the difficulty of underground fights depends on how deep you go,
but for the random encounters I m not entirely sure what controls the difficulty there, but I think you can see your current difficulty through your 'weight of malice' modifier (you can see that on the conviction sheet of any mage, its a number between 40 (easy) and 0 (hard)), so I guess you could routinely check in on that and see when it goes down
i feel the difficulty is probably scaled by the amount of staff and their levels, but I m not entirely sure

you get insomnia if a mage gets hit in an underground battle by a specific high level enemy 5 times in a single battle
(in battle its one of the yellow status effects, if you hover over them one should say something about causing insomnia once it stacks to 5)
so if you have an earth mage taunting and tanking attacks, you want to eventually move them to cover once the status effect got stacked 4 times
(this typically only happens if you have an earth mage taunt and tank all attacks)

for the T2 wands:
fairly sure they are always at the -3rd floor, at least for me it has always been:
Floor -1 is where you start with the student summon thing and your mana well
Floor -2 has 1 branch with spores
Floor -3 has 1 branch with stone, 1 branch with lava, the branch with stone has the T2 wand station
and then the floors below are a lot more randomized

The progression difficulty increases according to your MAGE score, which is a combination of various factors including how much you've built, how much you're researched, how deep into the underground you've explored and so on. You can find a more detailed explanation in the Book of Rooms tab (F1). For simplicity's sake, treat it as if the difficulty will increase over time since you can't pause or reduce the score anyway.

For insomnia it sounds like you made the mistake I previously made, which was to beeline research for the cure. The cure is buried deep in the research tree and comes too late to be worth it. Instead, right click on a medical bed and you should see an option to use an "experimental cure", use that instead.

If you can manage your insomniac mage without mind breaking, consider whether you want to cure him at this stage. Having a mage who can work 24/7 is a great benefit in the early game.

Thanks for the explanation. I will check next time I play.

So it is mandatory to know what will happen in advance to act accordingly. What I mean is, I have to play several times to know what where and when to find specific things. If not it is likely i will fail. This means players will fail because how the games is structure regardless how well they do.

That's different to ONI (which is a different game with just some similarities but anyways) where I have to cope with current situation and improve upon. Except for few possible wrong decisions (eg too many dupes early on) I can continue playing until the end (or the game will end quite quickly when things going out of hand).

Mind over Magic seems to need several play sessions to learn one specific path to follow. The rest are more or the less side activities. I came back after several months and couldn't remember most of the things from my previous games and didn't have to struggle with anything... aside of the random encounters that became OP.

This seems to limit the replayability?
That's sad because i really like the game

Originally posted by Dedmoin:

Thanks for the explanation. I will check next time I play.

So it is mandatory to know what will happen in advance to act accordingly. What I mean is, I have to play several times to know what where and when to find specific things. If not it is likely i will fail. This means players will fail because how the games is structure regardless how well they do.

That's different to ONI (which is a different game with just some similarities but anyways) where I have to cope with current situation and improve upon. Except for few possible wrong decisions (eg too many dupes early on) I can continue playing until the end (or the game will end quite quickly when things going out of hand).

Mind over Magic seems to need several play sessions to learn one specific path to follow. The rest are more or the less side activities. I came back after several months and couldn't remember most of the things from my previous games and didn't have to struggle with anything... aside of the random encounters that became OP.

This seems to limit the replayability?
That's sad because i really like the game

Completely agree and I don't now why it was made this way because during early access it was much better and progress was not hidden behind finding specific rooms / equipments in the underschool. So they already had a game which had a lot more replayability, no idea what made them change it.

Originally posted by Dedmoin:

So it is mandatory to know what will happen in advance to act accordingly. What I mean is, I have to play several times to know what where and when to find specific things. If not it is likely i will fail. This means players will fail because how the games is structure regardless how well they do.

Things like rain, storms, invasions - you need a bit of planning ahead to have completed the necessary research and done the groundwork. But that's what the easiest mode is for, and where all mistakes made are recoverable from.

To be fair, it's not unlike picking up a strategy game like Civ where you will probably lose your first few games until you learn what is important to research and build, and when to do so.

Originally posted by Dedmoin:

Thanks for the explanation. I will check next time I play.

