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

[InvisibleBison]

OK, bit puzzled here. I got the portal to Maj'Eyal activated and went back--but the level 1 dungeons were still clear, despite me having been led to understand that some new higher-level bosses should have spawned in there? Just in case I did the next couple of steps in the plot, but still no additional bosses to fight. So I did the Elven ruins--that, the plot missions, and being eaten by a giant worm have got me up to level 31, so have headed back East to do the Prides. No additional deaths to report, although I've had to activate Last Stand to avoid them a couple of times.

That does seem odd. How thoroughly did you explore the dungeons? The backup bosses usually spawn several levels into the dungeon. Also, they don't only spawn in the level 1 dungeons - some of the higher level dungeons also have one.

[tyckspoon]

OK, bit puzzled here. I got the portal to Maj'Eyal activated and went back--but the level 1 dungeons were still clear, despite me having been led to understand that some new higher-level bosses should have spawned in there? Just in case I did the next couple of steps in the plot, but still no additional bosses to fight. So I did the Elven ruins--that, the plot missions, and being eaten by a giant worm have got me up to level 31, so have headed back East to do the Prides. No additional deaths to report, although I've had to activate Last Stand to avoid them a couple of times.

The one in the Sandworm Lair will come right to you if you wait enough turns. The other ones are just kind of hanging around - you have to wander around the levels they're on until you run into them. I usually look 'em up because I can't remember which floor they inhabit. I know Sandworms, Maze, Daikara, Trollmire, Old Forest, Crystal Caverns, and Dreadfell all have a new boss in 'em. The Deep Delve (Dwarf dungeon) does too, but you gotta be a Dwarf or have a mod that opens the Iron Throne to other races.

[zlefin]

It's mainly for getting that last few levels worth of XP to take you to 50, as well as a chance to finish out your gearing if you have any notable holes left .. although RNG being RNG there's still no guarantee you'll find anything worth the time (if you don't mind using the gear vault, tho, there's a pretty good chance you'll find something awesome you can bequeath to a future character.) Otherwise, yeah, people tend to just sprint through High Peak and head for that last fight, sometimes to the point of not even bothering with fighting the stair guards - just bait them off the stairs and use whatever mobility options you have to run around them and go to the next level. ('course, that's also because they're all randbosses, and engaging with them can be one of the most dangerous things you can do at that point.)

Can you go into some more depth on why you think that last fight arena is poorly structured?

it's not the last fight arena, it's the whole last area (i.e. the whole high peaks area) I was referring to that felt poorly structured.

and that was for the aforementioned reasons of there being nothing to gain so you just try to sprint through it. (and that the enemy gets an automatic level advantage; the bonuses of being a boss should be enough, and its weird to go through the whole game and then be told at the end the enemy gets to outlevel cuz you have a cap, but it never applied beforehand).


edit: unrelated commentary:
I started my next game on nightmare. been wondering a few things on items:
1) how does the rate of return on the transmog chest compare to the rate for selling items? wondering sinc eearly on it's actually worth buying stuff with your gold so getting more has some use.
2) late game; do people end up using mostly yellows, or do you often find that some of the other item ranks turn out to be a bit better? I was mostly using yellow, with a smattering of others for item types that were less frequent, or that had really choice selections of mods.

[tyckspoon]

edit: unrelated commentary:
I started my next game on nightmare. been wondering a few things on items:
1) how does the rate of return on the transmog chest compare to the rate for selling items? wondering sinc eearly on it's actually worth buying stuff with your gold so getting more has some use.
2) late game; do people end up using mostly yellows, or do you often find that some of the other item ranks turn out to be a bit better? I was mostly using yellow, with a smattering of others for item types that were less frequent, or that had really choice selections of mods.

IIRC shops will pay you very marginally more than transmogging, but not enough to justify having to make so many trips back to town to sell stuff when your carrying capacity gets maxed.

Usually yellows, because the good ones have fixed properties and bonuses that are either very rare to find on a random gen item or simply impossible because there is no random ability that grants them. (I mentioned the 'Dragon' property earlier - a random artifact quality heavy armor might generate with that property twice, which would easily be in contention for best armor in the game. But you'd need to be quite lucky to get it, whereas being thorough about clearing zones and vaults is almost guaranteed to turn up a pretty good tier 4 or 5 fixed artifact somewhere.)

Jewelry, lite, and tool slots often wind up with random artifacts, because the fixed arts for those aren't really amazing and those slots can have a number of otherwise quite rare traits - jewelry is a prime source for status resist and elemental stacking, tools can have weird things like faster cast and armor penetration, and some players put a premium on having a super fast digger.

