Rares and Adventurers, an open discussion

[XLambda]

Here are a couple of things that popped up during my last run. I'd like to submit these for just general discussion.

1) No rares in the Blighted Ruins
I don't think it's right to have rares in the 4th level of Blighted Ruins. Three reasons:
a) The Half-finished Bone Giant is already a pretty powerful boss that will pose a significant threat to many of the less OP classes. He becomes especially dangerous if he teams up with a powerful rare, such as a Solipsist or Archmage.
b) The player doesn't have the chance to go to a store and stock up on things that complement his/her weaknesses before facing boss and possible rares. This is an advantage that virtually every other race and class has.
c) A player should be able to reach the first boss without having to deal with rares, but not more. As far as I know this was why the rare-free number of levels is three. This argument doesn't apply to the Blighted Ruins - you can't "go away and deal with the boss another time".

2) Opt-out Adventurer Parties
More and more, I come to the conclusion that the adventurer parties as they are implemented now do not fit into ToME's concept. The main problem lies in the fact that there is no reliable way of avoiding them, so sometimes you do not have the choice to fight them or not. Here are some arguments made against them on the chat recently. I've added some of my own.
a) You can't prepare for them in the way you can prepare for a given dungeon or boss. Yet they are a threat comparable to those.
b) You can't run away - conventional means of escape such as teleport runes do not work on the main map, and once you're in the ambush map, you have to fight your way through the hostiles to reach the exit. Or RoR out and hope that they don't find you while you wait for the recall to kick in. This is only worsened by the fact that you can't leave the ambush map via exit with negative effects on you.
c) Whether you run into them or not is highly random. They might approach you from a dead spot or they might corner you, so you have no chance of avoiding them. This does not provide the player with interesting tactical decisions, it throws him/her into a situation he/she might have avoided, if there had been a choice.
d) Whether a character can defeat them or not is highly dependent on the player's skills/experience and build. Therefore, it should be the player's decision when and if to approach them.
e) The Dark Crypt and Bandit Tunnels -both of which can be quite dangerous if one is not prepared- are random, but allow the player to not go there, a model that I've never seen someone complain about.
f) Most of the players defending the Adventurer Parties seem to like them for their loot and xp. This would not be lost if one was able to decide whether or not to approach a party. I've never seen someone say on chat "Hey, I like being surprised by potentially game-ending enemies!" :p

[Frumple]

If it helps any, the suggestion that Advn parties be opt-in has been around pretty much since they were implemented. Haven't seen anything come of it, yet, but perhaps in the future. Would definitely be my preferred solution for the things, and both m'self and others have been advocating it to varying degrees. DG just hasn't gotten around to it yet, or at least I haven't noticed 'im stating he'd prefer it as-is.

As an aside, you can teleport (via rune) in the ambush maps, if you're right along the edges, usually. What's causing them to not function is not having enough space to get beyond their minimum range (which is a problem in certain other areas, too.). A movement infusion (or better, two.) can usually get you out before anything can get'cha, too.

[jinsediaoying]

Rares are not only appears in the 4th level of that ruins, they are EVERYWHERE(especially I mean the first dungeons) under Nightmare and Insane mode.
Although thats what insane and nightmare sounds like, but they literally prevent all melee players get out they first dungeon(unless they kill some innocent farmers first).
Those rares are even more dangers then the Master, so remove those rares from the first dungeon is a good idea that make insane and nightmare more playable.

Some of my experience:
One time I started an insane ghoul corruptor, and it take me 3 hours to get out the ruins, and I killed 12 rares during that.
So the conculsion is that non spell user undead have no possibility to get out their first dungeon under nightmare and insane.
Dwarf have the same issue.

Also I suggest to change leveling system of nightmare, because at the beginning, nightmare and insane have no big different, which leads to problem above: no melee undeads and dwarfs could get out there first dungeon. A level 1 skeleton berserker have no chance against a bunch of level 11-14 skeleton archers, warriors, and mages (especially under that 2 radius light).

