More world randomization

[BasiC]

Roguelikes are all about replayability.
While none randomized rpgs get boring fast as you get to know the locations and plot after your first play through, roguelikes are usually built to allow for maximum replayability.
This is done by adding tons of content and than randomly generating it a new every time the player starts a game.
This means that each playthrough has the chance of being very different than the last, thus keeping the experience fresh, even for players who have finished the game several times.

In many roguelikes you just start of in a dungeon which is completely randomized thus the randomization is as pervasive as possible.
Your whole map and world has just been generated and will look differently than the last time you played it.

Tome is different because it has a substantial overworld and because it has a story and miniplots.
Since the overworld is not randomized much, aside from a few dungeons here and there, and there are many things that are set in stone I personally feel like ToME has lost some of that replayability.
It is still very replayable but not as much as some other roguelikes.

I think ToME can enjoy both worlds.
A plot driven story and massive randomization keeping every playthrough as fresh as possible.

I think that much more can be done without hurting the plot and story at all.

#1 more top world randomization, making the terrain and map look substantially different every time.
#2 More randomization of where you start the game.
Sometimes in the dungeon we start now, sometimes in towns , sometimes just in the overworld near the starting region....
This is a minor issue but IMO will keep every game through much more fresh.

I also noticed the XP progression is very stable i think more randomization should be applied to how much xp is in every dungon so that even though you completed the same dungeons at the same order as you did last run you will have a chance of having way more xp or way less.
There should be a middle ground of xp amounts of course but there should be a higher chance of getting less or more XP.

I would like to know what you guys think of the level of randomization in ToME and how important you think it is to invest time in it.

[jenx]

I agree with your ideas. More randomisation is required to keep the game fresh.

[faustgeist]

Agreed +1

[PureQuestion]

#1 more top world randomization, making the terrain and map look substantially different every time.
#2 More randomization of where you start the game.
Sometimes in the dungeon we start now, sometimes in towns , sometimes just in the overworld near the starting region....
This is a minor issue but IMO will keep every game through much more fresh.

I dislike these. They cause a big mess with no benefit.

However, ideas have been tossed around for randomly added dungeons with random themes. I think that'd be a cool idea. Maybe every game it could throw down 3-5 random dungeons on the world map (maybe some in the East, too), either with randbosses at the end or maybe some from a big pool of bosses designed for the purpose...

[Grey]

I don't think a random world map would help. It's a bit like randomising the selections on a game menu. It just makes the game annoying to explore. It's already a chore to hunt out the existing randomly placed dungeons, or poncing around to try and trigger the Trapped quest.

More variety is great, but fake variety is bad.

[gimli]

I don't think a random world map would help.

I think it would. Randomly generated world map combined with randomly generated towns and dungeons.... = WIN.

[PureQuestion]

I'm entirely with Grey.The World Map is the hub. It's not the point of the game. The point of the game is the dungeons. The one thing I think would legitimately improve the game would be more randomly created dungeons, as opposed to randomly mapped dungeons, as is current. Randomly smattering the map with dungeons where you simply don't know what to expect, that would be fun. Screwing with the arrangement of the map itself? Tedious and annoying, I think.

[BasiC]

Maybe you are right.
Perhaps the overworld needs a bit more thought than?
Why is it really pointless to randomize it?
Maybe because its much more boring than the instances..
Maybe it needs something interesting like areas that become randomly guarded by a party...or waring factions from new cities?
Why not have small cities fight it out sending raiding parties at each other and even capturing cities...
the player can than choose to align himself with one faction as a subplot or just stay neutral and let it all unfold by itself and perhaps one faction will win and take full control etc...

ATM there are just random baddies on the map that you can engage or not, why not spice it up a bit...

than if you have a more complex overmap randomizing it would make sense in terms of replayability and fun.
There is no reason why it should be so dull and monotonous.

[bricks]

Maybe you are right.
Perhaps the overworld needs a bit more thought than?
Why is it really pointless to randomize it?
Maybe because its much more boring than the instances..
Maybe it needs something interesting like areas that become randomly guarded by a party...or waring factions from new cities?
Why not have small cities fight it out sending raiding parties at each other and even capturing cities...
the player can than choose to align himself with one faction as a subplot or just stay neutral and let it all unfold by itself and perhaps one faction will win and take full control etc...

