Tales of Maj'Eyal

[Morkar Left]

It's a roguelike with an online chatroom if you want to log in. There's no multiplayer or anything like that.

What about this community events? Can I play the game completely offline?

 

[Lacrymas]

I don't know about community events, you can play it completely offline, yeah, but you won't be able to send items from one toon to the other (afaik). That's probably the only disadvantage.

 

[Lacrymas]

So, a bit of an update on Wyrmics, they are definitely buffed quite a lot. I also noticed that Icy Scales is changed to give +health now too, in addition to the other stuff. There might be actually more than 1 viable build path now. The leveling speed seems to be slowed down a bit or maybe that's just me. There are still bullshit one-shot kills, though, I got insta-gibbed by the demoness who gets summoned by the cultists, she dumped like 6 meteors on my head at once. I have to test the overall difficulty with another class to see whether the Wyrmics are noticeably buffed or everything else is noticeably nerfed (or both).

 

[Zdzisiu]

Haha the newest update for TOME lets you play a weird Warhammer 40k hybrid of Orc purging heresy with flamethrower, boltgun and mecha spider tank. Also, you can spawn turrets and have shoulder mounted missiles, hell there is even a remotely controlled missile you can use to nuke enemies from afair.

Shit is wack, you have to try it!

 

[Kabas]

You also got a technomancer, an upgrade to archmage which you can buy for a prodigy point.
This upgrade gives you 3 talent categories that use both steam and mana. You can choose which one will be unlocked to you for free.
The one with tesla coils is a bit bugged right now and one of the others involve telekinetic wielding of the sawblade from what i understand.

The annihilator is indeed fun. He wields steam gun and shield which can be transfromed without wasting a turn into heavy bolter for higher range, flametrower for aoe or electric staff for engaging in melee. These heavy weapons consume a separate ammo and drain your steam just for being wielded.

 

[anvi]

I'd like to play this again but I don't like playing for hours and then getting 1 shotted by some sprite that may not even be on the screen.

 

[Lacrymas]

I'd like to play this again but I don't like playing for hours and then getting 1 shotted by some sprite that may not even be on the screen.

There's definitely a problem with some bosses being more powerful than before and being able to one-shot you. My last run ended against the Grand Corruptor because I neither could get out of his snares, nor outheal his damage, and before that I was insta-gibbed by the demoness the cultists summon when you kill them. I only noticed that with optional bosses, though.

 

[TwoEdge]

I'd like to play this again but I don't like playing for hours and then getting 1 shotted by some sprite that may not even be on the screen.

Being a fan of the genre I used to play exclusively on nightmare/roguelike, until I decided that ToME is definitely not properly balanced to avoid one shots, even if you specifically build for that. I changed to adventure and it feels so much better. So much that I dare say it's actually balanced to account for the extra lives, sacrilegious as it may be.

 

[gestalt11]

I'd like to play this again but I don't like playing for hours and then getting 1 shotted by some sprite that may not even be on the screen.

There's definitely a problem with some bosses being more powerful than before and being able to one-shot you. My last run ended against the Grand Corruptor because I neither could get out of his snares, nor outheal his damage, and before that I was insta-gibbed by the demoness the cultists summon when you kill them. I only noticed that with optional bosses, though.

It can easily happen on Insane, but insane is also more interesting because it has so many more rares/uniques/randbosses. One shots can be avoided but doing so requires a lot of knowledge and is pretty tedious and gamey. Basically by a combination of using telepathy all the time and viewing dangerous things skills and sometimes exploiting digging when necessary.

A game like DCSS is developed in such a way that one shots/almost guaranteed death situation are not so readily happening to the point where they actually removed almost all scrying because its too powerful and messes with how tactical choices play out.

 

[anvi]

I'd like to play this again but I don't like playing for hours and then getting 1 shotted by some sprite that may not even be on the screen.

