ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Um.

These things...may need to be looked at. Worms that Walk might too, as it happens, recent Lake Nur encounters with both had them chew straight through my lives with no real problem. The Worm that Walks does far more damage than it used to (and it was a respectably tough monster before - I'm under the impression that they weren't rebalanced to account for the new Reaver upgrades), but these Dreaming Horrors...in addition to excellent battlefield control, good damage, and a potent status debuff in the form of sleep, appeared nigh-invulnerable, with massive Psi-for-hit-points and some sort of tremendous damage reduction.

To be fair, though, it may have been my class. I was using my custom Phoenix Knight, so my big-gun offenses tend to be using dual-wielding (preferably, of course, with damage-on-hit effects) to trigger spells (damage halved), which have their damage divided among fire and light. Now, normally, that all adds up fairly nicely. But an issue I had noticed with the class is that one of its abilities that reduces damage when it gets hit seems to apply separately to each instance of damage, rather than the total damage of the attack.

So, it could be that that solipsist save vs. damage ability is coming into play against each instance of damage, which creates the apparent massive damage reduction, but I don't know for sure. If not...yeah, the thing's massively overpowered.

Also worth noting is that, for me at least, Dreamscape lagged horrifically (and is, itself, quite possibly overpowered against players; it blows the Fearscape out of the water). And since it dreamscapes you practically the moment it sees you, the already nigh-impossible fight was made all the more frustrating. Although I only lost one life to the Dreamscape directly, it was by far the worst part of the fight.

I wondered about the Worm too (though I've beaten the only Dreaming Horror I've encountered. At least that's what I think it was. It was new and scary, that's what I remember ) I had a decently high-level character shredded by a Worm that Walks. It pretty much ignored my damage. I think its summons are more resilient too.

And agree about Dreamscape. If I try it again, I'm going to see what, if anything, I can do with the visual and display options to speed things up. I was overshooting doors and corridors because I would get impatient and tap the key again to make sure something was actually happening.

Yeah, Worm that Walks are way tougher then they used to be because of corrupted strength. I'll take a look at them and see what they can drop to account for the buff (I like the effect for the monster but they'll need to be nerfed in other areas to compensate).

Dreaming Horrors have a power called dismissal which checks against every instance of damage and can be really good at getting rid of small damage numbers.

They're also opt-in encounters and won't do anything other then spawn a dream seed once every ten turns as long as they haven't taken damage. Maybe you damaged one from off-screen or maybe another monster woke it up. The dream seeds should act almost like a warning system that one is on the level, though they can spawn by themselves.

The monster description mentions that they're seemingly unaware of you. Maybe a gamelog message when the seeds spawn would help to make it more clear though.

I had seen that Dismissal power, figured it might have been at least part of the problem. Glad to know it was at least somewhat a build/class issue, then.

The dream seeds, for me at least, were an encouragement to attack it. Those things are annoying (and potentially quite dangerous; I got set upon by...I think three of them at once at one point, and one of my deaths after encountering the creature was when I got away, did some recovery, and got swarmed by a few of them plus some other monsters), so as soon as I saw the creature, I'm like, "Oh, that's what's been summoning those stupid things." And went straight for the attack.

I definitely think that if it's supposed to be an optional encounter, it should make it clear. A dialog message when first seen, or something. Or failing that, at least define it as a boss or unique. I looked at its code later, and saw that it's supposed to be very rare and powerful, but in play for a first time encounter, all I saw was a new random horror. Lesson learned though.

It's marked as elite. Not trying to discount anything you're saying but the elite horrors tend to be some of the most dangerous non-boss monsters in the game.

I colored the dream spawn message a light blue to hopefully draw more attention to it and reduced some talent levels on Worm that Walks to cut it's damage output back down a bit. I'm still waiting on more feedback on Solipsists before I do any heavy balancing but they'll probably see some nerfs in a few different departments so dreaming horrors will get some of those as well.

I'll cut the maximum number of dream seeds at any one time down too three as well (it's currently five which is probably to much).

Hi. I had nasty surprise on this dreaming horror from one wyrmic i played . and became so afraid of nur 3 from that.
Went in fought some . things found a couple seeds, then i soon died as i was swarmed with various horrors. . Imho the danger level of that particular encounter was comperable only to what i could have expected going into last hope mausoleum and straight to celia.

The dream seeds would move around and then surround me, much in the same way a shadow manouvres to prevent your escape down a corridor. I felt that they had attracted other horrors to my location. The actual dreaming horror was up at the end of a hallway around a corner, it was only a level 20 one. So anyway, just speaking up in support of em being reduced to 3.

I also nerfed dismissal a bit. Classes that rely on a lot of small hits will still see a damage drop but it won't be 0 anymore.