Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Niveras]

Epileptic Trees, anyone?

I think Robsoie is going to be severely disappointment when the campaign releases and you end up just straight up fighting Amakthel (or the sher'tul trying to resurrect him) and absolutely no mention anywhere of Arawe or her role in the godswar or the campaign. At best, it could be explained as either: Amakthel isn't actually as powerful as legend and lore says (it all being trumped up over the ages), or he's just still so weakened that you, being the second (or first) most powerful mortal in existence, can challenge him.

Now that being said, with TOME being an independent development and Darkgod being pretty much directly accessible, you could probably suggest a whole lot of that to him and maybe we'll see some of it in-game (as opposed to most titles developed by teams which are more rigid or reluctant to accept alterations to the story).

[Robsoie]

I'm not going to be disappointed, as i know that my speculations are just that, speculations, the Arawe lore is not even in the game, it's only on several lore threads from the lore main author, Grey .

The Orc campaign is mostly designed already with its backstory lore, and the endgame is obviously going to be what the zone described in his trailer/spoiler.

But that does not mean the end of what's planned regarding the lore "big baddies" and other potential endgame bosses.
The reason is that the dev has several other campaigns idea waiting (they will see reality probably depending on the success of his incoming "dlc" orc campaigns), see that page for some of the things he confirmed to be in his future plans :

http://te4.org/wiki/Campaigns#Non-existent_campaigns

of course, that's some heavy spoiler.

edit :
And there's still the Fearscape and Urh'Rok their leader, waiting to lay waste on the world, the dev even posted that , joking or not, we'll see one day

Just a note about the demons invasion, they are not really waiting for a portal. They are waiting for Eyal's protective shield to shut down under their assault.

"Eyal's universe is probably filled with planets full of graves of civilizations whose races took the economically sound decision to not put a planetary shield up, which are studied and remembered by those that did, like the Sher'tul."

[lemon10]

'Course, that "seas doubled" bit could also be superstitious explanation for rising sea levels, with those actually having some other cause (Caps melting due to sher'tul's war on the gods, the spellblaze, the naga buggering about with something, who knows what else).

It could also be her power grab. If she is restricting herself to the ocean, and the ocean doubles in size, then she now has a hell of a lot more area under her effective control.
It also has the bonus of being slow enough that people don't really notice it over mortal lifespans, and there isn't a sense of crisis about it (therefore heroes won't come to kill her to stop her plans of global ocean domination).

[Darkmere]

Okay so.... I need to tirade while we're talking about lore. Apparently there's a prevailing theme that I'm supposed to pity (or sympathize in any way) with the orcs.... Despite the entirety we've seen being completely omnicidal, supposedly over events that happened thousands of years in history.

Spoiler: My understanding of orcs, spoilered for length. (click to show/hide)

None of them want peace... and are willing to push war even to the point of mutating and sterilizing their own populace stock (at least, before the breeding pits were axed), despite every indication that at least half of Sunwall is native elves there couldn't have been involved in previous wars.

When you get to their "noble lore" as told by them... they're unrepentantly brutal to each other, with Garkul making a necklace from the teeth of his *orc* enemies. The sunwall only runs patrols when you show up, and the orcs will relentlessly attack them, to the point of destruction if the sorceror's get their way.

"But there's a new tribe that's different from all that!" ... The zone preview specifically points out that the new tribe wants to ... you guessed it.... kill sunwall remnants for defending themselves against the orcs.

By this logic, since my family was from Britain before they crossed the pond (couple hundred+ years ago), I should be free and clear to declare war on France.... because Norman Invasion. This should... also extend to Quebec I suppose, because they speak French and maybe at some point some of their ancestors were in France.

Mentioning this in game chat got me called an idiot more than once... so is there SOME scrap of lore somewhere that actually implies the orcs could co-exist peacefully with other races and spend some time NOT trying an extermination campaign?

[Robsoie]

Yes, for the whole lore, the orcs have only been at war.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

In the lore you can find, the orc lorekeeper basically use the excuse "that's because the other guys attacked first" to explain why they're all heartless cruel warmongers , but at no point there's any mention of a desire to live at peace, so it makes it doubtful that the orcs had any kind of "noble" intention at any point of their stories.