There's definitely a problem with some bosses being more powerful than before and being able to one-shot you. My last run ended against the Grand Corruptor because I neither could get out of his snares, nor outheal his damage, and before that I was insta-gibbed by the demoness the cultists summon when you kill them. I only noticed that with optional bosses, though.

It can easily happen on Insane, but insane is also more interesting because it has so many more rares/uniques/randbosses. One shots can be avoided but doing so requires a lot of knowledge and is pretty tedious and gamey. Basically by a combination of using telepathy all the time and viewing dangerous things skills and sometimes exploiting digging when necessary.

A game like DCSS is developed in such a way that one shots/almost guaranteed death situation are not so readily happening to the point where they actually removed almost all scrying because its too powerful and messes with how tactical choices play out.

Is that game good? I only really care about the combat.

 

[gestalt11]

I'd like to play this again but I don't like playing for hours and then getting 1 shotted by some sprite that may not even be on the screen.

There's definitely a problem with some bosses being more powerful than before and being able to one-shot you. My last run ended against the Grand Corruptor because I neither could get out of his snares, nor outheal his damage, and before that I was insta-gibbed by the demoness the cultists summon when you kill them. I only noticed that with optional bosses, though.

It can easily happen on Insane, but insane is also more interesting because it has so many more rares/uniques/randbosses. One shots can be avoided but doing so requires a lot of knowledge and is pretty tedious and gamey. Basically by a combination of using telepathy all the time and viewing dangerous things skills and sometimes exploiting digging when necessary.

A game like DCSS is developed in such a way that one shots/almost guaranteed death situation are not so readily happening to the point where they actually removed almost all scrying because its too powerful and messes with how tactical choices play out.

Is that game good? I only really care about the combat.

DCSS? Yeah its good for a roguelike and its basically only combat. You will die a lot though. Most codexers seem barely capable of winning it, but once you figure various stuff out its easily possible to reliably win or extended win the game. Its much much faster than TOME4 if you go for a normal (3 rune) win. I prefer the hellcrawl fork because it removes alot of tediuous mechanics like item id, but that not really a hugely active thing.

Its basically a classless skill based system with your starting species and eventual god choice as the main differentiater, your goal is to simply dungeon dive and grab the orb and escape with it. You need to optimize a play to according to what emerges in the dungeon, i.e. you cannot rely on using a certain spell early unless it come with a starting background. To do so you need to gather at least 3 of 15 runes from side dungeon branches. Doing all 15 is consider "extended" and is a good bit longer than a normal win and requires you to do certain branches that would normal be avoided and are problematic for new players (i.e. Tombs is meant to fuck people's shit up no matter what kind of defenses they are running).

Compared to TOME4 DCSS has way less special moves and whatever special stuff you get is highly emergent. In TOME4 you can plan a build reliably, in DCSS you can decide to play character based on, say, the statue form spell, but you have no idea when you will find a book that has that spell since its essentially random. So you have to be able to adjust to this by making smart choices as you gain xp and make good use of what you may find. A 3 rune win on a Berserker start (which is basically a fighter who start with the Trog god) basically only has basic attack, invoke berserk, invoke regen, summon allies and invoke magic resistance (plus any consumables/evokables you may find which are very important). Whereas every single TOME4 class will have a ton of active skills plus 3-5 inscriptions and you are basically required to make good use of inscriptions due to all the various status effects. DCSS is almost the opposite of that design philosophy.

 

[gestalt11]

I guess a rather good way to compare the design of TOME4 vs DCSS is to start with one the maxims of roguelikes in general that many beginners fail to fully grasp:

"Being able to safely run away is the most powerful ability".

In TOME4 you can get infinite controlled teleport if you have the conveyance skill tree. Most people fail to realize this is one of the most overpowered skill trees in the entire game, but once you have a safe room on a level you can survive anything that is not a one-shot by simply by teleporting to that safe room. This is the closest you can get to infinite lives. In DCSS a full floor teleport is (now that they removed all controlled teleport) always random and highly restricted, you can basically only do it by using a limited consumable scroll or using a god power that is limited via piety. In DCSS using your teleport scroll is an important decision, you can't just keep doing it.