[Derjuin]

edit: unrelated commentary:
I started my next game on nightmare. been wondering a few things on items:
1) how does the rate of return on the transmog chest compare to the rate for selling items? wondering sinc eearly on it's actually worth buying stuff with your gold so getting more has some use.
2) late game; do people end up using mostly yellows, or do you often find that some of the other item ranks turn out to be a bit better? I was mostly using yellow, with a smattering of others for item types that were less frequent, or that had really choice selections of mods.

RE: 2): It really depends on the difficulty. On normal and nightmare I typically end up with more yellows, because randarts are much, much rarer; but on insane and madness, you typically have quite a lot of gold by the time you get back to the West, and if you saved the merchant he can get you incredible randarts (bows with over 100% bonus phys damage AND phys pen, or cloaks with 500 or more bonus life, or amulets/rings with over 100% status resist). It really depends on what you find and the difficulty, though.

[Anteros]

I pretty much always end up using mostly randarts. I generally find them better. Plus, I typically play melee classes and a good randart with projection on it is miles better than any yellow you'll ever find. Maybe the anti-magic gauntlets if you're playing a brawler can compete.

[Cespenar]

I pretty much always end up using mostly randarts. I generally find them better. Plus, I typically play melee classes and a good randart with projection on it is miles better than any yellow you'll ever find. Maybe the anti-magic gauntlets if you're playing a brawler can compete.

For projection weapons, do you know if your projection attacks trigger all of your "on hit" effects, or just some of them? I assume, for example, that the "deal 20 cold damage on hit" thing on my weapon probably activates in the projected attacks as well, but what happens when you use a melee skill or something like that?

[factotum]

Well, old Billy Bones is still going strong, now level 37--I went back to Maj'Eyal and did a thorough search of the levels the wiki said the extra bosses would be on, and found them this time. I was expecting them to be in the same place as the original bosses, which is clearly not the case. I didn't get to the end portal in time in the Doom of the World quest, mainly because I didn't realise there was a time limit and I got confused and helped kill the Orcs at the start before realising they were eternally respawning--no idea how many turns I wasted there, but I think I'd have struggled to reach the end in time anyway, given how far away I was from it when time ran out.

Just entering Vor Pride and remembering why I hate the place--absolutely crammed with cryomancers and pyromancers who keep running away. Considering my only way to close distance quickly is Rush, which is level 1 and thus has a massive cooldown, it can get quite annoying chasing the little sods around until I can introduce them to the blunt side of my shield.

[zlefin]

Well, old Billy Bones is still going strong, now level 37--I went back to Maj'Eyal and did a thorough search of the levels the wiki said the extra bosses would be on, and found them this time. I was expecting them to be in the same place as the original bosses, which is clearly not the case. I didn't get to the end portal in time in the Doom of the World quest, mainly because I didn't realise there was a time limit and I got confused and helped kill the Orcs at the start before realising they were eternally respawning--no idea how many turns I wasted there, but I think I'd have struggled to reach the end in time anyway, given how far away I was from it when time ran out.

Just entering Vor Pride and remembering why I hate the place--absolutely crammed with cryomancers and pyromancers who keep running away. Considering my only way to close distance quickly is Rush, which is level 1 and thus has a massive cooldown, it can get quite annoying chasing the little sods around until I can introduce them to the blunt side of my shield.

maybe it'd be worth switching to a movement infusion for awhile?
too bad you don't have that ability that resets the cooldown on rush.

[Anteros]

For projection weapons, do you know if your projection attacks trigger all of your "on hit" effects, or just some of them? I assume, for example, that the "deal 20 cold damage on hit" thing on my weapon probably activates in the projected attacks as well, but what happens when you use a melee skill or something like that?

As far as I can tell everything procs. For example, with an arcane blade you can fill an entire room with explosions with just one move.

[factotum]

maybe it'd be worth switching to a movement infusion for awhile?

I do have an ability that resets the Rush cooldown, but it didn't occur to me to use it--and movement infusions are out, because as a skeletal undead maintained by unnatural magics too horrible to contemplate, I can't use them. Runes are fine, but I don't think there are movement versions of those.

[Anteros]

You may want to consider a gap closer item. It's usually worth losing some stats in order to give your melee class some extra mobility.

