Sil

[Scatha]

There are a couple of things I find a little confusing in the attribute/skill area

- It looks like there are free skills at start-up sometimes. (i.e. they cost no XP to buy). Is there any reason not to take them? If not, is there any reason not to automatically grant them to the player without need to manually add them?

I assume you're talking about what the game terms Abilities (things like Finesse, or Weaponsmith, or Song of Elbereth) rather than Skills (things like Evasion, Perception), as I don't think you ever get free Skill points. The free Abilities arise when a character has an affinity for a certain Skill, and then each Ability associated to that Skill is 500 experience cheaper, and in particular the first one, which would normally cost 500, is free.

There are two reasons why the player needs to go and add them:
- Although the first may be free, before adding experience to any skills the character doesn't meet the pre-requisites for any abilities.
- More importantly, it's your first one which is free, regardless of which you choose that one to be. There's a choice for the player here. Of course it usually makes sense for them to get at least one ability in the tree, but the player can choose which one.

-What "skill point" actually means.

[...]

I've figured it out now, but this could be made clearer in game and in the manual.

Thanks for pointing this out. It can be easy for us to overlook ambiguities when we know what it's supposed to mean.

I'm really enjoying this game, even though I haven't gotten past 250'. I seem to run into the first orc unique, then have another group of orc soldiers come down the stairs behind me. Of course, last game I equipped an un-ID'ed Amulet of Danger.

Stick with it! I'll offer a couple of (fairly general) pieces of advice: choose the locations of your fights carefully, and be prepared to run away (and perhaps take the stairs) if things start to go badly. The orc uniques can be tough, but you can generally escape from them if you're careful. If you want to post character dumps on the ladder, we can offer more specific advice.

[bio_hazard]

I assume you're talking about what the game terms Abilities (things like Finesse, or Weaponsmith, or Song of Elbereth) rather than Skills (things like Evasion, Perception), as I don't think you ever get free Skill points. The free Abilities arise when a character has an affinity for a certain Skill, and then each Ability associated to that Skill is 500 experience cheaper, and in particular the first one, which would normally cost 500, is free.

There are two reasons why the player needs to go and add them:
- Although the first may be free, before adding experience to any skills the character doesn't meet the pre-requisites for any abilities.
- More importantly, it's your first one which is free, regardless of which you choose that one to be. There's a choice for the player here. Of course it usually makes sense for them to get at least one ability in the tree, but the player can choose which one.

Thanks! Yes, I meant abilities. I didn't realize it wasn't always the first in the list that was free.

Stick with it! I'll offer a couple of (fairly general) pieces of advice: choose the locations of your fights carefully, and be prepared to run away (and perhaps take the stairs) if things start to go badly. The orc uniques can be tough, but you can generally escape from them if you're careful. If you want to post character dumps on the ladder, we can offer more specific advice.

I tend to not like going back up stairs- that's a habit I'll have to get used to. I've been doing the "clear a level, then descend" style, and should be beating more tactical retreats as well as not being afraid to bounce around in the 100-200 levels more to get a few more abilities or skill-ups. A couple of deaths have been trying to get that one last hit on a hard-hitting orc instead of running away. Some have been just being stupid once I get surrounded by an escort- rather than fighting for the stairs I'd just start swinging semi-randomly because I figured it would be over.

I'll check out the ladder and see how other people are doing their skill points and ability upgrades.

[Antoine]

It is annoying how every character appears to be L1 in the oook ladder, even if very experienced.

Could you assign characters a nominal level (perhaps some function of their experience and stats) - it needn't have any affect on gameplay but it could appear in the chardump and hence be used to rank characters in the ladder?

A.

[bio_hazard]

Quick UI request- when buying skills in the character screen, can the relevant skill be blue along with the number on the right.

Also, maybe in the selected row, you could have a number to the right that would tell you how many points you need for the next buy in (I'm sure you can figure it out from your current point total, but this would make it a little easier).

Also, this game seems really polished already, so I don't know whether you are open to bloat ideas, but wondering about a stealth-based race.

House of Eol

Your homeland lies hidden in a dark forest. You have turned your back on your kinsmen who revere the Lights of Valinor, yet you have no love of Morgroth and covet his stolen treasures.

S 1
D 2
C 2
G 0

Stealth Affinity
Smithing Affinity?
Perception Affinity?
blade affinity?
song penalty?

