Alternatives to escorts

[Mel]

I absolutely hate escorts. I can't name a single videogame with an escort mission that's somewhat close to enjoyable and ToME is no exception. Having / losing access to powerful trees like Light or Tinkers on the whims of some random NPC can often make or break a character. Escorts are a great source of salt when they decide to run headlong into a couple rares or when the game's throwing you 6 Anorithils on a Skeleton Brawler, but salt loses its taste past the first pinch and quickly becomes tasteless.

EoR did it better since it gave the player less, but reliable, ways to get specific talents. I'd like to see something similar in AoA as an alternative to escorts.

Suggestion: when escorts die / are dismissed by the player upon entering a level, you get a quest item (let's call that an Adventurer's Writ). You can give this item to an Adventurer's Guild in Last Hope (or anywhere it might be) to spawn a randboss in the area the escort was. Upon defeating it, you get another quest item (a generic trophy or something) you can trade to the Guild for talents / trees / stats, similar to how it's done in EoR. For balance purposes, these randbosses would have to be somewhat powerful, and increasing in power as you fight more of them (like the first one being player level +10 and the last one being player level +90 if you choose to dismiss all escorts, although these numbers are completely made up and I'll leave the actual formula to balancing experts).

Lorewise it also gives a reason for why these retarded escorts are in these areas in the first place (they were trying to hunt that monster and failed terribly because they only have 4 talents).

Suggestion 2: remove escorts from Reknor, it comes too late into the game if you have to wait for a specific escort to spawn, and that place is tedious enough as it is without adding escorts to it.

[dadito]

I just hope escorts get some semblance of inteligence, i don't even care if they make it so there's less of them, but seriously, make them actually follow you

[ghostbuster]

I just hope escorts get some semblance of inteligence, i don't even care if they make it so there's less of them, but seriously, make them actually follow you

There is a great addon with sanier escorts.
https://te4.org/games/addons/tome/hz-escorts

With this addon, escorts follow the player which should be the default behaviour in tome; this way, you can develop avoidance strategies, dig tunnels without having to watch crazy escorts, etc... The addon also give the escorts some regen, which is useful if you do not have bathe in light (or nature touch, etc).

Suggestion 2: remove escorts from Reknor, it comes too late into the game if you have to wait for a specific escort to spawn, and that place is tedious enough as it is without adding escorts to it.

+1

[bpat]

I like Reknor escorts, they're actually easier than Daikara and Dreadfell despite usually having a longer distance to travel. I don't like that some classes require Light or Tinkers to function, but that's a separate issue with those classes and not a failing of the escort system.

[visage]

Suggestion: when escorts die / are dismissed by the player upon entering a level, you get a quest item (let's call that an Adventurer's Writ). You can give this item to an Adventurer's Guild in Last Hope (or anywhere it might be) to spawn a randboss in the area the escort was.

A suggested revision to that idea:

• When an escort dies, it drops a token, like you say.
• You can turn 2 (or 3?) of these tokens in at Angolwen for one of the arcane escort rewards, at Zigur for one of the betrayal rewards, or at Last Hope for one of the neutral rewards.
• Add the dialogue option to attack escorts.

That way, if you need Light or Tinkers you can be guaranteed to get it.

(...and, please, make the "less stupid escorts" functionality part of the base game.)

[Mel]

I like Reknor escorts, they're actually easier than Daikara and Dreadfell despite usually having a longer distance to travel. I don't like that some classes require Light or Tinkers to function, but that's a separate issue with those classes and not a failing of the escort system.

I'm not saying they're hard, just tedious. "The portal is close, to the northwest". Yeah but to reach it you have to go south first, then east, then north for a long time, then west for a longer time, and then south again... Having to bear with escorts for that amount of time is extremely annoying.

With this addon, escorts follow the player which should be the default behaviour in tome; this way, you can develop avoidance strategies, dig tunnels without having to watch crazy escorts, etc... The addon also give the escorts some regen, which is useful if you do not have bathe in light (or nature touch, etc).

Honestly I don't get why this behavior isn't the default one in ToME at all, apart from escorts being some kind of trolling from DarkGod :/ "Oh noes there's a mouse south of here, so I'll run north towards these two rares and that randboss" happens like everytime I play Insane and gets boring real fast.

A suggested revision to that idea:

When an escort dies, it drops a token, like you say.
You can turn 2 (or 3?) of these tokens in at Angolwen for one of the arcane escort rewards, at Zigur for one of the betrayal rewards, or at Last Hope for one of the neutral rewards.
Add the dialogue option to attack escorts.

