Current 1.6 insights....

[Micbran]

As we all know 1.6 is in the works. So far the current release date is unknown, or in 1 DGTU (as per usual with DarkGod) but there have been a lot of changes and even an alpha (wow!).
(All tl;dr's are links to the commits themselves, with the exception of weapon mastery which is a youtube link).

Weapon Mastery Changes:
tl;dr is this video
First off (and I don't have a gitlabs link for this one) is the weapon mastery changes. In 1.6, weapon mastery no longer grants physical power. The description now reads:

Code: Select all

Increases weapon damage by x%...

The %weapon damage it grants has been adjusted to be nicer, but the loss of phys power hurts a lot of things, namely status application and char sheet damage. You may be wondering, how is this good for the game's health? First off, randbosses on insane no longer ALWAYS have more phys power than you have phys save which means phys save can become an actual defensive stat rather than a being borderline useless. Second off, it brings a lot of weapon user's damage way down from insane regions (600+ char sheet damage Naloren berserker anyone?) to more... manageable regions. This is probably the most controversial change.

Inscription Changes:
tl;dr runes don't suck, movement loses its free action after it expires.
1.6 adds a lot of great new runes and removes some of the shittier inscriptions (rip sun infusion). The removed inscriptions are Sun, Telepathy, Frozen Spear, Heat Beam, Vision, Phase Door, Controlled Phase Door, Lightning. Phase Door and Controlled Phase Door have been merged, Lightning has been renamed and now works like boneshield pretty much, with a threshold. Just read the gitlabs link if you want the biggest gist of it, there are a huge number of additions/changes. Oh, also heroism no longer grants stats. Overall, its small nerfs for inscriptions and huge buffs for runes in terms of usability (suck it antimagic fantatics). I personally love these changes. The new runes are amazing and I find myself varying greatly on the 1.6 alpha between different setups rather than just sticking with the pretty much set in stone setups of the current version. My favorite part of 1.6 by far (outside of cults, but that's 1.5.6).

Prodigy Changes:
tl;dr buffs to more underused prodigies, reworked elemental surge/endless woes and a new prodigy!
These changes are nice too, some nice buffs to things like meteoric crash (burn now does more damage overall) and Eye of Tiger now can proc for physical, mental and spell separately. The new prodigy is interesting (0.3 to all learned talent cats), but I think it still gets beat out by most other prodigies except on Possessor (and prodigies barely matter on Pozz anyways). Pretty much, any prodigy that you would normally take on a caster has been improved. Also, flex has been moved to the dex side of things, nerfed and bugfixed. Sad about that one. Fast as Lightning has also been removed, but if you can cite what that prodigy does from memory and tell me if it actually works, I'll be impressed.

Charm Changes:
tl;dr Charms are broken as shit, and I love them.
Charm egos got a huge update and a lot of the effects got a once over. Additionally, on cast egos have been updated too and are far more likely to appear on charms. Also tentacle totem doesn't hurt you when it dies anymore and is pretty solid now, great for casters who need a beefy friend. My second favorite part about 1.6, new charms and their effects all feel so much more useful.

Defiler Changes:
tl;dr Vim is slightly less terrible, bone category is good now outside of bone shield (which has a threshold now) and virulent disease is now a passive.
I don't really care/know about defilers much so I won't talk/speculate balancewise about these changes. Just read 'em and see what you think. Look nice, maybe I'll give Correaver another shot and see if they actually play like Corruptor and Reaver and not Correaver.

Early Game Randboss Changes:
tl;dr randbosses hurt less when you're unlucky
Another really nice change, mostly aimed at insane gameplay. Rare+ that spawn with certain talents now get "blocked" (no more impossible to kill bulwark snakes/psionic shield snakes who take 0 damage). Additionally, the game difficulty now scales in slowly, instead of being in full effect right from level 2. The best part of these changes is that midge swarms, hummerhorns and other high gspeed enemies (think like 200%ish) now get a damage reduction debuff when they spawn as a rare+, hopefully preventing you from being oneshotted in Old Forest.

