ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Is dispersing Shield Wall the only way to deal with it as a Cursed? A Orc Pride random boss had it against my (b34) lvl 50 Higher Cursed, and I couldn't see any other way to deal with it, which would be fatal for antimagic characters. I had maxed Weapon accuracy and Strength and have decent equips for boosting STR/DEX and accuracy, but that only brings me to 146 accuracy, not enough to have a decent chance of hitting it through its 151 defence. I haven't checked out the forthcoming changes to Cursed, so this may already be addressed.

lukep wrote:but that only brings me to 146 accuracy, not enough to have a decent chance of hitting it through its 151 defence.

That's not so bad. As of b34, you'll still hit them 41% of the time, which, while not ideal, is usually acceptable.

In the current svn, if you have 146 accuracy and the enemy has 151 defense, you'd hit them 25% of the time (because it's a 5 point difference). If you had 141 accuracy, then you would never hit them (true for all 10 point differences). On the plus side, if you had 161 accuracy, then you would always hit the enemy

tiger_eye wrote:

lukep wrote:but that only brings me to 146 accuracy, not enough to have a decent chance of hitting it through its 151 defence.

That's not so bad. As of b34, you'll still hit them 41% of the time, which, while not ideal, is usually acceptable.

In the current svn, if you have 146 accuracy and the enemy has 151 defense, you'd hit them 25% of the time (because it's a 5 point difference). If you had 141 accuracy, then you would never hit them (true for all 10 point differences). On the plus side, if you had 161 accuracy, then you would always hit the enemy

The fight wasn't too bad, but if I wasn't wearing my cloak I would have had 131 (or so) accuracy, which isn't enough to hit at all. Cursed are far more vulnerable to high defence than any other class, which is the issue.

lukep wrote:The fight wasn't too bad, but if I wasn't wearing my cloak I would have had 131 (or so) accuracy, which isn't enough to hit at all.

You'd still have a 26% chance to hit it with 131 accuracy (vs. 151 defense), which is certainly much better than 0%.

lukep wrote:Cursed are far more vulnerable to high defence than any other class, which is the issue.

Agreed. I think this is how benli designed them. I once encountered with a cursed a Dread guardian that had multiple defense boosting talents, so it's defense was in excess of 200 (a very, very unlucky combo of enemy type and classes). It turned into a battle of attrition, which I eventually won. Heh, I think half the damage I dealt to it was "when hit" damage (and of course Life Leech)--so I had to get hit to hurt him

Hmm, it turns out I was completely wrong about how accuracy works, it's not nearly as bad as I thought. That being said, I'm not sure I like the upcoming changes, where 10 less accuracy than defence means a 0% chance to hit.

I agreee that a 10 difference seems like a too small range. I've never really liked that accuracy/defense was all or nothing. It makes it very unreliable for offense or defense and can feel arbitrary. I'd rather see a more gradual bell shaped spread.

As for Cursed, there are two new talents that help with accuracy. They tend to give good bonuses but are temporary and have to be set up to get the bonus. Probably in the range of +15 to +20 each at higher stat levels.

Dominate now gives a defense reduction debuff for a number of turns (about 3 -> 6 turns)

Stalk is now a first level talent that activates on a single target when you hit them for 2 consecutive turns. While stalking, you get an attack bonus that increases with consecutive hits and decreases when you don't hit. You still have to get enough hits to initiate stalking, so it isn't as flexible as Dominate, but it lasts a lot longer (40 turns).

These talents help, but it can still be a struggle to hit if you don't pump accuracy (at the cost of generic points).

tiger_eye wrote:In the current svn, if you have 146 accuracy and the enemy has 151 defense, you'd hit them 25% of the time (because it's a 5 point difference). If you had 141 accuracy, then you would never hit them (true for all 10 point differences). On the plus side, if you had 161 accuracy, then you would always hit the enemy

This can't be right! Snakes are going to be nigh-unkillable for new characters, and bosses like Subject Z... I don't even want to think about it.

There's a lot more to it then what tiger_eye said.

Combat stats are getting split into tiers and the higher your tier the more raw points you need to increase the relevant stat. At the first tier it's 1 for 1, the second tier 2 for 1, and it keeps diminishing from there (I think it's 3 for 1 at tier 3). In other words, 100 accuracy and defense will be ridiculously high numbers in the next beta and a 40 or 50 will be really good for most purposes. To give everyone some idea 200 spellpower converts to less then 100 spellpower in the SVN.

So a ten point difference in the SVN isn't what it is in b34 (and it's not even really a ten point difference, the raw difference between 10 and 20 is actually 20 points, the raw difference between 20 and 30 is actually 30 points, etc. etc.).

edge2054 wrote:There's a lot more to it then what tiger_eye said.

Thanks edge2054. And, yeah, that's my bad--I should have put a disclaimer on my comment above that I haven't really tried to understand the new saves system yet, so I'm sorry I misunderstood what I had just stumbled upon in the code

edge2054 wrote:In other words, 100 accuracy and defense will be ridiculously high numbers in the next beta and a 40 or 50 will be really good for most purposes. To give everyone some idea 200 spellpower converts to less then 100 spellpower in the SVN.

So the game is being rebalanced from scratch?

cttw wrote: So the game is being rebalanced from scratch?

Yep, it's one of the fun parts of the beta phase :)

Interesting. I am also looking forward to the cursed/doomed changes. Any idea when B35 will be out?

This really isn't on topic but I highly suggest everyone play the tutorial that walks you through and explains the new system next beta. It's a massive overhaul but Sus did a really good job of explaining it in his tutorial. It will also bring some interesting combat options that are also explained in the tutorial. The tiers have some neat effects on combat and are more then just a diminishing return break point.

cttw wrote:Any idea when B35 will be out?

One DarkGod time unit.

cttw wrote: Any idea when B35 will be out?

Too late. Its always too late. He should release every version earlier so I can enjoy them sooner.