ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

It could get marked done earlier, but I know I fell into it, and just watched a totally new player almost fall into it as well:

"I've finished whatever my starting area is, and I check my quest and it says to go to one of these spots!"

When it is actually kind of a not-so-good idea to go to one of those spots (and especially not daikara) prior to finishing 3-4 of the T1 dungeons. I do them all these days, and I think probably a lot of folks ...

Did a quick question in the chat and had an overwhelming crowd basically go "We do all the t1 dungeons for <Good Reasons>".

So basically:
Advanced Play for ToME is to do all the T1 dungeons.
Newbie play for ToME is to be unaware there are other T1 dungeons, because you haven't checked the wiki or forums, and you have a quest advising to go explore one of the T2 dungeons.

It'd be great to have a 'hint' quest for the T1 dungeons to help out guide new players toward the advanced play sooner. This way, even if they don't ask, they have a subtle prod "Maybe you should finish these before that."

I think it would be good to direct the player to do two lots of the starter dungeons.
Maybe base the first lot on race and the second on class. So Arcane classes are directed to the Shaloren lands, Nature/Psionic classes are directed to the Thaloren lands and the rest are directed to Derth Fields.

Maybe it should just give you the other t1 quests when you finish your racial one, and give you the t2 one after you finish those?

What I would really like to do is lock t1 dungeons completely after the first three that you enter (the one you start in plus 2), and have the quest suggest all of the t1s and just be solved once you finish 3 of them.

supermini wrote:Maybe it should just give you the other t1 quests when you finish your racial one, and give you the t2 one after you finish those?

What I would really like to do is lock t1 dungeons completely after the first three that you enter (the one you start in plus 2), and have the quest suggest all of the t1s and just be solved once you finish 3 of them.

Tier one dungeons could be completed by adventurers much like potion quests.

I'm not sure why? T1 and T2 are largely the easiest places to die in the game at present, since on both equipment and abilities there isn't a lot of options to deal with mistakes or bad occurrences. Locking out 3 easy 'get xp and equipment' dungeons to funnel folks into T2 faster would only make early game deaths more likely.

Good luck winning Insane+ after only finishing three T1 dungeons. Old Forest is already a deathtrap if you clear all the T1s.

I agree with the OP though. Right now, the quest objectives actually run counter to optimal play. I think it would help new players if they were advised, either through a new quest or a note in the Into the Darkness quest, that they may want to finish the T1s before going to T2. If it's included in Into the Darkness, the quest could still complete after doing T2s regardless of whether the T1s are cleared.

Dracos wrote: Im not sure why? T1 and T2 are largely the easiest places to die in the game at present, since on both equipment and abilities there isn't a lot of options to deal with mistakes or bad occurrences. Locking out 3 easy 'get xp and equipment' dungeons to funnel folks into T2 faster would only make early game deaths more likely.

After finishing the first 3 T1 dungeons you are overleveled for that tier and it ends up being tedious and not challenging at all. Skipping to level 3 of dungeons was introduced to eliminate that tedium, but it didn't work, because the optimal way to play is to clear everything. If tedium is the optimal way to play the game, that's a sign of bad design.

You should be within the zone levels for t2s after 3 t1s, since it's 7 to 16.

Effigy wrote:Good luck winning Insane+ after only finishing three T1 dungeons. Old Forest is already a deathtrap if you clear all the T1s.

First of all, from experience, I don't think the extra level or two makes much of a difference in that respect, at least on Insane. Insane gives you a ton of loot and xp and people get free xp and loot from drowning. You would only lose 2 dungeons because heart of the gloom is best avoided early anyway.

Second, insane is not the primary point of balance and making insane harder doesn't count as much of an argument against implementing something. If it ends up being impossible (which I doubt it will), then insane might need to be balanced differently, but it used to be five times harder than it is now and people still played it.

If we're concerned that doing more than 3 T1 dungeons is too easy, then why not increase the max level on these dungeons so they scale with the player more? I don't see how it adds any value to lock people out of these dungeons to "save them from their own tediousness."

Effigy wrote:If we're concerned that doing more than 3 T1 dungeons is too easy, then why not increase the max level on these dungeons so they scale with the player more?

It's certainly one possibility. Bear in mind that you would start seeing t2 artifacts in t1 dungeons more often, and that player would be higher level for all subsequent dungeons due to getting significantly more xp (and then starting the next dungeon on a higher level). I'm not in favor of adding power creep, as this game suffers from it too much already.

Effigy wrote:I don't see how it adds any value to lock people out of these dungeons to "save them from their own tediousness."

For the same reason that shuffling class points mid-combat, or farming ruined dungeon infinitely was taken out, for instance - if you make something the optimal way to play the game, players are going to do it no matter how tedious it is.

I'm not sure if this is the right way to do it, but the previous attempt to fix the problem (stroll to level 3) certainly didn't work. I'm open to other ideas.

One significant downside or this approach that I can see is that some dungeons might never get picked and some would be picked too often. Locking them in a random way (like the alchemist potions) is one way, but I'm not in favor of taking away player choice. It also doesn't make Rhaloren Camp any more likely to be picked. The mob types there are significantly more dangerous and the artifact that drops from the boss is not very good. Heart of the Gloom is likely to be ignored above normal as well, because of how dangerous those shadows get. We might end up seeing Trollmire, Norgos, Kor'pul over and over again.

The tier 2s are too much of a difficulty spike after just 3 tier 1s for anyone playing at a difficulty level or class they find challenging. If you think it's only a problem on higher difficulties you you've gotten too jaded to give useful input on balance for normal. For new players or people without the patience to sustain optimal play at all times normal is already insane.

For me, clearing the T1 dungeons is no more tedious than any other part of the game. They each have their own flavor and only have 3 levels each.

Atarlost wrote:The tier 2s are too much of a difficulty spike after just 3 tier 1s for anyone playing at a difficulty level or class they find challenging. If you think it's only a problem on higher difficulties you you've gotten too jaded to give useful input on balance for normal. For new players or people without the patience to sustain optimal play at all times normal is already insane.

The ad hominem argument is not worth responding to. You'll have to do better than that.