ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

I've been playing for a few months now, and I have to congratulate you on making an amazing game. I have a few comments about some of the new, and relatively new talents.

I just got killed in the exploratory farportal by a random boss with the new Shadow Veil talent that lasted 15 turns, allowing it to do about 150 darkness damage per turn. In the process I discovered that teleporting does not offer any defense against this, and summoning does not seem to cause it to attack the summons at all.

I'll skip the rest of the gory details, but it strikes me that the increased duration per point on this talent is actually something that would make it less useful for a player, since it is more dangerous to go longer without being able to heal or otherwise defend yourself. On the other hand, the enemies don't have to care as much about dying, so a longer duration certainly makes it more useful for them.

In a way, I think that the Doomed talent Vaporize is similar, although it doesn't have the same duration issue. But 40 cooldown and a possible 4 turns of confusion are some pretty convincing reasons not to invest in it for a player, whereas the enemies only really need that one big hit, one time, to be effective.

So my suggestion is to take a look at the talents and consider modifying them if their usefulness to the enemies is greatly out of balance with their usefulness to the player.

Anyway, just my two cents there. I feel a bit guilty about even nitpicking on this because overall the game is great, and it always seems to happen that any small disappointment I have with it gets resolved in the next version or so without me even saying anything. So thanks too for all the players who gave that feedback.

Dont apologize, the game progress by getting comments

I'm not sure I agreee with you on Shadow Veil, it's like getting a powerful DOT, deal with it
Vaporize is probably too string yes

Lee wrote: Anyway, just my two cents there. I feel a bit guilty about even nitpicking on this because overall the game is great, and it always seems to happen that any small disappointment I have with it gets resolved in the next version or so without me even saying anything. So thanks too for all the players who gave that feedback.

If no one speaks up then some things won't get fixed So thanks for taking the time to post

darkgod wrote:I'm not sure I agreee with you on Shadow Veil, it's like getting a powerful DOT, deal with it

DoT can be cured with things like Wild Infusions, Providence, etc, though.

I suppose you can stop Shadow Veil using anything that removes effects from the enemy, like a staff of corrupted negation or those ego gloves that cast the archmage dispel talent.

If you have summons or a golem, I suspect that anything that causes the enemy to switch targets would also work (or at least get them off your back a few turns.)

I assume a high darkness resistance would help, too, but that's pretty tough to get -- outside of class-specific talents, which not everyone can get, there aren't many sources of darkness resistance.

The extremely limited number of ways the player can deal with it makes it a bit of a pain -- none of the usual status-curing, status-inflicting, or escape methods work (unless you manage to leave the level, I guess), and healing, shields, HP, and other basic defensive options are often not going to be able to keep up with it when it's high-leveled. But it's not totally impossible to deal with of you plan ahead, and having either a staff of corrupted negation or a pair of gloves of dispelling (or whatever they're called) is a very good idea for everyone eventually.

Corrupted Negation hasn't worked very well for me, it doesn't seem to work in a traditional sense of simply removing these spells, let alone necessarily target a specific one. Shadow Veil should definitely have either a LoS or distance limitation in addition to any of the other methods listed. Especially if it's a buff on a monster that could potentially have half a dozen other upkeeps or spell effects on them simultaneously.

Obsidian wrote:Corrupted Negation hasn't worked very well for me, it doesn't seem to work in a traditional sense of simply removing these spells, let alone necessarily target a specific one. Shadow Veil should definitely have either a LoS or distance limitation in addition to any of the other methods listed. Especially if it's a buff on a monster that could potentially have half a dozen other upkeeps or spell effects on them simultaneously.

Hrm, it was nerfed a while back to allow spell save, so that might be it (it used to just remove everything automatically, which was ridiculously overpowered.)

Staves of Ruination got nerfed pretty heavily, in part thanks to my suggestion to check spell save on dispel effects (which I had really hoped would apply to Disperse Magic, and make Dreadmasters less infuriating....). The new shadowblade skills have been a nasty surprise.

Thanks for the messages. There would have been a few ways to deal with it that I could think of, but none that I possessed at the time. I had just gotten rid of a movement infusion and if I still had that I think I could have bought enough time with that and a stone prison item, but without the movement infusion I couldn't get enough distance to make it work. It was just frustrating because I was really focusing on defense (as a mindslayer), but had no defense against massive amounts of darkness damage.

