AoA campaign. E.g. on Insane you're pulled onto level 75 of ID, where all monsters are level 200-210

Cathbald wrote:Level is not the problem, number of rare+ is the problem.

The combo of both is a problem. High level epics tend to have some broken talent scalings. OK, I simplified my statement by saying "24 beating 50 is impossible", but I thought we do know what I meant was exactly what you states.

All of you talk like you've beaten madness or survived level 50 insane dark crypt on level 24 (without certain hack moves). If not, then this is a problem at least worth discussing.

please don't ask for madness to get balanced, it makes you look like an idiot.


Meanwhile, I believe Shibari has submitted a merge request in the git to make Dark Crypt not appear till level 30. Should deal with the issue semi-nicely, no?

fateriddle wrote:All of you talk like you've beaten madness or survived level 50 insane dark crypt on level 24 (without certain hack moves). If not, then this is a problem at least worth discussing.

Who talked about madness? Madness is out of balance concern, period. Regarding the second part well, I did say some classes at least could beat it consistently, so yeah, i survived OP OP dark crypt at level 24, several times even.
It's a hard, OPTIONAL, area. Some classes have better tools than other for it, sometimes you'll also find loot more suited to it and make it easier.
If every class could beat it all the time we wouldn't all be saying it's a challenge zone which is nice to have.