And in the end of their hero legend lore, they mention "MajEyal will be ours", showing that they have no intention of any peace.

And there's the breeding camp to show how low they were ready to go, in which they doomed every future orcs by making them filled with the blight corruption, "they did it to survive" , yeah sure...

[Dr Feelgood]

@Darkmere

Your problem was participating in the in-game chat.  The in-game chat is terrible.

Orcs: Nothing in-game implies they're capable of peaceful co-existence. They wanted vengeance against halflings for enslaving them. Understandable. Instead, they tried to wipe out every race in Maj'Eyal for having the audacity of being in their way during their genocidal rampage. It's their own fault that their race is going extinct. None of the races are "good", but some are worse than others.

Humans - Started the Allure wars against halflings, because wanted control of the farportals.
Shaloren - Participated in the Allure wars. And caused the Spellblaze.
Thaloren - They stay within their forests and mind their own business.
Halflings - Enslaved 2 races. Performed experiments on them.
Yeeks - Peacefully went back home after being freed. However, they would enslave the world if they had a chance.
Dwarves - They only care about money, but they don't start conflicts.
Orcs - They want to wipe out all races in Maj'Eyal. The first race to use blight.

[Robsoie]

The other races aren't perpetually trying to kill everyone else and conquer the world, for all them their "they're all bastards" concept so dear to the ToME4 lore writers was actually only for a time.
The Halfling being slavers era by example didn't lasted and they even went to the rescue of the other races when the orcs launched yet another conquest, losing many of their troops to stop their rampage while they could just have stayed hidden.

For the Orcs, according to their own written lore, they never got out of that "orcs are all bastards" time as for all time they were still following their warmongering murderous ways with the desire to destroy everyone and conquer MajEyal, even when they were at their lowest after crushing defeats they were still wanting just that.
Their last attempt at conquering everything was launched by their hero, they could just have tried to leave on their own in the East in which they have no threat, but they simply couldn't even try that , as if conquering the world was their only "reason for existence".

In that they're actually very similar to the Sher'thuls that went on a rampage and destroyed their creators in order to conquer and dominate everything, simply because they couldn't change their nature.
I wonder if it wasn't by any chance the Sher'thuls that actively engineered the orcs instead of the other gods, it would explain a lot on the war and conquering nature of that race.

I don't think the warcraft3 "orcs were nobles then evil corrupted then noble again" apply in the ToME4 case, and the "desperation" leading into the breeding camp was just the work of one of the orc leader that wanted to rebuild an orc army as quick as possible.

Because if it was just about survival and desesperation, they could have done what the orc tribe from the incoming dlc has done : they would simply survive in conventional methods instead of blight corrupting their tribes own future and dooming all of them.

The other race that seems to rely on cruelty and domination are the Yeeks-like race name the Yaechs , that can be found enslaving people and making them die in arena fight for their own pleasure and money, and that are additionally making the yeek life a pain on their remote island
Though they have no lore attached to them, but they share the same "enslaving the world" trait, as seen what happens if you win the game with a Yeek.

[Darkmere]

Oh thank god, some sane replies!

I actually like that everyone in Maj'eyal is kind of a douche, but can have some redeeming qualities. Except the orcs still get put in the "antagonist" bin, because for all of history as far as I know they've exclusively been fighting everyone that they can find, AND each other.

I had kinda hoped the "shamanistic" warcraft-style orcs would make it in the new campaign (and don't get me wrong, I'll play it regardless), but when the previews came out and it was literally "exterminate the sunwall, exterminate the steam giants, exterminate the lone sher'tul" it seemed like Grey and DG have no intention of changing the always-chaotic-evil orkses into something more interesting.

It just saddens me that as nuanced as the rest of the lore can be... you still have the cardboard cut-out evil omnicidal maniacs, and they're the same orcs as most of the other orcs/orks/uruks.

