ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

For me, there are just way too many artifacts floating about. There are the original yellow sort of artifacts, there are these orangey sort of artifacts and there are these pinkish ones. One consequence of this is artifacts aren't all that powerful, definitely can't bring world peace and cure cancer, and some are even weaker than normal magic items.

So, is it possible to reduce the number of artifacts, but increase their powers at the same time? Perhaps have them becoming more powerful as the wielder gains levels?

So this way they would pose no choice at all, you're always wear the few possible artifacts beacsue they are so powerful
Welcome to nethack ! :>

Having played back in b36, where there were about 60% as many artifacts, somewhat less balanced egos, and no rares...

I think that having multiple viable choices at each stage of the way now is a good thing. It makes runs more interesting, and less easy to plot out.

Roguelikes are strategy games, and part of the strategy is dealing with what you have been handed. Avoiding the horrible "The RNG hates me and now this run is dead" feeling is good, and ToME does that.

But that doesn't mean it should, or needs to, lack the effect of strategizing around what you've been handed. Multiple options is a better way to do that than just making the same options always appear, which kills the effect, or putting it all in the hands of the RNG, which just randomly kills you.

My suggestion is that you relax. Many options have had a lot of effort put into them being good, relative to other options. If equipment looks good, try it out. If it kills you, you've learned valuable lessons about what is good for your build and character. But it won't. Probably.

I personally think the artifacts in the game should be a bit rarer. But overall I'm not that bothered. ToME is lovely loot-filled game, and everyone is happy about that :)

artifacts don't automatically mean "the most powerful."


It means ancient/well known to have power to begin with. The random purple boots you found that you used to save the world with would prob be an artifact 10 years later ;v

darkgod wrote:So this way they would pose no choice at all, you're always wear the few possible artifacts beacsue they are so powerful
Welcome to nethack ! :>

Well, it's not necessary binary you know.

Say you have a one-handed weapon and a two-handed weapon, but you don't always choose one over the other (unless you are a bulwark). Though now I have a few different weapons, and they don't look too different, at least to me.

That's a good point, actually. If you're wearing 5 artifacts, carrying 10 in your inventory, and had transmorgified 50 during the game, they don't feel special anymore. Not to mention those heaps of useless voratun junk you get in the East...

Looking back at my characters, I always have some artifacts equiped, with one having as many as 7. Artifacts always make me pause and look at what they do more closely than any other item, because they offer stuf that those items don't. To me, they're plenty special.

Artifacts offer many unique bonuses that simply do not exist on regular items. If that doesn't qualify as "special", I don't know what does

PureQuestion wrote:Artifacts offer many unique bonuses that simply do not exist on regular items. If that doesn't qualify as "special", I don't know what does

Totes wouldn't mind more special mechanics on existing artifacts that lack 'em, though. We just need a list of what could stand 'em and someone willing to do the code work

It's like... tooting the own horn a bit (3/5ths to 3/4ths a toot, I actually tried [and failed badly enough DG fixed it ] to code that one), but I really like the way the femur works. Or the vilespawn sword (even though I've never actually gotten around to getting that, and the spawns could probably stand to be either neutral or friendly), or the strength->attack speed one, or umbraphage (half-toot) or etc., so forth, so on.

Neat (and perhaps leveragable) mechanics, potentially in exchange for somewhat lower raw power compared to randarts (or even high-end purples or rares). That's what strikes me as an appropriate artifact defining characteristic -- it doing something unique, that being provide a talent the artifact's slot normally doesn't, or a unique passive effect, or particular stat boosts (such as affinity) that you can't get on egos or random artifacts/rares.

I really don't want ToME to embrace the "best-in-slot" item approach. The limited choices make character development interesting, and finding an artifact shouldn't win the game for you. Rare items aren't really meant to compare to true artifacts, anyway, and randarts will always be a crapshoot.