ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Not my idea, Darkgods. But figured if we flesh it out a bit it might give him a better idea if he wants to use something like that, modify it, or ditch it completely.

So what I'm thinking is to have these work like perks do in other systems. Basically they're all or nothing rather then level based abilities, ie. you have it or you don't.

As to how to set it up, I think these perks could be tied to backgrounds (something not in the game) or character class. So rogues for instance might start off with Item Appraisal while other classes would have to learn it in game (from a merchant perhaps). Another option would be to let the player spend adventure points (give them one or two at start) with additional points at every blah levels. (I prefer the former option to keep them from feeling like another talent point system).

Expert Miner - Chance to generate a gem (appropriate for dungeon level) when you dig.

Hero - Would give you X every time you complete a story quest. I'm thinking this should be NPC related, ie the people of Bree shower you with gifts when you kill Bill and the Shade (some potions and scrolls). The rewards should grow as the quest difficulty does.

Item Appraisal - Allows you to automatically identify non-ego items (which would pseudo-ID ego items in a round about way. Since if you can't ID it it's obviously an ego item).

Jack of All Trades - Gain a bonus generic talent point.

More to follow...

Sounds similar to generic points except that the talent is nothing or everything. Could be done by generic points. Like you have to put 3 generic points into a talent before anything happens and then you cannot buy more.

I would prefer Item ID to be universal. Regardless, item ID should not be limited to non-ego items since later in the game ego items gets more and more common. Better would be that only artifacts and powerful egos are not identified. Maybe this would depend on character level. If you find an unidentified item, this should always cause a sense of excitement from knowing you have found something good and rare, not a sense of drudgery from thinking about the work involved in dragging a carload of unidentified items back to a scroll shop.

Scroll Expert - Add your cunning to your magic score when you read a scroll.

Potion Expert - Add your cunning to your magic score when you quaff a potion.

Haggler- You get 10% more for goods you sell and pay 10% less for goods you buy.

Sprinter - Toned down version of Lightning Speed. Maybe 200% for a couple of turns with no activation cost (energy or resource).

These look fun. I would hope that the game doesn't ask me to choose between getting one of these fun effects and getting to reduce the tedium of identification. Because if it does, I'm going to go for fun every time and simply alter some lua files to get rid of the tedium.

What is it about identification that makes it so hard to let go of? Do people really love it that much? We're talking about throwing the Middle Earth out of Tales of Middle Earth, but we can't bring ourselves to ditch identification?

Identification is an inventory management challenge. Identification is therefore meaningful in games where your success is determined by how you manage your inventory (like Angband). In ToME4, your success is determined by how you manage your talents and employ tactics, not by how you manage your inventory. Identification is therefore not meaningful in ToME. It's an annoying chore.

Despite all this, I would keep identification around in some form. The thrill of discovery is important. Items should remain unidentified until you step on them to avoid players just browsing whole levels and going for the good loot. Then when players step on an item and it doesn't get automatically identified, there's that thrill.

Okay, back on topic. These look fun. I'll try to think of some in the future, now that I've gotten all that out of my system.

Susramanian wrote:These look fun. I would hope that the game doesn't ask me to choose between getting one of these fun effects and getting to reduce the tedium of identification. Because if it does, I'm going to go for fun every time and simply alter some lua files to get rid of the tedium.

Well my thought was just because you start with A and B it doesn't mean you can't pick up C and D later on.

For instance maybe your dwarven fighter starts off with expert miner and hero. Then he does blah and picks up the item identification perk. The more 'mandatory' the perk the more available the quest should be.

I have to agree with Susramanian. This seems like it's filling a square hole with a big set of different shaped pegs. I don't see any real demand for the different perks suggested so far, so it seems silly to add in a whole perk system just for the item iding.

Also I'm very much opposed to any no-brainer choices. If there's no decision behind taking item iding or not then the whole choice is redundant. Right now, as represented, every non-mage player would make it a priority to get the item identification perk, by whatever means necessary. There's no element of strategic choice or balancing of benefits.

For item id I still think weapons and armour should be auto-identified based on combat talent levels. Other items should be ided through use/wearing, or based on the cunning stat (which is overall a fairly worthless stat for non-rogues at the moment).

I'm not against a perk system in general, though if there was one I'd like it to have more individual perks than simply "+10% shop prices" - they should actually change gameplay and have interesting effects.

Some ideas for perks, so I'm not all negative:

Mana Sink - Absorb 10% of the damage of all spells thrown at you by others. The damage absorbed restores an equal number of points in your mana pool.

Guzzler - Potions take half the time for you to down, but only give half the normal effect.

Adrenaline Junkie - You only regenerate stamina whilst in battle (enemies are in view), but you do so at triple the normal rate.

Cartographer - Your excellent sense of your surroundings gives you a feel for areas outside your vision. You automatically map all structures within a radius of 4.

