ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

The current situation, where defence against detrimental status effects (stun/blind/fear etc.) is affected both by
saves and by resistance%, is confusing. I think the game would be more fun and clearer to understand if the latter
would be dropped completely, so that resistances would apply against damage and saves against effects.

I used to care a lot about the resistances against the most fatal status effects (stun/conf foremost), but after
reading lukep's post about his winner sun paladin who didn't give a rat's ass about stat resistances, I changed my
attitude. I decided to ignore the existance of said resistances completely, and focus on other means of
dealing with the problem (which there are plenty of, apparently). This has made playing the game much more fun, and
me a better player also.

Really, the "resistance% against status effects" mechanic seems to be one of the few leftovers from the old Angband
times. Noteably, as many other Angband mechanics already dropped from the game, it's boring as hell. Searching
every nook and cranny to find crappy res.effect gear in the early game is boring (but most of the new players, who
come from *band background like me, will probably do it). Wearing said res.effect gear is boring, when you have so
many other neat options. And finally, having 100% res against most dangerous effects, while being very effective,
is also a boring game mechanic - it lets you completely ignore an important part of the game, as well as breaking
some of the skills and even whole categories (cursed/fears anyone).

The only apropriate place for stat effect res/immunities are the innate abilities of some of the races. For
example, it makes sense that most undead be immune against blinding, because they don't have physical eyes through
which to percieve the world. Other than that, I vote for ditching the concept! Saves are much more logical and fun,
and should be further developed/balanced instead.

I agree for the most part. The game is much more fun when you ignore resistances, and there is no sense in having duplicate systems to stop effects from happening.

I would personally prefer (and have said so before) if resistances reduced the effect instead of being this silly all or nothing. So much like 50% fire resistance stops half the fire damage, 50% confusion resistance would make the confusion half as effective. Then we wouldn't have the system of players feeling like they *need* 100% in everything.

Agreed, so much (and on all points). This is a major thing that bothers me all the time. As iaru wrote, early game most cool items are pretty useless if they don't have stun/confusion immunity. And late in the game it's quite easy to get both and ignore that aspect of the game completely.

I'm also going to chime in here and say that the way status effects are handled is currently the worst problem still plaguing ToME's gameplay.

Confusion Immunity does reduce confusion power.

Not discounting anything that's been said but that mechanic is already in play (and has been for a long time but a typo made the effects negligible until recently).

edge2054 wrote:Confusion Immunity does reduce confusion power.

Not discounting anything that's been said but that mechanic is already in play (and has been for a long time but a typo made the effects negligible until recently).

Do you mean that in the next version, both sufficiently high saves AND resistances will reduce effect power?

I have to admit that after almost half a year playing this game, I'm still a bit confused about how different mechanics interact together in this matter..

Nah, I mean in b42 confusion immunity reduces the power of confusion effects (and has for awhile but a typo made the actual reduction amount trivial). Saves still reduce durations.

I think immunities are much more interesting if they are true immunities (all or nothing) and if they only show up on monsters, specific player races, and artifacts. (Talents are another understandable place for immunities to show up, though I don't really care for those either.) While the current list of immunities does cover the most common effects, ToME has grown to encompass so many timed effects that the physical/magical/mental split really does make more sense to me. There's no need to shoehorn a new effect into an old one or create an entirely new immunity which would need to be considered for inclusion in the ego effects. Saves and powers kind of irk me, though, since it's easy to hit advancement walls (usually bosses with an exceptionally high power or save).

I also don't particularly care for specific damage resistances, outside of artifacts meant to mesh with certain class skills. Generally the only time I stack a resistance is when I'm headed off to fight a boss that I know will utilize a specific resistance, and even then I only use artifacts (Rantha being the prime example). A physical/magical/mental split here would make a lot of sense, too, especially in the case of Antimagic. Fire damage from a dragon shouldn't set off Antimagic. That's a pretty extensive change, though, and I might be alone in that desire.

Effect resistances are indeed absolutly not needed, at any level. Get a wild infusion or two and you're mostly set, with taht and some saves.

I'll consider removing them from most items and given them to a few rare artifacts

Yeah, they aren't really *needed*, but they're usually far more reliable than saves. So as long as they're readily available they're better than most other stats, especially for melee classes. Removing every possible random influence is usually the best way to go in roguelikes.

Also infusions aren't *that* reliable either. If I'm not mistaken they just remove all cross tier effects and a single effect of the types they affect?

While we're all talking about immunities here, here's some changes I think would be interesting, either separately or all together. I'd actually have to try them out to see if they were good or not though.

- Immunities, instead of being a flat chance, work on the magnitude of the effect. So, for instance, with a 50% stun immunity, the movement, healing, and damage penalties would be cut in half, and every talent would have a 50% chance to cooldown every turn. Knockback immunity would decrease distance. Any status effect that is all or nothing (blind, disarmed) would just have the duration affected.
- Triple all immunity values, and make them scale the same way that powers and saves do. Multiplying everything by 3 gives the same difficulty to reach 100% immunity, but it makes 50% immunity in several status effects a lot more viable.
- Consolidate immunities to a few equipment slots - rings and amulets for example. Only artifacts and very rare egos would be available on other equipment slots. This way, you could still focus on a specific set of immunities, but it wouldn't get in the way of choosing otherwise good gear. With this method, of course, you'd need to improve the amount of the current bonuses.

I particularly like the third option - it let's you select a few status effects that you're really worried about, but keeps stacking immunities from becoming the focus of the game.

I agree grayswandir, your third option is a good idea. Focusing on rings/equipment for the sake of 'swapped' immunities makes a lot of sense to me, and seems to work well in other games. You'd still run into tricky situations like never finding that great stun immunity ring before a stun-heavy boss, which I think helps distinguish playthroughs (and provides the necessary sacrificial blood for the random number god).

I also like grayswandirs ideas, but it still bothers me that there would be two different game mechanics covering the same thing. Makes the game overly complicated. Personally I like the new 'saves/powers' -system more. True, saves do not help when you meet an opponent with really strong 'power', and wild infusions are not always reliable, but together with all the possible skills covering your ass (providence/conditioning etc), they are already enough.

Actually, as I think about it, I'm beginning to like grayswandirs third option more and more - and more specialization among different equipment slots in general.

Just chiming in as the token disagreement, I guess. Sorta'. Something. I like having the overlapping systems, personally. Gives me a few more choices for itemization, lets certain classes build a little different (tack on some status immunity to complement one talent or another rather than just stacking saves), is a bit more reliable in high difficulty situations. I like doing farportal runs, and stacking saves is... generally not effective. Just doesn't help when you're running into something with ** in their relevant power when you're in the mid-twenties; all the stacking in the world isn't going to reach that, at that point. A nice solid immunity, though... that just works. No fuss, no muss. No stun/confusion into instasplat.

Sunpa run's a terrible baseline for the usefulness of saves, though Which isn't to say they're not useful -- stacking them up is excellent for general use, if less so in outlier cases -- but I'd kinda' like the dual-system to stick around, m'self. Gives me something else to think about besides "Stack saves. More saves? Yes." That's... less interesting, t'me.

I'll be working on implementing grayswandir's third idea. I was going to overhaul the rest of the egos before next release anyway so this will give me more purpose behind it

Most stuff with immunity I'll probably replace with appropriate saves. Not the savior style but more like, if something had stun immunity and knockback immunity it will get +physical save.

This will let the player stack saves more easily and use immunities on jewelry/artifacts + clearing effects to cover their holes.