Sil 1.0.2

[half]

One thing I've always wondered about Sil is if artefacts are preserved. If I am diving through levels, might artefacts be lost forever?

Yes, they are lost forever. This gives some reason not to generate too many levels (e.g. stairscumming) but it is not much of a problem for diving, as I'm pretty sure you will find more artefacts by spending more time at deeper levels than by fully exploring shallow ones. Ultimately there are about 80 artefacts and people only tend to find about 10% to 20% of them in a full game.

[Patashu]

Unless losing an artifact forever makes artifacts less likely to be generated in the future, it doesn't seem like much of a problem.

[half]

Unless losing an artifact forever makes artifacts less likely to be generated in the future, it doesn't seem like much of a problem.

Actually, it does make artefacts slightly less likely to be generated in the future, but I still don't think it is much of a problem. The reason it makes them less likely to be generated is to smooth out the progression of artefacts through the game, and to keep the number generated for each player roughly the same. Behind the scenes, there is an independent 10% chance that an attempt to make a new artefact is abandoned for each (non-creature specific) artefact that has already been generated. This helps avoid the no artefacts for ages, then all of a sudden swimming in them issue that occurs in other variants.

I think it provides a fairly large reason not to scum for levels, and a minor extra reason to keep exploring a level, but that in general, one should go to the deepest level you can survive, and also that one should be prepared to abandon any level if a really dangerous creature arrives.

[Derakon]

I find it interesting the kinds of things you can get away with once you institute a time limit on your game. While I don't think that the presence of "preserve mode" in Vanilla is inherently problematic, you can bet there'd be a typhoon of complaints if it were removed.

[Scatha]

Monsters that get a large damage hit (30-40%) should either decide to attack or flee. Attacking monsters should charge into a corridor.

It might help to define a monster state called "bloodlust" or something. In this state, the monster ignores crowd tactics and attacks @ directly. The monster doesn't flee either while in this state.

A monster can enter bloodlust by taking some significant amount of damage (fraction of current HP), significantly wounding @ (fraction of @ HP), seeing a monster of the same race die, or seeing a monster of the same race that is in bloodlust. Some monsters, like archers, should never enter bloodlust. But an orc warrior might enter bloodlust if it sees @ kill an orc archer.

We actually have something pretty similar at the moment ('aggressive'), but Charge will tend not to trigger it. It's not clear to me whether seeing a friend die should tend to make monsters aggressive, or if they should be less inclined to follow. Probably seeing a character abuse the run up should trigger something, but I'm not sure which aspect of it in particular should be noticed.

You could have monsters attempt to lure @ in the room with the purpose of sneaking behind @ and blocking the door, but that might be too harsh for Sil, and be more difficult to code. Besides the bloodlust idea does a decent job of giving varied challenges. Charge is still useful, but you have to be a bit more careful of taking on a group of monsters that you can't handle if they all start to come after you.

Having some kind of pack monster which declines to engage the player in doorways, just as most decline to engage in corridors, could be interesting. I think the surrounding and cutting off the escape might be a natural consequence of this.

[half]

Probably seeing a character abuse the run up should trigger something, but I'm not sure which aspect of it in particular should be noticed.

This is in for the dev version in a very simple way. They shout to make their nearby friends aggressive after being charged, just as they do after being hit with arrows while in a corridor.

[Scatha]

This is in for the dev version in a very simple way. They shout to make their nearby friends aggressive after being charged, just as they do after being hit with arrows while in a corridor.

Oops! Yes, sorry, you told me in an email a month back, but I forgot. Sounds good in any case. Could be some slight oddity if managing to kill with your charge means they don't catch on, but should be enough overall to reduce the abuse here.

[half]

Behind the scenes, there is an independent 10% chance that an attempt to make a new artefact is abandoned for each (non-creature specific) artefact that has already been generated.

I should add that this part is a bit of a hack. I would prefer it if the levels were generated independently of what has come before (excepting uniques killed, particular artefacts that have been generated, the unique forge, and the unique vaults). This is the only other exception, and the only one that isn't natural. However, it does work very well to smooth out the artefact acquisition and to smooth out how many are found across games, both of which are important for enjoying the game. I could probably fix the former by making special items less likely to become artefacts at deep levels, but can't fix the latter while keeping generation chances independent of how many have been found.

