Do i suck?

[madmenyo]

Hey,

I'm pretty new to roguelikes, have played some in the far past and while i'm not very graphics focused the asci environment drove me away pretty quick. I seriously love the permadead stuff, still playing diablo 2 HC . What i'm really interested in is developing my own roguelike with decent graphics, i have done a couple of simple but popular titles and they work fairly nice. So after doing some random map generation practise i was looking for some inspiration and extra insight into the latest roguelikes. So i came across tome, wow super nice job on this, hope i'm not getting too hooked on this .

Anyway, i started playing, first as a high human rogue. Started out in the troll mire, got me killed doing the quest in the 3th map after clearing the first 2 maps. I had a hard time sometimes dealing with multiple enemies.

So i started a stronger character which are mostly better suited for beginners, a dwarf berserker. I can make it to the 3th level with that boss easy but i just can't beat him, i do clear the whole map and pick up every item. Use the resilance, stun and heal whenever it comes available. Tried this 4 times now but just can't get passed that boss, is there something i'm missing?

[Grey]

The boss there can be fairly nasty, and it takes a lot of care to beat him, especially in melee. Make sure to fully utilise your dwarven shield (Norgan).

For an easier start maybe try out a Thaloren. Your luck with rogues may be poor because they can be hard to start out, and require very careful play (lots of stunning and running). The more you play the better you'll get - just make sure you learn from your mistakes each time you die.

[madmenyo]

Hey thanks, from the 2nd time i was engaging myself till i was below 50% health then let norman tank some damage. one of us died each time and the other soon after .

But i killed the boss the try after posting (lol that always happens when i post a problem i soon fix it myself somehow). Anyway, i cleared that underground cave too, with that mouth, that was pretty easy . But are there any potions out there? How am i supposed to heal myself? Now infusion: restoration sustains but that won't do any good when i have like 600 life, then it's only 10%.

Should i put some stuff in magic and learn some healing, or are there other methods of healing except for resting and the one i mentioned above? Maybe i am missing something in the talent tree.

The game seems huge after i entered the world map, where should i head too? Are there any pointers in the game, or do i have to explore myself and flee when i encounter way stronger monsters?

[faustgeist]

I love playing rogues, but they can take some game-specific finesse. My suggestion might be to try a berserker of melee class to dig into TOME's strategies... then explore your fav class.

Some classes are def tougher than others!

All the best & happy Halloween!
~R

[madmenyo]

Yeah my berserker dwarf rocks, i'm almost lvl 10.

About the healing, at some halfling town i bought a stronger infusion for healing, since i didn't find potions yet i'll take it there are none and this is the only way of healing, except maybe spells.

-edit-

I also excepted a quest from a alchemist, but i can't find my quest log or where to go to complete it.


-edit 2-
Awwwww, WTF.... i entered that halfling town near that troll mire forest again. It had some clouds and i got the message of hearing screams. So i investigated, upon walking over the bridge i got shot by a couple of tornado's and take heavy damage. Immediately i activate my healing and start to walk back to the world map, but 2 tiles away from it i got shot to dead, how could i have ever anticipated this? Is this really only trial and error or was there any sign something like this could happen? I was really owning with my huge tree trunk from some guy named bill, and with the new healing i bought i felt invincible, at least at the places i have been so far. I R.I.P at lvl 12....

[greycat]

Infusions replace potions, and runes replace scrolls. This is the way ToME 4 is designed. The 60-point regeneration infusion that you start with is much weaker than the ones you'll find later on. By the late game, you should expect to have a 400-point regeneration infusion, or better.

Dwarves are awesome if you can get past Brotoq. He's probably the hardest early-game boss, and there's some luck required to survive him at level 3.

The storm over Derth is not random; it's part of a quest. The graphic changes to stormy on the world map before you enter. That's your warning. Surviving the lightning attacks can be tricky at level 12, so you should probably wait until later to save Derth.

[Grey]

In general it's best to have some escape option for when you run into trouble. Movement infusions are great for this. A shield rune can also work wonders for preventing damage whilst you either flee or kill.

Healing is only from infusions for most characters. It's best to have good healing infusions, especially ones that scale well with your main stats. Don't bother investing in Magic unless you're a mage-type. Another good tactic to adhere to is not taking damage in the first place, by disabling enemies, staying out of range / hiding till your best skills come off cooldown or making very careful timed use of shield runes. But even playing well you're gonna die a fair amount whilst learning the ropes.

You can check your active quests with the 'j' key. Alternatively select it from the Escape key menu.

