Getting tired of cheap deaths...

[rod]

First, let me clarify what I mean by a "cheap" death vs an "earned" death:

Examples of earned deaths:
- Generally getting overwhelmed.
- Opening a vault/grave/chest, without scouting ahead and/or having a good escape plan.
- Charging into areas that are way over your level.
- Not running away when it was feasibly possible to.

However, some "cheap" deaths I've had lately:
- Took my L5 Ranger into Trollsmire(1), and when almost done, got ganked by a L13 Skeleton Mage just wandering around. Two hits == dead... no chance to get out of range (L5... still building options!) And no, I didn't open a vault or something.
- L24 Berserker, open world, has Dark Crypt pop up. I've never done the Melinda thing, and understand if I say "No", there's no going back... so I enter. Only to spawn in a large room with no less than 5 corruptors and 3 warriors all within range, who instantly disable my runes, (so no shield or t-port option), and was already at 30% hp and disarmed. (note: I had been taking out corruptors 2 at a time without much problem, and any melee foe less than 12 levels above me was a speedbump)

Borderline cheap:
- Coming out of a Fearscape'd battle, where I was victorious, but am at like 30% health with many skills on cooldown.... only to be popped back in range of several casters which finished me off. In theory, I could have avoided this battle before getting fearscape'd, but it's not a given.


My point here is that I seem to be encountering several of these "no chance to win or escape" scenarios of late, which result in a death. When this happens, I basically get frustrated, and get more reluctant to keep playing.

Before rolling out something like "welcome to roguelikes", I'll point out that years ago I played more than just a bit of Nethack, and won several games. When I was there, everytime I died, I could point to one or more mistakes I made which lead to my demise, thus all my deaths were 'earned'.

Sure, ToME has the adventure mode, which nets you a few extra lives, but it's beginning to feel like winning ToME can come down to "do the gods of random generation give me more cheap deaths than I have lives?" rather than "can I play for that long without messing up?"

Anyone else get this feeling?

PS - I've been earning plenty of deaths. Those don't bother me the same way.

[Robsoie]

Sure, ToME has the adventure mode, which nets you a few extra lives, but it's beginning to feel like winning ToME can come down to "do the gods of random generation give me more cheap deaths than I have lives?" rather than "can I play for that long without messing up?"

I believe the Adventure Mode is actually how ToME4 is intended to be played and how it's balanced to with those many cheap deaths you can get with some specific race/class combos (some being much weaker in some situation than other).

And in my opinion , unlike the majority of roguelikes that use the "single life" gameplay, playing the ToME4 campaign under the Roguelike mode is in fact an extra challenge.

There are some other RL that use the "several lives" balance, by example Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup, that is much more "by the book" generic roguelike, is still having a Felid race that similarly to ToME4 will gain lives by gaining experience, to balance it with the lack of armour/weapon/wand and their related spells.

So in my opinion, give more playtime to the Adventure mode before moving back to the Roguelike one, i think you'll find ToME4 much less frustrating this way.

But don't worry, even with the extra lives you'll still die a very lot in the campaign

[Stition]

You'll need to die a bunch in tome before you realize how to prepare for certain things.

I also played nethack and recall endless bricks falling on my head and dying. Tome is no where near that. Almost all deaths are a result of player mistakes.

[rod]

Traps in nethack were avoidable w/ searching, which can be auto for some classes, or wear a ring. I also don't recall them being killer if you were at full health. However, except for the very first room you start in, there weren't any battles you couldn't run away from.

There also weren't any monster skills like Swap or Battle Call, which negate your very careful positioning in a hallway/doorway/stairway, and pull you into the middle of the crowd (especially annoying on levels that are just one big room, so the staircase is your only respite.)
Sure you can add lots of +save, but that only goes so far.

In the end, it still feels like winning is so... random.

btw, I am playing on Adventurer Mode, but I find myself deleting any character <L20 on first death.
I might have to just go Explorable to enjoy this game, but that's not really satisfying.

