Review GameShark overwhelmed by ToEE

[Vault Dweller]

Tags: Temple of Elemental Evil

<a href=http://www.gameshark.com>GameShark</a> posted this <a href=http://www.gameshark.com/pcgaming/articles/463532p1.html>review</a> of <a href=http://www.troikagames.com/toee.htm><b>ToEE</b></a> giving it disappointing <b>6.8</b>. Why disappointing? Well, because I'm biased and because I think that controls deserve more then 6, and "fresh factor" should be definitely higher then 7.
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Anyway...
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<blockquote>As a big fan of the traditional Dungeons & Dragons pencil-and-paper game, I'm always excited when there's a new D&D game released for the PC. Usually they're super fun, as was the case with the Baldur's Gate series, Icewind Dale, and Neverwinter Nights, so I was expecting big things from this release....
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There are just so many options available during combat with using various spells, tactical maneuvers, and spell use, it was a bit overwhelming at first</blockquote>
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It's kinda ironic that "a big fan" of DnD who played "superfun" BG, IWD, and NWN series was overwhelmed by ToEE's combat options and tactical maneuvers.
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Other then that, the reviewer failed to handle the complexity of turn-based combat and decided to stick with Hommlets' quests...
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<blockquote>There is so much to explore it's ridiculous, really. Personally, I found this part of the game to drag a bit - you get kind of stuck in this meat-grinder scenario where you need to rest after a major battle, but you can't because there are seven minotaurs in the room behind you, and a pack of hungry werewolves in front of you. It seems to me like the monsters dish out a whole lot more damage and hit way more often than your party, so you have to move carefully and choose your battles wisely.
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The side quests and townie interactions were, for me, the most interesting parts of the game. I enjoy stuff like helping out the farmers with their problems, clearing the spiders out of a forest grove for the woodcutter, even playing match-maker for the surly widower</blockquote>
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I don't get this. I really don't. Is it that difficult to realize, even if he didn't read the manual, that resting in a friggin' Temple isn't safe and that a trip to town is recommended? And I'd really like to see his party that can't hit the broad side of a barn. Makes you question his comments about being a DnD fan.
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Spotted at: <A HREF="http://www.gengamers.com">GenGamers</A>

 

[Volourn]

Hmm..

 

[Spazmo]

Thanks for the insightful and detailed commentary, there, Volourn.

 

[Killzig]

why should fresh factor be higher?

 

[Ausir]

The only fresh thing were the vignettes, which weren't very well done anyway.

Other than that, it's pretty old school.

 

[Transcendent One]

Wow that guy is a moron, trashing the positive aspects of the game and enjoying the bad ones.

Once your party gets into the heart of the game and enters the Temple, it's monster after monster after frickin' monster

No, you moron, just wear the cloaks. And if fighting makes you so uneasy due to too many options use stealth.

awkward Ruins Of Myth Drannor, released earlier this year

Run for your lives, cluelessness knows no limits!!!

 

[Vault Dweller]

why should fresh factor be higher?

Because ToEE overall is very refreshing unless you play turn-based DnD games with the most accurate 3.5E rules implementation, different starting locations, etc all the time. While it may not deserve 9 or 10, I believe that 8 is very fair, which is what HotU got in that department, btw.

]Other than that, it's pretty old school.

Well, they do say that anything new is forgotten old, and considering that the market was flooded with BG, IWD, and NWN games, I'd say that any decent TB game is very refreshing. Did you forget all that interview questions to Tim "hey, dood, what's up with making turn based DnD game, r u noob or something, DnD=RT!!!11!!

 

[Anonymous]

Heh, I killed all the people on each level of the temple my second time through (omg pwrgamar), they arnt that hard if you're not stupid (especially since most are just Bugbears. My Ranger with high bonuses vs. Goblinoids really messed them up).

Stealth comes in handy, I remember the area with Hedrack my first time, I used my Bard with all his Elvenkind lewtz to Sneak to each node portal, and then i'd select my group and have the bard go into the portal. Transported the whole group without having to fight a deadly battle.

 

[Montez]

It seems to me like the monsters dish out a whole lot more damage and hit way more often than your party, so you have to move carefully and choose your battles wisely.

Yeah, god forbid you actually use tactics or strategy, or actually get some use out of all those combat options. Maybe this guy should stick with reviewing FPS's since he gets so easily overwhelmed.

 

[Elwro]

AFAIR there was some bug with the RNG that on some PCs caused a serious detrimental effect on player party's "to hit" rolls.