The devs who steer DCSS have a major concern with doing things like adding/removing things that have such game changing effects on the tactical mileau. They will not hestitate to do thing like remove all controlled teleport granting items or remove all scrying spell and gate similar feature behind a God.

 

[anvi]

Sounds cool, I'm gonna try it, thanks Gonna try Tome4 again too, I am going on a long trip which will have no internet so these sorts of games are useful on my laptop.

 

[Bara]

1.7 big feature preview love for Necromancing

Spoiler

Patch 1.7 big feature preview: New Necromancers!
Submitted by darkgod on Wed, 2020-05-27 17:38
Hello my minions!

So, I have announced in the past that Necromancers will be getting an update, and they "soon" will! But it is not a simple update, however, it is more like a near-total rewrite. So, I wanted to go over them a bit to give you a feel for what's coming.

Necromancers in patch 1.7 will have 12 class talent trees and 2 new generic talent trees. The class trees are split by theme into 4 groups of 3 trees each: Minions, Death, Darkness and Cold.
The way souls are generated and spent has changed. There are more ways to get new souls, even in a solo fight, but also more ways to spend them. The intention is that you should have to think about when to spend souls but, they shouldn't feel like consumables either.

So, with that in mind, let's go over the themes!

Minions
What necromancer would go out without an army of undead minions to slaughter their foes? Well some I hope, as I want minion-less builds to be viable, but that's a different matter
One important thing to note is that minions no longer decay outside your necrotic aura! As before, however, all necrotic minions are incapable of passively regenerating life. Another important change is that your minions can't hurt you by default, and you can't hurt them either.

Master of Bones

This tree focuses on the summoning of skeletons with various powers. All of them share some basic properties:

• No summoning timer: once summoned, a skeleton will stay by your side until it is destroyed
• Sturdy: as you levelup most of them will have the skeleton racial shield available to them
• Limited: you can never summon a lot of them at once, so try to care for them!

As a necromancer gains power they learn to summon stonger types of skeletons, including mages.
Necromancers can also combine and enhance their basic skeletons into more powerful forms:

• Bonewall: should the need arise, a skeleton can be "expanded" to create an unmoving bonewall that damages and pins down all foes
• Bone Giant: by combining 3 normal skeletons the necromancer can make a powerful and sturdy bone giant to become the backbone of their minion army
• Lord of Skulls: by funneling even more souls into a single skeleton, a powerful necromancer can create a Lord of Skulls, enhancing the power of the minion even further. At high level they can even grant them new extremely powerful talents.

Master of Flesh

This tree focuses on summoning ghouls of varying power. All of them share some basic properties:

• Summoning timer: once summoned, a ghoul will only exist for some turns, and then they decay
• Numerous: Ghouls are expendable minions, you can summon them in greater quantities than skeletons and you have multiple ways to "expend" them, from a simple corpse explosion to liquifying them into a cloud of gore that follows you around

Raising ghouls is part of any worthy necromancer's arsenal and such a basic task that they can do it instinctively. At the start of each combat and every few turns afterwards a ghoul automatically rises to aid the necromancer. They can also be summoned en masse, however, should the need arise.
Ghouls are expendable minions and no necromancer would shed a tear when one (or 10) die, as long as their death was useful.

• Make them go boom: Once a ghoul has served its time, or when it is destroyed, why not make it go out with a bang (literally), literally exploding in a mass of gore!
• Liquefy them: Once a ghoul is dead, or exploded, why not use their remains to make a cloud of gore that follows you around, damaging all foes.
• Sacrifice them: Who likes debuffs? Nobody! So make a ghoul absorb the effect for you and then go boom!

