Rogue-likes! (not a discussion of the correct use of the term)

[Kaptin Keen]

Have you tried Sunless Skies?

I have not. I never finished Sunless Sea, because it ... well it was simply too long, and I ran out of steam before I got there. Also, too grindy. I cannot be arsed to collect all the various ingredients for all the various macguffins needed to finish it. And so, since it seems Sunless Sky is the same, only slightly less good, I figured to not bother.

But I don't know about Sunless Sea - maybe I should'a been a bit more patient. I think I was pretty far along. Meh =)

[Iruka]

I have not. I never finished Sunless Sea, because it ... well it was simply too long, and I ran out of steam before I got there. Also, too grindy. I cannot be arsed to collect all the various ingredients for all the various macguffins needed to finish it. And so, since it seems Sunless Sky is the same, only slightly less good, I figured to not bother.

But I don't know about Sunless Sea - maybe I should'a been a bit more patient. I think I was pretty far along. Meh =)

Huh, I heard Sunless Skies was pretty much the same, just better. Especially the grindiness seems to be reduced. I really should give it a try, IIRC I have a key somewhere from backing it on Kickstarter.

I hear you on the ingredient hunt. Restarting and then having to tech up again to good weapons and engines always made me lose interest too. Then I switched to free saving and now I have a savefile with the Memento Mori and the Fulgent Impeller on a frigate and a Mansion full of treasures to restart from.

[Silfir]

Most of that is due to Healer class powers coupled with Healing at 100. Natural healing (the one everyone gets) caps out at 1 per 5. Trolls start at 1 per 10, but I think Healers get it doubled on character creation.

[Anteros]

Regarding ToME since I've started playing around in it again for a bit...one thing that I hate is how samey all of the equipment feels. It's hard to get excited about a new "unique" weapon when it's basically the same weapon you already had with slightly better stats. Maybe it does a tiny amount of fire damage to go along with the physical or something but for the most part you won't even notice stuff like this as you play.

I just wish there were more uniques that were actually unique instead of "the same item you already have but slightly better".

[Anteros]

Avoid early access like the plague. Cause, it's the plague. I was madly in love with Sunless Sea, and played it extensively in EA - but all that meant was that I never got to play the finished game, because I was done with it before it came out. So all I got out of that was a gaming experience that would have been better if I'd waited.

Does Sunless Sea count? Not really, I guess, for one thing it's not really randomly generated. Just shuffled.

True enough, and I usually do avoid it. With StS I'd already seen most of the game from watching a friend though, so it's not like I was worried about spoiling the experience.

I also got early access for the new Subnautica. I don't have any intention of playing it until release, but I really enjoyed the first game and I wanted to support the developers.

[Cespenar]

Regarding ToME since I've started playing around in it again for a bit...one thing that I hate is how samey all of the equipment feels. It's hard to get excited about a new "unique" weapon when it's basically the same weapon you already had with slightly better stats. Maybe it does a tiny amount of fire damage to go along with the physical or something but for the most part you won't even notice stuff like this as you play.

I just wish there were more uniques that were actually unique instead of "the same item you already have but slightly better".

I'm playing it right now, and you're almost like describing a whole different game there. Examples:

My current weapon is Tirakai's Maul, which can change its element on the fly depending on the gem you put in it. That also changes its crit effect, which varies widely from element to element (lightning-daze, acid-disarm, light-blind, etc.) It still competes with my 2nd set, which is a higher damage weapon that puts talents on cooldown on hit, among its other effects.

My tool slot has 6 competing items which do things ranging from removing debuffs to giving wards to 4 different elements. Similarly, I have at least 3 different fallback items for every slot. One of my current rings gives a pretty awesome melee skill, while others give pretty important resistances that I swap for the occasion. Etc.

[Anteros]

I'm playing it right now, and you're almost like describing a whole different game there. Examples:

My current weapon is Tirakai's Maul, which can change its element on the fly depending on the gem you put in it. That also changes its crit effect, which varies widely from element to element (lightning-daze, acid-disarm, light-blind, etc.) It still competes with my 2nd set, which is a higher damage weapon that puts talents on cooldown on hit, among its other effects.