[zlefin]

ToME:
I've been having some trouble on the next difficulty up (nightmare), getting into trouble far earlier than I did in my other game. how severe is the difference in difficulty between nightmare and normal? i.e. I just know the numbers it says on how it changes things, that's a lot different from getting a real feel for how the difference is in practice.

restarted twice already (not that I necessarily had to, but got into problems, one from losing an escort quest cuz I used the stairs cuz an enemy unique spawned right next to the start of that level, another cuz I got into a fight recklessly and died once, and it's so early I figured I might as well just restart rather than face the rest of the game down a life).

[tyckspoon]

ToME:
I've been having some trouble on the next difficulty up (nightmare), getting into trouble far earlier than I did in my other game. how severe is the difference in difficulty between nightmare and normal? i.e. I just know the numbers it says on how it changes things, that's a lot different from getting a real feel for how the difference is in practice.

Standard enemies are not too bad, because levels don't have a huge impact on their threat to start with. Uniques - anything with random class abilities - are notably more dangerous, because they'll have more talents and more levels in those talents. The main thing I've noticed/felt when I've played with Nightmare is map patrols are a lot more dangerous to mess with; I feel fairly safe farming them for their higher-class drops on Normal, I usually get killed trying to do it on Nightmare.

[factotum]

Word of advice: if you have the Steam version of ToME, don't enable cloud saves. It actually reverted me back to level 32, losing all my progress from last time. *Fortunately*, I had a local backup of the T-Engine folder, so I copied that over the "updated" version and I have my level 37 character back!

[EDIT] I tend to die a lot in the Far East--too many orcs throwing cold and fire around, and I keep forgetting to find items that will increase my resistance to those. I'm down to 1 life left at level 40 (although I think I get an extra one from my skeleton healing ability, right?) but have finished with Vor Pride, which is always the worst. I've also unlocked the Doomed class by killing my own shade in the Shadow Crypt (which was surprisingly easy).

[EDIT AGAIN] And thus endeth my best run ever. Got killed by the second boss (whatsisname the Crusher) in the Slime Tunnels at level 42. I'd maxed out strength, dexterity and constitution, so not sure how much better I could have done even if I'd been higher level.

[zlefin]

in ToME, does anyone recommend any mods to make escort quests less annoying?
I'm tired of them trying to suicide, it's tedious.

[tyckspoon]

in ToME, does anyone recommend any mods to make escort quests less annoying?
I'm tired of them trying to suicide, it's tedious.

I don't remember the name, but yeah, there's a few mods for altering escort AI, and I think at least one that changes the commands you can give them (Like changing the 'stay here for a bit' one into 'stay here until I come back for you' so you can park them in a cleared corner.)

[factotum]

Started a Doombringer just to unlock the Demonologist class, and I'm actually doing rather well--have unlocked both that and the Corruptor and cleared Dreadfell no problem. Now level 27 and I chose to go into the Dark Crypt, which may have been an error, we'll see!

(Died 3 times on this run, but one of those was because I was checking my inventory in the middle of a fight and didn't realise that switching to my off set would cost a turn and allow the enemy to kill me!).

As far as the escort quests are concerned: I don't really care about them much. The rewards are not so utterly fantastic that you can't do without them.

[Anteros]

Getting the right escorts can absolutely make or break certain builds. So much so that lots of people simply save scum for the escorts they want, although I'd personally consider that to be cheating.

It's rare for me to lose an escort quest though. You just have to master the art of figuring out which way they want to go and standing in front of them so they can't move while you get your health and cooldowns back. Barring one running straight into the boss of an area, you shouldn't usually lose them.

[Derjuin]

There is also a mod that lets you pick the escort type, which I use.

[factotum]

You just have to master the art of figuring out which way they want to go

That truly is an art rather than a science, especially when their portal is on the other side of the level, or if you're in a really open area like Trollmire.

[zlefin]

I just don't find mastering the art of preventing idiot from suiciding to be interesting gameplay;
and on nightmare there's plenty of tough enough opponents that sometimes I need to take a step back.
I'll check out the suggestoins.

[Anteros]

That truly is an art rather than a science, especially when their portal is on the other side of the level, or if you're in a really open area like Trollmire.

It's not that difficult. Often they'll stop if you're in their preferred path, even if they could easily go around. You can also click on them and ask them to wait.

That said, the reward for most of the escorts is pretty significant. They should carry some risk. Weighing greed vs risk is core to roguelike gameplay after all. It would be a bad mechanic if you could just mindlessly complete them every time.

