ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Everyone who plays the doomed class a lot, has seen this happen, I'm sure of it:
Often, when fights get heated, and escorts, allies or your hero end up being frozen, shadows don't pick a new target, after the iceblock is destroyed or purged. This can easily lead to death, due to their high damage output! Another weird thing is, that when allies of all kinds accidently hit a shadow during a fight, the shadows converge on that particular ally and beat the crap out of them. While this doesn't sound so bad, if you think of disposable allies like certain spiders from a certain egg sack, it IS game-breaking when that particular ally is one of the community's favorite friends: an escort. Losing an escort because of some friendly fire or even for no reason at all (it happened to me on an alchemist; he did not suffer from being frozen, nor was he even able to attack my shadows with his channel staff talent, still, my shadows thought it right to obliterate him).
This also happened to a certain elven mage in a certain magic-despising village
and another certain elven mage, facing a certain orc in an unremarkable cave

While I really, really, really love my shadows and they make up for all the things the doomed class lacks, this is a problem.
They literally kill people while i'm resting and even worse: they don't make them hostile to me, which means, that I don't even gain anything from their shenanigans!!!

Also they sometimes randomly blindside your hero for no apparent reason...

Pixie wrote:and another certain elven mage, facing a certain orc in an unremarkable cave

to be fair, that one would die either way. Because player. Because adventurer. Because loot.

I believe you since a lot of players do stuff like that but I never drowned townsfolk, nor did I kill any non-hostile but myssil (and i only did that if I was anti-magic and had no other way to oppose her in a story-friendly way)
so she would at least have lived on in my games!!!
But not this time, because my lazy shadows that blindside my buttocks to get to me faster or have better things to do like smelling flowers or killing each other, thought it right to beat her up while I rested.

ALSO her loot wasn't worth anything!!! Poor her, poor me!!!

I never did understand the whole drowning thing. If people want to play on a harder difficulty, why use (basically an exploit) and drown NPCs?

Doesn't it defeat the whole purpose of playing on a harder difficulty, by exploiting the friendly AI mechanic to stand there and let itself get drowned?

Just doesn't make sense. *shrugs*

that's because early game is badly balanced?
from what i heard, the levels on the higher are something like +6 and 50%, or something like that.
you see, extra 50% scaling for enemy levels, can be dealt with. however, the +6 is... have you ever been killed by the random level 30 naga myrmidon?
imagine entire level filed with those.

normally, you could perhaps leave the level, do everything else, and then comeback... maybe level 22? still below, but doable.
not so much when you are level 1, and currently attempting THE easiest level in the game.

otherwise, they can so they do.

what was the saying again... "if you aren't cheating, you are not trying".

and no i am suggesting addons. there is difference between abusing all the tools intentionally or otherwise given to you, and adding new tools.

insane early game is just really annoying with no levels and minimal gear (starting gold gets you a weapon, armor and infusions if you buy the cheapest ones possible which isn't great) so the two real options are buy mindblast torque from zigur and spam that, or drown NPCs to get to a good enough starting level/gear. guess which one is less tedious


e: it's not really an exploit unless you consider things like "when you hit things with a weapon they die" as exploiting the game's systems

Radon26 wrote:that's because early game is badly balanced?
from what i heard, the levels on the higher are something like +6 and 50%, or something like that.
you see, extra 50% scaling for enemy levels, can be dealt with. however, the +6 is... have you ever been killed by the random level 30 naga myrmidon?
imagine entire level filed with those.

normally, you could perhaps leave the level, do everything else, and then comeback... maybe level 22? still below, but doable.
not so much when you are level 1, and currently attempting THE easiest level in the game.

otherwise, they can so they do.

what was the saying again... "if you aren't cheating, you are not trying".

and no i am suggesting addons. there is difference between abusing all the tools intentionally or otherwise given to you, and adding new tools.

It sounds like you don't even know yourself, you're just grasping at straws. Also, when you are on the difficulty selection screen, it says the difficulties beyond normal are unfair itself.

If it's meant to be unfair, doesn't mean it's up to the player to exploit the AI mechanics, one would think balance should be addressed.

ster wrote: e: it's not really an exploit unless you consider things like "when you hit things with a weapon they die" as exploiting the game's systems

Come on, that doesn't even make sense. How is comparing using your combat prowess to fell an enemy anything like drowning an NPC not smart enough to move away?

Drowning only helps you at the very start, it doesn't matter most of the game. Basically padding against the rng so you don't have to restart a character too often