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[Arcvasti]

....I guess I should just play on training wheels adventurer mode but I can't help but feel like that's taking something away from what makes roguelikes great.

Honestly, Adventurer Mode is basically required to play ToME and keep your sanity. While the game is usually pretty fair, it sometimes just spawns an absolutely ridiculous enemy that can kill you 1-2 turns after seeing it. I always play on Adventurer Mode, although that reflex iss back when enemies could get the talent that makes them invisible AND explodes for huge AOE damage when it runs out. I have memories of literally dying while autoexploring without getting a single turn to react.


As for the starting dungeon grind... Yeah, that's honestly the most annoying part of the game. However, if your level is too high for a given area, it gives you the option to just skip to the last level. Since the boss at the end has by far the majority of xp and loot from the dungeon, you really don't need to do the boring first couple floors. There IS also a way to grind in the very late game, if you still haven't reached level 50 or REALLY want a particular artifact before entering the final dungeon.

[BurnedToast]

As for the starting dungeon grind... Yeah, that's honestly the most annoying part of the game. However, if your level is too high for a given area, it gives you the option to just skip to the last level. Since the boss at the end has by far the majority of xp and loot from the dungeon, you really don't need to do the boring first couple floors. There IS also a way to grind in the very late game, if you still haven't reached level 50 or REALLY want a particular artifact before entering the final dungeon.

I thought about that, but I've gotten some really good stuff as random drops from random mobs. I once found an axe off some random wolf on level 1 of heart of gloom (which I was overleveled enough to skip) that I used all the way to my death at level (low) 20-something because it was just so good.

In fact I feel like the chance for random good items from enemies is actually often better than the boss' loot - they all seem to share the same drop pool of like 10 - 12 artifacts (..yellow is artifact, right?) most of which are.... not so great.

So I really hate skipping them, but maybe I should anyway just to keep myself from getting too annoyed with the game.

[Darkmere]

Realtalk: 99% of the loot you find in the first half of the game is utter trash. You won't REALLY get character-defining stuff until Tier 4. Yes, I say 99% because I'm sure there's some exception I don't know but... really the starter dungeon tier loot is just to get you on your way.

The game is balanced for Normal/adventurer. The extra lives are there specifically because there can be some outliers in creature threat. If you're new, play on that. Pride is irrelevant compared to ragequitting.

[Frumple]

Yeh, I pretty regularly find umbraphage (i.e. the best light qua actually lighting things up in the game) or the lightbringer wand (a faintly disgustingly powerful summoning artifact that can largely carry you through the tail end of the west and a chunk of the east) before I hit voratun crap. Burning star, too, though that's more quality of life upgrade than power up. There's some stuff, basically.  Occasionally find d-steel or stralite stuff that sticks around past the tier 5, too. Admittedly it's usually a 30% global slow or somethin' non-weapon randart or rare, but it's there.

So far as the early game stuff goes, skipping is totally fine. The only thing of the tier one dungeons I'd recommend as required would be trollmire, kor'pul, and the crystal caves (and I want to say heart if you're a dwarf?), to get their backup guardians to spawn later on.

Still, if it's still too much (and I totes wouldn't blame you if it is), you might check out addons. Know there's some kind of quick tome thing, and I think there's a handful of others aimed at squelching some of that early game tour. Pretty regularly play the campaign uncapper, ferex, which accelerates XP gain enough you can comfortably skip about half the t1s (and probably a t2 or two) if you don't want to bother with them.

Also find ember's campaign to be a fair bit less painful on that front. Helps that there's only 2-4 tier one dungeons (depending on what you consider dead cow land and the outpost) there, heh.

... and yeah, adventurer is fine. If you want the permadeath feel, you can always just tell the respawn critter to off you. It doesn't take something away, just gives you a bit more choice in whether you want to keep playing or not.

[BurnedToast]

The game is balanced for Normal/adventurer. The extra lives are there specifically because there can be some outliers in creature threat. If you're new, play on that. Pride is irrelevant compared to ragequitting.

I'm starting to notice this. I'm playing an archmage and I was walking along in the maze and got randomly silenced. Popped my shield rune and took a step, and an enemy rogue popped out of stealth and burned down my whole shield (+10% of my HP) in a single round.