 

[taks]

there's no bug with the random number generator... it's just a shitty RNG, that's all. it favors "trends" in the data while overall yielding a fairly even spread of rolls.

sooo VD, your statement about the broad side of a barn is formulated in a vacuum somewhat. it's fairly common issue with ToEE to get the same roll over and over. sometimes that roll happens to be high and sometimes it happens to be low. this is a problem with ALL games that use similar RN techniques (play BG with a 25 INT and tell me why 99% scribe ratio works out to only 7 out of 10?)

mark

 

[Anonymous]

or maybe your luck is shit

Also, at lower levels, you will miss often. It depends on your Attack Bonus and stuff, which is derived from your Base Attack Bonus (which depends on your class and level) plus your Strength Modifier.

Average strength for a Paladin would be 16, I guess. Which is +3. Base attack bonus at level 1 is +1. So +4 total.

So you have 1-20 + 4 to get over the monsters AC which can be from 15-30, i'd figure (15 is for really low armored guys, everyone has a base AC of 10, then + their dexterity (limited by your Max Dex Bonus on your armor) and then your Armors AC, shields AC, any AC you gain from Natural Armors (i.e. creatures with hard skin) and then Misc for magical items and all that).

On character sheets it looks like

AC total = [ ] + 10 + Dex + Armor + Shield + Natrual + Misc

So to hit a very low armored guy with an average level 1 paladin, you'd need 11 or higher. For a normal armored guy, which is about 21ish, you'd need 17 or higher. See what I mean?

On the flip side, at level 1, your AC is probably shitty. about 15-17 starting off in ToEE after buying the armors you could. So that means most creatures (except for really low level stuff like Goblins and Rats and stuff) will hit you without much effort.

Also remember, Bucklers (which alot of characters come with equipped) give -1 Attack Bonus while giving that +1 AC. I usually remove them from my heavy melee guys until they get up in level to spare that extra point, because then they are extremely armored while still getting high attack rolls.

I have a level 4 Half-Orc Paladin with 20 strength, which is +5 Str modifier. Base Attack for that level is 4, so I get +9, so see what i'm saying again? It all depends on your level and class and stuff. +9 would only need 11 and higher to hit normally armored guys and could still get a good swing at high armored guys.

PLAY SMART, dawgz.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Because ToEE overall is very refreshing unless you play turn-based DnD games with the most accurate 3.5E rules implementation, different starting locations, etc all the time. While it may not deserve 9 or 10, I believe that 8 is very fair, which is what HotU got in that department, btw.

Well, if HotU got an 8 in FRESH FACTOR, then yeah, ToEE probably deserves a 17. HotU didn't really do much new, and what it did do new sucked ass. The grappling hand thing was really, really lame.

 

[Jinxed]

there's no bug with the random number generator... it's just a shitty RNG, that's all. it favors "trends" in the data while overall yielding a fairly even spread of rolls.

sooo VD, your statement about the broad side of a barn is formulated in a vacuum somewhat. it's fairly common issue with ToEE to get the same roll over and over. sometimes that roll happens to be high and sometimes it happens to be low. this is a problem with ALL games that use similar RN techniques (play BG with a 25 INT and tell me why 99% scribe ratio works out to only 7 out of 10?)

mark

That's right. I remember a hot thread on the Atari boards where someone said they rolled around 10 20s in a row. The RNG sucks, plain and simple.

I found Toee to be difficult just at the begining, when I didn't really know the rules properly, and chose weird character progression. But overall, the game is quite easy if you put your mind to it. You need to understand how to efficiently develop good characters, that's about it.

screenshot of a critical

 

[Vault Dweller]

there's no bug with the random number generator... it's just a shitty RNG, that's all. it favors "trends" in the data while overall yielding a fairly even spread of rolls.

sooo VD, your statement about the broad side of a barn is formulated in a vacuum somewhat. it's fairly common issue with ToEE to get the same roll over and over. sometimes that roll happens to be high and sometimes it happens to be low.

While it could be true (imo, my party hit to miss ratio was reasonable, i.e. I didn't miss all the time, I didn't hit all the time), proper use of skills and abilities makes a big difference. Currently I'm playing ToEE, I used PB system (so no str 18 there), and I specialized in weapons that don't have their uber magical equivalent like spiked chain, falcon, etc. I didn't do any crafting yet, I'm using spells like bless, bane, magic weapon, bull's str, etc. Works great. Overall, the game is easy, unless a person has absolutely no clue and refuses to think and look at the manual.

