The 1.00 Tweaks Topic

[bricks]

Townsfolk will make comments about backup guardians. This presupposes that you spend any time in towns after returning west.

[cttw]

I think that the Last Hope Graveyard should be made a bit easier to beat. Right now I never enter it in my games and I've heard the same from other players.

I also think the game log could be improved in several ways:

- Highlight character name with a different colour
- Message order can sometimes be confusing. It is better but I've had some trouble reading it still.
- Damage numbers should allow one to mouseover and get a popup with the math that resulted in that damage number. It would make it easier to learn the power of different defenses.
- Mousewheel on the game log should scroll it, I think.

[SageAcrin]

I am very, very strongly against less Artifacts without a retool of what artifacts we have.

Random enemies dropping them leads to a chance of dropping what they have equipped, not just "random" artifacts. This means there's a fair chance of getting an artifact of a given, relevant type. Like, say, staffs from mage enemies.

Without that effect, you're 100% at the mercy of the RNG without any biased chance at all of a relevant artifact-and the artifact list is not balanced for that right now. We're getting more artifacts than before, because there's now new artifacts of a type/tier combo that didn't exist before-they tend to be specific artifacts, which means that, in turn, you actually will see a legitimate option for your class.

Toss that and the game becomes much more of an RNG-fest. And the amounts of artifacts are not balanced relative to their relevance to a given class(The amount of mindstars to the amount of classes that use them, for example, is huge. Ditto, even moreso, twohanded weapons.). The list needs serious pruning and probably some additions to make that fairly balanced.

If this is a wordy thing that looks like it's a prelude to an argument...well, it isn't, it's just something I've worried about repeatedly when artifacts are made. It's very easy to dilute an artifact pool with neat artifacts that are suboptimal outside of a niche, and the current system works-possibly incidentally-to prevent that.

Not that it matters, really.

I think you'd have to majorly retool how artifact pools are handled in order to make it so that random enemies don't drop artifacts, ever. It's a safety measure to keep them from getting dropped out of the pool, too, and without that artifacts would just get constantly eaten. So it's probably too much work to change that this late in development, anyhow.

Basically, it doesn't really fall under the heading of "small balance tweak", regardless.

As to the randart question, they do follow progression. Chests just can override it, and only chests(and Farportal bosses. And the guy in the Ambush, I think.). This is, I think, a response to the fact that, unlike most Roguelikes, ToME has relatively low randomization on loot, but still has the traditional OoD enemy handling-people were complaining that you would get a Dreaming Horror in Nur, but there was never any equal chances of out of place loot.

There maybe should be a hard limit of, say, two tiers above your dungeon(so, Stralite in Sandworm, not Voratun), but overall...

Chests drop anything, completely randomly, though-you might get a low end infusion or a gem, too. And they literally can drop a Farportal boss on top of you, pretty much(or two Rares, which on occasion is more dangerous).

The last run(A Brawler I'm still running with), I literally got one randart of any relevance out of a chest(nice pair of boots). I used one Rare, over a blank Linen cloak, and no others. Artifacts are not the problem with Rares. The problem with rares is that they are just underpowered relative to egos.

They have really randomized bonuses-which no longer go to the crazy heights they could when they were implemented-and the net result is that you need a miraculously perfect for your build rare piece of armor (because the weapons tend to always be underpowered, for some reason, in my experience) in order to have one be worth considering at all.

[Canderel]

I have my notes at http://tomenotes.wikispaces.com/V1+Nitpicks

I add stuff, but you guys are also welcome to do so, just create a subsection with your name and add it.

[Grey]

Arcane Destruction needs particle effects to show when it triggers - currently it's very hard to tell.

[Tyren]

Agrimley gets killed too fast. It's impossible to farm Zigur patrols and to keep him alive. Improve his lifespan cos it's hard to find good mindstars, gloves, rings, etc at low level.
Fix:
If player reenters a level, monsters don't refill resources.
Equipping a normal usable item triggers cooldowns on other equipped normal items.
Silenced characters can cast Grace of Eternals.
On nightmare and insane mode yeeks gain too high level to complete arena quest.
Grapples sometimes last 1 turn after getting knocked back.

[lukep]

Give some sort of bonus to Shadow Feed. Right now it is just Arcane Feed, but half the effect for twice the sustain cost, and without the crit bonus.

[supermini]

I'm going to put 'buff cursed/fears category' here, even though it doesn't stand much chance of being redone. Right now it doesn't get used, for a very good reason - whole groups of enemies in the game are immune to it and the tree requires heavy investment. Those two don't mix well together.

It's really a problem there's no easy solution to. If you add another set of work-around solutions like solipsists got (ignore fear immunity while subject is asleep), then there's no point in having fear immunity at all. If you remove fear immunity from all undead, undead players get a hit - they have no mental infusions to help them survive stuff like nightmare horrors.

[Dwindlehop]

Cursed/Fears should be buffed by moving the mindpower bonus off the third skill to the first or second. That is probably sufficient. I would not mind being able to choose the Fears inflicted (kind of like Cursed Aura, but multiple choice), but that might make it too powerful.

Limmir should call for help when he is attacked.

Is there a point in making the backup guardians not on the first level? I never could find Snaproot on my b43 Cursed.

