Breaking the Rules

[wobbly]

That your arrows are littering the floor makes perfect sense to me, but they do stack. If you shoot in the same position a lot you find small piles of arrows to recover.

Your right there, I'd forgotten it does that. It does makes sense & there's a certain amount of game balance to having to take extra time recovering arrows. I still find it a little tedious. Different throwing weapons don't however which while part of a larger issue with the slot system doesn't need to be made worse.

This aside, I still don't see the gain from having non-stacking floor items. In a confined space if you throw 2 throwing weapons at a mold first then fire your bow your arrows have no where to land, except under your feet. It creates bizarre tactics & for what gain?

Edit: On the whole slot issue, it's always bothered me that a full suit of armour takes the same space as a knife & that 2 different potions take more space then 2 of the same. In a game without shops & a time limit to prevent endless scumming, I'm tempted to say get rid of slot limits altogether. You could balance it straight off encumbrance & item rarity & not have this whole do I take the 5 spears that stack or the 2 better spears that don't stack issue.

[taptap]

I really don't see the gain in this one. It makes picking up your arrows 1 at a time tedious. It also causes that funny rebound effect where you throw/fire a weapon at your target & it rolls back under your feet & you throw it again. To me this is a step backwards, not forwards. Is there a good reason for it?

That your arrows are littering the floor makes perfect sense to me, but they do stack. If you shoot in the same position a lot you find small piles of arrows to recover.

[wobbly]

(2) No piles on the floor (items spread out and can be lost)

I really don't see the gain in this one. It makes picking up your arrows 1 at a time tedious. It also causes that funny rebound effect where you throw/fire a weapon at your target & it rolls back under your feet & you throw it again. To me this is a step backwards, not forwards. Is there a good reason for it?

[taptap]

I hate leaving items on the dungeon floor so I have to pick up and destroy everything and squelch would make this easier ...

"<character> escaped with a Silmaril and cleaned Angband."

[decoy]

Here is the thread. I'm hoping to get it done some time this decade.

fascinating. i totally approve.

i occasionally fantasize about doing a tolkien game myself, but i think "sometime this decade" is perhaps a bit optimistic. alas. but i shall live vicariously through you for the time being.

[Nick]

Now what is this "Beleriand" I see talk of? Sounds...Very promising.

Here is the thread. I'm hoping to get it done some time this decade.

[decoy]

I've said it before, and I'll happily say it again: You may very well have ruined Vanilla Angband for me with Sil (dear Vanilla Angband devteam, I still love you. It's not you, it's me...)

If it took some rule-breaking to get there, thank you.

Now what is this "Beleriand" I see talk of? Sounds...Very promising.

[Jungle_Boy]

Of the listed changes the only one that annoys me is sometimes it would be nice to have a squelch system but it is not bad. I hate leaving items on the dungeon floor so I have to pick up and destroy everything and squelch would make this easier but it's not a real big deal and more a result of my own playstyle that it is a problem.

The only other one I have any strong feelings about is the healing/escapes. I have been in a few situations where I have exhausted all my options and am unable to escape, and the only thing left to do is press a button until I get dead. Sometimes this takes a while and I am basically a "dead man walking". This is annoying but could be avoided with more careful play or saving more XP, I tend to spend mine as soon as possible.

[HugoVirtuoso]

Isn't exchange an "escape".....Please don't take it out now!

In my opinion, it's a valid 'escape.' Just imagine being trapped in a corridor with high level monsters, like Unrelenting Horrors, Troll guards, Vampires, Ancient Serpents, etc...

[Fendell Orcbane]

Isn't exchange an "escape".....Please don't take it out now!

[debo]

I think Preserve hardly matters in Sil because (a) artifacts aren't that powerful, and (b) many "high quality" (i.e. extra bonuses + appropriately weighted for character) items are very nearly as good.

The no-escapes thing is occasionally frustrating, but the game is short enough and uniformly fun enough that I don't mind dying so much.

[HallucinationMushroom]

(1) No preserve mode *and* no special feelings (if you miss an artefact, you miss it)

I'm usually a preserve player, but I don't mind it in Sil mainly because everyone *must* play this way. On one hand it's neat that Angband has all these options, but there's also comfort in not having to worry about how you *should* be playing, which can be a hangup for some players, me included. It's wearying to feel like, damn, I guess I'm not a real winner if I didn't xyz, or if I used xyz and shouldn't have... I'm fine with game play designated by benevolent dictator. This is probably the only one on the list I feel any strong way about.

[ewan]

(1) No preserve mode *and* no special feelings (if you miss an artefact, you miss it)

Don't care strongly; mildly negative but only I think because of history w/ roguelikes

(2) No piles on the floor (items spread out and can be lost)

Don't care about piles per se; didn't realise that items could be lost and am strongly opposed: acts to lower reward for intense fighting, for example

(3) No 'squelch' mode of any kind
(4) No perfect trap detection

Don't care.

(5) Time limit, so you can't set your own pace
(6) You can't wait and get the same great artifacts each game (you can only find about 20% of them each game)

I see both of these as central to Sil.

(7) No limitless healing (c.f. stacks of CCW in town)
(8) No teleportation
(9) No perfect escapes, and very few escapes of any kind
(10) No stat gain
(11) No increasing HP with level
(12) Multiple attacks per round is the exception rather than the rule
(13) No easily acquirable speed (max of speed +5 in V terms, and almost no permanent sources)

Don't care. Maybe slight opposition to the no-escape situation - it is vexing to know that even perfect play may cause you to die - but in practice this has not been a real issue.

[Scatha]

One big one you've missed is the complete transformation of "spellcasting".

Less "snuck in", but yes, there are actually a number of big departures from norms which don't appear on that list, which I'll add for ease of discussion even if it's a slightly different direction from half's original question (and I may have missed some here):

(14) No spells (magic via Song and Smithing; no mass damage)
(15) No town, or gold
(16) No classes
(17) No character levels
(18) Nothing to (r)ead
(19) No monster summoning (except via stairs)

As a variant maintainer who is planning a new variant with radical differences, Sil has left my by turns inspired and annoyed - you have set the bar rather high. I am actually staying away from Sil for now, because I want to get Beleriand basically complete before "taking inspiration" (ie stealing features) from Sil.

I'm really looking forward to seeing what you do with Beleriand. We tried quite hard to keep things Tolkienian, but Angband is just a small (and atypical!) part of the world.

[Fendell Orcbane]

The only one that I HATE is #2. Its annoying to have to carry a chest just so that I can get all of the contents in said chest. THe other ones make sense within context of the game. Morgoth isn't as powerful as he is in most other Bands so you don't really need to have a lot of healing.
I was wondering about preserve artifacts... it kinda sucks because if you see something good but something you can't handle is right on top of it then you will miss it. The only thing that you really need is a source of sharpness to win.
But in general Sil is a low magic version of V. So all the changes aren't too bad. Of courses the lack of escapes means that sometimes you will die no matter what and you don't have as much control as you do with the other bands.
ANd of course the game is so short that its hard to have a perfect balance between challenging and boring. I think you guys did a great job IMO. I've said this before but you could base a lot of other games off the Sil"engine" as it were.