Popped my wild infusion for the damage resist and tried to run, next round the rogue did 95% of my HP in a single hit - if I hadn't stacked +HP items (yay farming newbie dungeons....) I'd have been completely dead with nothing I could have done since the silence totally shut me down.

Fortunately silence wore off and I was able to phase door behind a wall and heal up (then lightning bolt the rogue to death).

Unfortunately, shortly after pretty much the exact the same thing happened but this time wild infusion was on cooldown so the rogue did too much damage and killed me.  I had something like 60 - 80 bonus HP from items and it still took me from 100% - 0% in a single round while I was silenced. On normal difficulty!

This, *after* destroying the boss of the dungeon with minimal effort.

[Darkmere]

I gave up on Anorithils because every time I tried to play one

a) 95% of the time I could just spam spells and fireworks on everything, which was fun but
b) 4 times before going East I got 1-shotted by something from stealth. Different dungeons, different tiers. "something hits you for <large number>."

That's a big part of what pisses me off about stealth in this game, too. Enemy has it? Flawless, you get no warning unless you gimp the FUCK out of your build in a gamble that one stealth guy somewhere will fail his check and you spot him.

YOU though? Absolutely fucking useless. Even maxed out I never got a sneak attack on anything and was spotted the second I was in sight, if not sooner.

[martinuzz]

The game is balanced for Normal/adventurer. The extra lives are there specifically because there can be some outliers in creature threat. If you're new, play on that. Pride is irrelevant compared to ragequitting.

I'm starting to notice this. I'm playing an archmage and I was walking along in the maze and got randomly silenced. Popped my shield rune and took a step, and an enemy rogue popped out of stealth and burned down my whole shield (+10% of my HP) in a single round.

Popped my wild infusion for the damage resist and tried to run, next round the rogue did 95% of my HP in a single hit - if I hadn't stacked +HP items (yay farming newbie dungeons....) I'd have been completely dead with nothing I could have done since the silence totally shut me down.

Fortunately silence wore off and I was able to phase door behind a wall and heal up (then lightning bolt the rogue to death).

Unfortunately, shortly after pretty much the exact the same thing happened but this time wild infusion was on cooldown so the rogue did too much damage and killed me.  I had something like 60 - 80 bonus HP from items and it still took me from 100% - 0% in a single round while I was silenced. On normal difficulty!

This, *after* destroying the boss of the dungeon with minimal effort.

Yeah and that was likely just a normal mob. Ten there's also the small chance for a real OOD spawn. Like, finding a level 30 Duathleden in level 2 of a starting dungeon.

[BurnedToast]

Well I got my first win today - higher lich necromancer on normal/adventurer difficulty.

Despite complaining earlier about the newbie zones, I kind of feel like the first half the game is the better half. Orc prides are too long, then after that highpeak just keep dragging on and on too... it was just a slow grind through endless boring orcs. Then finally the last bosses had way too much life and healed too much. The first one went down quick-ish, but while the other one couldn't really hurt me but he kept blinking away to heal so it was just this long, drawn out slap-fight.

The first half of the game might have been a little grindy, but it was all quick and to the point, like a roguelike should be, and while most the enemies were fodder I couldn't be too reckless. Dreadfel was a little on the long side but it would have been good as a final dungeon. After dredfel also felt like the point where the difficulty really dropped off too - I only died once after that, and it was due to accidentally bolting myself to death. The only thing that gave me much of any difficulty at all on the second island were orc mage-hunters (mana clash), and once I realized they had a unique sprite and had to be priority #1 they stopped being much of a problem.

After winning I think about how long it took and starting over with a different class and it's like.... meh. Not much motivation to replay it, despite the fact I like it and think it's pretty fun.

[Frumple]

Eh, if you have access or get tempted enough to drop a few dollars, the embers campaign is rather significantly better on that front. There's also some addons you might feel like checking out, too... quick tome or somethin' like that. There's also bumping up the difficulty (nightmare isn't that far off from normal, really, but after that the game stops playing even remotely nice), or giving the arena a few spins, stuff like that. Or just chilling for a while. Might enjoy things more if you set it down for a few weeks/months and have another go with things less fresh.

... that said, the game's been shortening pretty consistently for a while now. The drawn out design is... not exactly surprising, considering the main dev and the pedigree, though. You may think roguelikes are supposed to be quick and to the point, but *bands don't agree with you at all and Pernangband/ToME2 was one of the worst culprits, heh. Well... *bands, just about every older roguelike period. This quick and to the point stuff is mostly pretty recent, honestly. Extremely practiced folks could sometimes belt through one in a few hours, but games that stretched over literal months were to a large extent what RLs were originally designed to be.

