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[Robsoie]

Adventuring Party is definitively the best addon for ToME4 for me, loved it.
But i probably had the game generated the 2 final bosses with the worst possible skills considering my characters as both were basically unkillable that i just gave up after losing several lives .

Despite i won the game several time alone on normal difficulty and once in nightmare it was incredible to see that with my party we were destroyed so easily by the bosses on this easy difficulty (the sun paladin probably exploded in only a couple of turns , first time i had her unable to stay alive for at least half of the fight ! ).

It's very likely unrelated to the addon, as up to that final bosses fight , easy difficulty was indeed easy, those bosses were probably generated with the worst possible skills combinaisons, unless they were buffed hugely since last time i played ToME4 ... years ago.

Felt like that time when i tried to fight Linaniil, thinking the dev didn't have that character that overly overpowered, how naive

[Darkmere]

So, I've hit the point where Normal is fairly easy if I'm not stupid about things. So I tried bumping up to Nightmare, which every video gaming adonis/ubermensch on the ToME community considers beneath notice...

And i get to a point around level 17 (the T2 dungeons) where the game basically says "no, you got to hell" and I get 1-shot. In multiple places that aren't the usual dangerous killers like Nur or the like, just rando spawns.

Is Nightmare the start of ultra-tedious optimal play like digging diagonally into every encounter or did I "just get unlucky" or what? There's got to be something, I was playing an antimagic wyrmic with 50+ lightning resist and Urkis still hit me for 120+ a turn... 3 slots were +40 hp or more, and I still got 1-shot by "something" from out of sight in old forest.

[Frumple]

Nightmare's harder than normal but largely only somewhat, from what I've noticed... most of what play can win on normal can win in nightmare. Tedious bullshit only really kicks into gear with the difficulties above it.

In a void I'd wager you were unlucky, basically. Maybe doing something weird vis a vis character build or itemization or somethin', I'unno.

Go more aggressive, mebbe'? I usually kill urkis/most-everything-in-the-west-except-sometimes-the-crypt without really giving a damn about resistances or HP stacking or whatev', personally, heh. Even on nightmare. Some of that's due to mods, but most of the sentiment is still applicable to vanilla. Can't be one-shot by something if you one-shot it first :V

... the out of sight thing is an issue, mind. High sight/light radius (or track, or something equivalent to it) is pretty high priority if you're going to be playing lazy. _{though OF's generally supposed to be lit up and not much attacks at >10 range so maybe make the window/resolution bigger so you can see everything you're supposed to be able to see?}

[Darkmere]

I gave up on wyrmics and nightmare, fuck it. Luminous horrors in... old forest, because yeah that's where they usually are stupid me, killed me the turn I activated a movement infusion - which shouldn't even be possible. So, nope.

I refuse to believe I am the single unluckiest player in the game's history and get 1-shot on every character on a difficulty no one else has trouble with.

*ahem*

So I'm trying to learn possessors. After a few hours staring at the screen and drooling on myself.... they're actually a lot of fun. Like might be one of my new favorite classes fun. Can't decide what you want to play? Reach into your corpse library and play whatever you want! the real early game is a pain, though. Strongly considering trying to mind-wield bows next time I run across a mindslayer just to save wear and tear on my meatbags.

[Il Palazzo]

the real early game is a pain, though.

Just invest a couple levels or more in psionic disruption. Turns the early combat into a walk in a park.

[DeKaFu]

I'll be honest, the main reason I stick to Normal despite a decent number of wins under my belt is that sometimes I prefer to play sub-optimally for thematic reasons. For example, avoiding picking up light skills from escorts on "evil" classes, even when it would be objectively the best choice. Or picking up skills that are kind of bad just because they're fun.

It's nice having a bit of leeway to screw around and play how you like without completely ruining your chance of winning.

[ChairmanPoo]

I understand what you mean, but I found that specific example strange, as I donīt think light is canonically "good" in this setting.

[Robsoie]

The higher difficulty you go, the less freedom you have when choosing your character categories and skills if you want to have a chance to get a win of course.

[Frumple]

I understand what you mean, but I found that specific example strange, as I donīt think light is canonically "good" in this setting.

It... might have been previously, sorta'? Then it got fully opened back up to undead so...

Power wise I don't think there's really a "good" at all, exactly. Evil, largely yes (hate and vim), and neutral, sure (basically everything else), but not explicitly good. Equilibrium's anti-undead and some of it's anti-arcane but it's less "good" and more "murderous attempt to establish/maintain a monopoly".

Light flavored celestial stuff's arguably the most acceptable of arcane powers, maybe? Can't recall it being fingered much for the spellblaze, and it's not really in the west much at all so the whole genocide-the-magic-users thing isn't as applicable.

[Darkmere]

It's hard to define good and evil in a universe where everyone, bar none, wants to enslave all the other races *at best*. I can't think of a single faction that is actually altruistic. That said, there's a few hints here and there that it's being orchestrated by

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

the weissi

to make sure no major factions exist at some point in the future. Whether that extends to the demons is anyone's guess.

Semi-related, has anyone managed to get the strange device on a dwarf or drem? I got one, but it was on an ogre so it shut down for me.

[Frumple]

The wood elves probably come the closest... maybe. They mostly seem to just want to be left alone. Iirc the dwarves arguably aren't far off from that, too, but they have a nasty habit of digging too deep, heh.

... everybody else is pretty rough though, aye.

[DeKaFu]

Heh, didn't mean to start a debate.

It's not so much defining "good" and "evil" in the setting as I just thematically don't like having glowy sun powers on my darkness-themed Necromancer (or whatever). Or if I think that particular character would likely look down on Sun Paladins and their ilk.

I know that's probably a weird way to play the game, but it has a strong and interesting setting so I can't help but roleplay just a tiny bit.

[Frumple]

Hey, if you're enjoying it it's all good. Nothing wrong with playing things a bit sub-optimally so long as you're still having fun.

[Darkmere]

Nah, it wasn't meant to be an argument, just a commentary.

I remember back when Ashes of Rage came out, the lore guy (Gray? grey? one of the color/colour/couloueragegrh spellings) said we'd finally get a look at the noble, misunderstood orcs and see they weren't really the mindless savages the West and sunwall made them out to be.

And then they slaughtered everyone and destroyed the sunwall.

Regardless... a few individual people here and there seem decent on the surface. Linaniil more or less tries to keep mages in line - but I guess living through the spellblaze and eating a piece of a god can give you some perspective. Aeryn will show up to help you save the world, though you could argue she kind of owes you for the whole exterminating four armies thing.

It IS telling that the most noble decision I can think of offhand is "maybe let's not kill every last woman and child" at the end of the orc campaign.

[Frumple]

Mind you, you can skip destroying the sunwall (tho, do remember it's a military outpost and one that had been constantly launching attacks to enslave/genocide the local orc populations so, uh, wrecking it isn't exactly a barbarous thing) if you feel like it.* Makes things harder and I'm not sure the game acknowledges it much but that's actually optional.

Strictly speaking I don't think you have to even bust open the bridge or free the enslaved orcs; the campaign's win condition is straight south from the starting town and open as soon as you get out whatever your starting area is.

* I actually tend to just 'cause the map layout for it is kiiinda' annoying, heh.