[Robsoie]

I just noticed that there's some public test version of ToME4 1.2.0 :
http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=41110

No changelog available, all i have noticed as i didn't played for long is that there's a new "locked" entry in the Rogue category, so a new class to unlock in that version

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

looking into the tome-1.2.0.team tells me this class is Skirmisher

newBirthDescriptor{
   type = "subclass",
   name = "Skirmisher",
   locked = function() return profile.mod.allow_build.rogue_skirmisher end,
   locked_desc = "Fleet of foot and strong of throw, overwhelming every foe, from afar we counter, strike and thud, in the chaos'd skirmish spilling blood.",
   desc = {
      "While able to take maximum advantage of their sling by using deft movements to avoid and confuse enemies that try to get close, the Skirmisher truly excels when fighting other ranged users.",
      "They have mastered the use of their shield as well as their sling and are nearly impossible to defeat in a standoff.",
      "Their most important stats are: Dexterity and Cunning",
      "#GOLD#Stat modifiers:",
      "#LIGHT_BLUE# * +0 Strength, +4 Dexterity, +0 Constitution",
      "#LIGHT_BLUE# * +0 Magic, +1 Willpower, +4 Cunning",
      "#GOLD#Life per level:#LIGHT_BLUE# +0",
   },
   power_source = {technique=true},
   stats = {dex = 4, cun = 4, wil = 1},
   talents_types = {
      -- class
      ["technique/skirmisher-slings"]={true, 0.3},
      ["technique/buckler-training"]={true, 0.3},
      ["cunning/called-shots"]={true, 0.3},
      ["technique/tireless-combatant"]={true, 0.3},
      ["cunning/trapping"]={false, 0.1},

      -- generic
      ["technique/acrobatics"]={true, 0.3},
      ["cunning/survival"]={true, 0.3},
      ["technique/combat-training"]={true, 0.3},
      ["technique/field-control"]={false, 0.1},
   },
   unlockable_talents_types = {
      ["cunning/poisons"]={false, 0.2, "rogue_poisons"},
   },
   talents = {
      [ActorTalents.T_SKIRMISHER_VAULT] = 1,
      [ActorTalents.T_SHOOT] = 1,
      [ActorTalents.T_SKIRMISHER_KNEECAPPER] = 1,
      [ActorTalents.T_SKIRMISHER_SLING_SUPREMACY] = 1,
      [ActorTalents.T_SKIRMISHER_BUCKLER_EXPERTISE] = 1,
   },
   copy = {
      resolvers.equip{
         id=true,
         {type="armor", subtype="light", name="rough leather armour", autoreq=true,ego_chance=-1000},
         {type="weapon", subtype="sling", name="rough leather sling", autoreq=true, ego_chance=-1000},
         {type="armor", subtype="shield", name="iron shield", autoreq=false, ego_chance=-1000, ego_chance=-1000},
         {type="ammo", subtype="shot", name="pouch of iron shots", autoreq=true, ego_chance=-1000},
      },

and the trollmire seems to have new vegetation, and the Adventurer class "levelup" interface is still as sluggish as ever.

You can report bugs (looks like there are several of them already reported, i ran into the "save-quit will make tome4 stuck until i kill the process" on my first and only try) you'll discover in that test version to the thread i linked.

[moocowmoo]

Glad to see this is still in development. Game just needs a little polishing of balance and mechanics to be a real classic.

[Robsoie]

time for a bump : ToME4 version 1.20 has been released :
http://te4.org/blogs/darkgod/2014/05/news/tales-majeyal-120-aka-exercise-vital-powers-released

new video trailer on the page

changelog :

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Release highlights:

    Savefiles from 1.1.5 are not compatible, added a message to display this with a link to download 1.1.5
    New smaller tactical overlay
    Huge number of graphical improvements
    Many new/rebalanced egos and artifacts
    Numerous improvements to many classes: Mindslayer, Brawler, Sun Paladin, Berserker, Alchemist, Archmage, Oozemancer
    New class: Skirmishers that blend slings and shield
    Change to ammo, it now automatically replenishes on move
    Improved Nightmare/Insane scaling & difficulty to be somewhat more fun
    Many new quality of life improvements for melee starts
    Ingame installation of new addons/modules
    Many new quality of life improvements for addon makers
    New death screen, this is important as people die a lot
    Friend list to stay in touch with your buddies

 
Expanded changelist:

