Changes from 1.5 to 1.6 thoughts

[cksiu]

I have been reading some negative comments on people’s experiences on 1.6.x here on the forums, and I thought I would add my two cents about the cause and offer what helpful criticism I can regarding this.

I am not a super strong player. I have beaten insane roguelike once and beat insane adventurer a few more times. I have been enjoying this game since 1.2.x on and off for the last few years. For the last 3-4 years I have been mostly playing insane (combination of roguelike and adventurer permadeaths).

What I enjoy about this game is slowly learning a class over often 20+ characters before I manage to figure out the right playstyle, talent combinations, talent order, whether to take dark crypt or that level 30 worm, prodigies, gearing choices etc to eventually eek out a win, and then do it all over with a new class (maybe in a new year). And in the past, while there are luck elements to it, I felt like I learned a lot every run, and with each character I killed I usually progressed a little more on average.

It’s hard to know exactly what makes me tick consciously of course, but I believe a large part of this game’s charm is in the discovery and learning process to get to a win. I think that if I were to become able to consistently grind out an insane win in a week (which I know many people can), I would get bored of that, and move onto madness or another game altogether.

To that end, in my opinion, fresh ideas that invent new ways for the player to die in a way that seems like I can learn from it and play around it is the only thing that will continue to keep TOME interesting for me.

Now back on topic I will list out the major changes between 1.5.x to 1.6.x which cause the feeling that the game is handing out unpredictable and unpreventable deaths, and give my comments regarding this, and an idea where I think it is a problem.

1. NPC AI changes in talent usage

I used to like playing some weak classes in insane back when I had more time to play (I have a winner with summoner and with rogue before remake in insane). I was more than happy to spam track, manipulate terrain, use swift hands to adjust resistances and res-pens on the fly, and inspect every single rare+ before engaging them. What I found was that often times I would find problematic talents and powers in the NPC’s char sheet, I would try fight it and find that the NPC never used the problematic talent or talent combination at all before flopping over and dying in 4 turns like everything else. The NPCs were just bad at pressing the right buttons to kill you.

1.6.0 comes along, I go into ruined dungeon, track, find a sandworm tunneller with emergency steam purge and think, “that shouldn’t be a problem,” then my track runs out, and the NPC lightning speed burrows up to me and 1 turn kills me with emergency steam purge (real story). I got outplayed by the rare. The thing that has changed since 1.5 is the rare+ got good.

Emergency Steam Purge or Freeze always had the potential to wreck the player, but in 1.5.x the rare was just too dumb to use it before you already physical cross tiered and stunned and took away his sustains. The answer to this is to slowly raise the problematic talents and talent combinations to developers and trim them as needed (like how ESP has been treated already). Good AI (with self preservation tendencies turned down) are better than what we had in 1.5.x.

As a side note, I actually like how NPCs will now run around and find the second entrance to your tunnel and get you from behind, that makes the game more interesting. As a whole, 1.6.x AI is more fun to play against.

2. Equipment Egos

From what I understand, a lot of useless equipment egos were removed from the game and in general pink, purple, orange items got better. Changing the ego pool changes the dynamic between the player and the NPC because the player kills hundreds to thousands of rares to only take the best equipment while the NPC only gets one roll. In general, it favours the NPCs in the late game. Not sure what I would do with that.

There are also problematic egos which scale with powers, which are new (happy to be corrected). For example, my current character has been keeping exactly one source of slow on hit equipped throughout the run. At level 48, I went back to using my tier 1 ring which scales to 10% chance for 80% global speed slow. That sounds a bit too ridiculous for me not to use, so I wonder if NPCs can do the same thing to me? If an NPC had that ring, that sounds to me like 10% of death to me. I have died to stuff like that before, but it is too tedious to check 3-4 pages of logs to trace down the exact cause of death in these cases since you just get spammed after global speed slow.

Finally, I think res-pen needs to be reworked altogether. While we’re at it, I would consolidate reduce crit chance and reduce crit damage (but that’s not really part of the problem). Resistance penetration has always been stronger on NPCs than on PCs because they get more of their damage from stats and talent modifiers and PCs rely more on equipment. I think the whole thing needs a rework, but if I were to suggest a quick fix, cause res-pen not to stack (only highest value is passed to char sheet). Or hard cap it at 15%.

There are lots of implications to this kind of change, and the arms race which has happened between horror resistances and player penetration might need to be looked at too, looking at you WTW and luminous horrors.

3. World map and level scaling

The nature of this game has always been multiple layers of problems stacked on top of each other, with the player trying to gain a small advantage in every area to win with a large advantage (talent usage, map movement, talent selection, equipment selection, world map movement). From 1.5.x to 1.6.0, level scaling changed from a defined minimum zone level scaled to PC level capped by maximum zone level to a defined minimum zone level scaled to maximum zone level scaling with player level +X.

I have had a couple of discussions with people about this, and the given reason for this change is usually, “The old world map just had a fixed zone progression, at least now there is variety.”

But from a gameplay (as opposed to aesthetic) point of view, every dungeon now feels samey from about the third tier 1 onwards. There is a trade-off between accessibility and difficulty in this case. We have to admit I think, that TOME being a turn based game, there is a limited amount of complexity you can add to the actual combat, much of the learning curve is outside of that, and zone progression used to be a major point.