But overall the game has so much nasty stuff in it (in a good way!) that I try to take the attitude that you just have to find a way to survive no matter what it throws at you. That's what makes it fun. I was thinking more from the player's perspective -- I'm not sure that Shadow Veil is a good talent for players. I have to admit I haven't tried it, but it seems like the kind of thing that is just too risky for a player. If you use it enough, you'll eventually get killed even when it seems like you've taken precautions. Especially if it's going to teleport you all over the level when you run out of enemies you can see (can someone verify if it does this?)

I mean, suppose you had a talent that 95% of the time killed everything in sight and gave you 1000 gold, but 5% of the time it took you down to 1 HP instead. You can't really get by with something like that in a roguelike game, and so I wouldn't spend a point to learn a talent like that.

To me, that issue of risk is one of the central ones that a roguelike game has to face. With one life, you have to play it pretty conservatively, but it's nice when risk-taking can be somewhat rewarded. If the only successful path is one that never risks anything, the game stops being fun. On the other hand, when the risks associated with a certain action are too high (like if Shadow Veil really is going to teleport you, potentially to areas you haven't seen), you're just going to end up with a part of the game that doesn't get used.

On another note, I'm happy that Staves of Ruination got nerfed as far as the cooldown time. In the previous versions, it was really effective to use one in order to remove status effects from yourself. To me, that's a little more of a NetHack flavor -- kind of ridiculous. I miss some of the other items having shorter cooldowns, though. You could actually get somewhere by relying a lot on item-based talents. That was fun because it let you break the mold of a class and have a different playing experience. It's really tough now to justify choosing an item with a talent that has 80 cooldown over one that just has better bonuses. On the other hand, I don't really like the feel of lugging around a bunch of items that you don't have equipped, just in case they are needed at some point. But I do it because it seems like you pretty much have to.

One last thing related to that -- would anyone else favor a change in the talent prerequisites so that you couldn't meet them based on item bonuses? It seems strange to carry around an item just so that you can wear it for a second to learn a talent, and then take it off.

Thanks again for the excellent game, and being so positive about getting feedback.

Lee wrote:To me, that issue of risk is one of the central ones that a roguelike game has to face. With one life, you have to play it pretty conservatively[...]

I like to think that adventure mode is the default permadeath setting for a reason, m'self. T4's just not really ready for roguelike, yet -- though playing roguelike can be important to identify balance issues. Right now, though, there's simply too many things that can equal instant death, which the player has no way of mitigating. Single life isn't something that copes with this very well T4's not your normal sort of roguelike and it's still got some issues to be ironed out.

Lee wrote:One last thing related to that -- would anyone else favor a change in the talent prerequisites so that you couldn't meet them based on item bonuses? It seems strange to carry around an item just so that you can wear it for a second to learn a talent, and then take it off.

Could tolerate that sort of change, but I certainly wouldn't like it, nor favor or suggest it. Especially with higher level, late unlock trees being considered for implementation. All it would do is make certain classes have to wait (sometimes considerably) longer before getting access to certain (possibly desperately needed!) talents, and badly limit the flexibility of certain others. I'm not exactly convinced that's a good thing. It's limiting choices

There's only a few classes that 'overkit' is an actual issue re: stat reqs, and that usually means that the class could stand some looking at (Arcane Blades, I'm looking at you! You don't actually need strength and your default 2hander build is utterly suboptimal for you.) more than that particular behavior (overkitting) be removed.

The real issue of overkitting is with sustains, right now, and the difficulty of having ones that update on the fly.

Frumple wrote:

Lee wrote:To me, that issue of risk is one of the central ones that a roguelike game has to face. With one life, you have to play it pretty conservatively[...]

I like to think that adventure mode is the default permadeath setting for a reason, m'self. T4's just not really ready for roguelike, yet -- though playing roguelike can be important to identify balance issues. Right now, though, there's simply too many things that can equal instant death, which the player has no way of mitigating. Single life isn't something that copes with this very well T4's not your normal sort of roguelike and it's still got some issues to be ironed out.

