Sil 1.0.2

[Gockel]

Actually i find the stealth approach the easiest. just put almost all your skill points into stealth, get "disguise" as soon as you can, then go for "vanish"/"sprinting", and afterwards for "listen"/exchange places. when you got all these you can get out of almost every dangerous situation... and then start the assassination game...
you just need to avoid fighting completely unless you're absolutely sure you can kill your enemy quickly and stealthily.

i just tried it for the first time and it allows you to dive like crazy. arrived at 950ft when minimum depth was 350' or 400'. but being scared of dying once more in the throne room i harvested a bit there...

actually i also got a question. i finally knocked the crown off morgoth's head, but even with boosted strength i can't seem to get a silmaril. i got a deathblade, the axe of nogrod and the short sword of amrod. i'm starting worrying that i might have to stay at 1000' forever. and actually i can't say that i enjoy morgoth's company much...

Edit: i'm really getting pretty scared with this. i just ate my last herb of rage and drank my 2nd to last !strength and still can't get this stupid silmaril...
am i missing something???
i'll attach the dump:

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=12629

thanks!!

Edit2: uh, nevermind, problem solved...

[Nick]

And HM, Psironic is still my favourite (and most tense) game ever. What a climax!

Yeah, mine too - and that includes my own characters.

[decoy]

Thanks for the update! I'm looking forward to installing and playing a bit more once I get some time to do so. I hope the tweaking and tuning works out as you expected.

[Fendell Orcbane]

Just wanted to pick up on this. Even if I'm running a stealth character, I'm nervous about dropping below studded leather and even then I'll probably wear a mail corslet until I'm confident I'm not going to be involved in much open melee. A high protection score is an absolute lifesaver - much more so than the evasion penalty for heavy armour.

With all my stealth/smith characters I took the first upstairs I could to regen 50' with a forge and then made a Mail Corslet of Protection, Round shield of Deflection (+2) and a Helm of Brilliance. This is enough to soak up damage in the early game and annoying critters like orc archers can't scratch you unless they get criticals and even then its just an irritation.

Really? I didn't use anything more that leather armor and I was able to win once and get close to winning once as well. I guess the high protection score works better if you expect to be surrounded. I tend to think that stealth rules this game. But it seems like people have different styles of play...

[ewan]

Interesting contrast w/ Psi. As is probably evident from my chars, I'm very reluctat to wear heavy armour because of the enalties to both stealth and melee ability; I rely on evasion and stealth to avoid being hit, rather than armour to absorb the hit.

[HugoVirtuoso]

Hey will_asher, if you're concerned about how to get around in the deeper depths of Sil, with heavy armor, you should have a look at my characters, especially my best ones (in the Top 30). There is a an ability, under Evasion, that can gives a bonus to every 15lbs of armor. This can be useful for some folks.

As for myself, I tend to ignore Stealth, and go for high Melee + Evasion, wherever possible, since this is my playstyle. I set up my characters to knock-out any monster that gets in the way. Talk about sheer melee-power...It's fun!

My two cents,
HugoTheGreat2011

[will_asher]

While they have a bit of an impact on early characters, the Smithing changes overwhelmingly penalise the late, powerful characters more. ..but when you're making artefacts of difficulty 30+ for every slot having five slots get +20% difficulty is going to leave you something like the equivalent of 3 stat points weaker...

Okay, you've convinced me it's a good change.

It is! [re: lock-picking difficulty based on depth]

Oh I see now. I did look in the code before I said that, but I was looking at the wrong function. I was looking at the difficulty in the door opening function instead of the door-generating function.

Just wanted to pick up on this. Even if I'm running a stealth character, I'm nervous about dropping below studded leather and even then I'll probably wear a mail corslet until I'm confident I'm not going to be involved in much open melee. A high protection score is an absolute lifesaver - much more so than the evasion penalty for heavy armour.

With all my stealth/smith characters I took the first upstairs I could to regen 50' with a forge and then made a Mail Corslet of Protection, Round shield of Deflection (+2) and a Helm of Brilliance. This is enough to soak up damage in the early game and annoying critters like orc archers can't scratch you unless they get criticals and even then its just an irritation.

I'll have to try this. thanks. Looking at it, the -1 to-hit, -3 to evasion, and -2 to stealth because of weight seemed like it wouldn't be worth it.

[Scatha]

If you make many balancing decisions based on Psi, the game is going to get insanely hard for us average *banders. (as if it isn't already)

While they have a bit of an impact on early characters, the Smithing changes overwhelmingly penalise the late, powerful characters more. For instance +20% difficulty for some slots may mean you need an extra point of smithing to make your ring of protection early on, or two points for a ring of accuracy (+2), but when you're making artefacts of difficulty 30+ for every slot having five slots get +20% difficulty is going to leave you something like the equivalent of 3 stat points weaker than otherwise, which is a much bigger difference. Similarly the change to smithing time and Aule are going to hit extreme smiths the most.

No character has high perception at the very beginning of the game. Shouldn't the door difficulty be based (at least partly) on depth?

It is!

It might help to think of Sil as having 40 levels (20 going down and 20 going up). It would make sense for the latter parts of the game to be harder than the beginning.