[Robsoie]

btw, I am playing on Adventurer Mode, but I find myself deleting any character <L20 on first death.

I do that a lot too, it's very rare that i keep going with a character if he dies before reaching level 20.

[tylor]

I'm pretty sure Melinda's is unfair by design. I usually opt out of it.

[Robsoie]

Some races/classes combo have it more easier than other in the Melinda saving stuff while with some it's near impossible, get a good summoner down there at level 24 and it should be enough to succeed, a necromancer too can do it, an oozemancer of course should do great.

And obviously, having very good resistance to the type of damage that is found a lot in the crypt, like Blight, is very helpful

Now sending a Yeek Berserker, assuming you miraculously managed to keep him alive until level 24 to start with, it should frankly be suicide for the poor yeek.

Usually you should "feel" if your character is a good candidate for the dark crypt, if you think he's not good enough or do not have any blight resistance, do not go there, you're going to waste precious lives , and the reward is rather weak for the risk.
That's something you'll figure out better with experience, after losing countless characters.

[HousePet]

btw, I am playing on Adventurer Mode, but I find myself deleting any character <L20 on first death.

Don't do this.
By deleting your character, you are missing out on the opportunity to see what you could do differently, and actually try it.

ToME4 is relatively gentle for cheap deaths, but since random is random, you get multiple lives.

Also, most of my characters that have won the game, have had an early death, then lived fine through the late game.

[The Revanchist]

I know lots of builds that don't do good at all until the mid-to-late game. That's just how they work.

In my experience, having "no way to win" is as much an error on the players part as anything else. Failure to recognize and prepare for eventualities is... Disastrous, and it shows. While Fearscape and Dreamscape enemies are horrible, especially for a melee character, there are still a few ways to avoid such things. It might get boring trying to make an indestructible character, though.

Personally, I find the possibility of a ridiculously over the top death to be a very good reason to keep trying. Even if I gets annoying dying for the nthe time.

[IvenGray]

About the lvl.13 skeleton mage, actually it's a vault without a door.

[HousePet]

I've never seen said skeleton ever wander out of its lair though.

[rod]

Tonight I've been rolling a new slinger in explorable mode, and been having fun, which is what matters the most.
The RNG swings are likely a bit too wide for me to ever get that hard core with the game, but the classes play differently enough that there's several run throughs to be had in this way.

I think the doorless vault becomes a bigger issue when one gets used to hitting auto-explore to clean up a zone.

[tylor]

I've never seen said skeleton ever wander out of its lair though.

Yes, but you usually run into it when auto-exploring. And his first hit indeed can blow off most of your health. If you don't have shield to rise next turn...

[Grey]

Anyone else get this feeling?

Yup, it certainly happens a fair bit. I wouldn't say the game is designed around Adventure Mode, mind, though I think Adventure Mode was added as a way to make these deaths less painful for people who didn't like a bit of masochism.

The problem boils down to one of unconstrained randomness. In a heavily randomised game you can put various restraints around all the possibilities that may be generated to ensure there aren't unfair situations. However if you put down too many constraints then the game can become much duller, as there is a much lower range of situations that can be generated. ToME has some constraints, but a lot of openness too, so you can end up with enemies that have wildly imbalanced combinations of powers or groups that can do a lot of damage very quickly. Put too much restriction on that and the game can lose its edge - you fix the 1% of unfair situations but make the other 99% too easy or boring.

Also a few unfair challenges in the game can help keeps things spicy and dangerous. You're always having to be careful in any situation, keeping in mind that many bad things can suddenly happen at any moment.

Still, if there are individual situations you think are egregiously unfair then do post about them, and perhaps some small tweaks can be made so it's not as bad.

[cttw]

I have survived situations that I was absolutely 100% sure I would die. So take a deep breath, look at ALL your options before committing. This mage I usually rush, heal while he is dazed, and then finish him off when he loses the Daze.