KickStarter Ancient Domains of Mystery (ADOM) - now available on Steam and GOG

[Doctor Sbaitso]

Could never get into Adom. For one, I didn't like the amount of meta knowledge that is required to ever have a chance of beating it (without being a lifer). I say that without any dislike of it, it's just not my cuppa tea. Kudos to anyone who has fought the long fight there.

I prefer the pick up and put down friendliness of more focussed rogue-likes that feature one dungeon or abyss with various intricacies within it. Angband vanilla and a few variants being my personal favourites. I have played those for decades.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I don't even mind needing spoilers to get by in general, but the shit that will fuck you in ADOM is the most random unforeseeable shit ever. Random enemies mixed into a location that are 4 or 5 times more powerful than anything else, shit that is inexplicably out of depth, immunities not actually making you immune (that's gotta be a great feeling, falling into the pirhana pit because confusion immunity is actually more like a polite suggestion unless you have 30 willpower or something) oh, and lets not forget such wonderful instakills like being sacrificed on an altar by shit that is too stupid to avoid stepping on the altar itself but has 100% chance of saccing you if you're there.

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

I remember getting killed by something out of depth that was stuck in a wall and was invulnerable. Some esoteric detail that people had raged.about for some time. After 10 hours or so into that character to getting jobbed like that I had enough.

 

[haraw]

... immunities not actually making you immune (that's gotta be a great feeling, falling into the pirhana pit because confusion immunity is actually more like a polite suggestion unless you have 30 willpower or something)...

There is no confusion immunity in ADOM.

Also there is a message if out of depth monsters are spawned in current level iirc.

 

[thesheeep]

There is no confusion immunity in ADOM.

For neither the character, nor the player.

 

[TigerKnee]

The biggest draw with this game so far is the diverse possibilities allowed through character creation.

Yes, it's quite nice in theory but has some issues.

1) Reloading your game over and over until you get an appropriate birth sign for your character archetype is ultra lame. I heard the creator was -ing people by advertising it as a feature or something if you donated for it, but I'm not sure if that's changed by now.

2) Questionnaire is a really cool character creation method but generally won't make a huge difference if you don't go all-out with a reference chart.

3) Most of the "feats/perks" list are pretty shit. But I'm cutting it some slack here because I think it's one of the first few games that experimented with such a system in an RPG and pre-dated D&D 3E even.

So basically the part of CharGen that has the most impact on your character is the part which is randomized.

Incursion: Halls of Goblin King is still the RL with the best CharGen to date.

Now, as far as difficulty goes and since Crawl was brought up... ADOM comes from the old school "difficulty" design which are constant "knowledge"/spoiler checks.

Basically, the difference between how the two approach difficulty differently would be.
ADOM: A Medusa enemy who kills you instantly (no-save) when you enter Line of Sight, unless you are equipped with a Mirror Shield, which then instead kills the Medusa immediately. Either you know this fact and Medusas are trivially easy or you don't and there goes many hours down the drain, but at least now you have the knowledge for the next run.

(this is actually a Nethack example, but it fits ADOM)

Crawl: A Medusa enemy has the ability to petrify you. Petrification doesn't kill you instantly, but leaves you open any enemy attack while it wears off over time. But first, it has to penetrate your magic resistance, and even if it hits, since it slowly petrifies you over time, you are able to use consumables or maneuver yourself into a better position to escape the effects and your ability to pilot yourself through these sort of "danger checkmate" situations is what separates the good from bad players.

I personally prefer the Crawl style because I don't really like the sort of "Knowledge = binary difficulty" gameplay anymore but I suppose each person's mileage may vary.

Nethack is considered really easy once you memorized all those little factoids, but ADOM is still considered challenging because there's significantly much more of those you have to keep track at the same time and I think going for the "Best" ending is more of an exercise in masochism than an accomplishment, but then some people beat Wizardry 4...

I think the biggest thing that kills ADOM for me is that having played Crawl, I can't go back to the interfaces of most RLs anymore including this one. I don't even know why the hell you need a specific keypress to dig your ears or some shit like that (well, I know why in the game but I need to know what drugs the creator was on when he implemented that)

 

[haraw]

...
Now, as far as difficulty goes and since Crawl was brought up... ADOM comes from the old school "difficulty" design which are constant "knowledge"/spoiler checks.

Basically, the difference between how the two approach difficulty differently would be.
ADOM: A Medusa enemy who kills you instantly (no-save) when you enter Line of Sight, unless you are equipped with a Mirror Shield, which then instead kills the Medusa immediately. Either you know this fact and Medusas are trivially easy or you don't and there goes many hours down the drain, but at least now you have the knowledge for the next run.