ATM there are just random baddies on the map that you can engage or not, why not spice it up a bit...

than if you have a more complex overmap randomizing it would make sense in terms of replayability and fun.
There is no reason why it should be so dull and monotonous.

Cool ideas, but that's an entirely different game. Not only would it be a lot of heavy lifting to get those mechanics working, but you'd have to completely change ToME's narrative style.

[PureQuestion]

Yeah that's basically my response as well. That sounds like a plot all its own.

[edge2054]

The over world does need more randomization and even if the continent is peaceful you can have things like...

Dwarven Caravans

Bandit Encounters

Traveling Alchemists

Zig Raiding Parties

Dungeon Encounters that don't show up every game


There's a lot of random dungeons now but they're randomly placed and guaranteed to occur every game. Some of these should be that way but imagine if we had 10 or 20 more dungeons and only five of them could show up in a given game. Or what if we had quest dungeons tied to unique NPCs? For example, Filio could drop a treasure map leading to a dungeon. This whole encounter might not happen if Filio never spawns or if the player never manages to kill him.

Adding a few such encounters may leave the player feeling robbed if they didn't show up in a given play through. Adding a bunch though would give everyone something and add a lot of variety.

[peacedog]

Some of these should be that way but imagine if we had 10 or 20 more dungeons and only five of them could show up in a given game.

IMO, that's the way to go. It would spice the game up considerably.

Or what if we had quest dungeons tied to unique NPCs? For example, Filio could drop a treasure map leading to a dungeon. This whole encounter might not happen if Filio never spawns or if the player never manages to kill him.

You might also consider attaching treasure map drops to all bosses. I wouldn't replace an artifact drop where applicable but just have a chance for a map to show up in the drops.

[tomeaddict-T4]

I'd like to add one more anonymous voice...and one who plays an especially significant amount of early game. In fact, I've been playing for quite a while, as unspoiled as I can manage, and have reached only one 'major' story point (and on a machine that needed to be scrapped so I'm starting fresh again.)

I'm with the camp that holds world-map randomization is just a complicated distinction without a difference.

The difference between grinding through the first ~15 character levels and an interesting grind every time is when there is the chance for a character to distinguish herself from the last, not needing to hunt around looking for the same things she would do anyway. (I'm pretty experienced with that grind.)

I've always found that I could tell when my character had high luck---things were just a little spicier. You find something cool and it might be a quicker/easier road to the place where you last managed to get singed. What makes the game fun is having each character sufficiently different from the last---this is done through the experience.

Escorting the suicidal and crazy NPCs does this very well. They give a random component to the crafting of the character.
(I've noted this before on the boards---I think a wider variance of artifacts (not necessarily less rarity) would go a long way toward extending this feature. I'm tired of finding Kor's Fall.)

I would suggest that having a slight path-dependence to the starters could also be interesting. Dungeon A before B implied that the > leads to you to C instead of D---which could reasonably be built into the plot. At the bottom of a maybe there's a trap that leads rocks to open one path or another---Plus it might be the first trap that wasn't just a nuisance!

It isn't enough to scramble the map. If you hope to scramble the experience it can't just be making it hard to find things.
If world travel is trivial it is a waste of time. If world travel is exceptionally dangerous it makes deaths that feel futile too common.

[BasiC]

Yes the point about the fact that just scrambling the overworld would be bad is true..
I think in every Roguelike the overworld has always been the weakest link, even in commercial roguelikes on consoles The overworld was always the most boring part...
I think though that it doesn't have to be so...

The conclusion should be that eventually the overworld should be spiced up with all sorts of stuff.
IMO it would have an huge impact on the overall fun of ToME.
Its not like ATM there is this grand complex way in which the overworld works, on the contrary, it is too simple, which is why scrambling it in its current state is futile, unlike instances.

[faction55]

I agree. I love this game. Everything about it. I havn't enjoyed the actual gameplay in a game as much as TE4 since playing Super Mario Kart battle mode back when I was like 10 years old. My problem is I lack the desire to play it because I know that every time it's the same thing. Yeah the gameplay is strong and there is a lot of class variety but for me that isn't enough to warrant a replay. Once I got my first winner my desire to play just ceased to exist.