So it is mandatory to know what will happen in advance to act accordingly. What I mean is, I have to play several times to know what where and when to find specific things. If not it is likely i will fail. This means players will fail because how the games is structure regardless how well they do.

That's different to ONI (which is a different game with just some similarities but anyways) where I have to cope with current situation and improve upon. Except for few possible wrong decisions (eg too many dupes early on) I can continue playing until the end (or the game will end quite quickly when things going out of hand).

Mind over Magic seems to need several play sessions to learn one specific path to follow. The rest are more or the less side activities. I came back after several months and couldn't remember most of the things from my previous games and didn't have to struggle with anything... aside of the random encounters that became OP.

This seems to limit the replayability?
That's sad because i really like the game

Unlike ONI, there will be an endgame condition to this title so we have a recognisable goal. However, how we get there seems to be largely up to us. Some folks are perfectionists who will only choose the most optimal path to success while others will follow the less optimal and more fun paths.

I tend to hire a student as staff quite early rather than hold on until I get apprentices, preferably gifted students. That's not optimal play, I'm sure. I also don't have a problem retiring staff when a new, better student comes along, especially when I have a number of good relics available to boost the newcomers. However, I've seen folks hold off from hiring a new staff member for a considerable time.

I also run teaching schedules in the morning after I have an advanced classroom and have the afternoon off so that everyone can work or attune as the better facilities allow my students to earn skill levels much faster and so it gives them time to attune relics or perform their tasks. I'm sure some of you would consider that non-optimal.

I even use the ghost for teaching classes and when I have an apprentice station, I run those classes in the afternoon so that Spooky can teach those as well. If I need another teacher for a second apprentice station, well, anybody will do so a Wand level 1 mage can teach it. This also works for students who need to study alone to complete their trial.

It's a SP game and it's up to each of us to navigate our way through the game. Perhaps there will be one perfect strategy that allows us to complete the game really quickly but we don't HAVE to follow it.

I agree in that I think the game progression is a little clunky right now. Aside from needing to know about the Tier 2 and 3 wand creators there's also no way for a new player to know that making someone an apprentice, before filling out your staff with one of each element, is a really really bad idea.

Apprentices just take FAR too long to level up without a full staff complement AND you lock yourself out of higher tier resource gathering/production. But, even when you're locked out of it you can still discover and gather resources for it... so I personally went a long while, sitting on thousands of resources, before I realized that I needed to NOT get the most powerful staff right away but instead suffer with max lvl 10 staff then slowly train apprentices.

Had I known that the game would have progressed a lot smoother and perhaps the apprentices would also train faster and then I could get in the groove of summoning and graduating students for shards.

That feels like the correct progression but the game does nothing to guide us to that and punishes harshly for not doing it.

Sitting at level 12+ fights with only lvl 10 staff while I wait real life hours for apprentices to train isn't fun.

Originally posted by Sabotage:

I agree in that I think the game progression is a little clunky right now. Aside from needing to know about the Tier 2 and 3 wand creators there's also no way for a new player to know that making someone an apprentice, before filling out your staff with one of each element, is a really really bad idea.

Apprentices just take FAR too long to level up without a full staff complement AND you lock yourself out of higher tier resource gathering/production. But, even when you're locked out of it you can still discover and gather resources for it... so I personally went a long while, sitting on thousands of resources, before I realized that I needed to NOT get the most powerful staff right away but instead suffer with max lvl 10 staff then slowly train apprentices.

Had I known that the game would have progressed a lot smoother and perhaps the apprentices would also train faster and then I could get in the groove of summoning and graduating students for shards.

That feels like the correct progression but the game does nothing to guide us to that and punishes harshly for not doing it.

Sitting at level 12+ fights with only lvl 10 staff while I wait real life hours for apprentices to train isn't fun.

hmmm for me apprentices leveled up to be fully trained super quickly, probably less then 3 days after they became apprentices, and thats even though it was mostly just my ghost training them at the teaching stations...
however I am using new apprentices in combat a lot, which allows them to gain additional experience that way
and I am multiclassing apprentices a lot which means I dont have to train them to level 8 in a magic skill, typically lvl 6 is the highest in a single magic type

and the last 2 levels are the ones that take forever

Progression feels unsatisfying to be honest.
I started a new game and soon got a fight with some crystals revealed from fog. Easy fight as it was 1-2 level below me.