Snake-charmer - All snakes have a chance of being friendly to you.

Light-footed - 50% chance not to set off traps.

Five Finger Discount - When buying an item you have 1 in 5 a chance of getting it for free.

Creature of the Night - You are more naturally suited to the night. Your vision in daylight is reduced, and you suffer penalties to attack and defense, but at night and in dark places you have infravision up to 6 squares and gain +4 to Dx and Cu.

very into this general idea as long as the means of unlocking are novel (quests, achievements, 'purchasing' from npc) or are inherent with class or race - i don't at all like the 'adventure points' idea.
these kinds of abilities/characteristics could help further differentiate races, in particular. and they don't always need to be 'positive' - some races could pay more at the shop, some classes may have difficulty in certain ways, and some quests or certain actions could have long-lasting negative effects.

here are a few ideas to start...

wand expert: adds cunning score magic for wand useage
noisy: -5 to stealth (for races like dwarves, trolls)
quiet: +5 to stealth (for hobbits and elves, could also be learned at a rogue's guild or something)
frail: -20% max encumbrance (maybe for mages..)
illiterate: chance of failure when reading scrolls
woodsman: +5 attack and +5 defense in forest levels.
spelunker: +5 attack and +5 defense in stone dungeons.
ugly: pay 10% more at the shop. could maybe preclude certain quests (maybe this could even pop up as a flag after using the blood of life )
battle-scarred veteran: pay 10% more at the shop, 5% physical damage reduction (maybe automatically acquired after taking a very large amount of physical damage, and/or perhaps after training somewhere)
belligerent: always gets in fights in npc dialogs where fights are possible outcome.
jeweler: +10% for certain ring/amulet powers.
ring-master: grants an additional ring slot
crafty: 10% increased bonuses for armor/weapons/items you made yourself.
bombadil's blessing (?) - regenerate some equilibrium each turn

I don't know if any of you ever played Vampire, the roleplaying game (pen and paper). But in it you could spend points in advantages, like the ones you have mentioned here, really perk-like. But if you wanted to get more "advantage points" to spend, you could get a disadvantage, there were some that weren't that strong (ugly, bad breath...) and got you few points, but there were some really role-wise important (schizophrenia, maimed, limp...). Same for the advantages, there were some cute ones (ambidextrous, charming, rich family...) and some quite powerful (foretelling, luck, blessed...).

So some kind of advantage/disadvantage system could be worked on. Maybe you could get some advantages depending on race, some could be locked for certain race, and so on.

But I'm still not sure if all this stuff is really something worth looking into. I would prefer something simpler and more arbitrary. I never liked making new characters in T2, mainly because rolling dice was really yawnworthy.

I like what happens in Mount&Blade when you make a new character. You choose your past: My father was a woodsman, my family was butchered by orcs, I became a street urchin and then I started working for a bandit lord, when I was strong enough I stole some equipment from the hideout and went out to reclaim my revenge!
That way you'd get something like:
- woodsman (teachu2die's idea or a constitution bonus)
- vengeance (bonus vs evil or just enemy type)
- urchin (cunning bonus)
- bandit (cunning bonus)
- prize on your head (the bandit lord put a bounty on your head for your treason... additional quest opportunities)

And that way you can get thousands of options, it adds depth to your characters and you get bonuses.

But I still am doubtful of all this... dunno.

I like the idea of random perks, but I think they should be quest-based, rather than leveling-based. We already have stat points, class points, generic points, and category points coming out of leveling - we don't need another set of points to manage. Instead, perks should be things you get for being certain races, completing certain quests, using certain artifacts, or whatever. You could include one on a certain artifact food, so that people who didn't care about its other effects would still have a reason to get and eat it. You could have one (as suggested) from having died but been saved by Blood of Life. You could even have some of the escort quests had them out as one of the options.

wrt ID, personally, I like that there's an ID system in place. Mind you, I've been mostly playing alchemists thus far, so I pretty quickly hit the point where I get to ID my pack off of a scroll, and I can cash in cheap, bulky items for gems, but the need for inventory management is causing me to invest in strength in a way that I otherwise wouldn't, and it is an interesting aprt of the game. I might suggest that strong psuedo-ID be a perk that could be reliably gotten by early-to-midgame for the people that cared, though.

Right now, as represented, every non-mage player would make it a priority to get the item identification perk, by whatever means necessary.

This is certainly not true in my case. With my non-mage players I have never taken Identify as an escort quest reward, there's simply too many other things I want. By the time the nice egos are coming along my kit is usually half set and I'm not needing more gold. At that point I'm looking for a specific one or two things like a cloak and a two handed weapon so I throw away everything else. If my carrying load becomes an issue I'll start throwing away the cheaper metals and materials first. If I'm paranoid I'm going to lose a very special item I'll recall back to town and deal with it there. Even in town I almost never bother to ID the items before I sell them back to the store and will just buy it back if it's something that I really want.