Sil-Q final beta release before 1.5.0

[Quirk]

Speaking of speculation; just noticed that there are no acidproof cloak egos. Not a biggie, but it does make lategame item/nameless things management slightly more annoying.

Yeah nameless things are on my list of things to improve at some point. They're not particularly interesting or rewarding to fight, they're just nasty to your stuff.

How do people feel currently about the acid destruction mechanic?

[bron]

I find the loss of "Cloak of Protection" to be annoying; I'm sure there are reasons.

[bron]

Possible bug: I note that "Song of Delvings" doesn't seem to work right around the edges, and particularly not in the corners, of the map. I'm guessing that there is some sort of "range" on the effect, and once your distance to the edge is less than the range, it stops working. Or something like that. I admit I have not investigated the issue very closely.

[Infinitum]

How do people feel currently about the acid destruction mechanic?

Given how often the mechanic creeps up in games, one must conjecture that there exists a breed of degenerates that enjoys them. It remains unproven far as I can tell though.

[Quirk]

EDIT: Morgoth Bauglir, the fell enemy and black lord of darkness can be slain by mortal hand.

Attempts to fix this are ongoing.

EDIT: Chasms can be generated as to completely cut off a levels up and down staircases. Happened during my ascent. Not a biggie; although it might've been.

Have made some attempts to fix this, but the generation code is of very dubious quality and probably needs a comprehensive rewrite.

EDIT: Carcaroth's tile is bipedal, which is not consistent with his description in the Silmarilion (which is specifically the biggest wolf, specifically bred as a nemesis to Huan).

Any thoughts, Microchasm?

[HugoVirtuoso]

Attempts to fix this are ongoing.

How about reverting Morgoth's difficulty & aggression back to his 1.4.1 version? Consensus says that was the toughest Morgoth, period.

[MicroChasm]

I appreciate the tiles critiques so far, Infinitum. I have already modified the chasm tile to be darker than the blackness tile, which is something that I should have done a long time ago. I see the issue with the forges as well. It looks like a mix-up with tile assignments and should be an easy fix.

EDIT: Carcaroth's tile is bipedal, which is not consistent with his description in the Silmarilion (which is specifically the biggest wolf, specifically bred as a nemesis to Huan).

I think it is a good idea to revisit the Carcoroth tile. This is an issue that I am aware of, and really all of the werewolves fall under this critique, but Carchoroth is the worst offender. The others look, to me, to be halfway between standing and simply rearing up, but Carchoroth really does like bipedal. I've changed and adjusted the werewolves many times and have never been 100% happy with them.

A similar issue was brought up in an earlier release about the vampires looking too human. I made them more bestial and I think they are better for it. They are probably still too humanoid for some people, but here I would be more inclined to argue for my right to artistic interpretation.

[Infinitum]

Well, good thing Tolkien was never big on descriptions. It would be an awful lot of wolves to pose in 16x16 pixels. One alternate look for the werewolves might be going full "attack on titan" maybe; screwing up their proportions a bit? Something proportioned more like this could still be wolflike enough but distinct? Re-reading of Bereth and Luthien and imagining WolfMan in lieu of a more canine Carc does get pretty ridiculous fast though.

[Wiwaxia]

Yeah nameless things are on my list of things to improve at some point. They're not particularly interesting or rewarding to fight, they're just nasty to your stuff.

How do people feel currently about the acid destruction mechanic?

I actually quite like nameless things as-is. They occupy a unique niche in terms of being absolutely not worth fighting but easy to avoid while also slowly trashing the dungeon and making it more dangerous by way of opening up new passages (mostly relevant for smiths and thresholds builds, mind).

Acid destruction feels a little clunky and not quite in-theme, but I do like the gameplay effect of nameless things and crawling H as slow monsters that you really, really do not want to let get a turn while you're still standing next to them, and nothing inspires that quite like equipment degradation.

[wobbly]

Infinitum's kill looks reasonable. That's crazy evasion + saithnar. It seems reasonable to me that that power level without saithnar should work, otherwise anyone aiming for the kill will smith to guarantee the weapon.

