ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

I hadn't played this game in over a year and have returned to see some improvements and additions but some clear lingering issues, the Ice Archmage being one that has been inexplicably ignored.

Here are some problems as I see them.

1. Uttercold gives resistance penetration that undermines the cold-absorb utility of Shivgoroth Form.

2. Water tree... first, it's really just an ice tree with only one "water" skill. Thematically, it's a mess and its skills lack synergy (tidal wave pushes enemies away from the range of Ice Storm... brilliant).

3. Wet effect... a weird and incoherent recent addition. Why does it reduce stun resistance again? Oh right, because the programmers thought that being frozen should check the same resistance as being stunned because that makes sense.

4. Shatter... a nearly useless skill because you'll so rarely have the chance to use it on more than enemy at a time AND it's counter-productive given the ice-block penetration function of Uttercold. Why would you even WANT to use that skill in 99% of the chances to use it? That's right, you wouldn't and players don't.

5. Glacial Vapors... sigh, a banal and crappy ice version of Inferno.

Here are my proposed solutions, designed to work in concert:

1. Revamp wet effect: Instead of reducing stun resistance, have it merely interact with other Ice and Water skills by increasing their damage and chance to freeze instead of reducing the target's resistance. Increase damage by 30% for cold spells.

Make it such that lightning does 15% more damage to wet creatures and fire does 15% less. However, fire damage removes the wet effect.

Even if you changed NOTHING else, this would be a great feature. It would be intuitive and fun to play with.

2. Grant wet effect to the Hurricane skill. This would add a nice synergy between the Water and Storm skills.

3. Grant Frozen Ground a 25% chance to not just freeze to the ground but put into an Ice Block any wet enemies.

4. Freeze... damage and freeze duration increase when target is wet.

5. Ice Storm... increase chance to freeze and damage when targets are wet.

6. Replace Glacial Vapors with Rain Storm spell.

Rain Storm
Category: Water
Use Mode: Activated
Range: 10
Mana Cost: 16
Cool Down: 6
Use Speed: 1 turn

Rain Storm covers a radius 2-5 (grows with talent investment) area in rain for 2-4 turns (grows with talent investment). All targets gain the wet effect.

That's it. No damage, just wet-effect. It would be your opening salvo for all cold-based damage but easily a 1-point wonder if one isn't specializing in Ice. Would be a wonderful synergy for lightning mages (all lightning skills except Hurricane would do 15% more damage).

7. Replace Shatter with a nominally defensive skill called "Ice Wall:"

Ice Wall
Category: Ice
Use Mode: Activated
Range: 5
Mana Cost: 50
Cool Down: 16
Use Speed: 1 turn

Ice Wall creates an ice wall that takes up radius 1-2 (with talent level) and lasts either until enemies destroy it (it has set life that grows with spell power) or it breaks down, up to 6 turns (with talent level).

This is primarily a defensive spell used to clog up hallways and whatnot but would do damage to any enemies caught within its casting area and they'd have to fight their way out just like an ice block. The mechanics would be the same (such if you cast it over a 2x2 area and an enemy was caught in one... it would break out and it would merely reduce the wall by 1 square, freeing itself, but not destroying the wall).

With Uttercold, you'd be able to blast at enemies on the other side of the wall while they struggled to get to you.

8. Uttercold... remove the damage penetration feature entirely (see shivgoroth form issue). Keep the Ice block penetration as it's very important.

Replace "ignore enemy cold resistance" with all water and ice spells reduce global speed of target up to 1% per talent point for 3 turns. Have it stack such that you can keep a target's global speed reduced by up to 15%... even 20% if you're fast enough and continue spamming ice spells.

9. Slightly increase the damage of all water and ice spells to compensate for the reduction of damage in Uttercold and the need to precast Rain Storm all the time.

Wet Effect: While it does make a whole lot of sense for realism, the stun resist reduction is still quite useful mechanically. Partly because it means that there is a way for the subclass to deal with resistance to their main trick, it also makes it synergise with Storm, and allows emergent synergy with stuns.
Making Wet increase fire resistance for the next hit of fire damage is pretty pointless, and makes boiling steam self defeating.
I don't like a lightning resistance penalty on Wet, but that is because I'm biased against bad physics.

Granting the Wet effect to Hurricane would be silly. A stun resistance check to apply a stun resistance penalty?

Rain Storm: Not in favour of making a starter talent that doesn't do damage.

Uttercold: Instead of the 1% per talent point speed reduction on any Water/Ice talent, how about making it 10-30% but only applies when you attempt to freeze an enemy?

