Escort quests

[Jerros]

I personally enjoy the fact that tome has a lot of little things that can affect your characters overall capabilities, stuff like the worg claw that gives you armour pierce just by having it in your inv, but when you put stuff like +5 stat points behind the most frail npc in the world it kind of hurts yknow that one of the most important things you can do to make your characters stronger lies on defending a npc that can take 3 hits at late early game before dying. also 5 stat points feels a bit broken honestly, when a whole level up only gives you 3, it just doesn't seem fair

[ArchaicReaper]

Originally posted by Jeblonski:

I personally enjoy the fact that tome has a lot of little things that can affect your characters overall capabilities, stuff like the worg claw that gives you armour pierce just by having it in your inv, but when you put stuff like +5 stat points behind the most frail npc in the world it kind of hurts yknow that one of the most important things you can do to make your characters stronger lies on defending a npc that can take 3 hits at late early game before dying. also 5 stat points feels a bit broken honestly, when a whole level up only gives you 3, it just doesn't seem fair

It used to be 3 points, but no one ever took it over the Talents or Categories it offered. 5 feels much more rewarding in my opinion given the difficulty at times. While the Escorts can help, I don't think any of them are required.

[Uncle TwinkleNutz]

Originally posted by ArchaicReaper:

Originally posted by Jeblonski:

I personally enjoy the fact that tome has a lot of little things that can affect your characters overall capabilities, stuff like the worg claw that gives you armour pierce just by having it in your inv, but when you put stuff like +5 stat points behind the most frail npc in the world it kind of hurts yknow that one of the most important things you can do to make your characters stronger lies on defending a npc that can take 3 hits at late early game before dying. also 5 stat points feels a bit broken honestly, when a whole level up only gives you 3, it just doesn't seem fair

It used to be 3 points, but no one ever took it over the Talents or Categories it offered. 5 feels much more rewarding in my opinion given the difficulty at times. While the Escorts can help, I don't think any of them are required.

+1 for this!

[voronin_mike]

Agree about stat points: the only times I took them are when I saw absolutely no help from skills NPC offered. Defilers are the most guilty of this, as their skills are not particularly workable without combining with other Defiler stuff. Alchemists are close, too, as Staff Combat is purchasable for money in the main campaign, and gems require too much investment to really work in my opinion. Warrior's Vitality, though... Or Tinker access... ;)
As for frailty of the guys - here precisely lies an interest! :) It would be just free points for nothing if it was easy to do. Melinda quest is harder, and does not even give that much reward except bragging rights. Many players still do it just because. ;)

[IdealPoint]

I would much prefer if they were rescue quests-like when you enter the stage you have x number of turns to save the NPC which is sitting invulnerable by some monsters, or perhaps they were trapped in vaults. But most of the time if you play well you can save them.

I don't think they need to be nerfed at all, though. They just add some extra things to do while you are clearing levels.

[Jerros]

Maybe nerf them and make them more common and varied

[.//slayer]

Originally posted by Jeblonski:

make them more common

Please, no more escort quests!

[voronin_mike]

Originally posted by .//slayer:

Originally posted by Jeblonski:

make them more common

Please, no more escort quests!

well, nobody stands behind you with a pistol to make you do them. %))

[.//slayer]

Originally posted by voronin_mike:

Originally posted by .//slayer:

Please, no more escort quests!

well, nobody stands behind you with a pistol to make you do them. %))

Sure, but that doesn't change the fact that the terrible escort AI and limited control detract from the fun of the task at hand, not to mention the juicy rewards that you're potentially missing out on. In case of tinker escorts and the exotic weapon mastery, the said rewards can change the entire course of the game.

Escort quests have been the butt of many a joke for as long as I played ToME, and over the years, there've been no significant improvements of handling them.

The fact that they are optional doesn't mean they can't be improved, reworked, or, hell, even removed entirely in favour of some other way to gain bonuses.

What I think the game doesn't need, though, is even more of the same escort characters, with their fragile frames and bee-line behaviour, introduced into the game without any changes (like Jeblonski suggested above).

[voronin_mike]

Bee-line behaviour of the escorts is actually sometimes useful as they show you which direction there is an existing way to their extraction portal as opposed as where it is on the map. Of course, you still need to plan around it to not get them killed, but still...
Actually, I'd say that Melinda behaviour is worse, as she doesn't know the way to surface, just tags along you and, on top of this, you can't even tell her to wait! And this is on the floow that's guaranteed to be full of actually dngerous enemies. Causing the well-known hack of digging her a labirinthine hideout to be required.
More escort types would probably be detrimental, yes. On the other hand, some 1-2 should probably be introduced based on Horrors DLC. Which may theoretically come with somewhat different type of quest - allowing the authors some room for experimenting on such. Some improvement is also theoretically possible though I honestly can't say what it should be. Making escorts "standing invulnerably" as IdealPoint has put it is surely not the way to do it (plus we already have such as Krog unlock quest & 1st part of Melinda's).

[Jerros]

by more common and varied i meant maybe make some other way to get stat bonuses that aren't so valuable

[mbrowne999]

I like the escort quests as is. The only thing that gets me is finding an exit portal in the area when there was no escort at the entrance. Makes you wonder about the drama you missed...

[Avloren]

mbrowne999 - when that happens, try clearing the level, leave it, and re-enter it (e.g. go back up the stairs and then down again). That can trigger the escort spawning, and then you get to do the easiest escort quest ever.

[Davadin]

I actually just started playing the game again, after 5 years away (and honestly- I only played a very little bit back then).

I'm being offered 3 talents to learn, 2 stats +5, or an option to "allow training talent category".

I'm a little confused at what I need, since I'm 15 minutes into the game. And I'm sad that I don't have a sense for what the talent category does (it gives only a super-brief description).

How do you guys set about deciding this?

Also... does "allow training talent category" mean you have to spend a talent point? You only get 3 of those per game, right?

[Davadin]

Can I also say that it would be nice to be able to look at your character and skill tress before deciding this? What a major decision to make with so much info hidden from you... )-:

[GrimSentinel]

"Allow training" means you get the category locked and then have to spend a category point to unlock it.

Each character gets three category points from leveling. If you're playing the base campaign, you can get another by killing the Corrupted Sand Wyrm and drinking the Wyrm Bile. Cornacs get an extra category point to start with, at the cost of not having a racial tree.

Usually I will put one category point towards unlocking a generic tree, but it depends on the character (some have more valuable places to put generic points than others.) If an escort offers a talent category that's worth spending a category point to unlock and I don't already have a locked generic category that I want to unlock, that's my first priority. If the escort offers a skill that will be very useful with my current build, that's my second priority. Otherwise, I'll take the +5 to whatever skill is most important to me.

If you don't know what an offered talent category does, I'd suggest looking it up on the wiki. Not sure that it's entirely up to date, but it should at least give you a good idea.

Not being able to check your character sheet while deciding what to pick can be kind of annoying sometimes. If you are playing in online mode, I guess you could look up your character sheet on the official website? Kind of a roundabout way to do it, but it should work.