Which difficulty and mode?

[zemdu]

Hello!

I'm just getting into this game (~10 hours played) and am enjoying it a lot so far! I played normal/adventure mode and found it a little too easy. So I'm looking to up the difficulty.

My question is, which would you recommend for a difficulty/game mode where I will enjoy myself but still be able to eventually win the game with little to no spoilers. I've been trying nightmare/roguelike which is pretty fun so far (made it to level 14 with a rogue after I got past level 3-4, then died to a plane of fire of some sort).

I'm leaning towards nightmare/adventure, but having lives really changes the feel of the game a lot... hmmm...

P.S. I'm a sucker for difficulty in these types of games and have hundreds of hours into Dungeon Crawl Stone Stoup.

[HousePet]

I suggest not changing the difficulty yet, as it gets harder around level 10-20.

[Coldbringer]

Try to win on normal first and see how you do towards the second half of the game where the difficulty picks up considerably.

[Effigy]

I recommend playing on Roguelike if you want more challenge. Normal difficulty is fine unless you've already got some wins or you're using a really powerful build. Your build will have a major impact on your success, especially at higher difficulties. I've won Insane/Roguelike multiple times without even wearing chest armor, but I would still struggle to win Normal/Roguelike with some classes or builds. Adventure mode is likely to increase your success rate significantly on any difficulty because some builds are prone to dying either in the early game or during the final battle. If you go to higher difficulty, I recommend getting a win on Adventure mode first.

[zemdu]

Thanks for the responses. I've settled on normal roguelike. Having extra lives is just strange after having played so much DCSS. Difficulty feels about right.

[twas Brillig]

Be aware that the game is balanced around Adventure mode (i.e. multiple lives). If you get frustrated by sudden and inexplicable one-hit kills in roguelike, or otherwise find yourself hitting a wall, remember that.

[ADOMFAN]

TOME is not as easy as you think. I'm not sure which class/race combo you're currently playing, but some are much easier/tougher than others. IMHO, archmage is one of the easiest (or any class with a shield). So maybe this is a reason it's so easy.

Like one of the other posters said... Win a game first then decide on making it tougher.

I've won about a dozen games now and I'm ready for a challenge now. My next game will be on a tougher setting. That being said, for every game I win, I still fail with several characters. If a character doesn't make it to level 20 before dying, I quit and start over. I started playing the easier characters and gradually moved onto tougher combinations. There are still some classes I just can't beat no matter how many times I try.

So if it's too easy... pick a different class.

[zemdu]

I ended up switching back to normal adventurer. Those instant deaths from now knowing a certain mechanic are definitely difficult to deal with (fearscape, etc.)

I made a thalore bulwark and then got all the way to the final boss with only 3 or so deaths. Then I proceeded to die multiple times to the final boss. Didn't realize you could stop those portals in the corner by standing on them. I also don't think my char did enough damage. All three deaths and I only managed to get one boss to 80% or so.

Played offline so can't link my char (satellite internet and ToME4 don't work together very well).

[cctobias]

If you can win DCSS you can win this game. However I would reccomend Adventurer or even exploration (but I find 7 lives enough for the most part and keeping them meaninful is good). Difficulty, meh, do whatever you like. Don't bother with roguelike Insane until you feel pretty comfortable with why fast deaths happen. There are MANY and VARIED reason for fast deaths. It can be anything from being slowed a huge amount to getting disperse magic cast on you, to strange synergies on a rare+.

This game is, IMO, less brutal AND less fair than DCSS. Deaths can happen in rather whacked out ways that may even be impossible to deal with. However there is pretty much ways to deal with everything but they can involve tricks and a lot of preparation. Using things like telepathy, not tackling freezing boss without a way to remove physical conditions etc etc.

DCSS will absolutely brutalize most starts with corner ogres and random daggers of electrocution etc. But by and large you will be very likely to have some way to deal with those either to flee or to kill. In ToMe you can turn a corner and die before you can do anything, its not common but its possible. Hell you can die before you turn the corner if they are alerted to you. But in ToME there is no reason you have to turn a corner blind if you know what you are doing. And you shouldn't at corners, you should wait one back from the corner etc etc.

DCSS made a concerted effort to remove almost all divining because they have an emphasis on assuring there exist tactical options and divinging is incredibly powerful. ToME is different, sometimes the best tactic is the use a wand of clairvoyance from a corner and if you see something especailly dangerous you kill it before it can act rather than kill you before you can act (or buff up some shields and kill fast, or whatever).

While a corner ogre on level 2 is not exactly "fair" in DCSS in that is something would kill most characters on level 2. It is more fair than ToME in that even if you go through the door and are right next to the ogre there are various tactical approaches that can give you a good chance to at least flee. In ToME you can run into rare+base creature combos that are simply tactically unfair in a fight, skirmisher/archer bee swarms in Old forest may kill you with you completely unable to do anything in some situations. At the same time if you are smart and careful you can make it so that you are aware of them do creative things to change that, either through items/infusions or by refining your builds to deal with it. For example on Insane/Madness where running into a large number of extremely problematic and ultra fast rare+ combination is basically guaranteed, having 5 in Phase Door talent becomes incredibly valuable. There can be many situations in which you would simply die without it in there and no amount of being smart or good playing would change it without some other build or item based startegy that would replicate the same facility.

I have seen rare+s in Old forest on Insane+ with 200% global speed and 200+% movespeed, if that is the type of rare with high melee damage or hard hitting skills and you are low armor or not shielded you will just die directly after you move. Even if you ARE shielded you may die because you engaged something else and the bad thing was out of sight range but moved and attacked you twice before you could even see it was there. On Insane+ you could conviebably have a unique+ bee swarm that was a rogue/cursed be able to move at something like 600% move speed and hit you over 8 times(flurry + frenzy) before your "turn" could occur. ToME provides a number of powerful strategies to mitigate and counter these things, some are as simple as digging in the right places and using the right items. But in some cases you won't learn shit on roguelike at the higher difficulties until you know a lot about the game because you will have not even seen like 10 actions and you are just dead.



Also ToME is about character builds and you need to get enough understanding of the game to figure out the right plan. DCSS is much more emergent which is one of the reasons it is far more focused on how the tactics may matchup. You can't hope to plan out a really decent Insane build until you are comfortable with the various reason and chances for why fast deaths happen and how to find out whether they are near. Also on difficulties like Insane(due to vast amount more rare+) you sometimes just need a feel for whether or not attacking something that appears to be easy is not actually a death sentence because something fast or problematic is gonna come up on you unprepared. Adventure mode allows you to gauge this so that you can later play roguelike. Because on roguelike Insane, you can basically never allow this to happen unless you have really good escape options. So you either needs really good spidery senses or you need to experiment with escape options you have absolute confidence in to win on Insane Roguelike.

[zemdu]

Thanks for the excellent response. That's kind of what I was learning as I play. I have 2 normal adventure wins now and I'm going to try nightmare adventure next!