Sil

[LostTemplar]

Some skills are ok, but not all.

[Scatha]

Yes, stealth is even worse. Evasion was just an example. It is too easy to get 100% reliable skill check with any skill.

Also, low values of skills are completely useless.

I agree Stealth is a little bit of an offender here. We're spreading out the monster Perception scores a bit for the next version. This should both make a moderate investment in stealth more useful, and total reliability less attainable.

Since the player doesn't have enough resources to get 100% reliability with every skill, it isn't necessarily problematic if they can get total reliability with some skill, as long as this doesn't make the game trivial for them (or it could be that the challenge is in getting to that point of total reliability). Evasion was a possible offender here, but the combination of things which ignore or halve evasion, and monsters which have such high melee you can't realistically dodge them reliably is I think enough. Stealth goes in this direction, but fast enemies or corridors can provide problems with getting trapped/bumped into. Some of the Songs can be used to control fights, but it's not easy to get them high enough to be reliable. For the other skills, it's hard to see how a 100% success rate could by itself be a problem.

There are more uses for low skill investment, too. In fact for just about every skill there are reasons you might pursue this (even apart from as prerequisites for abilities).

Here are examples for the ones Patashu didn't mention:
- A few points in Melee may be a good investment for an archer using Versatility.
- Enemy evasion is halved against Archery, and just a few points here can keep this a viable ranged attack throughout the game.
- Even high protection characters, who are happy to get hit all the time, may still invest a bit in Evasion to reduce the severity of critical hits taken.
- A small investment in Stealth will lower the radius at which you wake up monsters. Even if you're never attacking unwary monsters, this can mean fighting small groups rather than half the dungeon.

[half]

It is too easy to get 100% reliable skill check with any skill.

This is either a gross over-exaggeration, or you are missing some details about how the skill system works. You say that it is 'too easy' to get '100% reliable' in 'any skill'. Not only is not too easy, but it has almost never been achieved, and as far as I can tell, only in one skill, and not by you. In order to clarify for others who might be interested...

How high do you think your evasion needs to be to be 100% reliable? 30? 40? The answer is 54 (or 108 against monsters you can't see). You need to be 19 above their melee, and the highest melee is 35. I'd be surprised if anyone has ever achieved this in Sil (the highest appears to be 38, letting you get hit almost half the time by Thuringwethil). Moreover, it doesn't protect you against earthquakes or fire breaths etc., and is halved when you can't see them etc. etc.

Melee/Archery need to be 49 (or 98 if you can't see the opponent).

Perception checks get arbitrarily difficult.

Will needs to be 30.

Song checks get arbitrarily difficult, but even at range one, you need 37.

Smithing doesn't have checks.

The only one that has ever been achieved is Stealth, where you need 32 or so, and this has only been done a couple of times! (Note that it is hard to say precisely, and there are times when an even higher number is needed, such as while singing).

The real problem with Stealth is just in the high end, not once you have achieved 100% chance, and it is more to do with synergistic Abilities like the Song of Lorien, the Song of Silence, and perhaps most of all: Vanish. We have already increased the perception of some late game creatures, but are fairly happy with Stealth at the moment. We want Stealth to be powerful as it is canonically the only way Morgoth's throne room has been reached. Moreover, Sil has a much richer stealth gameplay than most other roguelikes and we want to make the most of this.

There are several other balance issues with Sil that we are addressing, such as various things concerning each of Smithing, Charge, and Two Weapon Fighting. We pride ourselves on having a well balanced game, and welcome constructive criticism (or praise) of the systems, but please let's keep it constructive.

[LostTemplar]

Well, "too easy" actually should be "possible in theory".
And I does not mean 100% reliable in any situation, just in some particular situations.

[Scatha]

Well, "too easy" actually should be "possible in theory".
And I does not mean 100% reliable in any situation, just in some particular situations.

With these caveats your statement may be true, but it's a problem why?

[Patashu]

Found a bug:
If you trigger a web and use 'Exchange Places' on the spider, the web still exists and you can create another spider using it.

