ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Susramanian wrote: 1) First, keep much tighter control over what drops where. No more mithril in the early game. Maybe a very lucky character finds a dwarven steel item in the trollshaws, but that's quite rare. These restrictions apply to stores, too.

Susramanian wrote:-They encourage classes to stick to the appropriate equipment.
Stat requirements accomplish this until relatively late in the game. Then, through easily available stat boosts, it's possible for nearly anyone to wear anything. What we'd like is a system where everybody just naturally gravitates towards what works best with their class without having to be pushed into it by artificial requirements. Mages should have some good reasons that they prefer robes to plate armor, for example.

edge2054 wrote:Another thought...

What's to stop a (shoob) player from heading over to dungeon X at the start of the game, scumming for a nice weapon, and then heading back to the dungeons he's the more appropriate level for?

Susramanian wrote:Edge, the Shoob scumming thing has me stumped. I'm tempted to just ignore that reason for stat requirements. If somebody wants to sneak into Tol Falas at level 1, they sort of deserve whatever they make it out with. Good luck, Shoob!

Armor should not be a reason for archmages to invest in strength (or at least not any more than scrolls and potions are a reason for Berserkers to invest in magic) but it *should* be a reason for wyrmics and Cursed and Reavers to keep the strength side of their character fairly healthy, rather than trying to go pure will or pure magic.

Susramanian wrote: I'd like to completely do away with stat requirements on equipment. Many of them make no sense and they feel like an ugly means of enforcing desired gameplay.

...
-They encourage classes to stick to the appropriate equipment.
Stat requirements accomplish this until relatively late in the game. Then, through easily available stat boosts, it's possible for nearly anyone to wear anything. What we'd like is a system where everybody just naturally gravitates towards what works best with their class without having to be pushed into it by artificial requirements. Mages should have some good reasons that they prefer robes to plate armor, for example.

How we throw out stat requirements while still doing the above:

1) First, keep much tighter control over what drops where. No more mithril in the early game. Maybe a very lucky character finds a dwarven steel item in the trollshaws, but that's quite rare. These restrictions apply to stores, too.

2) Merge the heavy armor training and massive armor training talents into a new talent: battle armor training. Include a fatigue-reduction component in battle armor training. Say, every point you spend knocks 10 off your fatigue. Make sure that this talent uses effective talent level, so that mastery makes a difference.

3) Magnify the difference in mastery between various classes in the Technique / combat training tree. We can even have everybody start with that tree and avoid the silly 50-gold speedbump in Minas Tirith. Classes that actually rely on the tree (Warriors and whoever else) get a 1.3 mastery. People who don't have much business messing with it (mages and whoever else) get a .7 mastery, just like with escort quest rewards. If there are any classes that fall somewhere between these extremes, they can have a mastery of 1.

The berserker, with five points in battle armor training, will have an effective talent level of 1.3*5 = 6.5, so he knocks off 65% from that fatigue, leaving him with only 10% fatigue. Thus his talent costs are multiplied by 1.1

The mage desperately wants to encase himself in steel, but fatigue values are doubled for magic users, so he's looking at 150% fatigue. He tries to mitigate this by putting five points in battle armor training. He has an effective talent level of .7*5 = 3.5, so he'll knock 35% from his fatigue, leaving him with 115% fatigue. Thus his talent costs are multiplied by 2.15.

Grey wrote: I would also suggest the following:

- Massive armour should require armour level 2 to wear.
- Higher metals should require higher talent levels. Weapons should be the same. This retains an element of the current stat requirements, since talent levels are limited by stats and player level. Stops level 1 chars having ultimate equipment, but still allows one to pump some talents over a few levels to make use of a cool find.

Zonk wrote: I agree with the rest of what you're saying but I strongly disagree with this.
I don't see how moving the requirement from stats to talent would improve things, and I think it would actually be worse. It feels even more artificial.

Grey wrote:Perhaps then higher talent levels should have a bigger effect on higher materials, as an expert can do much more with the right equipment.

function _M:combatArmor()
	...
	x = x + (self.eq_armor or 0)* (1+self:getTalentLevel(self.T_ARMOR_USE)/8)
	...
	return self.combat_armor + x
end