The Tavern

I've heard about a lot of the game design issues that TOME has, and am wondering if it's worth picking it up on the cheap to give it a try. What are the thoughts on TOME? Is it worth trying out?

The base game doesn't actually cost money

It's alright. I had enough fun with it to get a win in, but the game is easily twice as long as it should be.

I was well on my way to fixing tome4 and then they added a goddamn crafting and socket system and I was like "fuck this I'm outta here"

duvessa wrote:I was well on my way to fixing tome4 and then they added a goddamn crafting and socket system and I was like "fuck this I'm outta here"

Lol "fix" ToME; what a fucking Sisyphean nightmare that would be.

ToME is in a weird situation where looking at the wiki is more fun than playing the game. It has some really cool classes and ability trees but the game itself is repetitive (not worth winning more than once imo), long, and number-crunchy, with a thousand resists to keep track of. If you like discovering artifacts, boss fights, and finding weird synergies in a convoluted system, ToME can be pretty fun.

Cheibrodos wrote:ToME is in a weird situation where looking at the wiki is more fun than playing the game. It has some really cool classes and ability trees but the game itself is repetitive (not worth winning more than once imo), long, and number-crunchy, with a thousand resists to keep track of.

to be fair the resists don't actually matter so there's no compelling reason to keep track of them

ToME is worth A try.
On a side question, is dungeons of dredmor worth a try?

Dredmore was supremely boring to me, along with how slowly it played because of the animations.

I'd say DoD is worth winning once, like ToME.

milski wrote:Dredmore was supremely boring to me, along with how slowly it played because of the animations.

There's a hotkey to speed up animations

It's still insanely, insanely slow, full of boring and badly designed crafting, heavily (tediously)gamable mechanics, awful inventory management, and a total lack of quality of life features like autoexplore... plus really unfunny humor. Who's ready for some memes from the early 2000's?

Dredmore was one of the first RLs I played, before finding DCSS, which was a wonderful breakthrough for me. I beat it, but I could never go back.

ps: you can beat the final boss of dredmor by hitting him a few times, using one of the many knockback skills to push him back behind a door, and then close the door in his face... because no monsters, not even the final boss, are allowed to open doors, and they don't regen, so then you can rest up to full HP while he does not(ps: dredmore has no button which autorests either, so you have to hold down the skip a turn button and be careful no monster walks into LoS), open door, repeat process until he dies.

fun!!!!!

Dredmor is very gamey and slow, and when you speed it up, you're likely to make silly mistakes. Lack of autoexploe and basically no in-game information on enemies is a problem. It actually has more damage types than TomE, which is just silly.

TomE is pretty cool, but it has some problems too. It's a bit long, as has been mentioned, especially if you do all the early dungeons, which is a good idea if you're playing with permadeath (which you should). One of the biggest things people complain about is walking into bad situations while exploring. Monsters can see 10 squares in the dark, but the pc has a lite radius, and some monsters (the rabdomly classed Rares, mostly) can do high damage very fast. This all means that some way to see enemies before they see you is key. This is fine, in theory, since the interface is pretty advanced and allows many abilities to be, say, autocast when no foes are visible. But... many characters have to resort to the relatively short-range Wand of Clairvoyance for scouting, and for some reason, wands can't autocast... :/

However... TomE has a great combat system where melee can be much more interesting than "bump into enemy until it dies." For example, when using a shield you can Block attacks, reducing damage for a round, and anybody who tries and fails to hurt you due to this becomes open to a counterattack (for double damage).., and that's before we get into the actual class talents that fightey types get. TomE also largely eschews consumable and strategic resources in favor of tactical ones, so if that appeals, give it a shot. The fluff is pretty good for a roguelike, with various factions with their own histories... And some of it is even funny.

(Also, the resistances definitely matter against stronger foes... But it's a huge hassle to juggle all that gear. The number of damage types is kind of a problem.)

I kind of liked Dredmor's character creation, where you pick X skill trees and go. Very customizable without having scummy attribute rolls or a long creation process. That is really the only nice thing I can say about Dredmor though....

ToME is worth checking out but has features that ultimately make it a headache. (E.g., very good spammable scouting/divinations-type abilities that you have to stop and use.) Worth playing through once for sure, but a lot less replayable than it appears at first glance.

Also Tome has the really creepy orc breeding rape dungeon thing, which is totally unnecessary. So is the one sidequest where you get a waifu tbh.

milski wrote:Also Tome has the really creepy orc breeding rape dungeon thing, which is totally unnecessary. So is the one sidequest where you get a waifu tbh.

