Time to Start Archmage Unlocked?

[Parcae2]

I remember that when I first installed ToME 4, which was somewhere in the early betas, I looked at the character classes and was surprised to see that my favorite class from ToME 2 - Sorcerer - was not available. I started a game as Alchemist, figuring that because it was part of the mage metaclass it might play like a mage, but it didn't. I gave up and didn't return to the game for something like two years.

Yes, AM is really easy to unlock - but a newcomer, just starting up the game for the first time, doesn't know that. All she knows is that a basic class - for some people, the only class they like to play in RPGs - isn't there.

For maximum accessibility, the game really does need to have the three basic RPG archetypes (warrior, mage, rogue) available from the start. On the other hand, I see no problem in having Shaloren locked to compensate. That race is a bit of a trap for newcomers, who are bound to assume from the fluff that it's the best race for mage-type characters when it's actually best suited for hybrids (and has a very slow start as well as a very difficult starting area).

[Frumple]

Giving a degree of fairness, from what I remember of the initial unlocks, it starts off with at least two of each of those archetypes. Bulwarks and 'zerkers, rogues and shadowblades, arcane blades and alchemists. The initial blaster-style casters are probably the ones that's furthest from a direct squishy-mage archetype, but ABs play fine as a caster in the early game (arguably better than they do melee or hybrid, honestly) and alchies are pretty mage-y, I'd say, if certainly more simple than archmagi.

Sometimes I think ABs need switching into the mage subclass, but the innate mana regen that comes from that does, admittedly, break theme.

Maybe the names of some of the locked classes should be provided? Or just reveal the names of all of them.

[Zizzo]

Simple addon that unlocks everything would be nice, too. S'pretty trivial to do by hand but it'd probably be nice to have a little addon thing so those of us not quite so pleased by locked core content can express our distaste in a more easily trackable method.

Aaaand that was the nudge I needed to finally get off my proverbial and dust this off for release.

[Ritz]

I have to agree with Parcae2. The first time I saw ToME4 some years ago I was really impressed and pretty much immediately hooked by the gameplay flow, unusual mechanics and music. But the problem was, any other class except mages repulsed me, I was just that kind of a player. Magic, pure magic all the way. It cost me a lot of moral effort to cast aside my views for a short moment, start the game with an alchemist and google the way to unlock AMs fast. But perhaps there are plenty of people who couldn't do such an effort, and for whom mages would serve as a perfect introduction to the game. Story or not, I still say, unlock mages for everyone.

[CaptainTrips]

Perhaps it could be mentioned in the FAQ under that question that there is a way to unlock everything now for those who just can't wait - with a link to the 'cheat' section of the wiki, where modification of the unlock file could be explained.

[Frumple]

Also an addon, now, which is probably considerably less trouble.

[Aquillion]

I strongly disagree with the idea that Alchemists are harder to play than mages. I started with Alchemists myself, and never had any trouble with them. The only major trap I can see is people playing a Cornac alchemist and going for the locked fire tree, but that's pretty obviously a bad idea if you try it once.

Aside from that, they have one obvious offensive tree where all the talents support each other, and all you have to do is invest in that, then make a beeline for the talent that resurrects your golem. They're the easiest class to build by far, mostly because there just aren't very many traps you can fall into. I mean, yes, you can't play an alchemist if you ignore the bomb tree, but it's made reasonably obvious that that tree is the core of the class, isn't it...?

Archmages, on the other hand, can be pretty confusing on account of their wide number of talents, and you can easily end up neglecting defense or spreading things too thinly. They're not a hard class, no, but that's mostly because they're probably one of the most powerful classes in the game, so there's some leeway for mistakes. Either way, I definitely had a lot more trouble starting out playing an archmage than an alchemist.

[CaptainTrips]

Also an addon, now, which is probably considerably less trouble.

Even better, then just a link to the addon.

I'll add it to the FAQ - if anyone thinks this change isn't cromulent, just change it back.

[madmonk]

Like various people in this thread I too was a pure mage player...

However I've been playing this game since the start (you'll even see me listed in the credits ), and I have repeatedly stripped away any achievements and unlocks I have managed to get.

By the second or third time of doing that I had gotten over my aversion to playing non-mage classes and by now unlocking things is kind of routine. I also play a wide variety of classes, although I will admit to concentrating on playing Yeeks.

It is not very hard to unlock the mage compared to some classes and since there are documented methods of unlocking them along with Zizzo's (bless!) add-on which unlocks things I see very little point in starting the game with mages unlocked.

As ever with these things YMMV

[eliotn]

I think the issue is not with unlocking archmage. Instead, Pyromancer and Cyromancer are way too hard to get. Please nerf pyromancer's required damage down to 500k, and Cyromancer's damage down to 125k to 250k (cold damage is rarer).

[HousePet]

An unlock method for Wildfire and Ice that doesn't require grinding at all sounds better to me.
A random event/boss/dungeon/whatever is way more interesting.

[Gamer-man]

@Aquillion

I feel like the problem is the difference between "easy to play" and "easy to learn." And also, "easy to understand" and "easy to learn."

Alchemists are "easy to play." Although you have few options if you can't muscle your way through, there are very few situations where you would have to, making it just throw bomb and send the golem into chokepoints.

Alchemists are "easy to understand." If you read how to play them, it makes sense, just focus one tree, and one stat (with con as secondary), and then mess around afterwords.