(spiderscumming)

[debo]

Found a bug:
If you trigger a web and use 'Exchange Places' on the spider, the web still exists and you can create another spider using it.

(spiderscumming)

lol!

If exchange places works 100% when stuck in a web, that gives me a bit more of a reason to take it next time

[HallucinationMushroom]

I had a chance to exchange places with an Unmourned who was currently in a wall during my ironman ascent. I was tempted to exchange places with it to see what would happen, but decided against it and my nerves were too frayed to make a backup save to try it out later. Since you're trying to find all the breaks in the game, try that one out too, I'm curious.

[Patashu]

Ok ok, I beat you game. Now it's 3 am and I can go to bed

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=13163

I had a chance to exchange places with an Unmourned who was currently in a wall during my ironman ascent. I was tempted to exchange places with it to see what would happen, but decided against it and my nerves were too frayed to make a backup save to try it out later. Since you're trying to find all the breaks in the game, try that one out too, I'm curious.

An interesting idea, but the source code for Exchange Places checks for the presence of walls, doors, rubble, etc.

Here's an Exchange Places secret tech, though:
-You can use Exchange Places on a tile to find out if something is present in it or not (darkened enemies, invisible enemies...). If there is nothing there, you do not waste a turn.

Here's a secret anti-tech:
-Attempting to lift Morgoth's crown wastes a turn (and embarrasses yourself in front of the Lord of Darkness)

If exchange places works 100% when stuck in a web, that gives me a bit more of a reason to take it next time

I've taken exchange places every single game since the 37th (that got to Morgoth and stupidly didn't use it once). It prevents like 80% of early deaths

[HallucinationMushroom]

The crown can be lifted if you have an '8' strength. Psi recently drug it out with his Heman character. I plan on calling him next time I need to move my washer and dryer.

[half]

Patashu,

Thanks for all the great comments, bug reports, tactics, and general observations. You managed to find several tactics that even I was unaware of (and probably Scatha too). I've found these very interesting and useful, and I'm sure the other players here do as well. I'll take a little break from adding Scatha's new artefacts into 1.0.3 to comment on some of these things.

Sil bugs:
-If you throw a potion (like slowness) in a direction past lots of monsters, it will 'smash' on every single monster's head and continue past without doing anything.

They weren't actually breaking, it was just a spurious message, which is fixed for 1.0.3.

-I found an unopenable small wooden chest chest. I already opened a small wooden chest on this level, but the second one I ctrl+dir at and it just swings at midair. I'll try carrying it to another level and seeing if that fixes it. EDIT: First I found a third chest (this one was large wooden), that one I can open with ctrl+dir fine. EDIT2: Still can't open it :'(

I don't know what is going on here, but have added it to the unresolved bug list.

-Whenever the player's light source is not illuminating anything (and no monsters are in view?), he should turn the light off for you to save fuel.

We'd thought about this, or just doing it when resting. It might make it into a new version, but no promises yet (mainly because there are many more important things to add first).

-It would be nice to reference a table of all possibilities for potions, herbs and so on (or perhaps all that player has seen in their history). I use the table in Brogue to decide how to do test-iding, for example.

Interesting. You could do this already, so the idea is presumably for a labour saving note taking. Probably a good idea, but lower priority than many of the things we have planned (we have about 100 programming hours of good features or important fixes to add, but not enough time to get through them all).

-It is annoying when you go around a corner, stepping next to a violet mold that was out of line of sight the previous turn, and get drained for constitution on the first try. Is it possible to restore this? It'd be nice if there was a skill to do it (along the lines of the skill that lets you remove cursed items)

Herbs of restoration and potions of each of the four stats restore this (as you presumably know by now). You can always (or nearly always) avoid this by not cutting corners in uncharted corridors. A y/n prompt when stepping next to them may indeed be good, but not that high priority.