I think it got removed though.

milski wrote:Also Tome has the really creepy orc breeding rape dungeon thing, which is totally unnecessary.

Old related description (read at your own discretion):

Code:: Here stands a tremendous form almost the size of a dragon. Bloated skin rises in thick folds, seeping viscous slime from its wide pores. Hundreds of hanging teats feed a small army of squabbling, fighting young orcs - only the toughest of them are able to gain the precious nutrients to grow stronger, the weaker ones left to wither on the mouldy floor. Dozens of gaping vulvae squelch and pulsate, pushing out new young with alarming rapidity. At the top of this towering hulk is a shrivelled head coated in long tangled hair. Dazed eyes peer out with a mixture of sadness and pain, but as they fix on you they turn to anger, the creature's face contorted with the fierce desire to protect its young.

milski wrote:Also Tome has the really creepy orc breeding rape dungeon thing, which is totally unnecessary. So is the one sidequest where you get a waifu tbh.

RIP. One of the great flavor-description hubs of our time.

And don't talk shit about the waifu simulator function. You get a free kiss WHENEVER YOU WANT! Immersion achieved.

dynast wrote:
milski wrote:Also Tome has the really creepy orc breeding rape dungeon thing, which is totally unnecessary. So is the one sidequest where you get a waifu tbh.

I think it got removed though.

It did.

FWIW the game still has rape in it even if you don't count the crypt of kryl-feijan quest

why would a (cheesy and poorly written) romance subplot count as rape

Shard1697 wrote:ps: you can beat the final boss of dredmor by hitting him a few times, using one of the many knockback skills to push him back behind a door, and then close the door in his face... because no monsters, not even the final boss, are allowed to open doors, and they don't regen, so then you can rest up to full HP while he does not(ps: dredmore has no button which autorests either, so you have to hold down the skip a turn button and be careful no monster walks into LoS), open door, repeat process until he dies.

fun!!!!!

They buffed him at some point so he now has smite-targeted lightning attack that does ~70 damage in a game where resistances are linear (e.g. 10 elec resistance lowers elec damage by 10) and paralyzes you for a few turns, and he can cast it whenever he wants. He usually doesn't cast it too often but he can just arbitrarily end a run at the last possible moment by casting it 2-3 times in a row while you're paralyzed. There are a couple silence-esque skills to prevent him from casting it, but he can (and usually will) save against all but one.

I enjoyed Dredmor but it has a lot of stupid design decisions and I can't really recommend it. TOME just bores the hell out of me.

Tome is a fun game to try to break, but as people have said, it's exhausting to play properly (scouting ahead and all that jazz), and if you just play in a fun way, you're liable to get one-shot from out of LOS. Also, fuck that stupid sandworm lair...

And since we're sorta on the subject...
What kind of things would y'all like to see in a RL?

I enjoy ToME every once in a while, although I get bored of it rather quickly. It's really grindy, and somehow manages to be repetitive, even with all its race/class combos and semi-procedural generation. Base game is free, and it is enjoyable, give it a shot. You're not losing anything but your time, which clearly you'd be spending playing something like this anyway so... yeah ;p

And since we're sorta on the subject...
What kind of things would y'all like to see in a RL?

I ask because for the past year, I've been working on my own RL, building it from the ground up in my spare time. I've now hit the point on my development cycle where all the basic functionality is there: dungeon generation, pathing, movement, inventory & equip, etc...
So the next things on my list are:
How do I make my RL different from the others out there? What do other RLs do correctly that I should emulate? What do players want to see/do/have/etc ?

Multiplayer.

A different time-resolution mechanic. Lots of pen'n'paper RPGs have turn based declaration of actions, but with a few games, the actual resolution of events happens as if they were all declared simultaneously.

Playing into the above suggestion, realistic melee fighting. Parrying, riposting, half-swording, and all the other martial techniques used in actual swordfighting. Streamline 'em so it doesn't end up like TRoS where you're overwhelmed with options each action.

As to the original subject: I like ToME quite a bit. It suits me well as I tend to get a bit attached to my characters. DCSS is really session-based and has a fresher feel to each run, but ToME gives you lots of time and opportunity to flesh out your character (even though s/he is going to the same zones your other dudes went to). The music/sfx ain't none too bad, either. It's more of a combo/cooldown-management type of game, but with Adventurer difficulty you don't feel too cheaped out when you die.