AI Changes:
tl;dr The tactical AI is smarter than probably 90% of the tome community
These changes make Elandar a force to be reckoned with. Rare+ enemies and bosses now kite, use their talents at better times and do a lot better job of fighting the player. Super annoying but a good change. If you're poison immune, the AI won't try to use a poison on you, if you're under effects of a big heal, they'll try to hit you with a heal reduction, etc. Pretty much, they're always on the lookout for what hits you hardest at the moment.

And that's all the commits I've scrounged up from Shibari! Any thoughts? Feel scared about 1.6?

Download link here! (Its not a virus)
Enable dev mode to speed up load times.

[Einzbern]

Wasn't drowning in town supposed to finally be removed, no more T3 at the start in Last Hope, and shops update more often?

[butthurt]

Hate it. All of it. Change scares me, it will probably destroy everything I ever cared about and I'll be playing 1.5.5 forever for sure.


I really despise nerfs overall, and talks about changing debuffs make me unconfortable and butthurt. Yeah those debuffs can be devastating, but one of my favorite things in this game by far and what really makes this game unique is that everybody gets **** on. Lots of games that have debuffs it's kinda pointless getting ways to apply them since it will never work on enemies that really matter. Not on this game. Either way they can mostly be dealt with one way of another. ( Reading from this link: https://git.net-core.org/tome/t-engine4 ... quests/443 , that's still about 1.6 right?)


I also don't want to get involved with filthy arcane stuff to get rid of debuffs, everyone knows that mages are terrorists that need to burn at the cross... they do sound good and unique though, could be fun times.

I guess I do like the changes made to some of the delifers stuff, mainly vile life and passive bloodcasting, and passive virulent disease could work...maybe. Early randbosses balance could also be appreciated since sometimes we do find stuff in which there's not much to do except to run and come back to the playground later as a black belt.


Hope my paranoia is unjustified and all works out for everyone.

[Micbran]

Wasn't drowning in town supposed to finally be removed, no more T3 at the start in Last Hope, and shops update more often?

Yes, and shops update around every 10ish levels now (more often in the early game). Hence why the early game was re-balanced so much, to make up for these "crutches."

Hate it. All of it. Change scares me, it will probably destroy everything I ever cared about and I'll be playing 1.5.5 forever for sure.

1.5.6, most likely.

I really despise nerfs overall, and talks about changing debuffs make me unconfortable and butthurt. Yeah those debuffs can be devastating, but one of my favorite things in this game by far and what really makes this game unique is that everybody gets **** on. Lots of games that have debuffs it's kinda pointless getting ways to apply them since it will never work on enemies that really matter. Not on this game. Either way they can mostly be dealt with one way of another. ( Reading from this link: https://git.net-core.org/tome/t-engine4 ... quests/443 , that's still about 1.6 right?)

Yeah that's about 1.6. 1.6 adds a lot more ways to deal with debuffs too, mostly in the ways of runes. Honestly, the new changes make the game feel way different, and stun is still a pretty powerful debuff, if that's what you're worried about.

I also don't want to get involved with filthy arcane stuff to get rid of debuffs, everyone knows that mages are terrorists that need to burn at the cross... they do sound good and unique though, could be fun times.

antimagic has never been good, don't delude yourself

[butthurt]

Yes, and shops update around every 10ish levels now (more often in the early game). Hence why the early game was re-balanced so much, to make up for these "crutches."

Now THAT is a very welcome change I would say.



I wasn't sure the link I posted on the previous post was about 1.6, but since it is, one thing picked my attention, from the page:

"Rogue Apply Poison: Save check removed to make it consistent with most other poisons. Accuracy check anyway so this doesn't change much."

Would that mean that poisons would be effective against enemies with spine of the world now?



Also, mage prejudice aside, I'm very interested in this new mirror image rune.

[Arcvasti]

I wasn't sure the link I posted on the previous post was about 1.6, but since it is, one thing picked my attention, from the page:

"Rogue Apply Poison: Save check removed to make it consistent with most other poisons. Accuracy check anyway so this doesn't change much."

