Tome 4


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Abyss Ambulator

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Post Wednesday, 17th December 2014, 20:53

Tome 4

So, I just beat ToME 4, and... I think I'm done with it forever. I won with a magician, using mostly fire and wildfire.

The game seemed so cool at first, you get to choose your skills, sort of like Diablo 2, there's tons of different equipment, there are no consumables, so you can just use all your coolest stuff every fight, sounds like a lot of fun, right?

Unfortunately, all this cool stuff didn't really work out as I hoped.

The skill system is cool, but in many cases it's pretty obvious that there are only a few viable builds, and a lot of skills just aren't worth using.

The equipment seems neat, but it gets really tiresome sorting through the list of loot you got to compare against what you're currently wearing. I know for sure I could have optimized my equipment a lot better, but I just couldn't be bothered.

The cooldown system for skills sounds neat, so you can use all your tools in every fight and not worry about running out. But that also means you pretty much just hit the same hotkeys every fight, so it all gets to be the same.

Plus, the game is pretty long, and a lot of it is about the same difficulty. In the end the only way I was able to get a little challenge was to tackle the end boss as soon as it was available, there was still a lot more content left, but I couldn't be bothered.

About 3/4 through that game, I wanted to just quit and play crawl. But I made myself finish.

I guess the tl;dr is this: Playing ToME made me appreciate the tight design philosophy of crawl more than just playing crawl does.

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Post Wednesday, 17th December 2014, 20:56

Re: Tome 4

It's just not the same after they removed the orc breeding pits.
take it easy

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Post Wednesday, 17th December 2014, 21:10

Re: Tome 4

Fwiw I really enjoy Tome, but I agree with most everything you've pointed out. With the exception of maybe the viability of builds, unless you're one of the hardcore players that only play on nightmare, you can still easily finish with a subpar build. But yeah, I agree wholeheartedly that gear can be tedious... Not to mention the orcish strongholds which are just an absolute slog.

I bought the DLC (I think DarkGod deserves a little something :D ) but even with that, after unlocking everything, the drive to keep playing really isn't there.
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Abyss Ambulator

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Post Wednesday, 17th December 2014, 21:31

Re: Tome 4

Well, when I said 'viable' I didn't mean they're the only ones that can win, but rather they're the obvious best choice. In the same way that one can win at crawl with nothing but a spear, yet I really wouldn't call a spear a viable end game weapon. This probably just means I'm badly misusing the word viable...

It's a cool game, and worth a playthrough, but I can't imagine doing it again. Not like crawl, where I'm thinking of the next character I want to play while I'm in Zot.

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Post Wednesday, 17th December 2014, 21:57

Re: Tome 4

I hear there are some other tomefans who post on this forum.

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Post Wednesday, 17th December 2014, 22:27

Re: Tome 4

  Code:
<+evilmike> btw marvinpa, are you ever going to announce that tome4 addon/whatever you made? I looked over the change log, it looks cool
<+MarvinPA> that's minmay's, he just fills it with references to me for some slightly scary reason or other
<+evilmike> oh
<+evilmike> right never mind then, I'm going to avoid it
<+evilmike> he probably has something like "remove that stupid dream volcano" in the change log, but really the entire thing is the dream volcano, and it's his dreams

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Post Wednesday, 17th December 2014, 23:21

Re: Tome 4

duvessa wrote:dreams

zzzTome?
Last edited by Mankeli on Wednesday, 17th December 2014, 23:34, edited 1 time in total.

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wheals

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Post Wednesday, 17th December 2014, 23:34

Re: Tome 4

damiac wrote:I guess the tl;dr is this: Playing ToME made me appreciate the tight design philosophy of crawl more than just playing crawl does.

Yep, this is what happens folks. Be careful with DCSS, it will ruin other games for you.

I've played Tome for about a year (taking a few longer brakes in-between) and I can still appreciate the good parts of it. I will probably stop when I manage to beat madness difficulty which is a work in progress. Calling Tome polished would be an insult to every game that has something that even remotely resembles balance but on the other hand Tome is a extented engame lovers' and loot whores' dream game and the long battles on higher difficulties can be pretty epic. But they also take very, very long and the game is definitely much too long on any difficulty. Like "cut 25 % of dungeon floors right now and then based on experience about the changes cut more from some dungeons" long.

Based on the (negative) feedback I've gotten on making the game less tedious (like removing escorts and manual tracking) most of the tome-people seem to be quite happy with their game so good for them. And it seems to be really popular too.