My tool slot has 6 competing items which do things ranging from removing debuffs to giving wards to 4 different elements. Similarly, I have at least 3 different fallback items for every slot. One of my current rings gives a pretty awesome melee skill, while others give pretty important resistances that I swap for the occasion. Etc.

Ok, but how many of those things actually change anything? Elemental damage is pretty much pointless. There's nothing that really makes lightning feel different from fire, or even physical. You're always just picking whichever one gives you the most damage on the weapon with no concern for the element itself. You need a backup in case you come across a rare enemy that's immune to the element you're using, but that's it.

The same goes for resistances. Outside of a few very rare areas, the enemy types you encounter are so varied that there's no real reason to stack certain resistances or damage types. Maybe it would be different if the zones were more thematic and varied, but as it stands, you spend the entire second half of the game fighting orcs, which come in all flavors. The early zones are diverse, but you don't have resistances yet then anyway. Nor do you need them. I typically pick up a few lightning resist items early in the game for Derth and then ignore the entire mechanic forever, and I can't say it's ever come back to bite me.

Tools are varied and a bit more unique. They still typically all break down into doing the same things though. In every single game you'll have the same tools. They'll have different names and stats, but they do the same things. There's one to add damage resist, one to dig, one to give a shield, one to teleport, some sort of wand to throw damage over range, and one that mildly amps your damage. Still, they're one of the better designed item groups of uniques, and I wish the rest were more like this instead of "maul of lightning damage +13" vs "greatsword of cold +12".

[factotum]

Question: does anyone know why the Alchemist's golem sucks so hard? As a summoner I can have several monsters out at once, almost any of which is tougher and less likely to die than a golem--plus they can be re-summoned for a simple mana cost, on skills with cooldowns short enough to be useful. Bringing back a golem when it dies requires alchemist gems and a 20-turn cooldown skill which cannot be cast when in sight of an enemy, and the golem comes back with near zero life so you have to wait another 20 turns and recast the refit skill to get it back in fighting fettle. (Summoners have instant Nature's Touch to deal with this problem, naturally). If the Alchemist's own direct damage abilities were powerful enough to compensate for the golem suckage I'd see the point, but they're not--you get to throw a bomb once every three turns, and otherwise are having to peck away at individual enemies using Channel Staff.

Do Alchemists somehow get really powerful later on, assuming you can survive past level 10?

[Anteros]

Question: does anyone know why the Alchemist's golem sucks so hard? As a summoner I can have several monsters out at once, almost any of which is tougher and less likely to die than a golem--plus they can be re-summoned for a simple mana cost, on skills with cooldowns short enough to be useful. Bringing back a golem when it dies requires alchemist gems and a 20-turn cooldown skill which cannot be cast when in sight of an enemy, and the golem comes back with near zero life so you have to wait another 20 turns and recast the refit skill to get it back in fighting fettle. (Summoners have instant Nature's Touch to deal with this problem, naturally). If the Alchemist's own direct damage abilities were powerful enough to compensate for the golem suckage I'd see the point, but they're not--you get to throw a bomb once every three turns, and otherwise are having to peck away at individual enemies using Channel Staff.

Do Alchemists somehow get really powerful later on, assuming you can survive past level 10?

I haven't really played around with the alchemist much, but my understanding is that the golems start weak and you level them up as you go. That said, I know there are guides that claim that the golem is capable of carrying you through the early game, so maybe look up one of them to see what you're doing wrong?

[Cespenar]

Ok, but how many of those things actually change anything? Elemental damage is pretty much pointless. There's nothing that really makes lightning feel different from fire, or even physical. You're always just picking whichever one gives you the most damage on the weapon with no concern for the element itself. You need a backup in case you come across a rare enemy that's immune to the element you're using, but that's it.