    Shadowstep must have an actual target
    Removed Aim rooting effect
    Fixed Dismissal on crit
    Zigur is no longer hostile by default towards the Keepers of Reality (mostly because they never heard of them)
    Disruption Shield now displays the current absorbed value
    Bathe in the Light now works on undeads too
    Improve shaders performance in some cases
    Myssil learnt how to breath underwater
    Replaced Frozen Spear rune with Biting Gale rune
    New social feature: Friends! Simply right click on somebody's name to friend/unfriend her/him. You will then be notified of their coming & going and have them listed in the talk to list even if they are not in the same channels(or even game) as you. This is a very simple feature for now and will probably be enhanced later.
    New super-awesome fireflash effect
    If the rod of recall somehow drops in an unreachable spot it gets added to the player's inventory directly
    Overhauled Mindslayers
    Moved graphical mode selection to the game options
    Added a new UI option to alter the tactical borders into little flagpoles
    Added a Tiles.sharp_scaling parameter; if set to true the entities textures will not be interpoled by OpenGL
    Command Staff does not change the melee damage element of the staff anymore
    Added a free rank of armor training and iron mail to Cursed start
    Fixed the UI sometimes being affected by invisibility shader or suchlike
    Infinite Dungeon should load much faster
    Infinite Dungeon can now spawn shivgoroth and undead rats (including everybody's favorite Rat Lich)
    Object properties special_on_hit special_on_crit and special_on_kill can now be merged by egos
    Spacetime Tuning now lets the user set a prefered paradox level and when resting it will rest towards it
    Buffed Toxic Death
    New birth custom tiles
    Added base weapon talents to some melee classes to make starting less annoying
    Nerfed the damage of low level rogues and crystals
    Healing Infusion now heals for a bit less but is instant
    New particles blending modes: SHINY(rename from the existing ADDITIVE), ADDITIVE and MIXED
    New awesome gfx effect for starfall
    Increased number of arrows in quivers
    Buffed iron & steel weapons to make melee/archery start more fun
    Big movement speed effects like lightning speed, movement infusion, .. now display a fractional effect to see how close to end they are
    Made on_wear and on_takeoff be passed the slot the item is in
    Set definitions set_list, on_set_complete, and on_set_broken can now be tables of several different actions to take for different set ids
    Made set_list able to be a function
    Sets can now check against a specific inventory slot
    New awesome gfx effect for Bone Shield
    Shock will reduce stun resistance if the target resists the daze
    Changed the Water and Ice trees to apply/interract with the new Wet effect
    If Freeze is used against a friendly target the cooldown is halved
    Deep Mindslayer rework
    Savefiles from 1.1.5 are not compatible, added a message to display this with a link to download 1.1.5
    Leaves Tide correctly respect bleed immunity
    Fixed addons loading to load hooks last, thus avoiding seemingly random addons imcompatibilities
    Orbs of Command can not be re-used on pedestrals to summons bosses duplicates
    Fixed talking to Tannen after defeating him
    New UI option to select tactical overlay mode (same as shift+t)
    On OSX the log is now sent to te4_log.txt just like on windows
    Added new UI options to control the fullscreen stun & confusion notifications
    Many new artifacts
    Improved Unarmed Discipline
    Random artifacts now have a 25% to pick a non-physical damtype of one of their themes
    Improved actor tooltip
    Improved/changed many egos
    New player-doll special display for some artifacts
    New earthen missiles and ice shards graphical effect
    New graphical effect for curses
    The Heart of the Sandworm Queen can now be corrupted to gain a new talent category: Vile Life
    New graphical effects for some corruption spells
    New visual effect for hexes
    Unlearning Shivgoroth Form while transformed correctly works
    Multiple graphic improvments to celestial spells
    New ground effect to materialize what zone Aether Breach can happen in
    New class: Skirmishers that combines slings and shields into a powerful symbiose!
    New map effects for most old boring squarish ones
    Map effects and particles effects on the map can now be attached to a specific z-layer
    Fixed ListColumns to be includable in UIContainer
    Added a method ActorTalents:updateTalentPassives(tid)
    True Grit banned from NPCs
    More brawlers and Sun Paladin updates
    Reduced the critical damage power on egos
    Buffed many charms
    Colored temporary effects by type in Actor tooltips
    Added Actor:checkClassification which checks if an actor is in an arbitrary set of classifications
    Changed die_at to show actual negative HP
    Minimalist UI now shows a timer left for summons
    Gem pouch, shot bag and quivers now show up on the character doll
    New UI option to display the tactical healthbars on the side or the bottom
    New smaller tactical borders and healbars that feel less bulky (old display can be switched to with shift+t)
    Tactical display settings remembered between save & reload
    DamageType can now define a tdesc which gets passed the dam value and returns a string
    Power checks on melee/archery egos and some damage types redone: they usualy use the higest of your spell/mind/accuracy power
    Damage conversion only converts if the source damage is different
    Improve ego items generation when antimagic filters are on
    Load Game menu should be somewhat faster
    Reduced Stun to -60% damage and 3 talents on CD
    Mana no longer restored on levelup if Disruption Shield is active
