ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

So I just got the Caldera missions, and fought through a few levels, did the annoying wife dream a few times, got the mouse mission, and died because I got cornered with about half a dozen things following me. Appeared back in the swamp, cleared the rest of the area, went to the altar, did the wife dream again, did the mouse dream again, died within about 12 steps, and had a real death and appeared at the res-angel. I have no idea if I'm doing anything wrong, what the objective is, or why I die sometimes and it costs me a life, and why sometimes it just kicks me out of the dream. Overall, the whole experience is tedious, frustrating, and random. I've abandoned the attempt to unlock the class because I was having a great run on my zerker until I stumbled across the zone, and don't plan to go back until the character is a write-off (if ever). I love the game, but the entire dream thing just frustrated and annoyed me.

Using altar and failing dream kills your character. Why? I don't know, it's probably the biggest death trap in game for new players 'just because', pure idiocy. Anyone that have any clue how the thing works and wants the unlock just waits in one of zones (after clearing sight range of enemies) and repeat dreams till win in both, risk free.

that dream really needs some rebalancing, while in previous version it was too easy (there was no enemy) , now it's even possible to be insta killed from the very start.

Those dreams are by far the low point of the game. I hate them both with the burning, fiery passion of a thousand suns. So here's how to unlock solipsist so you can never do them again.

The caldera: There's 2 zones, one with lots of trash enemies, and the second with a "mind worm" boss by the altar. There's a timer near your resource bars. When that timer hits 0, you pass out and have a dream. Once you kill the mind worm, the timer no longer counts down. Entering a dream from the timer hitting 0 is "safe," if you fail the dream you only get taken to 25% health, and can heal up with no death. Entering a dream via the altar is "unsafe" and if you fail, you will die.

Lost Man Dream: The stone obelisks will heal you if you walk over them. Try to use them sparingly, as you'll probably need several once you find the wife. Just walk around poking all the.. yeeks... kill them, and heal up when you need it until you find the wife. Do damage, retreat at half health and heal, then go again. Tedious and un-fun, but reasonably winnable.

Mouse Dream: You start with stat points unallocated. Put them into Con so you get 2-shot instead of 1-shot. You have 4 abilites: Stealth (mostly useless as far as I can tell), Hide in Plain Sight which re-activates stealth if you get discovered and can't get out of line of sight, Evasion which lets you not get hit in melee for a few turns, and a Leap ability which you can use to hop past predators, if you have a clear line of escape. There are also shortcuts through the woods that are very hard to see with the screen coloring, that you can use to walk through walls. Sounds useful, but they're just as likely to drop you next to more predators. That's it, run around tring to avoid stuff until you get lucky and find the portal, or get unlucky and die. You can also start surrounded, which is even better. yay.

The best strategy is to clear a bit around a corner in the second area and just wait for the timer to run out, doing the dreams over and over until you win both, healing up between failures. Once you win both, kill the mind worm, ignore the altar, and leave forever.

Robsoie wrote:that dream really needs some rebalancing, while in previous version it was too easy (there was no enemy) , now it's even possible to be insta killed from the very start.

While I happen to agree (Had a discussion topic about the disparate balance in the 2 dreams) the other possibility is that the mouse dream is where it should be, in which case balance would dictate the too-easy wife dream be buffed....

Yeah, it's annoying. I'd love to see some sort of bonus that goes with clearing the dreams, like the wayist's bonus for saving it; so you'd have a reason to do it on future games. Maybe some bonus mental save? Passive lucid dreamer effect (to protect from future dreams)? Not the full sustain mind you, just the same passive effect to let you fight full-strength in dreams. That would help one deal with the possibly deadly dreamscape, thus encouraging people to WANT to do the incredibly annoying dreams (when available.).

Yeah, it's annoying. I'd love to see some sort of bonus that goes with clearing the dreams, like the wayist's bonus for saving it; so you'd have a reason to do it on future games.

No. No. Nonononononono. For most classes, once you've unlocked Solipsist the best course of action is to bite the damage and suicide early in the dreams. Why? Because the alternative is playing through them. Things are better as they are.

The mouse dream I could stand if it were on its own (it is challenging and provides alterantive gameplay to the rest of the game) and was actually solveable most of the time with good (not perfect) play. The wife one? Most overlong, pointless excercise in bump-attacking crud ever brandished in a roguelike.

Nivrax wrote:Using altar and failing dream kills your character. Why? I don't know, it's probably the biggest death trap in game for new players 'just because', pure idiocy. Anyone that have any clue how the thing works and wants the unlock just waits in one of zones (after clearing sight range of enemies) and repeat dreams till win in both, risk free.

Nah, the Vor Armory and Atamathon are worse. When the Dream Altar (or the Melinda crypt) kills new players, at least they weren't too high level...

I haven't find the Vor Armory too dangerous as long as you know to avoid the Room of Death. The rest of the defenders can be teased out in smaller groups and dealt with.

The Mouse Dream, however, is nigh impossible.

Mouse dream is fine; like those Doom Bringer pedestals, Caldera dreams are supposed to be hard and life-threatening, yet rewarding challenge. Wife dream obviously should be finished (I assume, current implementation is just placeholder, right?)

You know what to expect with the Doom Bringer, you can equip yourself accordingly. The mouse dream is way too random.

You can "equip" yourself appropriately for that dream too! Just start yeek alchemist.. and do not forget the golem (or stay in the first zone, until you finish dreams, if you hate exploits too much)

Finally beat the mouse dream after a long streak of no-caldera characters, and I gotta say it's really not as bad as you guys are making it out to be. Stealth is NOT useless, especially if you put your 3 points into CUN instead of CON, because you never want to be hit in the first place. The stealth is not a free pass however, and once enemies notice you they WILL chase you, but it can help prevent you from getting noticed to begin with. If you get spotted, the best way to deal with it is to first get past the enemies if they are in your way, use evasion to get past if they are in the way, if possible get some distance with the leap move, then use Hide in plain sight, which will drop agro and put you in stealth, giving you another chance to get away unspotted. If you can get to a safe area, rest up to reset the cooldowns, otherwise just keep running.

Another thing is, there are hidden pathways sometimes in the trees - they are hard to see due to the blur effect unfortunately but they will skip you through the wall and pretty much are a free escape from anything chasing you, not to mention a huge shortcut usually. Keep an eye out for them, I've only seen them going left-right, not sure if there are any up-down paths.

Anyway, the mouse dream is entirely beatable if you use the abilities well, sure it's possible to get random-screwed or run into a dead end with your abilities on cooldown, but it happens, try again. Personally I would make two changes to the area - first put a warning/confirmation of some sort on the orb, and second make it so once you've beaten a dream it won't show up again that run, so you don't have to keep redoing / intentionally failing a dream if you are having trouble with the other one. Perhaps make the boss hard to deal with if you don't beat the dreams first, but give an achivement if you kill him without doing them? Just an idea, might make redoing the area too annoying and pointless though if the reward of a random artifact chance isn't worth the hassle.

evouga wrote:When the Dream Altar (or the Melinda crypt) kills new players, at least they weren't too high level...

Yeah, those damned newbies and their level 43 characters. Good thing they're such a low level. Nobody will miss those.

So after reading the horror stories on here, I mostly ignored the Caldera until last night, when I figured what the heck.

I did the Mouse Dream on my first try ever... and then swiftly failed two times after that, before getting the Wife Dream.

Basically I think success in the Mouse Dream is way too much luck, and that my success was due to finding lucky mouse holes rather than any particular skill on my part.

I must be odd then. I usually have a hard time with the wife dream, but can do the mouse dream 3 times out of 4.