[Scatha]

Also, this game seems really polished already, so I don't know whether you are open to bloat ideas, but wondering about a stealth-based race.

House of Eol

[...]

We're fairly happy with the available races at present, so probably won't add in more unless they're a very good fit. The main problem with this is that Eol didn't really have a house: there was just him and Maeglin!

The Sindar only have one House, and we wouldn't be entirely averse to adding a second (perhaps 'of Falas'), but I think that's as far as we're looking to go at present in terms of expanding the selection.

If you want to play a stealth-based character, I've found that all of:
House of Feanor
House of Finarfin
Sindar of Doriath
People of Haleth
work pretty well. I'd encourage you to try some kind of stealth build!

[bio_hazard]

Fair enough!

Thanks again for making this.

[Scatha]

Fair enough!

Thanks again for making this.

You're welcome, but most of the credit goes to half (and I'll leave your UI comments for him).

It is annoying how every character appears to be L1 in the oook ladder, even if very experienced.

Could you assign characters a nominal level (perhaps some function of their experience and stats) - it needn't have any affect on gameplay but it could appear in the chardump and hence be used to rank characters in the ladder?

A.

The 'level' column isn't really relevant for Sil. As half and pav discussed, there will be a number in future readouts to rank characters, but this number is purposefully not the same as a level. Or do you mean to allow comparison to characters from other variants? I think that Sil has departed far enough to make such comparisons of characters relatively meaningless, so it's better not to even suggest them. I agree that showing level 1 for everything is suboptimal, though; perhaps if this is a necessary column it would be better to give the level as "None", or "0"? Ultimately it's not very important.

[pav]

I have hidden the level column from the view, and I also removed Sil from the ranking across all variants (some variants had this before, notably S and Tome).

Looking forward to a more score-y number in future dumps!

[ekolis]

As for the level, why not use deepest dungeon level descended to? That will only go up to 20, instead of 50 like in vanilla, but it's a start...

edit: or you could do number of abilities learned; maybe there are more than 20 of those? you might get some level 0 chars though!

[ekolis]

I'm surprised to see that for all the things that give XP, disarming traps isn't one of them... especially since it does give XP in vanilla Angband!

[Scatha]

I have hidden the level column from the view, and I also removed Sil from the ranking across all variants (some variants had this before, notably S and Tome).

Thanks, pav, that's great.

I'm surprised to see that for all the things that give XP, disarming traps isn't one of them... especially since it does give XP in vanilla Angband!

Let me explain some of the reasoning behind that decision.

We generally tried to avoid rewarding actions which we don't find lead to fun gameplay. While it can feel nice to be rewarded for disarming a trap you were going to disarm anyway, the problem is if it encourages the player to spend time disarming (rather than just avoiding) every trap they find, which is dull.

By contrast, we do give experience for killing monsters, even when this isn't always the way you'd prefer to deal with them. But choosing when to try to kill monsters or let them be is an interesting decision, and combat in Sil has a lot of tactical interest, whereas the trap disarming mechanics are kept simple.

[ekolis]

I wonder if archery is worth putting points into... in order to be able to use it, you have to be lucky enough to find a bow, AND lucky enough to find some arrows, in the same game! And when you run out of arrows, you're back to square one...

[LostTemplar]

I have finally played it. I was impressed with realistic weapon weights. Good variant overall.

[Narvius]

I use archery rather frequently*. Once you run across a forge (which is practically guaranteed by level 3) you can outfit yourself however you like. I mean, at least if you play a Feanor Noldor. First smithing talent free, eh.

The last time I played I got 24 arrows per charge, and which means I could make myself a longbow and 48 arrows. And unless you rely solely on killing everything with arrows (which likely is not only inefficient, but also impossible), they last some time.

* I also die frequently, so.

[half]

I wonder if archery is worth putting points into... in order to be able to use it, you have to be lucky enough to find a bow, AND lucky enough to find some arrows, in the same game! And when you run out of arrows, you're back to square one...

It is not that hard to find a bow and some arrows. They can usually be found within the first three or four levels you visit. As Narvius mentioned, you can also make yourself either or both at the guaranteed forge on the second level you visit. Other than this one, forges are fairly rare, though they become more common by 500 ft and really quite common at 800 ft or so.

To conserve arrows, there is an Ability in the Archery skill that halves the chance of them breaking (and all Elves get a free archery Ability). It is also worth knowing that the chance of things breaking is doubled if they hit a wall.