Originally Posted by
Blasphemous
I was referring to 7-8 starting PV (and around 12 To) which is pretty common for classes that start with elven chain mail and other parts of armor, each of which can add variable PV.
That makes up for the lack of toughness in my opinion.
Yes, but all classes with multiple pieces of armor have this available to them. This isn't really anything special about elves, and it's not like elves start with more individual pieces of armor than other races do (they start with less, on average than a typical dwarf or orc, for example). On average, a elven assassin, say, is going to have around 5 PV. So will a troll, but the troll will average 26 To versus the elf's 10. PV is important, but it only protects you against certain types of damage. You're vulnerable to traps, vortices, poison, etc. in ways that characters with the same amount of PV but higher To is not.
I think you're too harsh. I had many chars I knew were going to win long before ToEF. Mid game is I think the most exciting part of the game where the most stuff happens.
I believe it needs at least as much consideration overall as early game, which is more about survival than actual comfortable exploration.
I do feel that the early game (which I consider to be everything before DT, roughly) to be the most important part of the game since that's where the majority of players spend the majority of time, and where the majority of deaths occur. That said, I don't honestly believe that my evaluations would change much by giving more emphasis to the midgame, and I don't necessarily feel that a stronger focus on the midgame would favour elves, particularly. (FWIW, I consider midgame to be everything before the ToEF, minus the Maze, Bug Area, and Rift... and maybe Ice Queen area). As I said, by the endgame, the effect of starting race and even class is pretty minimal, and it depends a lot more on individual playstyle and the RNG.
Again I disagree. 20 St and To are very fine values, which usually let me comfortably kill anything I encounter during the mid game and survive pretty much all attacks.
At this point also certain monsters start appearing that present a very tangible threat irrespective of how much HP or To you have - paralysis is nasty and when it lands, DV is your only defense, which elves usually have plenty of due to high Dx.
Dx only grants a very small amount of DV, especially compared to other things (shields, in particular). And much like how 20 St and To are reachable my midgame for elves, 20 Dx is reachable by the same period for trolls. The difference between 20 Dx and 30 Dx is only 5 points of DV, which is not that big of a deal. OTOH, the difference between 20 To and 30 To could be a hundred HP in the midgame. While PV won't protect you from a stone ooze, higher HP and To will mean that there's a better chance you'll beat the paralysis lock, especially since Toughness is the stat that determines how quickly you recover from and how well you resist paralysis.
They only suck in early game, that's my point. Past early game, they are better than pretty much any other race.
I don't see any particular reason to think this is the case. Dark elves may have a stronger midgame thanks to Alertness and Find Weakness becoming more important. Gray elves don't offer anything over, say, a Dwarf, in the midgame.
I think however, it has more to do with the fact that high To and St combinations are slower in becoming more powerful and their ability to consistently beat early game doesn't translate to beating mid and late games with similar ease.
That is untrue for elves as they tend to be ahead of the game most of the time.
I don't find elves to be particularly ahead of the game. If you're massively scumming your way through the game, then, sure, you'll be ahead. But you'll be ahead with any race.
They do need more grinding and effort
in the beginning. Mid and late games however are somewhat easier, I'd say even easier than for tough and strong chars most of the time.
With an equal amount of grinding, I suspect you'll find that the mid and late games are of similar difficulty. It's just you're putting in more work with your elves to get them caught up. If your elf is taking 20000 more turns in the early game, yeah, they're going to be ahead in the midgame.
Hoping to win with every class, doomed. Archer, Barbarian, Bard, Beastfighter, Druid, Elementalist, Farmer, Fighter, Monk, and ULE Priest down.