    Change to ammo! Now moving or waiting a turn will reload ammo automatically (based on items bonuses & talent level)
    Reload talent is now instant, reloads a bunch of ammo at once but disarms you for 2 turns
    Combat Accuracy now uses a non linear scaling, like most other talents
    Reduced Intuitive Shots power
    Many ego items changes & updates
    Changed Insane scaling to be closer to Nightmare talent scaling, the same rare scaling as Madness, and a 20% HP bonus.
    Marked all the forced starting areas that aren't optional as having no rare spawn.
    After having played tome at least 5 hours, the New Game menu will always display, to make the link to grab other modules visible
    Huge visual update on trees & forest
    New cosmetic option: bikinis and mankinis!
    New achievement: win the game without ever taking off yoru bikini/mankini
    The New Game menu shows a link to additional games
    Reshape Weapon can not be used on mindstars anymore
    Reduced staves accuracy effect bonus to 2.5%
    Reduced the power of Leaves Tide a bit
    Added a generic web rendered: a module or addon can render UI, or parts of UI in html5/css3/javascript now.
    Improved the news section on the main menu, it now will show more info and is fully clickable.
    Other player character sheets and profiles will display ingame directly.
    The link to the addons page in the addons menu will now open ingame and allow direct installation of the addons.
    Added ingame credits
    Added some new .. things .. to spice up Ardhungol
    New lore added to Ardhungol
    Altered the cost and effects of the Superiority tree
    Berserkers lost 2handed weapon offense and cripple trees, replacing them with two new (similar-ish) trees.
    Altered Warcries costs and effects to make them more interresting
    New Sun Paladin tree "Radiance"
    Damage types internal representation changed so that addons can not mess up savefiles. This however *breaks all savefiles* to save the future ones!
    Big rework of the Brawler's Grappling tree
    New two handed weapons tree "Crusader" for Sun Paladins
    Buffed Sun Paladin mastery of Sun tree to 1.3
    Existing Celestial/Sun tree renamed to Celestial/Sunlight
    New Celestial/Sun tree
    Add color.unpack method
    Minimalist UI can have level specific "addons"
    Updated whip & punch sounds
    Big brawlers update, removing some unfun talents in favor of better ones
    Trees and some big plants will gently swing in the wind
    Game will save when a ressurection option is used, to prevent loss in case of crash
    Much improved Wintertide
    Undeads now start with a Heat Beam rune instead of phase door
    Pressing tab when typing a player name as the first word of a sentence will try to autocomplete it
    New achievement to avoid death many times
    All fullscreen effects can be enabled at once now (underwater, blur, wobbling, ...)
    Added a tweening engine
    Updated base orc doll
    Zone:checkFilter can now use a "define_as" filter
    New fullscreen effect for stuns/dazes
    Revamped Brawler's Finishing Moves tree to make it more appealing
    Many new artifacts
    Tiles attachements can now be defined per-addons
    Entities add_mos can have an "auto_tall" property to autoset display_y and display_h corresponding to the tile geometry
    Fixed bamboo huts
    Switch Place correctly consumes turn/cooldown/stamina even if used against a creature in a wall
    Limmir will be added to the party during the quest
    Fixed Turtle Grand Arrival with Through the Crowd
    Body of Fire projectiles do not hurt the caster
    Reduced damage mod on staves to 80%
    Channel Staff provides a 20% damage mod bonus to the staff firing
    Fixed technique talents speed when using gauntlets
    Fixed quakes
    New awesome effect on body of ice and stone skin
    Added social links to the main menu, to the forums, facebook and twitter
    Auto hit/auto crit attacks now use a better mechanism that is not affected by actualy hit/crit chance
    Altered many Oozemancer talents to make them a little less overpowered and more fun: Slime Spit, Poisonous Spores,
    Mitosis, Call of the Ooz, Reabsorb, Oozeroots, Mucus, Indiscernable Anatomy, Natural Acid, Unstoppable Nature,
    Acidbeam, Corrosive Nature, Corrosive Seeds, Acidic Soil, Moss Talents
    New talent tree for Oozemancers "Eyal's Fury"
    Split the artifacts into "generic eyal ones", "maj'eyal ones" and "fareast ones"
    Fixed vim on kill and equilibrium on vim when usnig a variable vim cost talent
    Zones can now easily define subclass'ed generators
    Change zone and Grant quest debug commands now handle correctly zones and quest provided by addons
    Shoot can be added a cooldown with talent_cd_reduction
    Death dialog now also has graphical cues of possible ressurection options
    Dialog titles can use the outline shader now with setTitleShadowShader method
    New Death dialog art, more .. death-like !
    Linaniil flees less
    Overhauled Alchemists, giving them many new trees and interresting options
    Arcane Power costs less and also adds arcane resistance
    Sunder Armour now also reduces saves and shatters damage shields
    New Map:enableFBORenderer to allow map effects to turn into nice overlays instead of plain quads.
    Retch uses a much cooler map effect gfx
    Fixed psionic distortion effects
    Adds a log message when damage is avoided with lightning infusion
    Tweaked some artifacts
    Nerfed Ak'Gishil a little
    More powerful chat text templating available
    Added a "Birther:donatorTiles" hook
    Aether Beam now has a chance to not be disarmed
    Integrate a web brower, allows to install addons much more easily
    Fixed callbackOnFoo on multi-level passive talents
    New callbacks "callbackOnWear", "callbackOnTakeoff", "callbackOnHeal", "callbackOnTakeDamage", "callbackOnStatChange" , "callbackOnDealDamage", "callbackOnDeath", "callbackOnKill" and "callbackOnTalentPost"