The same goes for resistances. Outside of a few very rare areas, the enemy types you encounter are so varied that there's no real reason to stack certain resistances or damage types. Maybe it would be different if the zones were more thematic and varied, but as it stands, you spend the entire second half of the game fighting orcs, which come in all flavors. The early zones are diverse, but you don't have resistances yet then anyway. Nor do you need them. I typically pick up a few lightning resist items early in the game for Derth and then ignore the entire mechanic forever, and I can't say it's ever come back to bite me.

Tools are varied and a bit more unique. They still typically all break down into doing the same things though. In every single game you'll have the same tools. They'll have different names and stats, but they do the same things. There's one to add damage resist, one to dig, one to give a shield, one to teleport, some sort of wand to throw damage over range, and one that mildly amps your damage. Still, they're one of the better designed item groups of uniques, and I wish the rest were more like this instead of "maul of lightning damage +13" vs "greatsword of cold +12".

Well, I didn't want to go on because I had quite a few examples, but the elemental part is just one consideration. You see an elemental weakness, you exploit it. The enemy resistances vary like crazy, and changing your element basically just increases your damage (sometimes by huge margins), so it's never "just the highest damage weapon". Also, my competing weapons had many different aspects to consider as well:

-The elemental one that I mentioned had differing crit effects, so if you're up against mages, you put the arcane gem in, because it silences on crit, etc.
-One "projected" 3 smaller attacks to enemies in range, so that worked wonders with passive rider effects.
-One (Spectral Blade) had huge armor penetration, blind-fight, and silence, so that's useful in at least three different cases.
-One had, as I mentioned, talent suppressing abilities, so that worked well on random bosses which can pull some devastating combos.

Also I outright don't understand how you ignore the "resistance mechanic" and not die in ToME. It's like the most basic and important strategic element of the game. Sometimes it's even worth it to be hit by a boss's spell, see that it uses a certain element, and then lose a turn wearing a glove/helmet/ring/what-have-you which gives a resist to that element.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

I picked up Slay The Spire to check out the new "act 4" since it's officially released now. All I can say about it is...we waited a year for this?? It's 2 fights long and I beat it on the first try. The game is still great overall, and I definitely got my money's worth...but I was expecting more.

Especially when they made me go back and beat the game with all 3 classes again, despite the fact that I've already done that multiple times in the past.

The challenge is in the buildup. Because you have to pick up all three keys in the run, you have to a) sacrifice not getting an artifact in favor of a key from a chest (of which there are few), b) sacrifice either healing or upgrading a card (possibly other options, depending on what artifact you get) in favor of a key, and c) have to steer yourself to a specific point in the run to fight the boss which nets you the key on one of the floors, which may be far from an optimal route on that floor.

In other words, the challenge in the Act 4 run isn't just the fight itself, it is requiring several sub-optimal choices earlier in the run which may end up putting you in an otherwise worse position than you would be in just so you can make the attempt. So you might end up having runs end early while trying to collect what you need for Act 4, because in doing so you put yourself on a harder path than you would normally have.

Also, try playing on Ascension 20. You'll find it a much bigger challenge, because all of these things become more difficult to pull off due to the handicaps A20 puts on you.

[Corlindale]

Question: does anyone know why the Alchemist's golem sucks so hard? As a summoner I can have several monsters out at once, almost any of which is tougher and less likely to die than a golem--plus they can be re-summoned for a simple mana cost, on skills with cooldowns short enough to be useful. Bringing back a golem when it dies requires alchemist gems and a 20-turn cooldown skill which cannot be cast when in sight of an enemy, and the golem comes back with near zero life so you have to wait another 20 turns and recast the refit skill to get it back in fighting fettle. (Summoners have instant Nature's Touch to deal with this problem, naturally). If the Alchemist's own direct damage abilities were powerful enough to compensate for the golem suckage I'd see the point, but they're not--you get to throw a bomb once every three turns, and otherwise are having to peck away at individual enemies using Channel Staff.

Do Alchemists somehow get really powerful later on, assuming you can survive past level 10?