Soon I reached everything in tier 1 research and created a Mage's room to continue research. Half a day later another of those crystals appeared, now 3 level above me. wtf?!

So I thought difficulty depends on the research tiers. And tried to max out and build everything in my current, 2nd tier.

I got an idea where to find the 2nd tier wand transfumagutator (or something like that) and all underground fights where aiming to get to this lace and indeed i found it right away.
For this I had to repell quite some of fog.
And now I get level 12 fights while my newly upgraded mages are level 7-8. wtf?!

What is the trick then no to have constantly high level fights all the time i am likely to lose?
What is this with those levels anyway? They seem to be to easy for what they state. The only difficulty of same level fights is not to run out of mana.
Am I supposed to go for the level 12 fights with my level 7-8 mages with some portions and supposed to take the risks of getting bad traits (which I would not be able to cure for long long time)?
And am I supposed to take advantage of the de-/buffs of the enemy (eg 2x dmg by water)? While I still miss mages for two elements to be able to proper teams in all combinations?!

In the end the game seems to be about fighting and less about base builing. There are always bored mages because I have enough resources and don't want to waste storage with materials i don't need.
Rebuilding rooms just need 1-2 maybe 3 mages at once. Attuning relics don't give XP.
I didn't see anything like a training room for mages to level without doing tasks. Do I have my mages keep doing dull useless tasks to have them progress?

Do I play the game wrong?
Do i have to rush levels and wand tiers or do I have to slow down more and max everything out before progressing?
Is it normal to always be 3-6 levels below fights?


The description for relics is lacking.
I got relics only level up by being attuned by mages which is only done when assigning the mage a relic (the relic management could be improved and is it intentional the relic management screen is just black?). Then what?
Is it possible to have the mage drop a relic? Does it lose it's level?
Can I put several relic for display (on this podest for getting school bonus) and stack them?
Are relic criteria (eg for water mages, humans, ...) pure random or do they depend on the student mage type, race, traits, ....?


Trials involving fighting are just crazy. I am not far into the game and my fights are already level 6+. How a student at level 3 should be able to do 'final blows' or even survive higher level fights? I know I can level up students beyond level 3 but this takes just ages.
And I am already start to wait for things to happen while I wait for research to finish, wait for mages to level (while enemies level even faster), wait for relic attunment, wait for rooms to be rebuilt (which doesn't seem to be much of importants anyways. At least at my stage of progression. Moral is not an issue), ...


Oh, I recently unveiled some plants i have to grow again, which was a bit further than I needed to repell the fog for the wand transmutigator (or something like that) but to do so needs some very specific mages I of course don't have but I need to 'breed' them first.
This confuses me even more. Am I too far in progression and I shouldn't have repell the fog yet to this point?

Originally posted by Dedmoin:

Do I play the game wrong?

You seemingly are playing the game without having read and digested the content on the 'M.A.G.E. Score' page. You'll find that in the Book of Rooms, which is at the bottom right menu of the UI, under views, titled Room Type. Hotkey F1. M.A.G.E. Score is the tab on the far right of the Book of Rooms.

Your M.A.G.E. score affects the level of difficulty of the random encounters that pop up.

... It also affects the 'Weight of Malice' component of a mage's conviction score, but we're not discussing conviction right now. So ... back to the topic of difficulty progression...

Originally posted by Dedmoin:

So I thought difficulty depends on the research tiers.

If you read the M.A.G.E Score page, you'll understand that _*a portion*_ of difficulty progression depends on the _*amount*_ of research. Not the research tier.

There are also a number of other factors that affect difficulty progression:
* research (total amount of);
* constructed (things built from the Build - Construction tab);
* assembled (things built from everywhere but the Build - Construction tab);
* magic skill (total accumulated magic skill of all mages _*currently*_ in play);
* exploration (rooms explored in the Underschool);
* crafted (all items _*currently*_ available that have been crafted using furniture from the Build - Crafting tab);
* relics;
* reagents (ie resources); and
* _*!!! TIME ELAPSED !!!*_

In summary, this game is a fight to build up your combined mage's fighting strength against the enemies of time and restraint.

