So consider this a shout into the ocean, but I have some ranting to do about some problems I have.

By the time you read this, they may not be problems anymore. But I have them now.

One particular problem I have is clown car encounters. That is when you turn a corner, and suddenly there there is a conga line of mobs waiting to rip your face off. There's no explanation why there are so many crammed into a small room, making a beeline for you.

Two, is clown car status effects, or the occasional encounter where you'll end up running into something that gives you 6 or more detrimental effects in one blow, sometimes ending your life instantly.

Escorts suck entirely. If their exit isn't within 20 tiles of your starting location or in a straight corridor, you may as well start looking for a pine box, as they're as good as dead. Forget the chance to backstab them if you're doing a bad, they'll kill themselves before you get a chance.

Many classes and character types have absolutely no means of dealing with groups effectively, or at all. Take the stalwart stone warden. After a while, the bashing shields becomes inadequate due to certain enemy types who can tear you a new one while completely outraging you. You may have access to the earth spells, but those take several levels to get to a competent reach. Combined with previous clown cars and progression becomes harsh.

The rewards for beating elites or vault class enemies are often pathetic and not even worth it. Not only does the EXP gain often scale poorly, but so often the items you get are entirely worthless except to turn into endless piles of worthless gold.

Teleporting freaks. Many monsters have an innate ability to simply whisk themselves away at will. For ranged characters, this is merely a mild annoyance as you can shoot/spell them to death. Melee characters have to chase them down. In wide open areas, it may simply be quicker to move on.

Yeeks are flimsy paper. Even when trying to use them for their intended class, they crumple up so easily.

Blood magic is OP, please nerf.

If summoning sucks so much for human players, then why do the NPCs get such ridiculous summons?

As I said: I like the game. But it often feels the balance is awry and not in a good good or fun way.

A couple of things about some of this. I feel that while these are legitimate points, ToME does address them in various ways that some miss at times.

Classes and races aren't made equal and can't handle every situation, that's just a given here. How you deal with that fact is actually a very large part of the game's tactics, as well as figuring out what your race/class excels at. Creating chokepoints for those that can't deal with huge crowds for example; some make zig-zag tunnels to contain them and create a LOS issue for the enemy. This is also why escape and repositioning methods are so highly valued, like Movement infusions, Phase Door runes, Psychoport Torques, or talents like Rush and Path of the Sun.

(Yeeks are not a race I like either though, but I view them as a challenge like undeads. You do get to Eyal by what is usually a dungeon set aside for much later in the game, after all).

Corner encounters out of LOS: This is a thing in all roguelikes I've played to some degree, and ToME also has stuff to get around it. This is why players hold abilities like Track so highly, it reveals what's around corners or buildings that aren't vaults. This is also a situation in which a lot of tactics are devised for. Corner sniping, using summons and golems to peer around a corner, etc. are highly valued.

Status effects: This is something I had to get used to, but only because most of the games I played up until now took status effects so lightly. Like "yeah you're poisoned, small minus of health until you use an antidote" instead of "oh crap you've got Crippling Poison and a few other kinds." However that also means your status effects are also going to stack big and be debilitating if you use this system right. Wild/Healing/Movement infusions, Heat Beam/Biting Gale/Acid Wave runes, Phase Door runes and Out Of Phase's status duration reduction, a certain talent thing you'll get towards the end of a game, status immunities, talents, there are also many ways to clear or prevent status effects. Saves are also there to ward off status effects, but usually only Dwarves and Halflings (maybe Thalore in Physical and Mental, though most Magical ones can be ignored safely enough) will be able to get large enough amounts for endgame to make debuffs almost always resisted. Still, in normal difficulty at least Saves can still be useful.

Summons: I feel that summons can be just as ridiculous on your side if you know what to do with them. Take Temporal Warden's pets and clones for example, those get pretty nuts. Meanwhile, I've found Alchemist Golems to not be exactly spectacular in a rare enemy's hands. Still, I really hope that Blighted Summoning gets an overhaul or replaced with something else because it sucks eggs with most of the lot.

Teleporters: Movements and Pulls. Leveling up Rush also works, if you save it for that. There's also the Prodigy Giant Leap, which I feel doesn't get enough credit.

I'm betting that escorts will always suck. It's kind of a thing that's even referenced jokingly in lore, and there's an addon that even changes them all to Leeroy Jenkins. It's par for the course in ToME, talents and stat increases are very rarely ever given out without some work.