Oh, OK, there is one other exception: the forge on the second level. This isn't required by the very nature of the thing (unlike the slain uniques etc) but it feels quite natural, is easy for players to notice, and helps the gameplay for smiths a lot.

Which brings me to the new plans. We are planning to extend this kind of feature for forges (and this is basically the last thing to be added to the current development version before it gets playtested and released). I haven't started on that yet, but the idea is to smooth out the number of forges per game. Again, I don't like the dependence on what has gone before, but I think that it can help avoid certain un-fun situations (for example, I really wanted to play a smith and made a smith character, but didn't find a second forge until 950 ft).

[half]

The free attack on approach from Polearm Mastery doesn't seem to count towards increasing your bonus from Concentration. Is this intended?

I've just fixed it, but it was a bit tricky. I'd disabled the concentration bonus increasing on bonus attacks to avoid it ramping up by more than one per turn (e.g. your attack and your riposte). My new solution is to allow your free attacks to bring the bonus to +1 but no higher, so if you start attacking something via a riposte or a polearm attack, then that works. Still not perfect, but now I think you really have to search to find a case where it is odd.

I might improve it again in the future, but it is low priority -- I want to actually release the new version soon, but have very little time so I should concentrate on the main things.

[Derakon]

Which brings me to the new plans. We are planning to extend this kind of feature for forges (and this is basically the last thing to be added to the current development version before it gets playtested and released). I haven't started on that yet, but the idea is to smooth out the number of forges per game. Again, I don't like the dependence on what has gone before, but I think that it can help avoid certain un-fun situations (for example, I really wanted to play a smith and made a smith character, but didn't find a second forge until 950 ft).

Keeping in mind that I've still yet to play Sil, would it be possible to balance a mechanism whereby smiths could construct their own forges (e.g. by smithing a hammer at the first forge)? The cost to building a forge would need to be such that they would generally prefer to use "natural" ones when possible, but in the event that such forges weren't available they would be able to make their own.

[Scatha]

I would prefer it if the levels were generated independently of what has come before (excepting uniques killed, particular artefacts that have been generated, the unique forge, and the unique vaults). This is the only other exception, and the only one that isn't natural.

Well, sort of. There are two more things which kind of do this (that is, affect what you come across based on what's gone before in some unnatural fashion, although neither is quite based just on what's been generated before).

The first hardly occurs: the chance of staircases being trapped varies in a manner which needs a fairly circuitous explanation on your recent behaviour of using stairs.

The second is so central to the way the game plays these days that it's hard to notice it's an effect of this type: the forced descent. This one has the best explanation of any of these exceptions, although it's still a little odd.

[Scatha]

Keeping in mind that I've still yet to play Sil, would it be possible to balance a mechanism whereby smiths could construct their own forges (e.g. by smithing a hammer at the first forge)? The cost to building a forge would need to be such that they would generally prefer to use "natural" ones when possible, but in the event that such forges weren't available they would be able to make their own.

I think we could balance this in the sense of giving it the right power level, but I have concerns both about the flavour (how do you build a forge (which requires intense controlled fire) in a dungeon with a hammer?), and about it distorting usual play patterns in a way which turns out not to be fun. It might turn out okay, but I also think we can get good some fairly good behind-the-scenes smoothing algorithm which will be almost invisible to players (and not exploitable) except providing them with a more consistently enjoyable experience.

You can think of it as a shortcut to the central limit theorem (which ought to apply and solve our problems if forges came in smaller discrete chunks).

[buzzkill]

The first hardly occurs: the chance of staircases being trapped varies in a manner which needs a fairly circuitous explanation on your recent behaviour of using stairs.

Once again, I do have to try this "Sil" at some point. How's that tileset coming along ?).

[Patashu]

It's mentioned a lot that parry would be broken if it doubled the evasion bonus of your offhand weapon as well... but would it actually be? Keep in mind that you're giving up a shield/two handed weapon, spending exp on parry which will thereby making future evasion skills more expensive to get (and evasion has soooo many good skills - sprinting, flanking, controlled retreat, etc etc)...

[Psi]

Interesting scenario. Just found Anguirel at 350 feet. Is the correct response to take Mind over Body...?