Monster difficulty: Easier at the beginning
issueid=3581 01-26-2015 02:50 PM
Junior Member
Number of reported issues by pasky: 3
Monster difficulty: Easier at the beginning
The monster difficulty selection should have an option for "easier at the beginning"

Hi! I'm a recreational ADOM player who finished the game's various endings several times (mostly thanks to the guidebook) but I've never had luck with some of the less favorable classes like mindcrafters or necromancers, they always die too quickly and I don't have the patience to try 40 times in a row (and skill to avoid death or starvation/wever when running too much).

I'd love to play with them later in the game though, their special abilities aren't that interesting at the beginning anyway. For this, the option to reduce monster difficulty has been awesome, but it makes things *too* easy for me a little later in the game when Rehetep dies without a sweat broken and so on.

So I would love just a little easier start of the game, to be able to level up to level 12+. Something like "easy" at lower levels, but the effect waning when levelling up, up to level 12 or 15. (Basically, the guiding line for me is that pyramid should be already normal difficulty; at that point, decent class powers, mindcraft etc. are available, as well as guaranteed vast array of items, herbs and piety to help.)

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Alternatively, you might take this as a prompt to somewhat rebalancing the gameplay for the "weak at the beginning" race+classes. But it's not so obvious to me how to do it - maybe giving a good boost to their st and to, vs. having much more difficulty raising it, like longer natural training and herbs affecting other stats instead.
Issue Details
Issue Number 3581
Issue Type Feature
Project ADOM (Ancient Domains Of Mystery)
Category All
Status Suggested
Priority Unknown
Suggested Version ADOM r55
Implemented Version (none)
Milestone (none)
Votes for this feature 1
Votes against this feature 6
Assigned Users (none)
Tags (none)




01-26-2015 03:49 PM
Senior Member
So you want a challenge, but not too much of a challenge? Maybe try picking a race that is stronger in the early game

Voted No, its too much of a change for a small amount of people

01-26-2015 07:28 PM
Ancient Member
Assuming you want so see what it's like to play a mindcrafter (or whatever squishy class you like) at the higher levels of difficulty, and see what it's actually like, making it easier to survive the early game and then setting it to normal difficulty feels like a useful feature.

However, (and I haven't played with a release that supported different difficulty settings), couldn't you:
1) Change the difficulty yourself at that point? Or can you not change difficulty once you start the game? (Achievements in games that let you change it are generally based on the *lowest* difficulty you had at any point in the game)
2) Play in RPG/Exploration mode and just allow yourself to save/load until you hit level 15?

I can see why the feature is useful, I'm just not sure why you can't emulate it yourself?

01-27-2015 03:00 AM
Junior Member
I'm not sure of the utility of this request. The whole point of the weaker races is that they're tough at the beginning. ..There is already (as of Release 52?) the options of lower monster-difficulty, higher-treasure-rate, the ability to toggle corruption and hunger, and the story-mode option where you can recover saves. Don't these already come pretty close to the easier options you're asking for?

I'm reluctant to see more difficulty options added, as it may lead to confusion for some players. "What does 'monster difficulty low until level X' mean?", etc.

01-27-2015 03:17 AM
Junior Member
Harwin, I don't know about a way to adjust difficulty during the game - if there's any, I would be completely happy to use that... And the classes are difficult (not fun) for me even with save-scumming.

tokyah, I tried to explain that when I set monster to easy, they stay too easy throughout the game. I don't think an "Easier start" difficulty option for monsters would be in any way confusing or unclear.

(But the ability to tweak the difficulty during the game would also completely fulfill my request, and be perhaps more universally applicable.)

01-27-2015 03:39 AM
Senior Member
This can be accomplished by having an option to give a good starting armor. PV0 and PV6 at the start makes a _real_ difference.

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