HousePet wrote:Wet Effect: While it does make a whole lot of sense for realism, the stun resist reduction is still quite useful mechanically. Partly because it means that there is a way for the subclass to deal with resistance to their main trick, it also makes it synergise with Storm, and allows emergent synergy with stuns.
Making Wet increase fire resistance for the next hit of fire damage is pretty pointless, and makes boiling steam self defeating.
I don't like a lightning resistance penalty on Wet, but that is because I'm biased against bad physics.

Granting the Wet effect to Hurricane would be silly. A stun resistance check to apply a stun resistance penalty?

Rain Storm: Not in favour of making a starter talent that doesn't do damage.

Uttercold: Instead of the 1% per talent point speed reduction on any Water/Ice talent, how about making it 10-30% but only applies when you attempt to freeze an enemy?

It doesn't have synergy with storm because it's damn-near impossible to afflict the wet affect on anything given that only Tidal Wave has it... or if anything else does, it's not clear.

There wouldn't be a resistance penalty on lightning, it would add damage.

As for "bad physics..." Seriously? In a world of arbitrary rules? Seriously? At least make it makes sense to people who've seen too many movies, right or wrong.

Wet effect on Hurricane... I explicitly wrote that I would ELIMINATE the stun effect on wet as nonsensical.

This is the problem Housepet... this exchange right here. You clearly didn't read what I wrote and almost literally regurgitated the same talking points as last year against a different solution like you're on autopilot. Apparently, you'll just respond that way regardless of the critique.

Why are you all so love with this clearly inferior presentation? Why are you so stuck on arbitrary laws in an arbitrary world? You can change them... at will. So do that, if it makes it better. Maybe my solutions aren't ideal but you all respond with near hostility to the discussion itself.

How many times have players posted about these same problems? Dozens? Do you read the reddit comments? Is anyone even paying attention to what players think, and I don't just mean me?

This is why this game will never progress. You're going to have all the same problems in ten years that you have now because whatever this mindset is, it acts as an upper-bound on the game's potential.

I really like this game but it needs to get better and it won't.

You know what? This was a mistake. I was gone for a year and I should have stayed gone and so I will.

Good luck.

Oh yeah, my bad about the Hurricane thing.

Your bad for asking if I'm serious after I pointed out that my opinion was biased and used a . Seriously, could I be any more clear?

I agree this exchange isn't working. You post suggestions on a public forum and totally flip because someone dared to post disagreement to part of it. What did you expect anyone to do?

I've repeatedly offered suggestions for trying to fix Ice Archmage and have made changes to it in my own addon, yet you seem to think I'm opposed to changes.

There was no hostility in this thread until you posted it.

i agree with you saying the stun/freeze resist check is stupid.
if you have to, pin/freeze would make more sense, or stun/daze.
stun/freeze just doesn't.

as for proposed solution... 25%? i think if the target is wet it should be guaranteed, but sure, what do i know about balance.

... housepet? ... storm does daze, not stun, the last time i checked, and they are not the same resist check as you know.

This is pretty much why I don't post my ideas to the forums.

yeah, some people unfortunately need to get burnt, to learn not to put their hands into the furnace.

Radon26 wrote: ... housepet? ... storm does daze, not stun, the last time i checked, and they are not the same resist check as you know.

Daze has always used stun resistance...

0.0

so its not a "stun/freez" resistance, its "stun/freeze/daze"?!

thats INTENTIONALLY misleading! it has to be!

why is that left out?!

I swear I've seen stun/freeze resist and stun/daze resist all the time. But never just daze or just freeze.

EDIT: My point being, I can see why it would be misleading.

yeah, apparently, if you just glance, its stun/freeze.

but if you mouse over, the tool tip does actually say it...

i still call it misleading, as you CANNOT notice it, if you don't make the effort to check.

---edit---
on a side note, this tooltip might need a correction, not entirely sure.

Resistance penetration is important for being able to damage some types of enemies. You really can't get rid of that and still have a workable element. You'd need to focus some other element to deal damage anyways so why ever use water/cold?

If resistance penetration can't be made to not effect the player it's shivgoroth form that needs to be the spell to change.

I've been thinking about the suggestion to remove the res pierce from Uttercold, and I think it might be feasible if you could get a reasonable resist reduction from the Wet status effect.
After all, you don't really need 50% resistance penetration at all times.

Couldn't self damage reduction be added to uttercold to offset the penetration? self damage reduction ignores resistance cap as implemented in alchemist protection.

Or on shivgoroth form scaled to the uttercold skill.

wildfire has self damage reduction.
in the name of equality!!! give uttercold self cold damage reduction!