It's been a while since I played the Alchemist (much like you, I prefer the infinite army of infinitely disposable summons that the Summoner offers), but I believe it's considered one of the weaker classes in the game. Then again, so is the Summoner.

That said, I don't remember the golem being super squishy in the early game - usually it wasn't until the midgame that it became an issue. At first I also hadn't realised I could level the golem and give it gear - after I figured that out, it performed quite a bit better! That was actually one of the highlights of playing Alchemist for me - the fact that I could get excited about both fighter type equipment and mage equipment, because I could hand the big and heavy weapons/armor over to my golem.

[factotum]

That said, I don't remember the golem being super squishy in the early game - usually it wasn't until the midgame that it became an issue.

That's probably true, but that doesn't make it any better when Summoner minions can tank level 20 bosses while the golem dies in one hit to a level 12 one--and yes, I figured out you can change equipment and level up the golem. Mind you, for reasons which are beyond my ken the thing only gets 2 stat points per level and can only equip 3 items (armour, shield and weapon), so it's always going to be way behind the curve compared to a player character.

I mean, I'm not expecting the golem to be as powerful as a warrior, which is maybe the problem--I think the golem does too much damage and is too fragile. I want it to be a meat shield that keeps the enemies off me while I use my magic, not something that usually gets the kill itself when it isn't dying to mid-level bosses.

[Anteros]

Well, I didn't want to go on because I had quite a few examples, but the elemental part is just one consideration. You see an elemental weakness, you exploit it. The enemy resistances vary like crazy, and changing your element basically just increases your damage (sometimes by huge margins), so it's never "just the highest damage weapon". Also, my competing weapons had many different aspects to consider as well:

-The elemental one that I mentioned had differing crit effects, so if you're up against mages, you put the arcane gem in, because it silences on crit, etc.
-One "projected" 3 smaller attacks to enemies in range, so that worked wonders with passive rider effects.
-One (Spectral Blade) had huge armor penetration, blind-fight, and silence, so that's useful in at least three different cases.
-One had, as I mentioned, talent suppressing abilities, so that worked well on random bosses which can pull some devastating combos.

Also I outright don't understand how you ignore the "resistance mechanic" and not die in ToME. It's like the most basic and important strategic element of the game. Sometimes it's even worth it to be hit by a boss's spell, see that it uses a certain element, and then lose a turn wearing a glove/helmet/ring/what-have-you which gives a resist to that element.

I don't know. I'm not claiming to be some grand-master at the game, but I can consistently win with the types of builds I enjoy playing. Maybe I'm not struggling due to a lack of resistances because I'm not stopping in the middle of every fight to change equipment while they take free shots at me? Unless you teleport away from every semi-dangerous enemy, prepare, and then go find them? The whole playstyle you're describing sounds incredibly tedious, and it's not even remotely necessary. I can't even imagine playing this way.

Maybe if you're playing on madness? Although my struggles with that difficulty have more to do with the fact that almost every enemy has nearly impenetrable damage shields, and only a few builds are viable at getting through them...which just sucks the entire appeal of the game away since it's all about making unique builds.

The challenge is in the buildup. Because you have to pick up all three keys in the run, you have to a) sacrifice not getting an artifact in favor of a key from a chest (of which there are few), b) sacrifice either healing or upgrading a card (possibly other options, depending on what artifact you get) in favor of a key, and c) have to steer yourself to a specific point in the run to fight the boss which nets you the key on one of the floors, which may be far from an optimal route on that floor.

In other words, the challenge in the Act 4 run isn't just the fight itself, it is requiring several sub-optimal choices earlier in the run which may end up putting you in an otherwise worse position than you would be in just so you can make the attempt. So you might end up having runs end early while trying to collect what you need for Act 4, because in doing so you put yourself on a harder path than you would normally have.

Also, try playing on Ascension 20. You'll find it a much bigger challenge, because all of these things become more difficult to pull off due to the handicaps A20 puts on you.

