ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

ive been thinking about insane's difficulty lately

the t1s seem okay for most builds, though a few builds struggle with it
the t2s seem too hard for what seems like the majority of builds
and then everything afterwards is just too easy for most builds until high peak because by that point you have enough gear to oneshot most everything, and high peak's difficulty is okay

this problem seems to be more pronounced in 1.6 and 1.7 than it was in 1.5; back in 1.5, people had some loot pinatas here and there in cities that they could bash by drowning rare and randboss citizens
this made the t1s be easier than they needed to be, and they made the t2s, and especially the early t2s, be more manageable

at first, I was thinking that the dungeons from t3 and onwards should be made harder, but then I'd thought, why not just make the hardest part, which is the t2s, be easier instead?
what insane, i think, could really use, is some kinda loot pinata that helps you to beat the t2s, and especially the early t2s

this could be given in the form of adding lots and lots of extra vaults in the t1 dungeons, including even norgos lair and the heart of the gloom, which iirc, have never had vaults before

I'm thinking that all of the gear that you could get from those vaults would make the early t2s on insane be alot more manageable for most builds, and not involve finding in the first t2 dungeon, say, a randboss anaconda mindslayer that appears from around a corner on turn 1 and uses blindside and impale to lower your hp from 100% to 5% and leave you with a 50+ damage bleed and a gloom confusion right through your measly 60ish armor and 8% physical resistance, or a randboss venom drake archmage skirmisher that resists half of your stuns, deflects 1/4th of them, and deals 200+ damage on most turns

T2 dungeons definitely need some kind of rebalancing on Insane. Giving more loot opportunities in T1 might help, but ultimately I think the level/talent scaling for T2 mobs should just be reduced. There are way too many unavoidable deaths in T2 right now. You can engage an enemy then in a turn or two you lose almost all your health and be covered in negative effects so you can't even escape. You basically have to be playing an overpowered class or just get lucky to survive. I suppose you could survive by spamming Track and just avoiding half the enemies, but who really wants to play that game?

T2 is the biggest problem at the moment I'd agree. darkgod said that the next patch will reduce some of the dangerous T3/4 talents appearing on enemies so early, so some of the worst offenders, like being Fearscape'd to death with no options to respond, will hopefully stop being an issue.

I don't know that I would say the T3+ are too easy and high peak is about right. The prides can be very dangerous because the high density of enemies and people randomly teleporting around means you can end up fighting a lot of people at once. I guess this isn't a problem if you dig zigzag tunnels, but I don't think that should be a thing except on madness. The opening room of Rak'shor is in many runs more deadly than the final fight.

High Peak has been and still is kind of absurd. For most classes you will almost certainly encounter multiple nigh-unkillable stair guardians, and trying to fight your way through High Peak is generally a poor idea because in addition to unkillable stair bosses it's not THAT rare that you will encounter some enemy with 420 weapon damage who can one-shot you through 200 armor, or something else horrible. I think generally the meta is to abuse Track+Burning Star and fight as few people as possible, since you don't need the XP or loot at that point, and even if you can take most of the enemies, it's not worth the risk that you will get unlucky and encounter something you can't.

Honestly, making it through High Peak is usually more treacherous than the final fight. I can't even remember the last time I lost to A+E, but I've lost a few characters to High Peak in the past few months of play.

I'd love to see talent scaling in Insane (and definitely Madness) dialed back quite a bit and the mobs instead get more health and more armor/resist. Madness likely doesn't need more health as I see mobs there with 10k+ already! Increasing mob density would also be cool if possible.

I'd prefer if the higher level difficulties forced more tactical fights. Almost all my Insane and Madness characters are built primarily for damage mitigation as one shots are so common. Don't get me wrong its still fun, but it does limit play style quite a bit. On madness I almost always play as a ghoul now just for the Resilience.

overgoat wrote:I'd love to see talent scaling in Insane (and definitely Madness) dialed back quite a bit and the mobs instead get more health and more armor/resist.

More armor and resistance in Madness would just be a nerf to players using weapon damage -- enemies already hit 100% Resist All. ...and, as you note, adding more health to enemies in Madness doesn't really serve any purpose -- once enemies have 100k health, adding more is just increasing the size of the damage sponge which IMO doesn't add anything interesting.

visage wrote:More armor and resistance in Madness would just be a nerf to players using weapon damage -- enemies already hit 100% Resist All.

Good point. Weapon damage is already problematic for players on the higher difficulties. Its tough a find balance between 'hard' but still playable through the whole game.

Madness from levels 1-20ish is some of the most fun I have in the game. The unique mobs/loot really makes replay fun but you hit a very hard wall in the T-2 zones.

overgoat wrote:Madness from levels 1-20ish is some of the most fun I have in the game. The unique mobs/loot really makes replay fun but you hit a very hard wall in the T-2 zones.

Yeah, I get that a lot, too. My current Madness run got to Dreadfell and the first mob encountered is a randboss Dreadmaster that my character just can't hit, even with a Perfect Strike pick.