Too many elites, too deadly

[Nori]

Also, it's good to note that some classes may have inordinately challenging earlygames due to the new Rares, but that this can be attacked from the other end, and the class its self can simply be given better early game options.

The balancing may not be quite done yet, after b41, but what's in trunk sounds like a very good start to me, at the very least.

I agree with this. By level 6 you should have a enough options and hopefully some decent equipment to deal with the elites... Though I think they should give better drops... I've killed several in the trollmire and the best I've gotten is some poor charms. Considering how difficult it was to kill them it felt very underwhelming (playing as TW and it took probably 15m to kill a elite troll). Heck Prox is easier than the elites and drops great loot and gives good xp. I think this was mentioned earlier, but just wanted to reiterate.

[Angilion]

Well, I've had enough. The final straw was a rare Drem casting Fearscape in Deep Bellow. A L5 dwarf bulwark has nothing to counter that. I'm bored and frustrated with the early game being purely a matter of how unlucky I am with rares. May as well replace them with random undetectable traps that sometimes just instakill you.

On every game, I'm encountering rares that are more powerful than area bosses but give about the same experience and loot as a normal mob. Often 2 or even 3 rares together. It's not like the game was far too easy before (I still haven't won yet), so ramping the difficulty up by such a huge amount has ruined it for me.

I'm out until b41 at least. Maybe that will be better.

[darkgod]

So from the top of my mind for b41 (should come soon I hope) there are those changes:
- up to level 20 rares get a damage penalty (up to -40% at level 1)
- no rares will popup in the starting zone
- rares will drop "rare" objects; rare objects are a new kind, sort of like very random egos
- rares talent level check is fixed
- rares talent level check is doubled (to get a level 12 talent the rare would need to be level 23/24 at least)
- breeders/cloners will breed/clone as the base type, not as a rare
- rares do not spawn on "Easier" difficulty

[Grey]

Rares dropping rare items is cool - makes it a much more interesting risk/reward thing for facing them, since it's not just for powerful loot, it's for rare powerful loot :D

[darkgod]

yeah only rares can drop rares

[ohioastro]

TOME has an implied set of rules. You can accept voluntary challenges in vaults for better rewards. You know that the final level of each series will have a difficult boss with guaranteed drops. Other than that you can control your difficulty. These elites change the rules in pretty basic ways, and I'm not understanding the underlying motivation. In particular, it seems unwise to discourage new players by dropping unfair challenges on them in the early going - and I'm not seeing some of the more problematic issues addressed yet (multiple rares, summoners, breeders.)

[darkgod]

To spice up otherwise boring zones.
And how making sure breeders/clones do not clone/breed as the rare but as the base does not address the breeder/cloner problem ???

[Grey]

The breeders thing has been fixed if you look at the log above. Summons will also be someone helped by the restrictions on talent availability. Though I think perhaps there are some general balance problems with NPCs summoning shadows, not just elites.

As for the motivation, there is a problem of samey content across many levels, especially in the first lot of dungeons. The rand-elites help make normal exploration a bit more exciting, as there may be unexpected challenges around any corner.

With the upcoming tweaks they won't be encountered as early, and they'll be a lot less deadly in the early game too. Players should be in a much better position to be able to simply avoid them if they need to, whilst still having the option to take a risk at some nice rewards.

Regarding vaults, maybe they should all have a higher chance of containing rand-elites? Will help spice them up too :)

[Strongpoint]

For new players there are easy mode with no rares

I am sorta new player and early levels are boringly easy and same. (this and many no-brainers are the only two things I dislike in TOME) And I am very happy with the changes, rares really spice up the game. And rare items are cool, too. Because using same fixed artifacts game after game gets old fast (in fact i'd prefer more random artifacts in early game, but it's completely offtopic)

[edge2054]

For new players there are easy mode with no rares

I am sorta new player and early levels are boringly easy and same. (this and many no-brainers are the only two things I dislike in TOME) And I am very happy with the changes, rares really spice up the game. And rare items are cool, too. Because using same fixed artifacts game after game gets old fast (in fact i'd prefer more random artifacts in early game, but it's completely offtopic)

I've been playing since single digit betas and I concur with the above. The early game needs more spicing up and aside from balance issues I think random elites have done a great job with that issue.