I don't really enjoy the ascensions, although I have played quite a lot of them. I've found that at around Ascension 15 or so it's basically RNG if you can get a deck off the ground or not. At least for me. I'm sure better players are more consistent. Maybe I'll grind my way to 20 someday.

I didn't find that unlocking act 4 was particularly challenging. You just use the very first campfire before you need to heal or have critical cards to upgrade. Or the last camp-fire when your build is pretty much done, and you're strong enough that you're blowing through fights anyway. There's pretty much always at least one chest that offers you a useless relic for your build, so that's not a big deal either. I assume that it's any chest? I've just taken it at the first one every time so far just in case it's missable. The most annoying part about unlocking act 4 is that you don't really get to choose your path anymore since you have to hit the flaming elites, which can force you into some bad positions.

All of that said, I've only played through it like twice so far. I'm not very good with the construct, so I'll probably struggle a lot more than I did with the ironclad or the rogue.

[tyckspoon]

It's been a while since I played the Alchemist (much like you, I prefer the infinite army of infinitely disposable summons that the Summoner offers), but I believe it's considered one of the weaker classes in the game. Then again, so is the Summoner.

Alchemist is a little better off than it used to be, because (IIRC) the not-bombing skill trees got an improvement pass a while ago to make them less useless/more relevant to consider using between bombs, but it's still fairly weak. If you focus on the energy-alchemy trees, you can.. pretend to be a really bad Archmage.

The golem can be pretty decent, once you've invested in the relevant skill trees on the Alchemist, but that's direct competition for your own active skills. In addition to keeping its gear updated, remember that you can put Runes on it - for tanking, just loading it up with several Shield runes helps a lot. And don't forget to imbue a gem into its armor! Every bit helps!

[Cespenar]

I don't know. I'm not claiming to be some grand-master at the game, but I can consistently win with the types of builds I enjoy playing. Maybe I'm not struggling due to a lack of resistances because I'm not stopping in the middle of every fight to change equipment while they take free shots at me? Unless you teleport away from every semi-dangerous enemy, prepare, and then go find them? The whole playstyle you're describing sounds incredibly tedious, and it's not even remotely necessary. I can't even imagine playing this way.

Maybe if you're playing on madness? Although my struggles with that difficulty have more to do with the fact that almost every enemy has nearly impenetrable damage shields, and only a few builds are viable at getting through them...which just sucks the entire appeal of the game away since it's all about making unique builds.

I was describing an edge case there, but never mind. Congrats then, I guess, if you're ignoring a main mechanic and still consistently winning.

[Kaptin Keen]

I was describing an edge case there, but never mind. Congrats then, I guess, if you're ignoring a main mechanic and still consistently winning.

Hey, for what it's worth, resistances on gear are also a main component of the Diablo series, and I've never, ever bothered with it - and still beaten the ones I've played (the series lost it's gleam many years ago).

[tyckspoon]

I was describing an edge case there, but never mind. Congrats then, I guess, if you're ignoring a main mechanic and still consistently winning.

I suppose there are a few characters I've lost that might have been able to break through by managing swap/special situation gear like that, but there's several reasons I can think of that it's usually not needed or at least not a preferred strategy. 'Resist All' is a thing, and most of the classes acknowledged as being higher-tier have native ways to get it. High-level Shield runes and Heroism infusions give successful characters such enormous effective health pools that the effects of resistance are rendered mostly irrelevant (... and that bonus health is on a duration timer, so spending a turn swapping more defensive gear can be thought of as damaging yourself by spending a turn of your shorter duration defense.) The most dangerous enemies (random boss-tier foes with talents pulled from multiple classes) can have multiple elements they can attack you with and you can't predict what it'll be or possibly even be able to protect from all of them by swapping a single item, and switching more than one is yielding dangerous amounts of time to the enemy to act without you directly responding or hampering them. You may also be facing a choice between two defensive items, and decide that maintaining 100% Stun resistance is more relevant to your survival than having an extra 20% lightning resist. (This is, admittedly and by direct statement of the game developer, because Stun is wayyy too potent in its current form and warps a lot of the game around being able to apply it and resist or remove it on the player's end. It'll change at some point, and that may open up some space for considering elemental resistance, because the slots that usually have Stun resist are also the prime places for elemental resists.) And then there's the fact that ToME just has like a bazillion damage types, and you may simply not have any relevant source of resists for some of them.

