ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

At the end of forest, there is another dungeon. The problem is, you(lvl10) go in and die(lvl25)

Me and others die there because in Tales you are supposed to do something counterintuitive. In all other rpg's i played once you enter a dungeon you are supposed to venture until you reach the bottom. Here you are not supposed to enter, even though you got the key. Leaving a dungeon, leveling up then returning, felt like cheating to me so i tried hard, failed and dropped the game.

One simple solution. Warning message.
pseudo code:
<start message when entering stairs down>
<check if level below 20 = write message>
message text
Warning adventurer, you are probably not supposed to go in deeper while you are still not expirienced enough.
You should head back and explore other dungeons first.
(ignore the warning and enter) or (hear the warning and do not enter)

or a more rpg-like message
You find a message, as you approach the stairs.\It is writte: Finally i found a way how to be a legendary hero. I will ignore all the little mundane fights with rats or bats. Nah, it is all waste of time. Trolls too. I will go for big game. Hah, this will teach me to be an expert in no time. Anyone who finds this message should remember, i was the one who invented the "speed training". Signed: soon to be legendary... (i will write a good name once i am back up, need time to think)

It already gives you a message if you enter an area above your level, although it's only in the combat chat, not a pop up.

It's not a JRPG, it's a Roguelike. Totally different paradigm. You just have to play more cautiously: Don't be afraid to flee, and always have an escape route handy.

Mewtarthio wrote:It's not a JRPG, it's a Roguelike. Totally different paradigm.

so you mean warning messages are a bad idea. OK.

Mewtarthio wrote:You just have to play more cautiously: Don't be afraid to flee, and always have an escape route handy.

... yet you give me warnings and advice. heh?

Rephrasing my initial post. I thought it is undesired, that a player has to find the rules required to play this game, through, mostly unpleasant repeats after death, rather then beeing given the rules and having the game harshnes delivered through fights with monsters. I may be wrong.

In this particular situation, many many characters can handle the lake right after the forest IMO, which is why it's laid in such way. Level 20 is way overkill

The Lake is clearly a different zone as well.

There is a warning message at the start as already.

darkgod wrote:In this particular situation, many many characters can handle the lake right after the forest IMO, which is why it's laid in such way. Level 20 is way overkill

I usually don't do the forest until after the maze, but then I always do lake as part of it. The only thing I've had a problem with is at the very bottom (as this isn't a spoilers section technically, I'm trying to avoid one, just in case), and that rarely. The bottom there is a little rough, mostly because of the lack of places other than stair-scumming to run to. I guess I'm usually about 14- 15 or so.

Honestly, most RPGs have large and random difficulty spikes, far worse than any Roguelike, with little to no warning, or even any thematic reason for the jump.

People just don't notice as much because you don't die dead there. But I could probably list off a few...hundred...examples. Heck, I think TVTropes has a trope for that("That One Boss").

Regardless, Lake of Nur teaches good habits-if enemies are overly powerful, escape and come back later, and as long as you win and don't die, any win's good enough. It encourages just blowing through the dungeon and shows that it's not the end of the world if you do that. Usually the threats are a few groups of enemies on one floor, which you can avoid.

Granted, some of the random horrors are too much, but that's mostly an artifact of the enemy generation system and sorta hard to fix. The best way to do so would probably be a lesser/greater horrors category, internally, and not include the greaters there. We have enough horrors these days so that that wouldn't be a bad idea...

SageAcrin wrote:Honestly, most RPGs have large and random difficulty spikes, far worse than any Roguelike, with little to no warning, or even any thematic reason for the jump.

People just don't notice as much because you don't die dead there. But I could probably list off a few...hundred...examples. Heck, I think TVTropes has a trope for that("That One Boss").

Regardless, Lake of Nur teaches good habits-if enemies are overly powerful, escape and come back later, and as long as you win and don't die, any win's good enough. It encourages just blowing through the dungeon and shows that it's not the end of the world if you do that. Usually the threats are a few groups of enemies on one floor, which you can avoid.

Granted, some of the random horrors are too much, but that's mostly an artifact of the enemy generation system and sorta hard to fix. The best way to do so would probably be a lesser/greater horrors category, internally, and not include the greaters there. We have enough horrors these days so that that wouldn't be a bad idea...

Yeah that sounds great