That way, if you need Light or Tinkers you can be guaranteed to get it.

I don't mind having to give multiple tokens for the exact reward you need, since overall it would probably be closer to how the game is right now, by giving you less talents overall (as you often get useless escorts like Alchemist on a non-staff, non-mindstar class which are usually converted into stats rather than talents), although I'd prefer if balancing came in the form of making the randbosses harder since that would mean up to 9 off-class talents, and I like off-class talents I don't see how attacking escorts is different from dismissing them though? (I also don't like how you have to be able to access Zigur to get the betrayal rewards, but then I also have a big problem with betrayal rewards being tied to Zigs and getting like a single level in Healing Light or Arcane Eye locking you out of them forever.)

[Sheila]

I dislike and disagree with the notion that every random facet of the game needs to be phased out, it sounds like you want to be playing an RPG and not a roguelike.
IIRC DG doesn't want you to be able to plan your character in advance 100%, I think that's fine and how it should stay

If a character is absolutely reliant on light or tinkers (only in high difficulties, and the amount of classes this is strictly true for is very low, if any) then those classes should be revised, not escorts.
Otherwise simply don't plan around getting x or y on any given run, but build around what you get.

[Mel]

Well, ToME being an Angband variant with fixed zones and quests makes it already lean pretty heavily towards the RPG side I don't want escorts to be removed from the game (although I wouldn't miss them since I don't like the concept at all, but I understand that some people might do), I'd just like an alternative way to get specific / fun off-class talents that doesn't depend on the whims of some idiotic NPCs. Or at least I'd like them to not be complete idiots :/

Roguelikes use randomly generated content, yes, but what makes them interesting is that players can find methods to streamline that randomness into reliable patterns. Escorts are completely unreliable and players have very little control over them. You see that warrior escort as a Berserker and already imagine that sweet 10/5 Exotic Weapons Naloren build, then that idiot runs into a pack of wolves and you're only left with your tears. It's like seeing a really good artifact in a vault, then suddenly a Fire Imp with 300% global speed teleports in from nowhere, snatches those Dakhtun's Gauntlets, and teleports back while giving you a raspberry :/

If DG wants to leave players some uncertainty about their characters builds that's absolutely fine, but then why do it differently (and IMO, better) in EoR then?

[Kaja Rainbow]

Escorts can be handled with the right tactics. Always know where they're going and be there ahead of them, well ahead if you can. Movement abilities help and it doesn't hurt that they're generally slower than you. To find out where they're going, ask them (right click on them and go "where's the portal?"). If you're at a point where it isn't certain, wait at the crossroad to see which direction they go then move through them and take a head start again. You can also bodyblock them if you need to rest, they take a particular path and if you stand right there in their way, they'll stop, even if you're both right out in the open.

That said, escorts can be a pain sometimes. I guess I find them kinda fun sometimes though.

[Mel]

These tactics are usually fine for Normal mode, but in higher difficulties you'll often face multiple rares or randbosses, which means you'll often have to run away (and let the escort run headlong into their death) instead of standing your ground to protect the escort.

[Kaja Rainbow]

These tactics are usually fine for Normal mode, but in higher difficulties you'll often face multiple rares or randbosses, which means you'll often have to run away (and let the escort run headlong into their death) instead of standing your ground to protect the escort.

Yeah, I can see where that'd be a problem. It's only recently that I've been foraying heavily into Nightmare, with plans to move on into Insane, so I haven't encountered this problem as much.

[darkgod]

Mel, to answer the "why do it differently on EoR", well mostly because I wanted to have it different, and it was fun making those yetis and talking about the W..*redacted*

But yes to the point, the escorts are meant to add randomness and are nto meant to be all successful. The success rate is way over 50% which is was I wanted at frist so I consider them working

[Mel]

Well then, if you're on the fence about how to add off-class talents in future campaigns, do it the EoR way again, unless you're somewhat low on salt offerings

I understand that my wish of 9 reliable off-class talents / trees is probably never going to make it into the game, but leaving things like access to tinkers (which, unless I'm mistaken, can only be spawned as an escort once) to a coin toss instead of actual tactical decisions from the player can be extremely frustrating :/

[HousePet]

Yes, DarkGod needs his salt offerings to survive.

As for the tinkers, they really shouldn't exist in Maj'Eyal anyway. They aren't critical to your success and are just a potential random surprise.

[darkgod]

Ahah yeah give me the da salts !!!

As for new campaigns, we'll see I'll investigate other possibilities, if only for newness sake