[Darkmere]

<grumpy>

I wonder how mindslayers got ruined and nerfed

</grumpy>

Seriously though... Might have to fail horribly due to lack of attention again sometime or other.

[Dr Feelgood]

New insane is fun. It's like nightmare with more rares.

<grumpy>

I wonder how mindslayers got ruined and nerfed

</grumpy>

Seriously though... Might have to fail horribly due to lack of attention again sometime or other.

Mindslayers got heavily buffed, judging from mindslayer rares.

[Frumple]

They're definitely a lot more active and considerably more damaging than they were, from what I've seen so far, and still roughly as tanky (probably somewhat more, actually, with built in healing and that ridiculous, if short lived, forth tier absorption talent). Lot of talents have been compressed (forth tier absorption completely nixed and the passive effects given from level one, conduit folded into the auras, reshapes folded into a single talent, etc., so forth, so on), many new talents, lots of tweaks all around. They're quite different.

Also gems are now fairly ridiculous stat sticks for 'em. One I've been running... between augmentation, that silly +20 dex dagger, and the gem, has a dex in the seventies with a base dex of ten. At something like level 20. It's faintly gratuitous.

[Robsoie]

I finally got that new guy unlocked with my Dwarf Adventurer


How to (base spoiler) :

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

You need to counterstrike at 5 or 6 tiles of range, don't remember where exactly my character was in comparison to the rare shooting arrows at me.

How to do that (spoiler of the previous spoiler ) :

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Get a Shield and a Sling
Make sure you have Shield Offense category and have  the Riposte skill (2nd skill, you need to be level 4 minimum)
In battle with a ranged enemy, use the Riposte skill, you'll then counterstrike with shooting the enemy with your sling