I use the word 'restraint' because, in order to keep the battles relatively within your mage's capability you'll need to build up your base in line with your mage's current capability. If you're finding the fights too difficult, examine your M.A.G.E. score and have a look at what is holding you back.

I first started playing this game at the hardest level, because Yeah! Look at me, I'm the Champ!! And I realised after 2 attempts (1) I couldn't handle how quickly the difficulty the difficulty ramped up I wasn't currently good enough for the hardest difficulty level and, after having read the M.A.G.E. Score that (2) I was playing the game all wrong.

When I saw someone else comment they had accumulated 6k wood, I was like "wtf! Their M.A.G.E. score must be HORRIBLE!!" But then, I don't know whether all resources are valued equally or not. For all I know a piece of wood might be valued at 1 and a wand at 20..? Who knows.

I think they've only delineated the research tiers so that players understand that what they are able to research depends on the combination of the type of research room, and the mage's lightning skill. You'll also see this in-game if you hover your mouse over the tier number in the 'Research' window.

Originally posted by Dedmoin:

And now I get level 12 fights while my newly upgraded mages are level 7-8.

Well, yes. upgrading your mages will improve your M.A.G.E. score's total magic skill. Have you started equipping relics yet? Maybe that will help. Or are all your students max skilled? Maybe graduate them all and get a fresh batch. Maybe potions... up to you.

Also, just because you get a random encounter, it doesn't mean you _*have*_ to fight it. Those malice crystal encounters are totally optional. Those ghost cracks and that fog incarnation have a time limit. If you're not strong enough for the fight maybe see if you can handle the cleanup afterwards for not fighting. Though fighting and clearing them out is always the best option if you have the capability.

Originally posted by Dedmoin:

What is this with those levels anyway? They seem to be to easy for what they state.

Sometimes they're too easy. Sometimes they're too hard. I think the current game version is far better balanced than previously, but it's still a gamble. But maybe it's not the game version but that I'm not playing as randomly as I did when I first started. Also, taking note of all factors like current weather/seasonal impacts, your mage's capability, battlefield effects, and enemy strengths/weakness can make huge difference. That is to say, playing strategically.

8D

Originally posted by Dedmoin:

In the end the game seems to be about fighting and less about base builing

As mentioned above, your base building affects your M.A.G.E. score, which affects your fighting. So, still about base building.

8D

Originally posted by Dedmoin:

I have enough resources

There's 'enough' resources, and then there's 'too much' resources, because. as mentioned above, your stock of resources affects your M.A.G.E. score. Whether your resource stock pile is too little, too big, or juuuust riiiiight, that's your call.

Originally posted by Dedmoin:

Attuning relics don't give XP.

Well, no, I don't think it does, but it does potentially increase your mage's fighting capability without increasing M.A.G.E. score. And a developed relic that's displayed in an archive might potentially provide school wide bonuses that might also impact battle.

Things I'm not sure of:
* whether those relics which provide +magic skill affects the M.A.G.E. score magic skill (I hope not, because it's kinda double dipping to count both as a relic and as a magic skill);
* whether the relic is still counted as a relic for the M.A.G.E. skill whether it's equipped or displayed;
* whether the relic or it's equivalent in gnosis shards when pulverised has a higher value towards M.A.G.E. score. Either way, since being minimalist keeps the M.A.G.E. score down, it's better to churn those unnecessary/unwanted relics into gnosis shards, and then churn those gnosis shards into further mage development regularly.

Originally posted by Dedmoin:

I didn't see anything like a training room for mages to level without doing tasks.

Yeah, I'd actually like to see a training/duelling room. I would like for it to have consequences, like the combatants needing to heal up afterwards, which would affect your consideration about whether to allow certain mages to battle versus having them combat ready for random encounters.

Originally posted by Dedmoin:

is it intentional the relic management screen is just black

If it is black, then nothing is able to be equipped. But you should be able to see that from the mage's sheet. It tells you how many are available to be equipped per relic slot.

Originally posted by Dedmoin:

Can I put several relic for display (on this podest for getting school bonus) and stack them?

I can't tell you whether the effect is stackable is displayed on plinths. Nor do I know whether displaying on plinths adds the effect to the M.A.G.E. score or not. Hopefully someone else has the answer, but otherwise I'll keep an eye out next time I'm playing to see if I can determine that.