Lee wrote:One last thing related to that -- would anyone else favor a change in the talent prerequisites so that you couldn't meet them based on item bonuses? It seems strange to carry around an item just so that you can wear it for a second to learn a talent, and then take it off.

Could tolerate that sort of change, but I certainly wouldn't like it, nor favor or suggest it. Especially with higher level, late unlock trees being considered for implementation. All it would do is make certain classes have to wait (sometimes considerably) longer before getting access to certain (possibly desperately needed!) talents, and badly limit the flexibility of certain others. I'm not exactly convinced that's a good thing. It's limiting choices

There's only a few classes that 'overkit' is an actual issue re: stat reqs, and that usually means that the class could stand some looking at (Arcane Blades, I'm looking at you! You don't actually need strength and your default 2hander build is utterly suboptimal for you.) more than that particular behavior (overkitting) be removed.

The real issue of overkitting is with sustains, right now, and the difficulty of having ones that update on the fly.

What do you mean by arcane blade doesn't need strength? Sure magic is best, and dex is nice for defense, but you can get a lot of raw damage out of the 2h build and it is complemented by fiery/frosty hands and flaming.. Just wondering your thoughts as my level 26 arcane blade does about 70% of damage with the actual weapon...

Yeah, a 2-hander build for Arcane Blades can deal a shit-load of damage. Stunning Blow is a great skill when maxed - 160% damage and 7 turns of stun (with a cooldown of 5).

Grey wrote:Yeah, a 2-hander build for Arcane Blades can deal a shit-load of damage. Stunning Blow is a great skill when maxed - 160% damage and 7 turns of stun (with a cooldown of 5).

And that has been my experience. Stunning blow on the lv 26 toon I have was two shotting(around 200-400 per hit) the (elite) cultists in a certain annoying quest. The tough part was surviving until I got there...

It's pretty simple, really: With the exception of the 2weapon cripple tree (which wouldn't work, but could be replaced with dirty fighting), every other aspect of Arcane Blades is stronger with a dual-wield build.

Arcane Combat is more likely to proc (and can still double-tap, iirc), the offensive effects of the hands are twice as powerful (two weapons for it to run off of), arcane destruction adds an extra 50% in terms of raw weapon power (100% to main hand, 50% to off, as compared to 100% to main hand on a 2handed build).

You get better stat boosts and ego effects from having two weapons (read: Your non-melee talents will be stronger), and you're still getting, overall, more damage simply from physical attacks. 2handers scale 120%, and tend to have more raw weapon power. With a dual-wield build, you're getting overall 145% stat scale -- 100% on the main hand, then 90%(45/45) on the off, cut to 45%. The stats are spread out (str+dex, as opposed to just str), but that's little concern.

The difference between a 1hand's weapon damage and a 2hand's weapon damage is not appreciably more than 50% of a dagger's damage, especially in the end game.

Raw numbers: A 1hand'd mace's lowest weapon power + 50% of a daggers is only one point lower than a greamaul's. The difference in max is only four points, while the greatmaul has considerably lower APR and crit. With a sword vs greatsword instead of mace vs greatmaul, the base damage is matched and the max is only 1 less for the dual-wield. The crit/apr difference is even greater.

This is ignoring the fact that you can potentially get double the overall ego effect -- and stuff like warbringer's weapon power bonus will be boosted in a manner similar to arcane destruction.

Basically, a dual-wield build for an AB is better in effectively every way. A 2hand build isn't bad, exactly, it's just worse.

Ah I see. Thanks for taking the time to explain what you meant. Personally I'd prefer them to have 2-handed, or to at least have the option to viably do it.

It's viable (at least conceptually, we haven't had many AB winners -- there's precisely two in the vault, and the last one was in b28, a few months ago.), but it's suboptimal, and the arcane blade's unique talents don't really support it. Or rather, said talents support dual-wielding more.

I'd personally like to see the AB's unique talents adjust themselves to what style of combat you're using. The hands giving minor AoE damage with a 2hander or retaliation damage with a shield, as an example. Arcane destruction being more powerful (or giving <weapondam> resist penetration) with a 2hander and possibly giving extra armor with a shield, as an another. Arcane combat giving a damage bonus with 2hand, and a chance for a retaliation proc with a shield. Stuff like that. Open up shield offense and a dual-wield tree (flurry might be too much ) and they'd rock hardcore.