[Ai Shizuka]

Just got this one with the summer sale on steam (7.99€ with both expansions) and I must say it ticks a lot of the right boxes.

Just died with my first character: level 15 cornac doombringer on level 3 of Lake of Nur, killed by a blade horror. Normal/adventure.
I think I'll restart as a summoner. Nope, I don't like it. Probably doombringer again.

[Arcvasti]

Yeah, going into Lake of Nur right after Old Forest is often quite dangerous. I often save it until after I'm completely done with Into the Darkness, but you could probably do it just fine after Sandworm Nest.

Random Advice:

-Be aware that opening chests/vaults/graves/orbs is basically telling the game that it has the right to screw you over with truly ridiculous enemies. It can also give you truly ridiculous items, but they're still risky if you don't have a good idea of what you're doing/building.
-Things with colored circles underneath them are dangerous. Right click on them to view which talents they have so you know what they're capable of.
-Get a bright brass lantern of health from the Derth tool shop. The extra health and light will make a big difference early on. Its also worth it to check out the Thalore town near Norgos' Lair/Heart of the Gloom for movement infusions, psychoportation torques and mindblast torques. All three of those are quite useful early on, although mindblast will peter off eventually.
-Don't bother with sun/poison/vision inscriptions at all, they're not very good, at least compared to some of the others. Invisibility is something I've never tried, but I've heard it doesn't hide you THAT well and reduces your damage by a lot.

[Robsoie]

a bit of up

It's been a very long time i haven't played, so i decided to check what addons were available nowadays for the current version (1.5.5)
And discovered this jewel :
https://te4.org/games/addons/tome/adventure_party

It basically allows you to create a party , something rare in a roguelike, but after trying it's really very well done, you can manage every of your party members that level up with you, give them items/equip (so all those items you find may finally be of some use instead of transmogrify everything constantly), play as them any time and they will follow you/attack/use skill by themselves, you can revive party members
It's just fantastic.



It may be unbalanced on lower difficulties of course but who cares, you can just play on higher difficulties if you want to have your party dying a lot anyways
Very recommended addon as it just make the game much more fun for me, and always being interested in party based rpg games it's a pure joy to have this possibility in a roguelike, especially when it's the party management is so well made.

May or may not be compatible with other addons , but i only play with it so i can't confirm as it plays without problem when used alone.

[DeKaFu]

Bumping this because the new DLC, Forbidden Cults was just released today.

It's themed around eldritch tentacled things, and adds two new classes, two new races and a whole bunch of other assorted stuff. Similar format to the Ashes of Urh'rok DLC, in that it adds content to the main campaign, rather than the Orc one with its own separate campaign.

I already bought it and I'm really looking forward to trying it, but I probably won't be able to for a while. If anyone else has a chance to play with it, please post your impressions!

[Shadowgandor]

I’ve played it for a bit and I’m enjoying it quite a bit. The first dungeon, though optional, is hard though! Took me quite a few attempts to finish it without dying. The class you unlock when buying the dlc is The Writhing One. It’s basically a melee caster that has a tentacle with 100% magic modifier as an offhand weapon and so far it seems pretty cool. It even has an unlockable category that allows you to have a Worm that Walks that works similar to the alchemist golem and has some reaver magic. My favorite Writhing One ability has to be the one that transforms you into a monstrosity, granting you two size categories, bumping resistance and damage quite a bit and annoyingly changes the area with each step you take ‘due to quakes’.
I do feel it’s a bit lacking in burst pre-8, but I’m still figuring things out so take it with a grain of salt. This class seems amazing with Ogre though. Can’t wait to equip my staff once I can wield two handed weapons in one hand.

[Darkmere]

Yeah, ogre writhing one is amazing. I'm a big fan of Lovecraft stuff in general, so I had to buy it immediately.

WO seems to have two kinda-paths you can take, with a couple melee/mobillity trees and what look like ranged/pet trees. So far I've only tried the melee stuff, there's just not enough class points to spread around. However

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

EATING SOMEONE and hearing them cry in agony from within your stomach

along with

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

melting your own face as an offensive ability

are probably my new favorite video game things of all time.