[jinsediaoying]

About the adventure groups
Under insane mode, they are INVINCIBLE, as strong as the final bosses, but I still fled from the terrible fate of deleting my charactor many times.
And under normal, they actually pretty weak.

The true problem of those adventure group is that is you dead inside, you CANNOT teleport to the world map, so if you failed to flee, you probably have to start a new one.

[magelike]

How about we allow the player to opt out by way of the adventurers demanding gold and/or a random item from his inventory when the player bumps into them. The item should be added to one of the adventurer's inventory so the player can eventually get it back should he end up fighting that party later on. When the player pays the toll, set that party to neutral. Any future bumping would pop open a chat dialogue asking the player if he wants to ignore or attack them.

With that change, maybe we could buff the adventurers in order to mitigate the opportunity for the player to farm the parties when he feels he's finally prepared to take them on.

[5k17]

How about we allow the player to opt out by way of the adventurers demanding gold and/or a random item from his inventory when the player bumps into them.

I dislike the item solution; it would just lead to players that don't want to fight adventurers hoarding junk. Gold would be better, but would still disadvantage characters too weak to fight them.

Not directly related to the problem, adventurer parties seem rather weird conceptually. Why do adventurers always travel in parties, but the player character doesn't? Why don't they attack each other, but everyone else? Where do they get all those artifacts and ingredients from when I never see them in dungeons?

[Frumple]

Probably from the patrols, and the adventurers who murder folks like you. Cities equip the patrols, advn parties murder the patrols and steal their loot, patrols get sent out again, occasionally kill an advn party and collect their loot, then get killed bring the kit back into advn party circulation, rinse, repeat, etc., so forth, so on.

S'also possible they've got endlessly repeating pop-up mini-quests ala trapped! or the dark crypt, and they're getting loot that way. Or just coming out of the dungeons equipped... they do generate near zone entrances on the world map, after all...

[Zizzo]

2) Opt-out Adventurer Parties
More and more, I come to the conclusion that the adventurer parties as they are implemented now do not fit into ToME's concept. The main problem lies in the fact that there is no reliable way of avoiding them, so sometimes you do not have the choice to fight them or not.

I've got an addon for that.

[Grey]

My suggestion:

1. Make adventurer parties and orc patrols move with 75% speed on the world map. Note that currently wearing boots of speed makes the parties way easier to deal with as you can reliably avoid them.

2. Double the size of the encounter maps so you can make better use of teleport runes and wide space class abilities. At the moment your tactical options are very restricted on those small encounter maps.

[supermini]

My suggestion:

1. Make adventurer parties and orc patrols move with 75% speed on the world map. Note that currently wearing boots of speed makes the parties way easier to deal with as you can reliably avoid them.

2. Double the size of the encounter maps so you can make better use of teleport runes and wide space class abilities. At the moment your tactical options are very restricted on those small encounter maps.

+1 to both. Not sure if orc patrols need slowing though.

[darkgod]

done

[Mewtarthio]

Not directly related to the problem, adventurer parties seem rather weird conceptually. Why do adventurers always travel in parties, but the player character doesn't? Why don't they attack each other, but everyone else? Where do they get all those artifacts and ingredients from when I never see them in dungeons?

Strictly speaking, you do see adventurers in dungeons. Half-dead ones that need to be dragged to the closest recall portal. You don't feel quite so bad about shipping them to Zigur anymore, do you?

More seriously: Adventurers travel in parties for the same reason that orcs have massive armies: Most people work in groups when they want to get something done. The PC is something of an anomaly; the average person, even the average elite person, does not slaughter entire sapient races single-handedly. Adventurers avoid fighting each other because that's too risky. The PC is just one person loaded down with shinies, and poses a tempting target; other adventuring parties have a chance of fighting back (presumably, it's the patrols that attack the adventurers, not the other way around, in order to make the roads safer). Adventurers do go into dungeons, but you never get to visit those dungeons yourself. There are more dungeons in Eyal than the ones that show up on the map; you're just able to see the ones that the PC can reliably find.