From 1.2.x until 1.5.x (my experience), this game has always felt like a big puzzle to me in the early game especially the tier 2s. I don’t know if anyone can relate to me here but, the first tier 2 was daunting, and more often than not, I would run away somewhere in the middle because I couldn’t progress anymore, move to a different tier 2, struggle through it, and come back, then eventually by the fourth tier 2 dungeon, I would face-roll through it and look forward to what dungeons to do before Dreadfell. I consider that good pacing. This is an RPG, and having a couple of dungeons for players to flex their powers isn’t a bad thing. That’s not to say to make the game easier, it is a matter of pacing, set that first tier 2 to be a daunting challenge and give the player a sense of achievement by the time they complete the last one.

Zone progression is part of the difficulty in this game, removing it is fine if there are enough choices for the player to make to achieve a win, but I don’t see the complexity in this game. The alternative (if we’re not just making the game easier) is to introduce more luck to it.

The ideal (if I can try to get into the mind of a designer), is to have tiers of dungeons which have meaningful decisions based on playstyle preference or class on which to tackle first. Having dungeon tiers where it is arbitrary which to do first messes with the dungeon’s identity. I actually think the way the Elvala starters and the Shatur starters are split basically into arcane and antimagic is interesting and would like to see that kind of thinking pursued more.

Ideas such as make racials unique to that dungeon more powerful and interesting, adding an equivalent of the NPC’s level/3 worth of class talent points for certain classes to an NPC race, etc etc.

If it were up to me, I would consider the extra loot the advantage for higher difficulty players, and heavily reduce the experience bonus rare+ NPCs give, so I could craft a well-paced game.

Obviously with this tier 1s will need to be rethought. There were other ideas on how to revamp the tier 1s that might need to be brought back, you can’t have 6 of them, or 8 with dwarf.

I think zone progression is an important way that the developers can improve game pacing, don’t leave it at player level +3, that is generating problems with the difficulty curve for the game, and consequently, the pacing of the campaign. It needs to be designed. On a side note, FFVIII was a garbage game for doing this if anyone remembers it. Skyrim also does this, but I think TOME is a completely experience to what Skyrim was/is and difficulty curves are more important to it.

4. Status Effects

This is a quick point to say well done with changing movement infusions and heroism infusions, and changing stuns.

Not sure if anyone remembers when marauder was a top tier class. I don’t want to go back to then. The extra mechanics, along with bringing stun into line has done really good things for the game and the different playstyles the different classes were encouraging.

In the long run, I think the game has been moving in a good direction, there are more things viable now compared to 5 years ago when all you could do was sneak up on a single enemy, buff yourself up like crazy, throw all your big talents on them and run away. Well done and keep going!

[Steven Aus]

I like this post! Some good comments and suggestions here, and what's really important, a positive and constructive outlook.

[GlassGo]

While I have no opinion (negative or positive) on many ideas, I agree with many other things.

What I enjoy about this game is slowly learning a class over often 20+ characters before I manage to figure out the right playstyle, talent combinations, talent order, whether to take dark crypt or that level 30 worm, prodigies, gearing choices etc to eventually eek out a win, and then do it all over with a new class (maybe in a new year). And in the past, while there are luck elements to it, I felt like I learned a lot every run, and with each character I killed I usually progressed a little more on average.

It’s hard to know exactly what makes me tick consciously of course, but I believe a large part of this game’s charm is in the discovery and learning process to get to a win. I think that if I were to become able to consistently grind out an insane win in a week (which I know many people can), I would get bored of that, and move onto madness or another game altogether.

To that end, in my opinion, fresh ideas that invent new ways for the player to die in a way that seems like I can learn from it and play around it is the only thing that will continue to keep TOME interesting for me.

Agree, for me it's not winning that's important, it's the proccess itself with learning something, finding cool or stanrange ways to build some class, intersting situation, memorable moments (mostly when my char eliminted by some mob haha).

Now back on topic I will list out the major changes between 1.5.x to 1.6.x which cause the feeling that the game is handing out unpredictable and unpreventable deaths, and give my comments regarding this, and an idea where I think it is a problem.

1.NPC AI changes in talent usage.

Probably agree, but we should be careful with trimming down talents. I can't say I actually like what happend with bosses now, like they have 1-2 talent level with many potantially dangerous skills like Grindign Shield, and honestly they feels now like whipping boy now, like Aerin in EoR who used to be dangerous.

2. Equipment Egos

No opinion, probably agree.

3. World map and level scaling

Agree in general, but I like Heart of Glopm now - it's exactly the right amount of ass-breaking challange now, and very memorable zone haha, don't touch it.

set that first tier 2 to be a daunting challenge and give the player a sense of achievement by the time they complete the last one.

This sounds right, but now sure if it woudn't be boring after some time.

4. Status Effects

Well, stun is completely harmless now.
As a Solipsist, I did whole Dreadfell while my char was stunned 90% of time.
I'm not sure it's good, also not sure it's bad.

Othewise, very good post, and good suggestions.