The escape is not meant to be anything like as long as going down. It's harder to balance, because character power level is far more variable at this point than the beginning of the game, and it shouldn't be impossible for characters like this: http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=12407

That said, I think there is scope for more challenge for super-characters in the endgame.

By the way, I just read the thread detailing the adventures of Psironic. Great write up, and it sounds like an amazing game.

[Psi]

Just FYI: I've never had a character wear anything heavier than studded leather (and the couple times I wore studded leather, it was exceptionally light specimens). I've never used greaves, and I'll only use a great helms or kite shields if they're either ego or 'fine'.

Just wanted to pick up on this. Even if I'm running a stealth character, I'm nervous about dropping below studded leather and even then I'll probably wear a mail corslet until I'm confident I'm not going to be involved in much open melee. A high protection score is an absolute lifesaver - much more so than the evasion penalty for heavy armour.

With all my stealth/smith characters I took the first upstairs I could to regen 50' with a forge and then made a Mail Corslet of Protection, Round shield of Deflection (+2) and a Helm of Brilliance. This is enough to soak up damage in the early game and annoying critters like orc archers can't scratch you unless they get criticals and even then its just an irritation.

[Psi]

(well the description says embarrassment, but I'm not convinced by the smiley)

And HM, Psironic is still my favourite (and most tense) game ever. What a climax!

[will_asher]

Wait wait, if we're going to do a Rah rah! Psi, my money is on this character. http://angband.oook.cz/forum/showthread.php?t=757, though the impossible shadow fairy necromancer bit is ridiculous too.

That was the one I was looking for, but I didn't remember the details and just looked in the ladder. I forgot there was a thread about it I could search for.

[HallucinationMushroom]

Wait wait, if we're going to do a Rah rah! Psi, my money is on this character. http://angband.oook.cz/forum/showthread.php?t=757, though the impossible shadow fairy necromancer bit is ridiculous too.

[will_asher]

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=12490

That is Psi. Have you looked at his other dumps? Here are a couple highlights:

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=6565

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=11012

...oh and he won the competition that was FA ironman thrall.
If you make many balancing decisions based on Psi, the game is going to get insanely hard for us average *banders. (as if it isn't already)

The mistake here is imagining that your character can do everything. Most characters are bad at picking locks (think Fighters, Mages, Clerics from D&D if you like). Some excel at it. They are the characters with high perception. If your perception is low, give up and bash down doors. Stealthy characters might want to avoid this and thus invest in perception, becoming a bit more like D&D Thieves.
...In general, if there is a skill for something and that thing is too hard, then it is too hard *at your current skill level*.

No character has high perception at the very beginning of the game. Shouldn't the door difficulty be based (at least partly) on depth?

It gives you deals and you have to work out which work best for you. Where should you stop on the scale of light to heavy armour for example? This is an interesting choice in Sil... We see the idea that things have disadvantages as a key improvement of Sil, and are certainly not going to change this. If you don't like that kind of thing, then Sil is probably not the game for you.

I actually think 'mixed blessing items' are very good things in these games. I guess it just seems in Sil, the drawbacks are generally tougher. That perception is probably largely due to the game being very unforgiving in general, so it seems like the drawbacks are harder to overcome.
Just FYI: I've never had a character wear anything heavier than studded leather (and the couple times I wore studded leather, it was exceptionally light specimens). I've never used greaves, and I'll only use a great helms or kite shields if they're either ego or 'fine'.

Staffs of recharging are amazing in Sil -- a really useful item, equivalent to the best staff you have (or will find soon). One thing to note is that they don't destroy your staffs like in Angband -- I think the tradeoff of working out where to spend the charges is much more interesting and less frustrating than that of getting unlimited charges, but having chances to destroy your things.

I've only once gotten far enough to get significant use of staves. And by far the most useful to me was identify. So I kept my empty _identify because I knew that _recharging existed in this game. It was just really disappointing to only get one more charge when I recharged my identify staff when I still had several things I needed to identify. [EDIT: to be fair, I have to add that that game was with my modded version with some added egos, so there were more types of things to identify.]
In Angband, you don't get unlimited charges, but you do get more than one when you recharge something.

It might help to think of Sil as having 40 levels (20 going down and 20 going up). It would make sense for the latter parts of the game to be harder than the beginning. Maybe try to balance the end based on players like Psi (because winning is supposed to be very hard), so you can balance the beginning to be more accessable to the casual players. ...just my 2cents

[half]

Turgon found an enchanted forge(3) at around 300' as well a normal one(4) and just couldn't help himself - ploughing as much xp as he could into smithing. 10 turns per point of difficulty was quite a shock!

An amulet of danger takes -20 turns to forge according to the info... though I didn't notice any time travel making it!

There is a minimum of 10 turns, but I evidently didn't apply this to display, just to the actual time.

[Psi]

Turgon found an enchanted forge(3) at around 300' as well a normal one(4) and just couldn't help himself - ploughing as much xp as he could into smithing. 10 turns per point of difficulty was quite a shock!

An amulet of danger takes -20 turns to forge according to the info... though I didn't notice any time travel making it!