And, of course, like many rogue-likes and ARPGs, ToME has a strong component of 'best defense is a good offense.' If you can explode the enemy or Stun them or Confuse them (usually as a side effect of trying to explode them) before they can attack you too many times, then there is no need to resist their attacks because they're dead.. so equipping something that gives +damage/penetration to your preferred element or bonus crit or whatever is often preferred over equipping something that gives +resistance to the enemy's preferred elements.

.. all of *that* considered, there are still specific zones that are dangerous enough and where a particular damage type is prevalent enough that it's probably worth gearing to counter it. If you're doing High Peaks you might want to pack extra Lightning resist. If you're going to do Melissa's dungeon consider swapping some stuff for extra Blight resist (and also Lightning again) because the place is full of Corruptor and lightning-mage class enemies. Same for Spellblaze Scar. (These are notable to me mainly because both Lightning and Corruptors are super bursty - the very high variance for damage range on lightning spells and the bonus crit on Soul Rot make them high risks of getting one-shot if you're trying to rely on active defenses like shielding. Having passive resistance to blunt them is pretty helpful.)

[Knaight]

And, of course, like many rogue-likes and ARPGs, ToME has a strong component of 'best defense is a good offense.' If you can explode the enemy or Stun them or Confuse them (usually as a side effect of trying to explode them) before they can attack you too many times, then there is no need to resist their attacks because they're dead.. so equipping something that gives +damage/penetration to your preferred element or bonus crit or whatever is often preferred over equipping something that gives +resistance to the enemy's preferred elements.

That's one option in ToME, and one I like (archers emphasizing damage as much as possible are a fave), but it also supports defense by defense. Healing being on cooldown rather than through limited items makes a big difference here, the save math is such that you can shrug stuff up all day long if you build right, and tanks can end up really tanky.

[factotum]

While ToME is definitely one of the friendlier roguelikes I've played, I notice it still hasn't quite managed to shake off that "WTF? That was totally unfair" thing. Case in point: find mysterious building on level 2 of the Old Forest which has three equally mysterious pillars out the front. Game offers you the chance to inspect each of these pillars, and if you do, a nasty Invoker character appears and attacks. These Invokers, while tougher than you'd maybe expect for the zone, are not *super* difficult to kill. If you do this for all three pillars, though, a demon called Nthro appears after you kill the last Invoker. This guy is level 35, has 1707 hit points and some sort of bone shield that blocks your first few attacks, and he killed me in pretty short order.

Personally, I think that's grossly unfair. There is absolutely zero warning that you'll get ROFLstomped by Satan's lieutenant if you do this. The Invokers are not really tough enough to make you think there's anything serious on the way, and even if they were, this is a *TIER 2* dungeon which is supposed to be suitable for entering at level 7! This is really just the programmers saying "Well, sucks to be you, better start all over again and don't bother investigating anything interesting, because we *will* kill you for it".

[tyckspoon]

While ToME is definitely one of the friendlier roguelikes I've played, I notice it still hasn't quite managed to shake off that "WTF? That was totally unfair" thing. Case in point: find mysterious building on level 2 of the Old Forest which has three equally mysterious pillars out the front. Game offers you the chance to inspect each of these pillars, and if you do, a nasty Invoker character appears and attacks. These Invokers, while tougher than you'd maybe expect for the zone, are not *super* difficult to kill. If you do this for all three pillars, though, a demon called Nthro appears after you kill the last Invoker. This guy is level 35, has 1707 hit points and some sort of bone shield that blocks your first few attacks, and he killed me in pretty short order.