[factotum]

OK, I am officially a total idiot. I was doing so well with my ogre doombringer that I thought I'd have a go at the room of drakes in the Vor Armory. I didn't die immediately...but I only lasted about 20 turns. I then went into the Underwater Cave and was three-quarters of the way through my air supply before realising that no, this isn't like Lake Nur, there aren't any water bubbles you can top your air supply in...so that was my second stupid death. Then, I died (twice!) to the same set of ambushing orcs, because dying the first time wasn't enough of a clue that I needed to choose "Send me back somewhere safe!" rather than "Right back in the middle of that crowd!". Four deaths and another character gone within about 5 minutes, a record even for me.

Unlocks have been good on this run, though: I have Demonologist, Corruptor and Sun Paladin classes, Stone skills for the Archmage, and Scourge Drake for the Wyrmic. Plus I apparently get to have red-headed characters now--that was a *great* reward for escorting that ditzy elf out of the dark crypt. NOT.

[Anteros]

OK, I am officially a total idiot. I was doing so well with my ogre doombringer that I thought I'd have a go at the room of drakes in the Vor Armory. I didn't die immediately...but I only lasted about 20 turns. I then went into the Underwater Cave and was three-quarters of the way through my air supply before realising that no, this isn't like Lake Nur, there aren't any water bubbles you can top your air supply in...so that was my second stupid death. Then, I died (twice!) to the same set of ambushing orcs, because dying the first time wasn't enough of a clue that I needed to choose "Send me back somewhere safe!" rather than "Right back in the middle of that crowd!". Four deaths and another character gone within about 5 minutes, a record even for me.

Unlocks have been good on this run, though: I have Demonologist, Corruptor and Sun Paladin classes, Stone skills for the Archmage, and Scourge Drake for the Wyrmic. Plus I apparently get to have red-headed characters now--that was a *great* reward for escorting that ditzy elf out of the dark crypt. NOT.

The drakes are more of a "I've done everything else, let's try this optional content" type enemy. I've lost several characters there that handled the rest of the game with ease.

[tyckspoon]

The drakes are more of a "I've done everything else, let's try this optional content" type enemy. I've lost several characters there that handled the rest of the game with ease.

(playing Normal) Usually I can do it by the time I've gone back to the West, cleared the last dungeon or two there/done the backup bosses and built the portal back to the East, although I've never successfully done it by face-tanking the entire room - most of the time you can open the door and immediately run away and string out the Wyrms so you only fight one at a time. They're still pretty painful, but doable at that point, especially if you're careful to make sure you keep everything active. Don't try to slug it out with them. Pop all your defensive cooldowns, attack the dragon for a couple of rounds, as soon as you start taking real damage again hit your mobility/escape button and skip out while your stuff cycles back on. Same thing if you find yourself with all of your decent attacks on cooldown. You're gonna lose the damage race if you just use basic attacks, so don't do that. Run away for a few turns, come back and re-engage when you can launch off another round of good hits/stuns/whatever.

[Anteros]

(playing Normal) Usually I can do it by the time I've gone back to the West, cleared the last dungeon or two there/done the backup bosses and built the portal back to the East, although I've never successfully done it by face-tanking the entire room - most of the time you can open the door and immediately run away and string out the Wyrms so you only fight one at a time. They're still pretty painful, but doable at that point, especially if you're careful to make sure you keep everything active. Don't try to slug it out with them. Pop all your defensive cooldowns, attack the dragon for a couple of rounds, as soon as you start taking real damage again hit your mobility/escape button and skip out while your stuff cycles back on. Same thing if you find yourself with all of your decent attacks on cooldown. You're gonna lose the damage race if you just use basic attacks, so don't do that. Run away for a few turns, come back and re-engage when you can launch off another round of good hits/stuns/whatever.

I'm really not sure if my characters could do it by then or not. I've always just left that room and the golem fight for extra end-game content since they're so much more difficult than anything else.

[tyckspoon]

I'm really not sure if my characters could do it by then or not. I've always just left that room and the golem fight for extra end-game content since they're so much more difficult than anything else.

Room of Death is wayyy easier than the golem. Dude's dang near instant-killed me every time I've tried to fight it.

[Anteros]

Room of Death is wayyy easier than the golem. Dude's dang near instant-killed me every time I've tried to fight it.

I've killed him a few times by using unstoppable. I feel like it's almost necessary for the fight. Either that or using cheese strats. Being able to remove his sustains is also practically necessary.

[Cespenar]

So, does anyone try the Arena in ToME? I've recently been trying some thematic builds there, and finally won (after like 8 deaths) with a Stone based dwarf Archmage (named Toph ). Turns out the Arena necessitates somewhat different strategies than the vanilla campaign, and I'm only just figuring it out.

Now trying a Storm based Archmage on Nightmare, though I feel it's not coming along as powerful as I felt with Stone.