Originally Posted by
Blasphemous
I realized recently that ADOM plays virtually the same in late game - hit things until they die, collect stuff, move on.
This has been my opinion as well for a while. Most games are identical post casino, because all of the cool differences in skill and playing style become mostly irrelevant at that point. I.e, my early game thieves will sneak around dungeons, locking doors and pickpocketing monsters and running away. But by late game, it doesn't really make sense, so a thief plays the same way as a wizard or a fighter. There is a big exception here, which is Mindcrafters. Mindcrafters have a unique enough special ability to make them at least somewhat unique in the late game. Which is why I enjoy playing them.
I've been brainstorming a lot of ideas on how to change this, it mostly comes down to stronger and more unique class abilities starting around level 25 or so. I also suggested more racial abilities in a reply to
this RFE, it could use some love.
Really, what needs to happen is
A) As you suggest, skills become more restrictive or,
B) more class specific skills/skill bonuses and special abilities get added.
As an example of B, we already see this with spellcasters: they learn and cast more easily, get 10x as many books, more PP, and are overall much better at Mana. Anyone can get concentration and learning and try and cast spells (except maybe barbarians and mindcrafters), but at a significant handicap.
Likewise, anyone can learn stealth, but it makes absolutely no sense that a wizard or even a paladin would ever be as good at sneaking around as an assassin or a thief. The fact this happens means the mechanics weren't really well thought out when they were implemented. In general, actually, physical/combat related mechanics seem far less defined, and give less bonuses to physical/combat classes, compared to magic and spellcasters, which is why spellcasters are so OP in comparison in ADOM. Not that I think we need everything to be fair and balanced, it just feels like one received a lot less thought than the other. So either wizards should really be a lot worse at combat, or fighters better. Same for other specializations, like farmers, merchants, assassins, thieves, etc. They should actually be much better at whatever profession they are than anyone else.
I'll probably compile all this into an RFE in the next few days, feel free to add anything else you can think of! (Or submit it yourself if you already have it ready/have the time :))