Uff. A Bringer of Doom. Yeah, those can be cruel, although they're kind of amusing when they end up summoning a Quasit or something with delusions of grandeur. The intended lesson in most of ToME's unplanned deaths is supposed to be 'always have a plan for getting out', I think, but this one is particularly annoying because all of your best stuff is probably already on cooldown from dealing with the last Invoker immediately prior to summoning the Bringer of Doom itself. But hey, now you know what that event is.. it is a Rogue-like, after all, and there's still that structural element of "you're supposed to learn by dying a bunch until you gather enough game knowledge to succeed."

(I am not trying to say this is a *good* thing, and I personally disagree with it as a design element. I should also note I pretty much only play ToME on 'Adventurer' mode, where you get multiple lives per character, and I don't know if I've ever won the game without a single death so far, because I HATE doing the ultra-cautious play style that is best recommended practice for a full one-life-only setting victory.)

[Wookieetank]

This is really just the programmers saying "Well, sucks to be you, better start all over again and don't bother investigating anything interesting, because we *will* kill you for it".

I have this issue with some of the Spiderweb Software games, particularly the Geneforge series. I'm all for beefgates in open world games, but when every area has 1 encounter purposely designed to be unwinnable first time through, it gets grating after a bit. Particularly when you don't know its a design "feature".

On topic:

Poked around a little bit at ToME recently and played my first Elven archmage and had the magic rift as my first dungeon. Only made it to the 3rd floor before becoming toast, but I really enjoyed the mechanics of the dungeon. The phasing islands, having to stabilize the rifts by throwing spells at them, was all very cool and atmospheric. Need to get around to playing an archer character, been mostly poking around with melee/tank ones.

[Man_Over_Game]

Been playing around on this free mobile game called King Crusher, which is labeled as a Roguelike.

You have a small squad of heroes that move through a dungeon that you have to move around particular enemies to avoid their attack patterns, and so that you can line up your heroes into their own attack patterns.

It also has random events that often rely on your classes, your sacrifices, or just straight random chance.

It's absurdly fun and challenging, and definitely worth checking out.

Spoiler: It's also absurdly hilarious

Show

A random event says this:
You see a shadow of something falling. In the sky are some begonias and a whale hurling towards the ground.

Choices:
Avoid the whale: -4 damage to the team
Avoid the begonias: -36 damage to the team

[zlefin]

trying out TomE some for myself. seems alright, not amazing. it has the common problem of feeling like there's a lot of fights with lesser foes that take up time but aren't that interesting to engaging in.

one annoyance I'm having: when I alt-tab out and afk for awhile; sometimes the sound on ToME just stops working when i'm back. unless I reload the game entirely that is, which is a nuisance.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

All of that said, I've only played through it like twice so far. I'm not very good with the construct, so I'll probably struggle a lot more than I did with the ironclad or the rogue.

Construct? You mean the Defect? There's a few fun things to do...

First off, you're going to want to decide early on if you want to go physical damage, orb damage, or a mix (Barrage works pretty well with orb-heavy decks).

Claw decks are pretty fun, but not very Heart friendly because of all the cards you are playing, and not very good against the Time Eater boss either, if you have him in your third act slot. Hologram + FTL can be used to cycle cards pretty well, and Scrape can put several zero-cost cards into your hand, which FTL and Claw are.

Orb decks can be a lot of fun, and my favorite. Lightning builds typically want Electrodynamics to handle the group encounters on the second and third floors, however it's all but useless against the bosses. Cycling your orbs is going to be key for most of these strategies.

Shadow Orb builds can be *nasty* if you build them right. You'll want a Loop, and put a Shadow Orb into your front slot, plus as many boosts to your orb power as you can get. Orb scales up, then you Dualcast it for some serious damage output. Especially if you can get a copy of Recursion. Grind your orb up to like 50, do Recursion and you now have a 50 strength shadow orb in your back orb slot in addition to doing 50 damage. Multi-cast is another you're going to want to evoking the shadow orb. This is one of the few builds where Capacitors or the Inserter can actually hurt you, because it makes it more difficult to get that shadow orb out in front where it needs to be. Unless you also have at least one Consume in the deck, in which case it is just more Focus.