The 'skip to the last level of the tier 1 dungeons' feature is directly targeted towards me. I play Cornacs because I can't be bothered with exp penalties, and I never finished all the tier 1 dungeons in b41/42. In b43, I finished all the tier 1 dungeons. So I like this feature. I still think it is wrong-headed. If the game has content, it should be fun content. If you need to bypass the content, then you probably have messed up on the design somewhere. I do not know how to fix this.

The early game economy (before one unlocks the transmogrification chest) probably needs some tweaking. Partially it is for balance, but also partially for annoyance (which the chest alleviates). This might be slightly too annoying right now.

Some of the tiles around mountains need to be fixed, visually.

An alternative to giving Rares egos: add Activates for talent. I know I would have think hard about certain mid-game choices between a nice purple vs. some rare traits plus a crucial talent. Alternatively/additionally, rares should have the traits of one tier higher than the base material (or should just flat-out violate the material limits for the area in which they drop). In my mind, that most clearly approximates what 'rare' is. It's an item which is several sigma above the mean.

Someone should do a dump of chars who killed Prox, killed the tier 2 bosses, and killed the Master, and see what egos are in use at each stage. That might point to some egos which need buffing. I feel there are some which are underpowered.

[bricks]

Here's a wacky one - get rid of experience penalties. I think they meaninglessly (and sometimes, paradoxically) influence race choice.

[SageAcrin]

Here's a simple idea.

Add a confirmation window before finalizing escort reward choices. ("Do you really want Magic +2?")

Random sudden popups of the window, thanks to erratic escort movement in complicated situations, leading to a choice that I never would have considered on my build, are literally the only non-bug reason I forcequit ToME, ever, because they anger me so much.

I have no problem with them dying, but getting the wrong reward because I was playing well enough to get them through a situation-and they're not smart enough to be predictable for when they go into the portal-is very annoying.



It'd probably be a good idea to add a similar confirm to the randart merchant's choice, as well. I've never misclicked there, but only because I'm so worried about doing so...

[supermini]

Here's a wacky one - get rid of experience penalties. I think they meaninglessly (and sometimes, paradoxically) influence race choice.

Meaningless? I don't think so. Playing a race with more hp per level and a good racial tree means that you'll be better at level 50, but getting there is harder because of the xp penalties. Do you want an easier mid-game or a stronger end-game? Making these sort of choices is fun and it adds a layer of strategy.

[bricks]

I don't really think of "grind more to win" as a meaningful choice, but I know it's not an idea that appeals to everyone (hence "wacky"). It's just about as outlandish as removing traps .

Edit; going to add a running list of tweaks to this post.

• Center the "main menu" dialog on the initialization screen, it looks really lopsided on my screen.
• The arena campaign is subtitled "Challenge of the Master" - probably should be called something else, considering that the Master is a pretty important character in the main campaign.
• Haven't tried it yet, but "Bloodspring" seems like a mediocre prodigy. It's counterproductive for melee and unreliable for ranged. AoE daze, stun, or life-drain would be much more impressive.
• Format "Elemental Surge" so the damage types show up as appropriate colors, making it easier to read.
• There are a number of prodigies that are unlocked by knowing stamina-using talents. It would be nice if these also included non-stamina melee talents (with the exception of "Never Stop Running").
• On the talent points screen, it's not clear that "Class points" and "Generic points" also are headers for their categories. They could be more central, and perhaps look less like buttons.
• The leftmost divider on the talent screen is positioned higher than all of the others. Looks strange. Also, the description text is very close to it, even overlapping a little near the top.
• "Absorb Life" is still a silly talent.

[SageAcrin]

Grind more to win is only a valid choice at about L25, and grinding more in farportals can easily be fatal at that stage in the game.

Sure, once you hit L40 it has relatively little impact, but that's about 80% of the game down. Until then, you're mostly limited on EXP that is remotely safe to get. Sure, you can go blow up Adventurers for a while, but if you're willing to sacrifice characters in exchange for grinding to win...that's your privilege as far as I care.

IMO, EXP mod has a neat effect if you're not willing to do that. I'd just like to see the ups and downs of a race match the EXP-this is why I brought up Ghoul before, and am bringing up the Elves now a bit.

Shalore I am not really much for as a race, and they win rather shockingly little for an initially unlocked race-only two initially unlocked races win less, and one, Halfling, was buffed recently(and about half their wins are since). But, they are also niche oriented, and I know they don't fit me, so I'm not pushing this or anything-just commenting.

Of course, the other race that wins less than Shalore is Thalore. Thalore has the lowest win rate of any starting unlock and aren't even that far ahead of Ghoul/Yeek(it's hard to say if they even are at all-Selfless and Triumph of the Way have not always given Winner status in the archives, due to bugs.), an interesting figure I didn't realize until just now.

There's some question about a race with that little of wins. Maybe they need something, at least in some direction.

Edit: Oooh, I kinda like Bloodspring as partially Lifedrain damage. As long as it keeps the knockback too, that takes it from "okay keepaway trick" to "excellent combination of keepaway and recovery", for ranged classes.

[5k17]

Add a confirmation window before finalizing escort reward choices. ("Do you really want Magic +2?")

I agree, although I'd prefer the message to be before the choice. I find not making a mistake in the first place preferable to being able to correct it afterwards.

Here's a wacky one - get rid of experience penalties. I think they meaninglessly (and sometimes, paradoxically) influence race choice.

You're probably right in principle, but some racials may be too strong (or just pretty useless) for earlier parts of the game than they can be obtained now.