My ideas for making the "war on orcs" much more engaging.

[Velox]

I like ToME very much and think it's an awesome game. Especially the huge community of people who develop and keep the game awesome is astounding.

The game itself is so much fun, I really like every bit of it, at least in the early parts.

However, when I get to the east I find myself actually losing my enthusiasm. I force myself to play through the game, keeping sessions short, saying to myself "just the Vor Pride today then I go do something else". Maybe that's a good thing? But I really wish this part of the game, the whole lategame, that it would just be able to keep my interest and zeal a bit more.

I think what might be behind this is the mere fact, that this grand and epic war against the orcs doesn't really feel much like what It's hyped up to be.

That's unfortunate.

Here's a quick summary of my enthusiasm levels for an overview:

- Early parts: Awesome, I like it!
- Only things left to do being Mark of the Spellblaze, Melissa, and Dreadfell: This isn't as nice!
- Early part of the war on orcs: This is amazing, I am going through all these orcs and Aeryn gave me a fitting talent for my relentlessness!
- Later parts after you return. Uggh, what a slugfest.....

I think what happens here is that the prides are furstrating dungeons to go through. I doesn't really feel like a war as there's no flavor text anymore and you do not see anything change. The bit of text from Aeryn after defeating all the prides is lousy to say the least and the orc patrols still spawn, which makes it look ridiculous.

So I would like to suggest some ideas I have for the whole portion of the later game. I actually made a topic using an older account and DG himself answered in it. However with 1.4 having been released nothing about this changed. Which is fair enough, but for me I find it somewhat disappointing, as I think some of these things would go a long way to keep the game more exciting and engaging in the endgame and not upset balance in any meaningful way. It's somewhat more like flavor and that is why I want to suggest my ideas in a better layout once more. First I'll start with an overview of the main themes, I think are weighing down the experience.

"BREEDING PITS": Remember them? They were removed by DG. Yeah, it maybe was for the better, but, it made the east feel even more barren and the orc patrols are relentless. And now you have nothing to lower their frequency of occurence. This makes no sense, as the theme of raiding orc homes is still there when you look at the layouts of the prides. Those are houses! But if you clear a pride, Orc Patrols still do spawn from it and there is literally nothing that suggests any change of the balance of power on the world map.

ORC PATROLS: These are just unfair most of the time and I do not understand why they have to be such an uncontrollable and unmitigatable part of the experience, anyway, even independent from the flavor concerns they bring up when still spawning from cleared prides. Either they end your character unfairly or they will get scummed for experience and nice loot. Sometimes they are just annoying, but there is nothing really good about them. That is why most of my following suggestions have to do with reducing or weakening Orc Patrols and also buffing and increasing the number of Sunwall Patrols as the war swings in their favor.


Suggestion for Lore: More Flavor Text, even somewhat filler-like might be nice.

For example: have some more dialogue from Aeryn or have maybe a few speech bubbles from townsfolk about important events in the war, like the opening of a farportal to the west or killing of the prides: just some flavor text would be nice to go along with our many achievements in the east.

Suggestion for Gameplay: reduce/weaken the orc patrols and increase/buff the Sunwall patrols.

When you first get to the east, the situation looks bleak and hopeless. However, when you arrive there you already will have done some very nice things for the Sunwall. So the first impression you get actually isn't even close to what the Sunwall had suffered through, before your character was born/decided to go adventuring.
- Maybe, the first awesome thing you did, is killing the orc ambush and their leader (...maybe).
- You killed Golbug in Reknor and destroyed the orc presence in the west, which cuts of any trade or supply routes the orcs had to Maj'Eyal. They lost convenience and also an Orb of Many Ways
- You saved Fillarel:and killed another major orc (whose name eludes me).

Suggestions:

Orc ambush: If you manage to defeat it, you should get a reward for doing so: As they have lost a whole corps as well as three major leaders (which includes the ambush leader, golbug and that orc who threatens Fillarel), the # of orc patrols should be decreased by 1 permanently right from the start, giving you some extra breathing room as soon as you arrive in the east.

Ardhungol: Saving the Sun Paladin would increase Sunwall patrols by one, as a powerful general returns and rejoins their ranks.

Vor Armoury: If you clear it out, it deprives the orcs of weapons and armor. This leads to powerful Orc Berserkers and fighters being unable to obtain weapons, forcing them to stay home (i.e. they're removed from the RNG that determings what spawns in a patrol)

Opening trade with the West: Now the Sunwall have supplies, manpower and weapons which they get from their allies in the West! This should increase the "power" of the sunwall patrol units... I don't know what the exact mechanics behing the "patrol fights" are, but if it is something like a chance of who wins, then increase the odds for the Sunwall winning a bit.
Bonus: Doing this could set off a re-roll of the Sunwall stores. The store would re-roll as a "stage 3 re-roll" like after the Charred Scar. This could be instead of Charred Scar reroll or in addition to it. It's not overpowered, because the gear competes with drops and the randart merchant, thus it would be more a nice touch.

Dark Crypt: Clearing the Dark Crypt deprives the orcs of surplus Necromancers, removing them from Patrols.

The Prides: As you know, the prides is where the patrols actually spawn from. So, after clearing them out (going into their houses and stuff), it makes no sense for them to still spawn from them.