I like to play a mix of shadow and ice. Ice gives me the defense I need to survive while my shadow orb builds up, then whamo bamo. Toss in the occasional Bullseye for Lock-On that gives the target 50% more damage from orbs for good measure.

Biased Cognition is generally a trap... unless you either can use it to confirm a kill that turn, or if you have Artifact to mitigate the downside. In which case... go for it. Getting the relic that starts you out with one level of Artifact can make a Biased Cognition basically a superior Defragment.

Alternately, if you feel a bit avante-guarde, you can try for a powerhouse deck. You're going to want Hyperbeam, Fusion, and Meteor Strike, plus whatever else you can to boost strength or whatever. Basically, you no longer care about Focus, because the only orbs you are interested in are Fusion orbs for more Energy so you can drop Meteor Strikes and Hyperbeams readily. Especially if you can get an Echo Form or two down. Echo Form + Meteor Strike = fun times

[Anteros]

While ToME is definitely one of the friendlier roguelikes I've played, I notice it still hasn't quite managed to shake off that "WTF? That was totally unfair" thing. Case in point: find mysterious building on level 2 of the Old Forest which has three equally mysterious pillars out the front. Game offers you the chance to inspect each of these pillars, and if you do, a nasty Invoker character appears and attacks. These Invokers, while tougher than you'd maybe expect for the zone, are not *super* difficult to kill. If you do this for all three pillars, though, a demon called Nthro appears after you kill the last Invoker. This guy is level 35, has 1707 hit points and some sort of bone shield that blocks your first few attacks, and he killed me in pretty short order.

Personally, I think that's grossly unfair. There is absolutely zero warning that you'll get ROFLstomped by Satan's lieutenant if you do this. The Invokers are not really tough enough to make you think there's anything serious on the way, and even if they were, this is a *TIER 2* dungeon which is supposed to be suitable for entering at level 7! This is really just the programmers saying "Well, sucks to be you, better start all over again and don't bother investigating anything interesting, because we *will* kill you for it".

So with ToME any time you get the "are you sure you want to do this" prompt you need to be aware that the game is going to try very hard to kill you if you say yes. Even if all you're doing is opening a door.

[Kaptin Keen]

So with ToME any time you get the "are you sure you want to do this" prompt you need to be aware that the game is going to try very hard to kill you if you say yes. Even if all you're doing is opening a door.

Honestly, in any roguelike, if there's a prompt like that I'd just back off, very cautiously, like the world might be about to explode.

[factotum]

But then you're missing potentially interesting content, and those prompts don't *always* mean instadeath--in fact, in this case I had three of them that most notably did *not* mean death. If they'd added a fourth pillar you had to inspect to raise the demon lord, with some very obvious "You really don't want to do this unless you're ready" foreshadowing text, I'd have been happier.

Incidentally, I had a separate game running on my laptop where I was trying another Alchemist run, and I cleared three out of four tier 2 dungeons and got to Daikara at level 17 before getting trapped between a nasty stone giant boss and a Thunderer. Seems lightning damage in one form or another is often what gets me!

[zlefin]

still trying out ToME,, defeated that big nasty boss at daikara (I forget his name, he had as special name like karzun or something).

game's alright, but some annoyances:
it's still the case that whenever I'm afk for awhile and my comp autosleeps ToME loses its sound completely, so I have to reload; which is quite annoying cuz I'm an alt-tabber who shifts around games a lot and leaves 'em open.
I found the text hard to read, so I adjusted the settings it has so it's nice and big and visible, but now that it's properly visible several parts of the interface are much NOT optimized for it to be this big, so parts of the text cover other important parts (like on the levelup screen I can't see how many points I have to spend in some categories)

[factotum]

Having a second go at Temporal Warden now, have got to level 10 and cleared four of the level 1 dungeons (so it's telling me to go after the level 2s, but I'm ignoring it!). So far the class seems to play mainly as an Archer but with slightly better evasion abilities and a tendency to have random ability failures if you forget to rest for a while, will have to see if that continues.