(this is actually a Nethack example, but it fits ADOM)

Crawl: A Medusa enemy has the ability to petrify you. Petrification doesn't kill you instantly, but leaves you open any enemy attack while it wears off over time. But first, it has to penetrate your magic resistance, and even if it hits, since it slowly petrifies you over time, you are able to use consumables or maneuver yourself into a better position to escape the effects and your ability to pilot yourself through these sort of "danger checkmate" situations is what separates the good from bad players.
...

Well, there is actually only one instance of that kind, or two

Spoiler

Cat lord

if you're doing regular playthrough. That is shit though and should be changed. With good luck you however can beat it without knowing the gimmick.

 

[Johannes]

Cat Lord doesn't fit that example at all, you can just kill that fucker with anything. Banshee does fit that mold, though I've killed it without the appropriate gear once - I teleported next to it and killed it with a single barbarian tremendous blow, so it didn't have time to wail.

The biggest draw with this game so far is the diverse possibilities allowed through character creation.

Yes, it's quite nice in theory but has some issues.

1) Reloading your game over and over until you get an appropriate birth sign for your character archetype is ultra lame. I heard the creator was -ing people by advertising it as a feature or something if you donated for it, but I'm not sure if that's changed by now.

2) Questionnaire is a really cool character creation method but generally won't make a huge difference if you don't go all-out with a reference chart.

Actually I used to play the game on an online ssh server that allowed you to automatically pick birth sign. I don't see anything wrong with it.

And stats don't factor too heavily into what makes a good char actually, not the smallish randomization that comes after race/class combo at least. The skill selection and HP/PP regeneration rates are usually more important concerns, because there's semi-reliable ways to boost most of the stats during a game.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

One thing I loved about ADOM is that it provides DISCOVERY and ENTERTAINMENT for YEARS.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Actually I used to play the game on an online ssh server that allowed you to automatically pick birth sign. I don't see anything wrong with it.

The fact you need to play on an online ssh server in order to do that, for one

 

[Damned Registrations]

... immunities not actually making you immune (that's gotta be a great feeling, falling into the pirhana pit because confusion immunity is actually more like a polite suggestion unless you have 30 willpower or something)...

There is no confusion immunity in ADOM.

Also there is a message if out of depth monsters are spawned in current level iirc.

There's a ring of mental something or other. Pretty sure the description is 'protects against confusion' or somesuch.

As for out of depth monsters, the message is meaningless, because the monster list isn't balanced to begin with. Ogre magi show up before actual ogres, despite being far more difficult. So you can get an OOD message for a normal ogre and be totally fine, then get no message at all for an ogre magi and get raped by the invisible spell slinging jackass monster. Many many more monsters work like that.

 

[Johannes]

... immunities not actually making you immune (that's gotta be a great feeling, falling into the pirhana pit because confusion immunity is actually more like a polite suggestion unless you have 30 willpower or something)...

There is no confusion immunity in ADOM.

Also there is a message if out of depth monsters are spawned in current level iirc.

There's a ring of mental something or other. Pretty sure the description is 'protects against confusion' or somesuch.

As for out of depth monsters, the message is meaningless, because the monster list isn't balanced to begin with. Ogre magi show up before actual ogres, despite being far more difficult. So you can get an OOD message for a normal ogre and be totally fine, then get no message at all for an ogre magi and get raped by the invisible spell slinging jackass monster. Many many more monsters work like that.

There's confusion resistance, but no immunity.

And Ogre Magi don't show up before normal ogres. They show up early, yes, but so do Ogres. Ogre Magi aren't really out of depth monsters though, yes, you're right about that, like stuff in danger rooms, or artifact guardians might be. They just show up early compared to their power level. But they're pretty much the only scary monster like that early on, maybe together with werewolf lords. For me they are a good addition to the game, if only they were more common, so the game would be more challenging.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Theres also no petrification immunity, but petrification resistance doesn't let you randomly get fucking petrified does it?

And there are plenty more monsters that are dangerous because they are 'rare' but aren't warned as being out of depth. Blink dogs can easily fuck you up, especially if you don't know that standing on a corpse can berserk monsters of that type, and how the fuck would you know that, let alone even notice it while trying to spam through a dozen fucking blink dogs in a corridor.

How about vortexes? Good thing lightning ones are massively higher level but you have no way of knowing that until one murders the fuck out of you. Oh, and they can be experienced, massively increasing their damage, which you'll only notice if you examine them.

How about giant dragon turtles? Mixed in with harmless shit like sharks and giant turtles and dragon turtles, but a giant dragon turtle (which clearly nobody could possibly confuse with the previous two monsters they were facerolling past) breathes water and will probably hit you for fucking 60+ damage each round from range. Or Berserkers? Same glyph as Barbarians, but way fucking stronger. Oops.