Originally posted by Dedmoin:

Trials involving fighting are just crazy. I am not far into the game and my fights are already level 6+. How a student at level 3 should be able to do 'final blows' or even survive higher level fights? I know I can level up students beyond level 3 but this takes just ages.
And I am already start to wait for things to happen while...

Maxing their skill, equipping relics before skilling them so the relic skills up too, maybe using potions, using better skilled team mates to carry them in the fight until the final blow can be made (eg earth mages with their taunt and shield skill). Otherwise considering churning the student without having attained the trial. Time is gnosis shards. Churn baby, churn!

Originally posted by Dedmoin:

Am I too far in progression and I shouldn't have repell the fog yet to this point?

That totally depends on you. You play how you play, you decide how you decide. If the game was linear so that everyone only did such and such at this or that particular point, then is it really playing a game, or are we just following instructions? That fact that you have to make such decisions is what creates the fun.

8D

I don't know what the devs are planning for 'endgame'. Given that the M.A.G.E. score is constantly progressing because of the 'time elapsed' component, if nothing else, then I would think that all play throughs are destined to reach a failure point at some stage. In which case I'd like for there to be a scoreboard so that the end game is to evaluate my play though if not against others, then at least myself.

If there is an end game to be reached, eg some 'escape from the fog hell' scenario/cutscene, then maybe we could have a scoreboard to measure our play against others for that too.

In short, I'd like for there to be a scoreboard.

8D

Note to self for when I forget later: to make it show the thumbnail image in the discussion rather than just the full link, select the screenshot -> view on my profile -> share -> copy the 'shared files' link address it pops up -> paste that back into the discussion thread.

https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3395789133

So anyways, as an example...
* you can see the constant progression of the 'time elapsed' in red at the bottom;
* the light green cycles up and down with the churning of each group of initiates. It's remained higher the last few days as I'm currently training my first 3 apprentices to be hired on for staff. I already hired on a dark mage for spindle and battle purposes in the first batch, but he wasn't apprenticed. I just hired him quickly without even having completed all his trials, just to address an immediate need.
* the flicker of dark orange in the last few days is because we've started to attack the Underschool
* the quickly started but fairly stable grey is the construction/rooms
* the purple is accumulating research, which is gradually improving in accumulation rate due to the gradual upgrade of the research rooms;
* the light blue of assemble windows, beds, dining tables, crafting tables, etcetera
* the light orange of reagents, kept tight control of.
* the flicker of yellow from crafted items, food, wands, etcetera
* the gradually increasing stock of relics in dark green, which haven't yet pruned back with any pulverising, but that'll likely start within the next 5 to 10 days.

Hope that helps to visualise the impact various aspects have on MAGE score.

IMHO, I think the most notable is the light green cycling highs and lows of new to max leveled initiates. This is for 8 total students (6 in the first batch, 8 thereafter). Compare the degree of the affect to the others.

A pic of my current school:

https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3395810165

Thanks a lot for all the explanation.

So to sum it up: the game is about fighting to the end game while tricking the game that I progress much slower.

I still have to check my MAGE score but in my current game i kept everything at the bare minimum and still face a difficulty difference of 5 levels above me.
The only mistake I did was to research everthing possible.

It kind of sucks to be restricted by MAGE score while not even knowing when certain difficulty tiers are triggered.


edit:
https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3395820095
I wonder why my exploration score is that high.
I just explored to the wand II transmutigator (or so) plus 2 rooms.
https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3395821352


with relic screen being black i mean this:
https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3395822384
while all other screen have brownish/greenish backgrounds and frames

What difficulty level are you on?

I've a passing interest seeing your MAGE score page if you'd to share it. : )

Originally posted by Kahri:

What difficulty level are you on?

I've a passing in seeing your MAGE score page if you'd to share it. : )

Normal difficulty and I just have updated my post with links

Yeah, I agree I'd like to see the relic management screen be more stylised. Is kinda bland at present.

I'd also like some sort of sorting ability, maybe colour coding, so that I can designate which relics I value over others for keeping around/not pulverising.

Underschool exploration does make a fair hit on the MAGE score.