ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

The current values, 35 and 40, make the races a grind to play. If you want get to the final fight at level 45 or so (forget 50!) you have to do a lot of farportal.

If that would make the races overpowered, tweak them a bit in some other way. But I don't think so. I think they could perfectly have a XP malus in the range of 25-30. They are not that much more powerful than a dwarf, or a halfling for certain classes. And what is the point of having grind races?

The most unfair comparison of course is to higher. Higher have good everything. High HP, low XP malus and powerful racials. Then shalore, I think, even if they suffer from low HP, the invisibility works very well, the enemies lose track and (I think) you don't get damage reduction while invisible from that talent.

Sorry for rambling, but can we get those values to something a bit more playable?

Just to chime in with anecdotal experience:

On my skeleton, with 3 far portals done during my 30s, I reached high peak at level 46. I completed every dungeon except the one with my own shade (dark crypt), and that's including the Bearscape.

cttw wrote:The current values, 35 and 40, make the races a grind to play. If you want get to the final fight at level 45 or so (forget 50!) you have to do a lot of farportal.

If that would make the races overpowered, tweak them a bit in some other way. But I don't think so. I think they could perfectly have a XP malus in the range of 25-30. They are not that much more powerful than a dwarf, or a halfling for certain classes. And what is the point of having grind races?

The most unfair comparison of course is to higher. Higher have good everything. High HP, low XP malus and powerful racials. Then shalore, I think, even if they suffer from low HP, the invisibility works very well, the enemies lose track and (I think) you don't get damage reduction while invisible from that talent.

Sorry for rambling, but can we get those values to something a bit more playable?

Higher is actually often considered the worst non-undead race in the game and only good on gimmick builds that either abuse their first racial (for a free turn from Fungus) or their fourth racial (for necromancers and builds like the Steamroller Shadowblade posted). Currently, Shalore is probably the best race in the game, followed closely by Thalore, Cornac (situationally), and Yeek. The other races simply don't have anything that compares to how good stuff like an extra category point, Timeless, Grace of the Eternals, Guardian of the Wood, Dominant Will, Quickened, and instant summons are. Halfling and Dwarf, while both decnet, aren't even close to those four. I believe Shalore and Thalore could maybe have their XP mods shifted to 30% each and Skeleton could have maybe 25% since the inability to use Infusions is a serious downside, but overall, aside from the undead, most races are probably currently within 5% of what their XP mod should be at the moment.

I think calling one race better then another is highly subjective - the hitpoint modifier for one is enough for many to knock Shaloran or Yeek back down a peg or ten.

This topic is about the grindy issue assorted with Thalore Elves, Skeletons, and perhaps we can also throw Shalore Elves and Ghouls in there is well (At least on my Shaloran Berserker I only hit level 50 DURING the Final Boss fight). The game is long enough that the need to grind to be able to hit maximum level is probably not a good thing.

Its only grindy if you feel you must be at level 50 before entering the High Peak.
You tend to max out all the abilities you want by around level 40 and you would already have the best gear in the game.
Those last few levels don't give you very much.
The need to grind is only psychological.

You don't need to do the Starter Dungeons or Optional Dungeons or a lot of stuff, but doing it still makes the game noticeably easier nonetheless. Obtaining Level 50 is no different.

Some builds also tend to benefit from continued expenditure in the later levels as well. I know the Halfling Rogue I'm currently running has only gotten stronger and stronger as it has leveled up, and it hasn't been due to the gear.

I play skeleton's extensively and in my experience, I never use Farportals and I pretty much always make it to the end around lvl 45 or 46 by the final fight.

If you cover all of the side quests then the Farportals aren't required…

Of the tweaks and changes this game could use (not that the game isn't pretty solid now… it is), I don't see this being necessary at all really, in my humble opinion.

Well I thought there would be more agreement on this, to be honest. Oh well.

cttw wrote:Well I thought there would be more agreement on this, to be honest. Oh well.

I know the feeling…

I suppose I should ask, are there any particular builds that really struggle at the end sans those last four or five levels? Could they be improved in other ways?

If I may weigh in here, my experience is heavily skewed towards the early game. My furthest character, a Cornac Wildfire Archmage, has made it to the point of at-will two-way travel (and not very much further than that, iirc). Before that, my first character with whom I explored the Wildfire Archmage was a skeleton.

Despite having ridiculous shielding capabilities, I believe the XP malus was, in part, what killed me (though I certainly wouldn't advocate for removing it, just reducing it a tad). It basically imposes a much higher requirement, both for skill and luck, on the earlygame, where you don't yet have the tools you need to escape from or deal with deadly mobs/status conditions, etc. As a skeleton especially, being unable to benefit from wild infusions meant that in the early game, getting stunned meant I was lucky to be alive; if stunning put my escapes on cooldown, I was screwed. The xp malus made it so that I had to clear every single dungeon I possibly could get my hands on, so that I could level up to the point where I could either use Cleansing Flames to clear my statuses, or to the point where shops sold heat beam runes. At least with the Wildfire tree, you get skill support for clearing otherwise lethal statuses; I shudder to think about classes that don't have skill support to deal with this kind of issue.

Basically, I think the skeleton's significant drawbacks do warrant a lessening of the exp penalty. Thalore, I'm not so sure; I haven't had much experience with them (as I've avoided them because of their exp malus), but their racials look very powerful and they can use wild infusions.

malboro_urchin wrote: The xp malus made it so that I had to clear every single dungeon I possibly could get my hands on, so that I could level up to the point where I could either use Cleansing Flames to clear my statuses, or to the point where shops sold heat beam runes.

I'm not sure what you mean by the latter half of this. Shops don't generate based on your level, anymore, so there's no point where leveling is going to make one generate in a shop.

Well, unless that point is finishing Dreadfell, or something, for instance...

Judecca wrote:

malboro_urchin wrote: The xp malus made it so that I had to clear every single dungeon I possibly could get my hands on, so that I could level up to the point where I could either use Cleansing Flames to clear my statuses, or to the point where shops sold heat beam runes.

I'm not sure what you mean by the latter half of this. Shops don't generate based on your level, anymore, so there's no point where leveling is going to make one generate in a shop.

Well, unless that point is finishing Dreadfell, or something, for instance...

I'm not sure how many of this game's systems work, and shop item generation is one of them!
On my skelly, none of the shops I looked at sold heat beam runes initially, so I had to hope that they would after the dreadfell restock, or that I'd find one. Juggling inscription slots was also an issue for me, though that doesn't have as much to do with skeleton as it does with my personal preferences. I like having 2 teleports (one as the spell), a manasurge, and a shielding rune.

Skelly and Thalore are what I've got most of my wins with.

HousePet wrote:Skelly and Thalore are what I've got most of my wins with.

Do you do a lot of grinding on them, Housepet? Or is ~44 enough to win with?

got 47 skeleton before the final battle without grinding, 4 farportals, (cleared deaths room though, +3 levels) and after killing one boss got 50th. Donno what's you're not glad with!