Master Necromancer

This tree focuses on enhancing and using your existing summons without adding new ones.
With it you can: increase their power, protect them while they are nearby, buff them up, recall them back to you for protection, or even use them to prevent damage directed at you.

Death
Any necromancer worth their salt has some dominion over death. These trees concentrate on utilizing the souls and deaths of your foes to your advantage. Yummy souls!

Animus

The staple talent of every necromancer lives here: Soul Leech. Anytime you or your minions deal damage to a creature, you apply soul leech to it and, should it die, steal its soul for your own purposes.
That is not all, however. This tree also offers you the ability to consume souls to heal yourself and regenerate mana, torture victims of soul leech for even more souls, and gain buffs based on the current number of souls!

Death

Focusing specifically on absorbing souls and gaining bonuses upon deaths, this tree starts with the return of the fan favorite Rigor Mortis and adds ways to teleport to the place of death of your foes, regenerate when you kill, and damage any creature afflicted by soul leech (so hopefully everyone).

Eradication

A melting pot of high end death effects, this tree can unleash your vampiric side, create graveyards to resurrect your minions, hurt your foes, and sees the return of another fan favorite: Impending Doom!

Darkness
A necromancer works in dark and remote places, hidden from the living and shunned from society.
Some learn to use that darkness to their advantage.

Nightfall

The old staple of Invoke Darkness is back, but improved at high-end as a 3-wide beam!
In addition, banes are still present and now improved by Erupting Shadows which doubles down on baned creatures. Poor things.
But what if you want to play minion-less and thus have less "soul dump"? Well River of Souls is there for you! Automatically firing a weaponized soul each turn for AOE damage!

Dread

In all the taverns of Eyal, you can always find an adventurer mumbling in the dark about the terrors they've faced, a glimpse of madness in their eyes. Those who have seen a Dread, or, worse, a Dreadmaster.
Necromancers, however, do not fear the Dreads, they control them! Dreads are expensive support minions. Their purpose is to harass and debuff your foes, making them ripe for the picking by your army or your own spells.

Age of Dusk

Ahhh the Age of Dusk. The Golden Age of Necromancy. A time of plagues and hopelessness.
This tree represents all of that, with Dire Plague, a disease that bypasses disease immunity and can trigger lots of effects in the tree, including ripping out the souls of its victims.
The Golden Age of Necromancy talent offers a slew of saves and resistances, most notably the extremely rare teleport resistance. And when your life drops below 1, you can even gain 2 turns of full immunity to everything!

Cold
The cold embrace of death. A feeling known to every necromancer.
The cunning necromancer goes even further, using cold to damage and defend, or even summon a wraith!

Grave

Chill of the Tomb returns, but with a twist: any minion caught in the blast is covered in a thin layer of ice, reducing all damage they take! So blast away!
In addition, the Black Ice spell gives a way to focus on priority targets, dealing heavy damage and increasing damage taken from minions.
Last, but not least, the Corpselight! It is a static pseudo-minion that deals constant AOE damage and grows in power each time you cast spells, and can even be made to implode in a burst of cold destruction.

Glacial Waste

Damaging your foes is nice, but useless if you are dead!
All of this tree focuses on one spell: Hiemal Shield, a powerful shield that can block damage, retaliate with bolts of ice, create wastelands around you and even regenerate itself.

Rime Wraith

Hailing from the glacial wastes of the north, the Rime Wraith is a powerful, fully immaterial spirit of ice and death. Nothing can stop the cold embrace of this parasitic spirit as it jumps into foes and friends alike each turn, in a fast paced dance of death. A Rime Wraith’s purpose is to protect your other minions and debilitate your foes.

Generic
Necromancers no longer share any trees with Archmages, either class or generic, resulting in some new stuff and some shuffling.