[madmenyo]

So it's pretty much trial and error? Would most of you guys feel for somekind of warning, like saying you are "X" levels below recommended level to enter this area? It seems pretty harsh to have invested a day or 2 in a character and get yourself in a situation you can't get out of.

I finally tried the alchemist, i wanted to play an actual normal mage type instead of one with a pet(golem) but that option was not yet available to me. I don't like the ability to micro both my character and it's pet, it's nice that you can equip him and level him as well but it's just not the thing i like. Same goes for the warlock in WoW or the necro in diablo. Shame i can't try out a normal mage yet. I'll lookup how to unlock him later.

Now it's time to do some planning for my own roguelike, i will keep things simple at first but want to have the ability to get in tons of stuff in it later on so i have to plan it carefully. This project might be way over my head but it sure will be fun and an awesome learning experience.

[Grey]

There's a message whenever you enter a new level about how dangerous it is - keep an eye on the combat log. In general though keep an escape mechanism, because you will inevitably make mistakes you'll have to get out of.

You can play an alchemist without bothering about the golem - shove all your points into bombs and staff channelling. Not as good as the real archmage, mind, but you should be able to unlock that easily enough.

Good luck on making a roguelike yourself. Having made a few myself my best advice is start out simple simple simple. Don't care about planning for the future - your plans will turn out wrong and you'll have to refactor anyway. The T-Engine provides a pretty good structure for that anyway, if you're planning on using it.

[Frumple]

You can actually play an alchie while more or less ignoring the golem, if you really feel like it. Some folks have had some pretty impressive results doin' so, though they lose out on some survivability (especially in b34, in which in the golem is a flipping tank, as opposed to simply fairly hard to kill). Just focus on bombs and unlock the fire alchemy tree at level 10. Alch throws out enough damage with its bombs to get through a lot of the game just tossing explosives. Golem's just a nice little fireball catching bonus, heh.

As to the level warning, there's already one there, it's just not quite so translucent as to say "You are 10 levels below the minimum level of this zone." You get a little message when you enter a zone, which tips you off as to if you're under leveled or not. Note that 'underleveled' doesn't necessarily mean you can't survive, though. It's fairly possible to start yourself off in the Maze or Old Forest at level 1 and not die horribly, ferex, or bumble your way through Daikara instead of OF as your first second tier dungeon. Not easy, but it's possible.

Mage hint! Give a man a(n artifact) stick, or bundle of twigs and jewelry, and he will give you the dakkaclass. Possibly the second easiest class to unlock (after summoners), iirc.

E: Almost completely ninja'd by Grey *fist shake*

[madmenyo]

I know what you mean, before creating my arkanoid game i had a pretty large documentation written down, and most features in there where not implemented as intended or not at all. Still i believe a documentation keeps you somewhat on track and helps you to add multiple functionality for functions and classes. I will go for very simple but without documentation i will have to rewrite a lot as i progress.

[madmenyo]

Another question,

What does speed do? Since it's turn based i suppose it does nothing yet? Or does it give a turn order of somekind?

Also, whats up with the bows?
I started playing a archer and even when i find blue bows they are less good then my starting bow. Like this one it has 20% speed bonus but it does 20+% less damage...

[Frumple]

Run mouse over speed on character sheet. Most things have tooltips, heh.

Short answer, global speed is your 'energy pool', while the other speeds are the energy cost for those actions. When your energy pool empties out, a game turn ticks over. Higher global speed gives you a larger energy pool for you to work with, while a lower other speed reduces the cost of their respective actions.

The descriptions for non-global speed isn't entirely standardized, unfortunately, so things can get a little messy in figuring out whether stuff increases or decreases said speed. You can usually tell via context which it is, though. In any case, a higher number on your character sheet for any of the speeds is better.

[madmenyo]

Ahhh. so it's not entirely turn based. So if i have 150% move speed and an enemy has 100% move speed can i walk twice every other turn? I think i have already seen this when enemies catch up to me but didn't notice it was because of this. I'll take it every enemy can have a different speed?

[Frumple]

No, it's, uh, entirely turned based. There's a global turn, characters (Player and non-player) can just move at different speeds in relation to it, i.e. get more or less actions in a single turn.

But yes, if you have 150% move speed and the enemy has 100%, you'd walk twice every other turn, in comparison to them. You'd actually be able to walk twice every other turn period, providing you had 100% global speed (ghouls, ferex, have base 80% global, so they wouldn't move quite as fast.).

Enemies can have different speeds, yes. Most other actors in the game are more or less mechanically identical to the player. Every stat you have (including speed), they have, and it works the same way.