-Colouring. IMO important lines and interesting things should have a different colour so they visually stand out. Examples:
---Better than usual weapons should have slightly different colour for their names, and {special} ones a different colour again (e.g. cyan and yellow instead of white, dark cyan and dark yellow instead of brown/gray...)
---Weights should be coloured one thing if they are lighter than normal, and another if they are heavier than normal
---Text in the message log could be many different colours to go with different events. For example, in DC:SS misses and 0-damage hits are gray while normal hits are white. Kills could be red, debilitating events some colour like green and so forth.

-The ability to set breakpoints that wait for confirmation when unusual things happen that need your attention. This is a DC:SS feature, and in DC:SS you use regular expressions to define the lines you want it to wait on.

Changing the colours of some messages is probably not that hard. Doing it for weapon names sounds neat, but is very hard to code. I kind of like this, but am scared of the screen becoming too garish.

There is already a distinction between events that cause you to stop running/resting/picking locks etc and those that don't. I could potentially add a third level for things that acts like the low health warning. A regular expression engine for it would be far too much work though (sorry!).

For potions:
Lose some hp and some voice. If it is not identified on use, it is either Slow Poison (more likely) or Clarity.

For herbs:
Lose some hp. If it is not identified on use, it is Restoration, Sustenance or Emptiness.

For trumpets:
Use it at an enemy a few times. If it is not identified after that, it is Warning.

For staves:
Be near an open door and a closed door with monsters nearby. If it is not identified after that, it is Sanctity, Summoning or Entrapment.

I like these, and your subsequent updates to the list.

[half]

Is it possible to get a console version of Sil for Windows 7, so I can termcast it?

I actually don't know. I presume this is difficult and haven't tried it (and I don't use Windows or even really know what its console is). You can run it on Linux though, which might help. Maybe you can compile it for the console using the Makefile.std.

[half]

Two bugs:
-If you turn on autopickup and prompt, 'g' or ',' isn't a valid answer to the y/n prompt (and it should be y)
-If you turn on autopickup and prompt, 'g' or ',' now do nothing when standing over an item
EDIT:
-I shot an arrow from a bow of brilliance down a corridor and it didn't auto-identify. (I had three tiles of light and it illuminated one tile just past my natural light)

The first of these isn't really a bug, but would be a nice extra feature. I probably don't have time to add it though, as the y/n prompt is done with its own generic function.

The second is a bug that I think I inherited from Angband. It has been fixed for 1.0.3. (You can tell I don't use autopickup though!).

Interestingly the third doesn't need a perception check (as it is so obvious) so it looks like a minor bug. Well caught. I can't replicate it or find it in the code though.

[Philip]

Well, Patashu, I guess half and Scatha wouldn't be averse to patches, so if you feel up to coding it, I think you'd get your features (which, while I would like them isn't quite the thing I can code) into the game. You'd have to check it with them, but I've rarely heard of maintainers who refused popular patches.

[half]

-Closing doors so you can see on the map when they're opened
-Getting free hits every time with Sprinting

We're not too happy with these features.

-Building up Song of Slaying on worm masses
-Sprinting + Flanking
-Flankings that count as charging too
-Wearing Wrath/Danger deliberately
-Eating herbs of rage/quaffing constitution for the hp
-Fear effects on Kemenrauko to dig tunnels for you
-Having hp loss, confusion, poison and voice loss from a trumpet just to unambiguously identify potions
-Having hp loss, 'hungry' and stat loss just to unambiguously identify herbs
-Standing near a closed door, an open door, a stairwell, monsters and with a cursed item just to unambiguously identify staves
-You are covered in acid! Your Set of Gauntlets of Clumsiness is destroyed!

These were quite deliberately put in, or at least are considered good features by Scatha and I.

-Song of Freedom so your sprint is uninterrupted by doors

I hadn't thought of this -- not sure how useful it is, as you have to spend a turn starting the song and have to forgo other songs.

-Exploiting intelligent monsters' attempts to flank you for free hits/dodges

Are you able to do this systematically? It works for me with Zone of Control if I'm standing in a room near a doorway that has orcs pouring out, but I haven't found any other good ways to exploit this.

-Artifice in general

Not sure what you mean here.