Necrosis

Necrosis is back, but now as a generic which focuses even more on negative life and "anti-nature".
Actually, I did not mention it much yet, but many of the necromancer spells have specific additional effects if you are under 1 HP!
So, Blurred Mortality is back, bringing in the negative life goodness, and the additional effect of increasing resistances if you are under 1 HP.
But that's not all, with Across the Veil triggering whenever the 1 HP threshold is crossed, in either direction and uses the energy of the crossing to blast foes with damage and reduce your cooldowns!
Last, but not least, come the rune-interacting talents, which strongly encourages you to not use wild infusions and only use runes.
"But DarkGod where is Lichdom?!" Well, it's not here anymore! Lich is now a prodigy, like a race evolution. The requirements for it do not change however you still need to do the quest and all.

Spectre

Shared with the future Gravelord class from Lost Land, the spectre talents focus on movement and vision by turning yourself into a spectre! A kind of replacement for Divination and Conveyance trees.

Lich

Ahhh, the Lich! The fantasy of many necromancers, the ultimate form of undead (or so they think).
A lich has a racial tree, along with the usual immunities and stat boosts you've come to expect from them. Their talents focus on self-resurrection (at a cost!), inspiring fear in your foes, commanding an army of shadows and bolstering all allied undead in sight. A true commander of the dead!

There we go, the new Necromancer class in all its undeath glory, coming to you in patch 1.7!

One important thing to note is that minions no longer decay outside your necrotic aura! As before, however, all necrotic minions are incapable of passively regenerating life.

Actually, I did not mention it much yet, but many of the necromancer spells have specific additional effects if you are under 1 HP!

Are particularly spiffy.

 

[Lacrymas]

Woooo, love me some necromancer attention. They needed it too.

 

[anvi]

Cool, how long is that likely to be? Days? Months?

 

[Bara]

Like this is a total shot in the dark but maybe around six month ish? 1.6 patch was first previewed in April and then after multiple betas released October.

1.7 doesn't sound as big as 1.6 though so eh?

 

[Sykar]

Should I get this on Steam? It is quite cheap atm, less than 10 Euros. I read you can get the base game for free on their homepage though. Should I buy those 4 "games"? Are those expansion packs or standalone games?

 

[Lacrymas]

They are expansions. One of them is a standalone campaign, but you can use the unlocks from there in the main one. The main reason to buy the base game is to support the development, but you do get an extra class and the ability to transfer items.

 

[Sykar]

They are expansions. One of them is a standalone campaign, but you can use the unlocks from there in the main one. The main reason to buy the base game is to support the development, but you do get an extra class and the ability to transfer items.

Watched some footage on YT and found it intruiging, do you recommend it? I understand it is a rogue like?

 

[Lacrymas]

I recommend it, yes. It's a pretty good game. And it's indeed a roguelike.

 

[sser]

Has anyone beaten TOME with a melee fighter?

 

[Trash Player]

Has anyone beaten TOME with a melee fighter?

Someone beated Nightmare with bumping only, so yes, it is doable.

 

[felipepepe]

Watched some footage on YT and found it intruiging, do you recommend it? I understand it is a rogue like?

It's one of my Top 10 games of all-time.

It's really that good, I would say it has the best 1-character turn-based combat in all RPGs, a crazy amount of builds to explore, interesting abilities (become a lich, explore multiple timelines, duel your enemy in hell, etc), quests with different outcomes that can radically change your playstyle and it's still being updated.

While it's a roguelike, it's more linear and story-driven. This gives the game more structure and direction, but replying it constantly can make those first areas kinda repetitive. Good thing is that there's a second campaign in the expansions, with different story and setting, so you get A LOT of content to explore. I have more than 200hs on the Steam version and still want to try new things every time a new patch comes out.

 

[sser]

Has anyone beaten TOME with a melee fighter?

Someone beated Nightmare with bumping only, so yes, it is doable.

Be curious to see it. Whenever I play a melee build I eventually enter a room where there's some elite and murderous creature who just wrecks my shit and I'm hapless to stop them.