Would that mean that poisons would be effective against enemies with spine of the world now?

Nope. They work on different principles. Argoniel still exists solely to make you cry bitter tears.

[pizdabol]

Is 1.6 alpha closed? I remember some big update a while ago being open to the public? Or was that a beta? Anyway, can us common peasants play, pretty please , we promise to report any weird shite as best as our peasantly minds allow us to

[Cathbald]

It has been available for testing for months!

I try to get people to join it often enough, it is pinned on discord and i post the discord link in tomechat everyday.

We also only created the weekly challenge to get people to join discord actually :p

[Micbran]

It has been available for testing for months!

I try to get people to join it often enough, it is pinned on discord and i post the discord link in tomechat everyday.

We also only created the weekly challenge to get people to join discord actually :p

not only, but almost only.

[anp]

Yes, and shops update around every 10ish levels now (more often in the early game). Hence why the early game was re-balanced so much, to make up for these "crutches."

Now THAT is a very welcome change I would say.

i can't imagine checking all those shops every 10th levels! even three restocks is too much for me

Early Game Randboss Changes:
tl;dr randbosses hurt less when you're unlucky
Another really nice change, mostly aimed at insane gameplay. Rare+ that spawn with certain talents now get "blocked" (no more impossible to kill bulwark snakes/psionic shield snakes who take 0 damage). Additionally, the game difficulty now scales in slowly, instead of being in full effect right from level 2. The best part of these changes is that midge swarms, hummerhorns and other high gspeed enemies (think like 200%ish) now get a damage reduction debuff when they spawn as a rare+, hopefully preventing you from being oneshotted in Old Forest.

i have to admit that a dozen of times being overwhelmed by a single rare+ on promising character in old forest has been the BEST experience i got in ToME, and thus this pointer is very cheesy for me. It makes you think ahead, like digging another way from the level change so that this unkillable monster can't just block the only one. Also, this game is not a "kill every single monster" challenge, so retreat (possibly till a few more level-ups) is ok and adds good challenge

also IMO the best insane thing ever is EOR approach, where no random rare+ spawn till you reach lvl 20; maybe in AoA it could be set to lvl 10, while saving all those precious overpowered monsters! kiting and dying is fun

[pizdabol]

It has been available for testing for months!

I try to get people to join it often enough, it is pinned on discord and i post the discord link in tomechat everyday.

We also only created the weekly challenge to get people to join discord actually :p

Could you, in a knightly manner, explain how to do that for peasants? Like, where do I download the thing from?

[Cathbald]

First you go there https://discord.gg/F8DHnEh

Then you click the pin at the top right and click the first link (by shibari)

DL, extract, congrats you're reasy to play 1.6

Survive the discord irony and the frogs and you might even have a fun time talking to us while you playtest

[Micbran]

It has been available for testing for months!

I try to get people to join it often enough, it is pinned on discord and i post the discord link in tomechat everyday.

We also only created the weekly challenge to get people to join discord actually :p

Could you, in a knightly manner, explain how to do that for peasants? Like, where do I download the thing from?

sorry i only do assholish and unknightly


see ya on the discord, assuming you haven't already joined

[pingpongalong]

Sweet, thanks for posting this.

I've been playing Reaver a lot lately and these changes look like they'll help a lot. Could they maybe start with a pair of short staves for the offset though? The early game can take forever to find one short staff, let alone two.

Also I know Combat Techniques is probably overly distributed, but man do I miss it on this class. Precise Strikes doesn't have a down side like it does for others since most of your attacks are spells (unless I'm very much mistaken on how that works). Staff builds also benefit so much from Perfect Strike.

[Aesthete]

The AI changes is actually the thing that worries me the most. Enemies can get a lot stronger and more numerous than the player on higher difficulties, so if they act intelligently that can make it hard to overcome that. Seems really bad for melee classes, since usually there are a limited number of gap closers and disables, and tons of enemies have immunities to the relevant disables once you get out of the early game.

Elandar is mean enough as it is, the idea of him ducking and diving even more is fairly disturbing.