ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

My experience with the newest patch is limited but here are my thoughts:

1. New Disruption Shield (after 1.6) is... okay. Not as good as the classic but not a disaster either. Nice job on the quick fix to that.

2. Cursed... I didn't get far but it feels much improved. The new Predator tree is much better. Don't love the 3rd Cursed aura skill as it feels anti-thematic but my reaction is probably irrelevant.

3. Better runes. Much obliged.

And now the bad:

4. Geez... the teleporting enemies. Urkkis (spelling) is damn-near impossible. He just teleports away, heals up to full and then hunts me down. Rinse and repeat. I have no problem with enemies being more tactical BUT no one thought to add a way to manage it. There ought to be more skills or abilities or runes or whatever that can prevent teleport or similar.

I really think, for example, that anti-magic should nerf the manaclash skill because it's obscene and add an anti-teleport status effect that stops you from teleporting away via runes, magical items, or any magic resource.

5. The difficulty spikes... just cruising along with zero problems. The game even feels easy and then... BAM! Indestructible enemy. I actually wouldn't mind this at all if it wasn't for #4.

6. The game is unplayable because I get LUA errors constantly. I literally saw less than half a dozen over five years and I keep getting them with 1.6 and above. I get it... it was a big update and there's lots to patch up so I'm not upset about it. I just thought it deserved mention.

UPDATE: I think it's just one bug and entirely associated with slingers. They can't move or attack and if you close the windows then you can just walk up (more will open every turn) and kill them and then the game is fine.

UPDATE#2: apparently it's more than that. Whatever, I'm sure it'll be worked out.

7. Still nothing has been done about the garbage that is the Necromancer... I mean, come on? Couldn't give it one cool thematic category or fix the incoherent Shades category or anything? Just going to let it sit there and suck?

1/2/3) Cool

4) There shouldnt be many npcs left that have this want to flee constantly; but for the few that do I've applied a temporary measure to jsut reduce their want to escape for 1.6.3; until a better way can be devised. They can still tp away but it should be much much less frequent

5) Hum on what difficulty? I saw people telling me game is now too easy AND game is now too hard so ..

6) yeah :/ 1.6.3 coming very very soon

7) sadly that's not something I can change in a patch release as they really require a big update; I'll see if I cant do some QoL on them for patches though. In any cases necros (and alchemists) are on the top of my classes to-upgrade list

5. I think it’s both - the current floor is too low and ceiling too high.

7. Yes please, although resolving 5 would be my priority choice (since better Necromancer would be awesome, but not in a game where player choices and build don’t matter in the face of said ceiling).

Regarding #5... that's the weird thing because it feels like both. It feels too easy for the bulk of the play and then it's suddenly too hard, usually with a boss. I only tested it on normal and a little nightmare.

I actually really like variance. I think you should run into some easier and harder enemies and even areas. I like that not everything is beatable right away or even at all. However, this seems a bit clumsy. It's boring if everything is insanely easy but it's worse when it's insane easy and then suddenly impossible. The ideal is that you have to work just hard enough to be primed to dig in for a challenge, at least on normal and nightmare.

I do think that part of the issue is that most classes were designed with the old AI in mind and so their skills don't line up properly but who the hell knows? Good luck solving that problem.

A side point is that I really like Urkkis conceptually because he's supposed to be difficult. It's one of the things that you've done beautifully in this game is all of the sub-bosses and optional side-quests filled with brutal murder-machines. It's fun to take a character that you're really doing well with and then risking him against the corrupted oozemancer or similar. Sometimes you win and sometimes you die. I think those battles should be hard and I say make more of them... but they should also be fun and that's the trick with the teleport. It's mostly just irritating, and all the more so if you're winning.

As for #7... I've probably posted 10 different Necro concepts over the years, from small fixes to complete redesigns. I don't know if any of my ideas but I think some of them are. Some have already been implemented and so I encourage you to dig through my idiotic obsession and maybe something good is in there.

EDIT:

I do have a suggestion that I'll post in the ideas section... I think that the third Predator skill should offer an additional bonus in which anyone who is marked, i.e., any enemy that you've killed that type before, should suffer a free unarmed attack if they teleport in or away from the Cursed. More so, if they attempt to teleport away, it should have some chance of causing said teleport to fail.

Question: does the miasma count as an unlit tile for the purposes of the Armor of Shadows prodigy? Perhaps it should.