It's a great concept, it just needs some kinks worked out and it sounds like Darkgod is working hard on the kinks

[Wombat]

For new players there are easy mode with no rares

I am sorta new player and early levels are boringly easy and same. (this and many no-brainers are the only two things I dislike in TOME) And I am very happy with the changes, rares really spice up the game. And rare items are cool, too. Because using same fixed artifacts game after game gets old fast (in fact i'd prefer more random artifacts in early game, but it's completely offtopic)

I've been playing since single digit betas and I concur with the above. The early game needs more spicing up and aside from balance issues I think random elites have done a great job with that issue.

It's a great concept, it just needs some kinks worked out and it sounds like Darkgod is working hard on the kinks

I'm in complete agreement here. Though the random elites are a bit too powerful now, I like the direction this is going.

[Postman]

- rares will drop "rare" objects; rare objects are a new kind, sort of like very random egos

Can we have option "more rares" please?

[ohioastro]

TOME is really a wonderful effort, and my cautions here are really aimed at keeping it accessible to new people. There is always a tension between pleasing the veterans and keeping a coherent game design that respects players with different approaches.

If new players run into a game where they just die over and over while they're figuring out the mechanics they won't stick around. Most people play on "normal" settings, especially when they're learning a game, because easy settings on mass market games tend to be utterly boring. If you add spice to the higher levels it won't impact the novices - and that is where the vets spend most of their time in any case. (To be honest, I think that it would make sense to go back to the "two introductory dungeon" rule and simply make players only able to access their own ones. That would cut down on the early game tedium for vets without a big loss for newbies - after all, there used to be only two such zones for everyone.) And even if you're experienced the new classes can play very differently, and it's nice to have some way to learn how to run them without being slammed.

You see something similar in the class designs. A year ago there was a pretty coherent set of descriptions of what all of the classes did. Now the wiki information is out of date, there are a lot of concepts floating around, and it's very confusing. This is another place where the desires of the veterans (more options, more complex, more challenging) can drive the game out of balance. I'd honestly recommend stabilizing the existing classes and providing clearer guidance on them over adding yet more. This is especially true because the existing ones are already quite clever and distinctive. Anorithil, cursed, corruptor and mindslayer are four that I recently played with, and all are fun and creatively designed. (Archers are now sadly lacking, but that's a different matter!) But even basic mechanics, like what 'telepathic control' of a weapon means, or how you get vim, are not easy to come by.

[Strongpoint]

If new players run into a game where they just die over and over while they're figuring out the mechanics

Isn't that what roguelikes are about? Die early, die a lot, learn from your mistakes

IMO, TOMEs problem is not that you can die easily in early game, it's problem is that it's too boring to replay dozen of characters that died in first few levels in a raw. It's not fun to do Trollmire again, and again, and again, and again, starting levels are just not random enough

If you add spice to the higher levels it won't impact the novices - and that is where the vets spend most of their time in any case.

You forget another thing, novice may decide that game is too boring and abandon it long before he gets to higher levels.

And even if you're experienced the new classes can play very differently, and it's nice to have some way to learn how to run them without being slammed.

So, you want early levels easy, then harder, harder, harder up to CL 50?

Don't you see a problem of this mainstream approach?

Game goes like this:

1) Frustratingly easy,
2) Easy (oops I died from carelessness go to step 1)
3) Somewhat easy but interesting (Bad luck, stupid mistake, go to step 1)
4) Challenging, interesting (Bad decision, go to step 1)
5) Too hard, still interesting ( Die fast , go to step 1)
6) Frustratingly hard ( Instadeath. "It's impossible to survive again that" , go to step 1

And this progression is universal, difference lies only in the fact that inexperienced players don't get 1,2,3 and the best players don't get 5, 6 (if they do, then it's a huge problem)

Both vets and novices will get frustrated, novices when they'll reach the instadeath phase, veterans when they forced to do 1st

In mainstream games that problem is solved by save\load (Imagine replaying half-life or other 3d shooter after each death) in roguelikes there are no such toolohioastro

Problem of the b40's rares is that they sometimes fall in 6th category for majority (if not all) players. And this is fixed

[bricks]

I really don't think a flat difficulty scale is the answer. I think difficulty tends to follow a sigmoid curve - starts out easy, becomes more difficult, but then your character's equipment and abilities start to outpace the increase in difficulty. It's unarguable (and unsurprising) that the random elites are often too powerful in their first iteration, but they are definitely good move for the game. I'd also support looking at the balance of certain early-game bosses - I haven't died to him in a while, but the Shade is always a frustrating encounter. Freeze is an obnoxious talent.