 

[taks]

or maybe your luck is shit

Also, at lower levels, you will miss often. It depends on your Attack Bonus and stuff, which is derived from your Base Attack Bonus (which depends on your class and level) plus your Strength Modifier.

Average strength for a Paladin would be 16, I guess. Which is +3. Base attack bonus at level 1 is +1. So +4 total.

So you have 1-20 + 4 to get over the monsters AC which can be from 15-30, i'd figure (15 is for really low armored guys, everyone has a base AC of 10, then + their dexterity (limited by your Max Dex Bonus on your armor) and then your Armors AC, shields AC, any AC you gain from Natural Armors (i.e. creatures with hard skin) and then Misc for magical items and all that).

On character sheets it looks like

AC total = [ ] + 10 + Dex + Armor + Shield + Natrual + Misc

So to hit a very low armored guy with an average level 1 paladin, you'd need 11 or higher. For a normal armored guy, which is about 21ish, you'd need 17 or higher. See what I mean?

On the flip side, at level 1, your AC is probably shitty. about 15-17 starting off in ToEE after buying the armors you could. So that means most creatures (except for really low level stuff like Goblins and Rats and stuff) will hit you without much effort.

Also remember, Bucklers (which alot of characters come with equipped) give -1 Attack Bonus while giving that +1 AC. I usually remove them from my heavy melee guys until they get up in level to spare that extra point, because then they are extremely armored while still getting high attack rolls.

I have a level 4 Half-Orc Paladin with 20 strength, which is +5 Str modifier. Base Attack for that level is 4, so I get +9, so see what i'm saying again? It all depends on your level and class and stuff. +9 would only need 11 and higher to hit normally armored guys and could still get a good swing at high armored guys.

PLAY SMART, dawgz.

i am well aware of all of this. the AC numbers and BABB mean nothing, however, if the RNG spits out a string of 1s and 2s for 20 rolls in a row. this is common with the "Quick and Dirty" random number generator (from the book "Numerical Recipes in C") since the rolls are correlated, i.e. the current roll is in at least some way influenced by the previous roll. given the dependence on the previous roll (or influence, however you want to view it) the results are NOT random. if the bad string of #s comes against wimpy opponents, no problem as you'll beat them with spells alone... if a bad string shows up on your first big battle, you'll be reloading.

as i said, it isn't just a ToEE problem. most of the crpgs use similar rolling methods which are low on CPU power - the primary reason for using the crap generator.

i agree, VD, that combat in ToEE is actually too easy for rolled up character parties. of course, you, like i, probably know how to take advantage of your skills and feats and bonuses, etc. knowing which spell/feat/etc. to use when and so forth will always tilt the advantage to the PC simply because AI can't "think." given that this reviewer is a "big D&D fan," you would think he'd have the same advantage as us. maybe he's only a big IE D&D games fan and therefore thinks all combat should be that way?

i have not tried an "advanced" rolled party yet though i imagine it will be tougher, but not impossible. when the latest and greatest "unofficial" patch comes out, i will begin again.

mark

 

[taks]

That's right. I remember a hot thread on the Atari boards where someone said they rolled around 10 20s in a row. The RNG sucks, plain and simple.

several, as a matter of fact. i posted in a few of them myself after doing a little research.

I found Toee to be difficult just at the begining, when I didn't really know the rules properly, and chose weird character progression. But overall, the game is quite easy if you put your mind to it. You need to understand how to efficiently develop good characters, that's about it.

as i just posted... once you understand how to use the advantages the game gives you, it's quite easy. i stumbled a bit at first as well simply because i wasn't sure of the best feat progression (most of my exp. is with 2E) but a quick party rebuild fixed that.

mark

 

[taks]

oh, btw, according to zhuge over at the atari forums, the latest "official" patch will contain a "fixed" RNG in toee. i'm assuming fixed means improved since it wasn't really broken in the first place... just shitty. also, steve moret (lead programmer) said that he should be releasing the patch to atari today (which he and some other devs worked on over the holiday break).

both of these are good things, IMO. i was quite upset that there were no more patches planned from a contract standpoint because the game is still unfinished. the RNG thing really is an issue and if you actually pull up the rolls and write them down for a few hundred you CAN see how bad the RNG really is (it is not biased towards the player or baddies in particular, just biased in general one way or the other, and sometimes both ways in a single combat session). this all goes a long way towards redemption for an early (several months too early) release by troika AND atari.

assuming they've really put some effort into this, toee might be worth taking off the shelf again since nothing else is worth playing at the moment...

mark