- Every pride you clear ceases further spawning of patrols. The number of Orc Patrols on the map may only be at most one more than the total number of uncleared prides at any point.
BONUS: The Sunwall will increase their boldness and wander around the areas where Orc Prides used to be (I suggest this, because the Sunwall Patrols seem to only move around the actual Gates of Morning and dare not move much further).

- If you did not defeat the Orc ambush you would start with 5 patrols on the world map
- If you defeated the ambush you would start with 4 patrols on the world map
- every cleared pride then reduces the number of patrols by one.

- after ALL prides are taken down, all Orc Patrols will be immediately wiped from the map and the Sunwall Patrols can be seen roaming freely across the entire eastern world map. This would feel like an awesome achievement.

Of course the Orcs aren't completely gone, but they're in disarray, waiting patiently for their chance in the Embers of Rage!

So what do you think? It would be awesome to see this in 1.5

It really would add some value to a part of the game, many people would agree on is kind of boring. So let's push the idea. Add your own or comment!

Cheers!

[astralInferno]

+1 from here to the end.

As a bonus, it might be nice if prides somehow scaled with the order you did them in? I'm not certain how hard that'd be.
But just imagine - instead of four dungeons that are largely the same, the first is easier, then the fourth is harder - not only is the experience different, the experience can be different again for each possible order!
...o'course, I have no idea how you could actually do that. more enemies would be ridiculous. Maybe more bosses, with /unique/ fight mechanics like the unicorn guy? idk.

[HammyHamster]

+1

My enjoyable play goals are always (and note this is mostly insane difficulty now):

- get to level 20 and through the Forest, fight the Weirdling when doable
- run all the remaining sidestuff without too much overland travel, especially after level 24
- plan the character build to hopefully survive dropping into the Crypt by ~30 (this one is quite fun as it gives you a level 30 target build)
- finish Dreadfell and prepare to defeat the orc ambush after killing the Master.
- Spider pits (it has a tricky layout sometimes)
- Vor's armory and one pride (usually Vor)
- Charred Scar
- Tannen's tower (tricky layout sometimes) and the backup guardians

**......and there is a blur of stuff on the way to the boss fight.. This content is pretty similar in difficulty throughout and not overwhelming. I usually stop by this point, now.

-the final boss fight is fun but it feels just too long to get there with not much change in the grind. Note that on normal, you may not top out with a high xp race, but the repetition is still there.

A shortcut to this fight would be nice. Maybe unlockable shortcuts at certain points in the game.

My motivation is usually hard-pressed going into the repetition of the prides x 4, as the character build is mostly done (45+) and you can get by with most of the items you've found by this point. I find the current build not longer offers the enticement of character growth for so much remaining content.

But note, I've replayed this game a few times. The very first time it was quite fine.

[grobblewobble]

Awesome, amazing ideas. Please do this.

[Delmuir]

I also endorse this.

[posetcay]

Wow, after reading your suggestions the only thing i could think was why they werent in the game in the first place! Simply amazing, have my +1! I am looking forward to a more lively Far East.

[Velox]

Hey, thx for your input. I appreciate it and I feel good about my idea.

Considering these are easy fixes for improving the experience of the endgame of ToME I would like to see this (or anything like it, as I do not expect people to just use my ideas at face value) implemented.

Hoewever, this has been the third thread for me suggesting the same thing over and over, and while it always gets praised as a good idea it has never been on the radar of the developers.

Maybe The forum is a bad idea to suggest things and I should bring it up on the IRC instead?

In any case, an implementation in v 1.5 would be nice and improve the experience of the game IMO a great deal.

[posetcay]

Yeah, IRC chat might get more attention, maybe you could develop an addon for this though? It would be a lot more acceptable then implementing it directly in the game.

[Zeyphor]

My motivation is usually hard-pressed going into the repetition of the prides x 4, as the character build is mostly done (45+) and you can get by with most of the items you've found by this point. I find the current build not longer offers the enticement of character growth for so much remaining content.

But note, I've replayed this game a few times. The very first time it was quite fine.

I think that it isn't such a bad idea that players have quite a bit of content to do, even before high peak, by the time they hit level 50

whats the point of hitting level 50 if theres nothing to do by the time you attain it

if you hit level 50 fighting the final bosses you won't feel too compelled to play with your new toys(5 class points and 3 generics), maybe; I actually like it better that theres quite a bit of content to do at level 50, especially the non-postgame stuff and even if it doesn't any longer offer the enticement of character growth

[jenx]

+1 please Dark God

[Dopaminka]

+1! Base campaign definitely needs some more immersion. Sad thing is that it's unlikely that DG will take the time to implement anything like this, so it would require someone with lua experience to make an addon.

[darkgod]

Why wouldnt I ?

[astralInferno]

+1! Base campaign definitely needs some more immersion. Sad thing is that it's unlikely that DG will take the time to implement anything like this, so it would require someone with lua experience to make an addon.

Why wouldnt I ?

Excellent work! Shame him into doing things! =D

[Velox]

Thanks for answering in August DarkGod! I will never lose hope for eventual implementation. Please keep up the great work you all have been doing on this great game!