[Infinitum]

I used to do that actually. Sharp Dangerous Mithril Greatsword used to be 22 skill to make, which was very doable for less than 10k experience with a Masterpiece Hammer and some found gear, and with some luck you could make it [+2] and get very efficient Parry. Still a sidegrade from a found sharp weapon tho.

Speaking of smithing Quirk; considered simply adding "-X smithing" to all +X Grace items if you've started down on this path?

Bows of the Falmari should id when fired, not when picked up for consistency.

Picking up stuff from skeletons displays the un-Id'd item message, even if the item is/will be Id'd immediatly afterwards.

[Quirk]

How about reverting Morgoth's difficulty & aggression back to his 1.4.1 version? Consensus says that was the toughest Morgoth, period.

Morgoth in 1.4.1 was a long slog of attrition that frequently ran the player out of potions before they had Morgoth on the ropes. I don't think this was fun.

Current Morgoth is slayable by truly overpowered characters but definitely requires a step up from a three-sil win, and in general the fight is decided one way or another within a couple of hundred turns. I think I like this, though the ladder is of course dominated by highly skillful players who are capable of building Morgoth-killers.

I intend just before release to add an increment to score for wins with Sindar/Naugrim/Edain characters (I think the first two are roughly equal in challenge but am willing to hear counter-arguments). Given we have only two Edain Morgoth kills to date I think honouring this as the crowning achievement of the game on the scoreboard is fair, and I think current Morgoth is already pitched to make doing this extremely hard. Any stat tweaks from here will probably be minor, though if I can find other ways to make the dynamic of the fight more challenging without just buffing stats I may incorporate these.

[Infinitum]

Surely you meant to say THREE Morgothslaying Edain?

Re: difficulty:

Then Morgoth sent forth a terrible cry, that echoed in the mountains. Therefore that region was called Lammoth; for the echoes of his voice dwelt there ever after, so that any who cried aloud in that land awoke them, and all the waste between the hills and the sea was filled with a clamour as of voices in anguish. The cry of Morgoth in that hour was the greatest and most dreadful that was ever heard in the northern world; the mountains shook, and the earth trembled, and rocks were riven asunder. Deep in forgotten places that cry was heard. Far beneath the ruined halls of Angband, in vaults to which the Valar in the haste of their assault had not descended, Balrogs lurked still, awaiting ever the return of their Lord; and now swiftly they arose, and passing over Hithlum they came to Lammoth as a tempest of fire.

[Quirk]

Surely you meant to say THREE Morgothslaying Edain?

Re: difficulty:

Okay. That's very impressive. Very quick Morgoth kill in the throne-room also. Am a bit curious about your Artifice aside, was that just to establish you could make useful artifacts even without any grace?

+3 Evasion ring is a nice find.

Any more pointed thoughts you have on difficulty, given by my proposed new scoring mechanism you've submitted what would be a Sil-Q highscore? Was this an especially lucky run? And what was your strategy early, I presume you switched to greatswords late?

Would appreciate being talked through this run a bit more.

[Infinitum]

Perception/Will isn't really required until you start running into Sulraukar so a 2330 Hador kinda sorta plays like an elf with the melee bonus. Not so bad in all, althouh I had to burn more consumables for difficult fights than otherwise. I thought I'd need Inner Light to compensate for not having song of the trees, but 4 light + keen senses proved enough. Early amulet of constitution and the helm of brilliance helped alot.

The artifice was only for another source of FA on the bow since I couldn't sing Freedom or Staying. Smithed shortbows are an outlier in that their stats don't matter, and you can pile lot of resists on them compared to Marchwarden bows. Hence "third ring". In hindsight I should've gotten Extra fear and stun resists instead of sustains since Dragons/Watchers were a nuisance and Vampires went pop in close proximity to my character.

Closest call was a Wraith casually showing up at 700' before I had a source of FA, forcing me to run across the entire map whilst being slowed and entranced. Thankfully a bunch of trolls and cats were present to help create distance from it. Also Sauron casually showing up and putting me at 2 hp before buffing up in the chambers of Thu.

Kill was mostly me skillfully finding Anguirel, Maeglin and Finrod on the same character. I had really good equipment finds in general. The 8+ staffs of treasure and recharging helped.