No Time To Grind -- ?

I get that the No Time To Grind setting reduces the size of the dungeon floors, and as a consequence, reduces the time of the game.

Is that all it does? If the dungeon floors are significantly smaller, doesn't that mean you will earn less experience, and therefore be a lower level by the time you arrive at Lord Dredmor's floor? Also, since you will have spent less time exploring, it means you will also probably have inferior equipment, compared to someone who explored longer.

Is NTTG then a major increase in the difficulty of the game? Or have other things been adjusted besides the time taken to get to the final floor?

 

Experience earned is doubled, but the drop rate of stuff stays the same. I've never really had a problem with not having enough equipment on NTTG, but it's definitely a bad idea to do a crafting-focused build, because you'll find less materials.

 

"Smaller dungeon, same XP."

You gain double XP from all sources. You also get double the gold pickups. You won't get inferior equipment but you will get less of it, and thusly less cash.

You also have less monsters on which to gain procs like Perception and Fungal Arts. Less loot means less reagents, so crafting is on the whole disadvantaged here. Fewer rooms means fewer anvils, fewer fountains, fewer CoE, and so on.

On the upside, there are fewer named monsters and traps.

That's what I've read around here, anyway. I play exclusively on NTTG as the faster pace is much more satisfying to me, even with the disadvantages. Extra challenge is always nice, after all.

 

Experience scales highly on NTTG than on Default. Optimally, you level up at the same rate on one mode as you do on the other when you clear a floor. The downside is, of course, the lack of finding more loot/vendor trash.

 

I think the new minibosses actually but NTTG ahead of normal mode in terms of XP available. Since they're worth twice the amount on NTTG, but still spawn at the same rate (once per floor).

 

No Time To Grind makes the rough early levels that some characters have MUCH easier, since you get levels (and thus health refills and new skills) MUCH quicker, thus lowering the risk of coming up against something you can't handle while you're level 1-3. However.. it can make the next few floors a lot harder. The number of times I've had to go into floor two with no Armor Absorption, poison resist, necromantic resist, and decay resist...

Another thing that I've noticed about NTTG is that some rooms are EXTREMELY rare in it- there are some really cool big/awkwardly-shaped rooms (on floors 3 and below) that generally don't spawn there because of the smaller space it has to plop rooms into.

Yeah, NTTG is much more likely to screw you over- plus as far as I can tell, you're not guaranteed a shop on every floor, which makes your inventory kind of of a pain. I prefer normal-length floors, but I still make characters in NTTG mode fairly often. It's a nice change of pace!

 

Wizardlands get double XP off No Time to Grind.

It's probably balanced by finding less codes overall, but if you heavily use the Google Docs of codes you will find yourself gaining levels quite quickly.

Of course not as quickly as doing normal mode with "It Belongs in a Museum!" but...

 

You can also end up with weird equipment gaps, I had one run where it took me till level 3 to find a belt and a crossbow.

I'm really not sure which is easier but given the number one cause of death for me is sloppy play NTTG does help avoid that.

 

It's worth mentioning that less procs doesn't mean that they are weaker and useless. For example: fungal arts provides you with healing & mana (which you need less of because of less monster) and pretty much guarantees that you will have a source of invisibility. Those are still enormously useful especially because you have less chance of finding them.

Crafting might be more risky as you can get shafted with reagents but it with it you still have a better chance in getting decent equipment. I also find it entertaining that sometimes the crappy recipes which no one touches in normal mode are helpful because it's still better than what you have (like nothing ).

I would say that the fewer CoE does hurt. In normal mode I like to take a weapon skill for my warriors but in NTTG I can't bring myself to pass a CoE weapon so I generally skip weapon skills.

 

In NTTG:

+The game goes faster; Dred will fall a couple hours early! (or you'll get zapped by a Potato a couple minutes early, who can tell).
+Wizardlands are apparently boosted
+Grinding, ironically, is improved; if you just run laps around an easy floor, you'll get twice the usual XP on the respawns (and double Big Game Hunter/Vegan XP bonuses, same Meat/Fruit/Fungal/Perception drops).
-You'll have less item spawns and recipe spawns by the time you reach Dredmor
-I've gone 4 floors with zero shops before; and this was before Pocket Dimension T_T
-I've never ever ever seen a Barbeque spawn in NTTG, meaning even less lutefisk.
-If you take Archeology, there's half the items but they give twice as much; you're less likely to have "spare" artifacts (since you'll be scrounging to fill slots), and it's much easier to waste XP if you're halfway between levels. Also less anvils to recharge.

 

These are good points. That's why I never said they were useless. I've had good success playing Fungal Arts, making good use of the pets and the shrooms. Perception also helps compensate for the fewer reagents you'll get.

All reasons that I'm sure GLG carefully considered when making and tweaking NTTG. Probably.

 

@Nikolai

I know that you didn't say it I just thought it came of as a bit negative so I quoted you in hopes of balancing it.

 

I always play in NTTG now. I used to do grind but the results are faster without and I literally do not have time to grind.

Others have said (and I agree) that equipment gaps can be unfortunate (no ingot grinder?), but also guys you get fewer special rooms. Some floors will have ZERO shops, for example. With wizardlands no shops is less awful. An advantage to NTTG is that it doesn't take an hour to clear a floor (shut up, monster zoos, you always take an hour).

 

NTTG works really well for characters who live off skills, i.e. mages, bruisers who scale off of their skills (though hitters who rely on gear can suffer).

 

Um. I'm not sure why you think Minibosses only spawn once a floor.
I know i've run into several on a floor, and I'm watching a Let's play, and the Let's player ran into Major Tom for the second time, next to the Masked Marvel.
One of the same one on a floor, I agree.

 

I'm pretty sure that's a bug?

 

Really? Okay. Seems to me that off of NTTG, it would be a bad thing to have only one a floor.
On NTTG, I would agree.

 

I meant one instance of each miniboss. You can find Bee Arthur and Sigfried on DL 1 (along with The Barron and Toaddy, if you get lucky) but only once.

 

This is the only way I play now adays. Sure there are gear gaps quite often, but you get knee deep into tons of skills a lot faster. Plus with wizardlands you are hitting even more levels earlier on. making deeper levels slightly easier.

 

Oh. Okay. I see what you mean now.