Tales of Middle-Earth 4 released

[DarkGod]

I fixed dying time passing (in most cases).
I am still looking for taht white stuff :/
Music is not disablable until next release :/

'l'ooking around you can use shift+direction to move freely but yes it needs a tooltip to explain it

Unlockable content and achievements are not savefile dependent. They are sllit from the player savefile.

[Vanguard]

One of the complaints about *bands is that there are too many samey enemies.  Have you considered whether you want to keep brown snakes and white snakes and green worms and white worms and so forth?  I'm sure there's a difference between them, but it seems to me like it's not big enough to care about.

I hope I haven't sounded too hard on you so far.  I am excited to see ToME development starting up again.

Edit: Minor complaint: The numeric keypad doesn't work for navigating the character selection screen.

[infidel]

Will the closed stores be open at some time of a day? And can I wait/rest for more than 1 turn when my health is at max?

I'd like to have the ability to exit the quantity entry shop dialog by ESC.
Also please display the prices in the shop to the right of item names.
bug: When quantity dialog is on-screen, the arrow keys are blocked but the mouse is not - I can open more quantity dialogs on top of it.


I started to look into the mod code, there's alot of stuff to chew on for a newbie. Perhaps you can be persuaded to make something like "testmod" where there is a small zone, walking player with 1 stat and maybe a building?

[DarkGod]

Testmod: yes that's planned

Thanks for the bug reports.

No you cannot rest for X turns, not sure I want that, it encourages boring grinding I feel.

As for too many monsters, yes, I tried to not do it. There are a few different worm, bears, ... for flavor but not many because it's not needed. The game adjusts the level of places you visit to your level (in some range) and it knows how to intelligently level monsters

[jim]

Wow. Represent.

edit: though playing it reminds me why I stayed away from angband...

What would that be ?
I did not design it to be a *band, so I'm quite interrested in what you find annoying in both

As was mentioned by someone with better manners than me, the thing with the green worms and white worms and yellow goobers is not very Middle-Earthy to me.

Also, without having a very good sense of the work that goes into managing the pragmatics of dungeon generation, nonetheless I found the layout of the first floor (I played 4 guys and died on the first floor every time) to be kind of flavorless and overly random. Seemingly OOD monsters would show up and kill me with a few well-placed stabs. Also, the traps felt too abundant for level 1.

Angband (again, just my experience) is a game where it felt like the only way to win was with a combination of the arcane inner knowledge of weird game mechanics and a plain, protracted, tedious grind. I grant - and applaud!! - that you are taking major steps away from angband. I can only imagine the work that's gone into this latest iteration of your game.

I guess if I have suggestions, they'd be about framing the player experience a little more. I like your introductory text window. That made me feel immersed. But then I was pretty much in a random dungeon that might as well have been anywhere, especially in a *band. Why not start overland?

[DarkGod]

It's a dungeon, it feels like a dungeon ..

And I do not start in the wilderness because new people would not really know what to do on the wilderness map.
Though I might change the start location to the Trollshaws it is a tad easier because the whole level is lighted since it's an outdoor zone.

[Vanguard]

I don't have a problem with starting in the first dungeon.  You appear right by the staircase, so you can head up, and roguelike players expect to be spending their time in dungeons.  This game seems like a pretty nonstandard roguelike, so little things like that to make the transition easier might be a good idea.

With regards to enemies, I don't think a warrior can get away with simply bumping into enemies in ToME 4.  You need to use your special attacks just like how a mage can't survive without using magic.

The traps do seem meaner than they are in most games.  I've never liked RL traps.  They rely so heavily on luck.

[DarkGod]

Yes a warrior needs to think too
It is IMO much more interreting to have various combat techniques tahn just bump your way to the end.
All melee classes have an easily available stun on a short cooldown: use it

[Vanguard]

My game crashed when I was exiting a dungeon earlier.  Is there a crash log of some kind I should post?

I want to be a wizard.  I saw a dude on the world map a while ago and he gave me some task which I assume unlocks the class, but I haven't seen him since that first time.  Does he show up randomly, or what?

Edit: Is there any reason to be a Bree-man when you can be a Dunadan instead?

[DarkGod]

There seems to be crashes related to music, if it continues in the next version taht should come out this week i'll start to worry

Yes the "dude" will give you a quest, finsih it and he will give you a background history about mages in the fourth age, why you couldnt play one from the start and some other nice things.
He will randomly popup (quite often) when you travel in the correct location, so just go walk a bit in the area where you met him before.

As for Bree-man, they gain exp a tad faster and well, it is a RPG
And it can provide additional chalenge

[Vanguard]

Alright, finally did it.

15 staves is kind of a lot, don't you think? Something in the 5 - 10 range seems more reasonable to me.  Either that or making it so it saves the number of staves donated between games.

[DarkGod]

If you play a bit it comes fast enough in my tests and you can always buy some more

[Vanguard]

It took a good while with me, and at 5 gold a pop, the costs build up.  Yeah, it's doable, and a dedicated player will get there in not too long, but the thing is, I think the mage class should be unlocked pretty quickly.  It's the funnest class so far, its playstyle is unlike the default classes, and it's a popular role to play in roguelikes and RPGs in general.

Basically I think people would have better impressions of the game if they could try the mage class out, and therefore it should be made available very early on.

Edit:

Two bugs:

First, the boss of Amon Sul isn't spawning for my current character, although he has in the past.

Second, the level five sense spell is not displaying the locations of traps.  It lights up the squares where they are located for one term, but this is not particularly useful, especially since it has no effect on an already-lit tile.

Edit 2

If any of you kill a boss, and it drops its heart as an item, you want to eat it.  Trust me on this.  The game will talk about it as though it's a questionable idea in the item description, but it's really good.  You might decide that the 400 gold you get for selling it is better, but it's worth doing it at least for the first time.

[DarkGod]

Eating hearts is fun ! :>

Mhh you have a point I think I guess I could lower it to 10.
Although players can get a "teaser" of the mages using arcane blades and shadowblades.
As for different playstyle, tried summoners ?

Yes the last level of amon sul will not always connect to the boss area, dunno why yet :/

[Vanguard]

Yes the last level of amon sul will not always connect to the boss area, dunno why yet :/

The boss area is that horizontally elongated bottom portion, right?  I can go there, there's just no Shadow of Angmar there.

The level is mapped out with Vision, the problem isn't that I can't reach him, the problem is that he isn't spawning for some reason.  Any idea why that might be?

Edit:

Alright, after getting beaten down by that 15,000 hp guy, it says I won the game.  Will the next release have more?