Alchemists arn't "easy to learn." To figure out, blind, what an alchemist does, you have to know:
Avoid visual contact with ranged enemies (unique to alchemist).
Intimately know and understand evaluation of all mage items, evaluating staffs by a balance of staff power and staff abilities, and evaluation of massive armors.
Understand evaluation of gems and infusions (unique to alchemists).
Have transmog chest (impossible without mod) or intimately know when to level up extract and imbue. (impossible without preknowlege)
Evaluate conditionals of adding up rare occurances, so you know how to evaluate out of tier gems on alright armor vs out of tier armor with alright gem. (non trivial)
Understand resistances to know need of multiple damage types (can be expected)
Figure out that golemancer is best left for later (trial and error needed, players like the flavor of golemancy may be stubborn though).
Figure out that the golem can be leveled up and equipped (alchemist only, trial and error is the best way to discover this, prompts to suggest doing this are subtle and may go unnoticed for a long time)
Take the time to know and understand a skill that does 3 different effects that was not on their original skill list (refit golem, maybe not bad to force the player to learn it himself, but is going to be skipped quite often)
Know to take the skill "alchemist protection" for an attack that never is at risk of damaging self (impossible to know because of the next line)
Decipher "Your alchemist bombs now affect a radius of 1 around them. Increases explosion damage by 0% to 28%" to mean "bomb radius increased by 1, explosion damage increased" instead of the stated "bomb radius is now 1 (it alraedy is, so this does nothing), explosion damage increased by 0% (so again does nothing). [seriously, does anyone think this description describes what it does?].


A first time player would probably pick shalore alchemist (TRAP), then look at the abilities, see "i have 3 choices, throw bomb for alchemist style, an unimpressive infusion skill, and a golem skill, so i can play this as an alchemist or an artificier, and the game recommends alchemist" (subtle trap, as the choice is more artificial than anything). Upon hitting lvl 4, they will see the skill "improves resistance by my own bombs by 20%.... as i've never been in a situation where i couldn't land a bomb that would hit the enemy but not me.... this just allows me to be wreckless......? i'll take golemancy/acid damage." [note, a new player is unlikely to look for synergy between skills, so even if the 3rd skill was written correctly, this is probably what would happen]. then lvl 8, they might consider "this skill appears to do nothing/electric damage/more golemancy, i want one of the 2nd 2 choices" (trap, as the radius increases is basically manditory from what i've read).

as for generics, they'd probably just go "invoke staff, i don't really understand this, let's try this, hey free damage skill, i'll max it" and will be pretty well off (people not understanding this was taken from several let's plays, i thought it was easy to understand). then after that, they have to decide between staff mastery (which isn't clear if physical power effects staff channels, or just staff melee) and extract gems (which isn't clear that all metal can have gems extracted, and that you arn't just removing "gem infused armors" of their gems) which isn't an easy choice, but at least neither of them will leave the player in an unplayable position.

sure, now that you know or have read this, a lot of this is second nature, but for a brand new player, can we really expect them to interpret sloppy writing, ignore flavorful spells, and figure out half a dozen mechanics that are unstated/understated and apply only to one very very specific class?

[Mewtarthio]

...Who plays an RPG-style game and doesn't read the entire skill tree? I certainly didn't think "Reduced friendly fire from bombs? Useless!" when I saw Alchemist Protection: I read the rest of the tree and noticed that the very next talent increased your bomb radius.

[Judecca]

That's a lot of words about alchemist that doesn't do much to address the plain fact that there are newer players who have done incredibly well with alchemists relative to their performance with other classes. I know for sure that I played an alchemist when I was very new and it was nearly my first character to finish Dreadfell, much less actually make it to level 40+.

You can break it down however you want (just as someone can distill something to a few words to make it sound overly simple) but they're incredibly accessible and very easy to learn even for newer players unless you go by the assumption that new players literally do not read a single word on any of their skills and do not pay attention to anything at all and learn from nothing and do not ever try anything or actively think about anything.. in which case, yeah, if you assume the absolute worst then you'll get the worst.

[Gamer-man]

"there are newer players who have done incredibly well with alchemists relative to their performance with other classes"

looking through, the same can be said about: Archmages, Summoners, Cursed, Bulwarks, Berserkers, and Archers. So effectiveness really doesn't do anything but remove A: people that arn't eligable to be called new players anyways, and B: hybrids, and for people getting past dreadfell with a character, that has more to do with the overall power of the character beyond a small handful of complex classes..

For reading every skill, you are talking about 1500 words, which is 10-15 minutes given seperating flavor from content and cross referencing. Given that the 3 quick unlocks can be unlocked by a lvl 6 character, we are talking about a character with a life expectancy of approxminately 15 minutes, reading (and remembering, along with all the other skills) about a skill you are very unlikely to reach is not typical. Add in that explosive expert's description describes it as doing nothing, and you get a confusing process most players would not be willing to undergo if that is what is expected of them just to reach lvl 6.

Another problem is that the usefulnes of a skill is dependant on how a skill upgrades, something that is not available to view until a skill is ready. Alchemist's protection might protect 40% at max level, or 100% at max level, and there is no indication prior to leveling it up. When you have to make that choice, explosion expert (assuming the wording is fixed), would say that the radius is increased by 1 and that damage increases 28%. Again, this tells you nothing if the radius will increase by 1 every level up, and the damage at 5 points could be anywhere from the 28% it has at lvl 1, to 140, in actuality it is much higher than that, but you'd never know that unless you put at least 2 points into it.

And finally, i included a long list of potential problems, not because all of them would be made, but to show how hard it would be for someone to realise everything on the entire list, because if they miss even a couple on the list (leveling up and equipping the golem, and not realising the exponential distribution on explosion expert), their character can end up crippled, and it won't be clear to the player why.

Remember, this is a game that hopefully will be on steam soon, how many players would pick shalore alchemist as their first character and think "yeah.... i'll keep playing this game," when there are 100 other free games on steam, or when they could be playing League of Legends. Considering those are probably the players that want to play as mages, chances are slim that'd come off as a good experience. In the free to play market, you have about 20 minutes to win over a fan, and alchemist isn't likely to do it, archmages might.