Hell, just read this: http://www.adom.de/forums/project.php?issueid=2928

 

[dnf]

BTW, since a lot of experts have gathered here, I still need a review for ADOM...

How about insomnia review? http://insomnia.ac/reviews/pc/ancientdomainsofmystery/

 

[Johannes]

Hell, just read this: http://www.adom.de/forums/project.php?issueid=2928

That's terrible overbalancing. The players SHOULD run into tough monsters once in a while, or the game gets really boring.

Though I don't know what other changes they've made in the new betas to compensate.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Running into tough monsters is fine, thats what out of depth system is for. Rarity = strength is retarded though. How the fuck am I supposed to know whether a Berserker is a super rare rape me in one round monster or if it's just a normal monster for the new DL I've reached? And how the fuck am I supposed to know if the out of depth monster is actually a dangeorus one (like an ogre mage or a levelled vortex) or something totally fucking harmless like a huge bat.

 

[Johannes]

You don't even know what you're talking about, Berserkers are very simple monsters anyone can handle, they might hit a bit harder than most but don't have any special abilities.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Damned Registrations, you sound like you're butthurt that you have to learn things during many games.

 

[Damned Registrations]

There's a difference between learning that you need poison resistance around level 6 or so, and memorizing the entire bestiary of a game with hundreds of monsters to avoid being instakilled because purple ants are 15 levels higher than violet ants but show up on the exact same floors.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

There's a difference between learning that you need poison resistance around level 6 or so, and memorizing the entire bestiary of a game with hundreds of monsters to avoid being instakilled because purple ants are 15 levels higher than violet ants but show up on the exact same floors.

Never had such a problem.

 

[Damned Registrations]

So lets suppose I walk into CoC 5. I get a message about an out of depth monster. I encounter these 3 monsters and a bunch of weaker trash:

Name alignment defense/PV attacks damage speed hp level
dire wolfC14/31x 2d3+2100 spd21 hpLevel 5

werewolfC18/21x 2d5+5100 spd35 hpLevel 5

gargoyleC15/64x 1d6+2100 spd17 hpLevel 6

So, I 'learn' that one of those was 'out of depth' (probably the werewolf since it was by far the most durable, hard hitting and could also summon) but I handled them all pretty easily in melee since I have a PV of 8 so only the werewolf could even really hurt me, and even then not that much.

Then I go down one floor and find this, with no warning.

ogre magusC13/72x 2d8+5100 spd44 hpLevel 6

Oh, and he's fucking invisible and firing icebolts, and I don't even know it's an ogre magus because I can't see the fucker. I learn that there can be random invisible spellcasters that will rape the shit out of me, and apparently they aren't out of depth.

Next time I hit CoC 9 and get an out of depth message. This is the terrible beastie that triggered it:

vapor ratC18/01x 1d3+0100 spd1 hpLevel 11

Alongside a bunch of orcs and other totally harmless shit like goblins. I learn that out of depth messages mean sweet fuck all.

How the fuck am I supposed to learn when to expect things like werewolves or ogre magus with a system like this? How am I supposed to be careful at appropriate times when at any point I could open a door and be one fucking tile away from an ogre magus or werewolf lord etc.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

How the fuck am I supposed to learn when to expect things like werewolves or ogre magus with a system like this? How am I supposed to be careful at appropriate times when at any point I could open a door and be one fucking tile away from an ogre magus or werewolf lord etc.

You don't :D . You just die again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again for years until you have a good combination of skill and luck and win the game and suddenly you lose all the interest you had in it :D .

 

[TripJack]

BTW, since a lot of experts have gathered here, I still need a review for ADOM...

ADOM: It's not as good as Crawl. Review complete

stuff

can't fist enough

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

BTW, since a lot of experts have gathered here, I still need a review for ADOM...

I can write a review of it.

 

[Zdzisiu]

How the fuck am I supposed to learn when to expect things like werewolves or ogre magus with a system like this? How am I supposed to be careful at appropriate times when at any point I could open a door and be one fucking tile away from an ogre magus or werewolf lord etc.

You don't :D . You just die again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again for years until you have a good combination of skill and luck and win the game and suddenly you lose all the interest you had in it :D .

And that is a terrible, terrible system for a game. It could maybe be justified in a game that takes 2-3 hours to finish, because if you die after an hour and learn something new and important about the game then you can stomach it easier than when you are one-shot killed after investing 10 hours into the character, and you only managed to get him that far because you had a shitload of luck with items, monters that spawned and other mechanics and you sure as hell wont be able to get it again any time soon.