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Post Thursday, 18th December 2014, 07:22

Re: Tome 4

will dcss ruin brogue for me

Slime Squisher

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Post Thursday, 18th December 2014, 08:41

Re: Tome 4

you know how in tome you can refund the 4 or whatever most recent points you spent on skills/abilities so you need to manage what the last 4 you spent are to optimize your build

or how you can use randomly generated +stat gear to qualify for talents and shit so you ought to hoard basically everything

those things are both ridiculous and awful

Abyss Ambulator

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Post Thursday, 18th December 2014, 13:50

Re: Tome 4

Yeah, there is a lot more 'optimal but tedious' play in tome. Thankfully, the default difficulty is forgiving enough that you don't have to do those things to win, but of course, it takes some of the fun out of the game when you're deciding between having the best possible character, or just closing the damn inventory screen and selling off all the loot you found on the level.


Still, it was fun for a while, and I certainly don't begrudge anyone else enjoying it.

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Post Thursday, 18th December 2014, 15:37

Re: Tome 4

notcluie wrote:will dcss ruin brogue for me

I'd guess no, and I know it won't ruin FTL or DoomRL either

But Netchack, ADOM and TOME are definitely inside the Ruining Aura of DCSS®

damiac wrote:Yeah, there is a lot more 'optimal but tedious' play in tome. Thankfully, the default difficulty is forgiving enough that you don't have to do those things to win, but of course, it takes some of the fun out of the game when you're deciding between having the best possible character, or just closing the damn inventory screen and selling off all the loot you found on the level.


Still, it was fun for a while, and I certainly don't begrudge anyone else enjoying it.

Yeah, this. BTW, it always makes me laugh how uniform crawl players' reviews (myself included) about TOME are -especially on the negative side of things.
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Post Thursday, 18th December 2014, 16:12

Re: Tome 4

Mankeli wrote:
notcluie wrote:will dcss ruin brogue for me

I'd guess no, and I know it won't ruin FTL or DoomRL either

But Netchack, ADOM and TOME are definitely inside the Ruining Aura of DCSS

damiac wrote:Yeah, there is a lot more 'optimal but tedious' play in tome. Thankfully, the default difficulty is forgiving enough that you don't have to do those things to win, but of course, it takes some of the fun out of the game when you're deciding between having the best possible character, or just closing the damn inventory screen and selling off all the loot you found on the level.


Still, it was fun for a while, and I certainly don't begrudge anyone else enjoying it.

Yeah, this. BTW, it always makes me laugh how uniform crawl players' reviews (myself included) about TOME are -especially on the negative side of things.


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Post Friday, 19th December 2014, 01:54

Re: Tome 4

I think precognition is worse.

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Post Friday, 19th December 2014, 18:50

Re: Tome 4

Worse and even more tedious. The game is a lot better if you pretend certain spells don't exist. :roll:
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damiac

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Post Friday, 19th December 2014, 22:32

Re: Tome 4

I'd like to point out last year's thread on this same subject: viewtopic.php?f=17&t=10937 . When I tried to play it again recently I had to stop for the same reasons as last time sadly. Like someone in that thread said, it's a very nice but very flawed gem. Sadly it didn't seem any less flawed this year compared to last year.

But who knows, there's always next year!

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Mankeli

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Post Saturday, 20th December 2014, 14:54

Re: Tome 4

Baldu3 wrote:I'd like to point out last year's thread on this same subject: viewtopic.php?f=17&t=10937 .

<3 My best thread <3

Ah, I was still living the age of innocence then: Apparently back then I was launching a campaign against activable scouting abilities and for adding reciprocal LOS in the TOME 4 forums. Sandman25 also came to help out. I really made a difference, didn't I.

In reality, no fucks were given
Last edited by Mankeli on Saturday, 20th December 2014, 18:17, edited 1 time in total.

Halls Hopper

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Post Saturday, 20th December 2014, 15:26

Re: Tome 4

this thread made me want to play tome again
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Blades Runner

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Post Sunday, 21st December 2014, 07:39

Re: Tome 4

Really loved my sun paladins on TOME but somewhere long before it hit steam I ran out of will to play it. It isn't that it is bad now or worse in anyway I can think of. I just have too many other distractions. But I do have good intentions to go back there again and maybe pick up a third win at some point. (I don't even remember if it really would be three wins since I don't remember if I really made it 2x before, but I think I did. (I guess I could check assuming my account is still valid.))

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Post Tuesday, 23rd December 2014, 03:02

Re: Tome 4

Tome has to much of randomnicity, that's for sure. You never know who jump out of the chest, and what craz mix of skill he will have. Can't beat normal with psionic. )

Edit: errrr, I mean next, nightmare. Normal was ok with arcaneblade.
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