Sar wrote:why would a (cheesy and poorly written) romance subplot count as rape

i assume he means the bit before you rescue the girl (ravished by cultists or w/e)

haven't played it myself so i can't say how fair that is

anyway, i'm glad that someone is covering the 'dozens of gaping vulvae' niche in the roguelike genre. haven't seen such a worthy contender since ascii dreams' Roguelike Of The Year 2013...

PleasingFungus wrote:anyway, i'm glad that someone is covering the 'dozens of gaping vulvae' niche in the roguelike genre. haven't seen such a worthy contender since ascii dreams' Roguelike Of The Year 2013...

unfortunately, the vagina golem was removed at some point. rip

mod note:
I meant to hit quote but instead edited infinitevox's post :oops:

I fixed it immediately, but my apologies if anyone saw it and was confused.

Anyway, okay, let's not mess up this time:

infinitevox wrote:And since we're sorta on the subject...
What kind of things would y'all like to see in a RL?

Do you want focus to be on combat, or avoidance? Avenues for players to do either? How much of an active focus on exploration do you want? First work out how to make combat and (if applicable) exploration interesting, and how to keep them interesting consistently throughout the game

Don't encourage grinding/scumming

Fewer but more meaningful choices is much better than a ton of unimportant choices. Each feature should occupy a distinct game space. E.g., seven schools of magic that do a lot of the same thing is worse than having four distinctive types

Consistency is good, but don't enforce symmetry arbitrarily (E.g., does it actually make sense for every skill in Crawl to max out at 27? Or does this often just entrap new players into overtraining?)

Avoid clutter and bloat in general. Resist the urge to add too many bells and whistles. E.g., too many resistances/damage types/status effects inevitably turns at least some aspects of a game into a chore, even when the game is otherwise well designed and fun

EDIT:
Don't wear out your welcome. Optional, non-optimal ways to extend the length of a run is fine, but don't drag the main game out too long.

i can't believe everyone here forgot the REAL reason to play tome on steam:

the one thousand three hundred and six achievements to collect and share with your friends!

Arrhythmia wrote:i can't believe everyone here forgot the REAL reason to play tome on steam:

the one thousand three hundred and six achievements to collect and share with your friends!

Some of those achievements (according to the tome website) have only been earned like 6 times.

But it doesn't really count as 1300 achiements. It's really more like 140ish multiplied by the 9 possible combinations of difficulty mode and roguelike vs adventure mode.

and into wrote:mod note:
I meant to hit quote but instead edited infinitevox's post
I fixed it immediately, but my apologies if anyone saw it and was confused.

Anyway, okay, let's not mess up this time:

infinitevox wrote:And since we're sorta on the subject...
What kind of things would y'all like to see in a RL?

Do you want focus to be on combat, or avoidance? Avenues for players to do either? How much of an active focus on exploration do you want? First work out how to make combat and (if applicable) exploration interesting, and how to keep them interesting consistently throughout the game

Don't encourage grinding/scumming

Fewer but more meaningful choices is much better than a ton of unimportant choices. Each feature should occupy a distinct game space. E.g., seven schools of magic that do a lot of the same thing is worse than having four distinctive types

Consistency is good, but don't enforce symmetry arbitrarily (E.g., does it actually make sense for every skill in Crawl to max out at 27? Or does this often just entrap new players into overtraining?)

Avoid clutter and bloat in general. Resist the urge to add too many bells and whistles. E.g., too many resistances/damage types/status effects inevitably turns at least some aspects of a game into a chore, even when the game is otherwise well designed and fun

EDIT:
Don't wear out your welcome. Optional, non-optimal ways to extend the length of a run is fine, but don't drag the main game out too long.

Combat vs Avoidance: I want avenues for either option, leaving it as much up to personal playstyle as possible - but this might be a tad unrealistic, in which case I would side more heavily with combat focus if I had to choose.

Exploration and discovery: are also big things I'd like emphasis on. My intent is to have some really really cool areas with heavily stylized art and 3dmodels, so I want people to be able to enjoy that and still be making progress

I plan on making the "core" of the game completable in 3-5 hours, with optional "end-game" stuff that can easily triple the play time if the player desired.
I'm also planning on keeping things as simple as possible from the start, because I want to continue to slowly add content as time goes by.

My biggest dilema right now is the skill/spell system. I'm not sure if I want something completely open-ended like what Crawl has, or something more focused like ToME. I like being able to "do anything" in crawl, but also see the appeal of the Skill/Talent/Category system that ToME uses. Maybe some mixture of both? Hard decision to make.

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