Overpowered random enemies

[Mankeli]

No.

Just no.

I'm a vet here too, but TOME has a philosophy that means something. And that philosophy includes rejecting cheap and unavoidable deaths.

The rares are flatly unbalanced, and this can even happen on normal difficulty. Fix them or warn people; either works. Doing nothing is doing harm to the game.

^This pretty much. I don't know what game people are playing here but the effective one-shotting does happen even on normal. Also I'm completely lost on how the rarity of one-shotting somehow justifies it: "It's rare" doesn't make it alright, it just makes it less of an issue than if it was more common.

By effective one-shotting I mean (especially) invisible/out-of-los monsters hitting your character for 80-100 % of full HP damage + status effects before you even know that there is a monster anywhere near you/or can react in any way or form. It doesn't necessarily kill your character outright -but on some cases it might as well.

I just lost a level 35 character on normal roguelike because of an invisible orc grandmaster assassin doomed rare. That rare hit my character for over 850 points of damage in one turn out of nowhere. I couldn't see the orc at all before the attack even when I had invested in heightened senses and piercing sight only to counter this kind of things from happening but it didn't work out too well. I also had umphrage so that this character couldn't be sniped from out-of-los.

After that one hit my character was left with something like 100 health so technically my character wasn't one-shotted. However, if you lose 70 % of your health (my character was near full hp but not quite there at the time) + your retribution shield + knockback + possibly gain character murdering status effects then your chances of survival take a pretty big hit especially when I still even couldn't see where that orc was. My character died after doing an emergency escape to other monsters.

So yeah, it's bad and now the last two midgame characters I've lost have been because of reasons I consider no fault of mine: first was because of a bug and the second one was this mega rare. This is not fun.

I'm sure someone will want to argue that one could always get more + see invisible and + see stealth. However, investing in skills you don't really need to survive 99.99 % percent of the time (at least on normal) only because they might save your characer in situations that happen once in X number of games is bad. Really bad. Especially since I had invested in them.

[joelsdaman1]

I totally agree. They badly need rebalancing.

[HousePet]

And if people don't report what combinations are doing effective one hit kills, it won't happen.

[Zizzo]

I keep saying it, folks: use the No Rare Monsters addon. I still think rare monsters should have been an optional "challenge" addon from the very beginning, like Half XP or Double NPC Life, instead of a default feature of the game.

[nogardark]

I think the discussion needs to be more centered, I think the problem is not the rares but the balance of the game, it is very frustrating to play some classes versus the "overpowered rares", mostly melee classes, nerfing a little this early rares will make the game less frustrating for certain classes allowing more variety in the game, as bpat said every enemy is manageable( with enough experience and the right tools), but one of the goals of the game should be to allow diversity in the gameplay by allowing more classes to thrive in higher difficulty conditions.

rares are not superfluous to the game, once you beat it, you will learn the skillset of the bosses and can prepare accordingly(yes there is insane and beyond) for each encounter, rares allow a level of uncertainty which keeps the game fresh and demands your attention for every step you make.

[Mankeli]

I keep saying it, folks: use the No Rare Monsters addon. I still think rare monsters should have been an optional "challenge" addon from the very beginning, like Half XP or Double NPC Life, instead of a default feature of the game.

Interesting, I kind of like rares though when they don't instakill your character...

...and it also seems that even the non-random ones can be pretty frustrating: http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=40725 and http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=40108

Sooo, maybe a no rares, no paradox enemies addon, who's up for the task ?

EDIT. also waiting for "only 6177 damage, wear more +HP equipment" arguments.

[Marson]

I know it's a personal thing, but I've never been a fan of boss fights. One of the things that really clicked with me with the Call of Duty series, right from the start, was how you were simply trying to stay alive as one of many against many. The boss fight has been around for ages in gaming and has roots in the fantasy literature genre. However, if they are too divergent from the regular content, I find them more annoying and frustrating than anything else—and the regular content not enough of a challenge. I don't mind spikes, and think they should be there, but not to the extent so often used.

[Pigslayer]

I like rares. The game is too easy without them.

[Faeryan]

I like rares. The game is too easy without them.

I hate rares. The game is too easy without them.

[Marson]

That's exactly the problem for me. I'd much prefer a higher mode, but with a smaller range. (Mean is meaningless in this case.) I want to spend more of my time facing a challenge without that spiking the bosses into the guaranteed-death realm.

[Bumc]

My small words to this big talk.
I didn't work out how to attach .xcf files there, so here is cite from game log:
"Distorted animated sword has caused a gravity spike
Distorted animated sword was drawn in by gravity spike
...
Distorted animated sword hits Zeraph for 310 to psi, 5094 physical damage (5404 total damage)
Distorted animated sword hits Distorted animated sword for 8435 physical damage
"

I checked its paradox, it was 25023 by the time of this event (100% failure obviously)

Would be really frustrating death if I played on roguelike, heh.

[Bumc]

That was doublepost oops

[HousePet]

That sounds like a bug.

[The Revanchist]

That's exactly the problem for me. I'd much prefer a higher mode, but with a smaller range. (Mean is meaningless in this case.) I want to spend more of my time facing a challenge without that spiking the bosses into the guaranteed-death realm.

Thus is, I think, a good way to sum up my opinion.

I want consistency in my being killed! Whether it be hordes of potentially lethal enemies, or a handful of Superrares, I don't want multitudes of experience pouches and the occasional death-machine.

[HousePet]

Could be a bad interaction between the rare enemy generator and the difficulty boosts.
Unfortunately I don't know where the code is that actually generates the rares.
But I can find the code that boosts the level range of the zones and the code that increases talent levels.
The talent level boosting code could be the problem here:
It boosts the level of all talents by 50%-100%-170%, depending on difficulty. (nightmare, insane, madness)
Since Rares already have more talent points than normal creatures, they are going to get a bigger boost from this.