Sil 1.1

[half]

Sil 1.1 is now available.

Headline features:

* 250% more Balrogs!
* More than 20 new artefacts
* Extensive changes to special items
* Many changes to the monster list to give each type more character

Full Changelist:

- broke savefile compatibility

- getting silmarils
	- it is now easier to cut out the first Silmaril
	- your weapon can now break on either the second or the third Silmaril
	- you no longer suffer the rapid attack penalties when cutting if you have that ability active

- elemental damage
	- for pure elemental damage (breaths and things as opposed to melee with elements)
		- you now get your resistance before your protection roll
		- used to be the other way around
		- you have always only had a limited amount of prot for such attacks
			- e.g. rings of prot, hardiness, song of staying, (& shields for fire/cold)
			- now these sources of prot actually matter a bit when you have resistance
	- added elemental vulnerabilities
		- these are very rare, and they lower your resistance by one level
		- if it is a level below no resistance, you take double damage, then triple etc.

- monsters
	- many changes, including the following...
	- balrogs:
		- added five more, giving a full complement of seven
		- they are rare, but *very* dangerous
	- giants:
		- lowered perception substantially
		- changed the colours, and flavour text and a few stats for Nan and Gilim
	- orcs:
		- improved Boldog's melee and damage by 1
		- improved Orcobal's melee and damage by 1
		- corrected 'Othrond' to 'Othrod'
			- not sure where that mistake came from!
			- gave him an extra 1 to melee to compensate him for the indignity
	- cats:
		- lowered cat warrior health by 2d4 (20%)
		- lowered Umuiyan's health by 1d4, to put him into the progression
		- moved Umuiyan from shortbow (1d7) to longbow (1d9)
		- improved the archery score of cat assassins by 2
		- lowered will substantially
	- wolves:
		- minor modifications of attack and evasion to put them into a unified pattern
		- lowered the non-unique's health across the board (to 6d4, 8d4, 10d4, 12d4, 14d4)
		- increased the health of Gorthaur and Carcharoth
		- increased the damage of Gorthaur
		- lowered the armour of wargs (from [2d4] to [1d4])
	- trolls:
		- increased health and melee slightly
		- lowered will and perception substantially
	- insects/centipedes:
		- unified health to 2d4
			- a decrease for centipedes and dragonflies
			- an increase for hummerhorns
			- these creatures gain their defence from evasion/prot rather than health
			- (also worth noting: bats are 2d4 as well, birds are 1d4)
	- spiders:
		- increased the melee and damage of Ancient Spider attacks
		- increased the melee and damage of Ungoliant's attacks
		- increased the health of most late-game spiders
		- increased Shelob's darkness radius and damage
	- molds:
		- made violet molds half as common as before
			- now a quarter as common as other mold types
	- humans and elves:
		- reduced easterling archers' archery skill by 1
		- improved easterling uniques' melee skill by 1
		- increased Maeglin's melee and evasion
	- serpents:
		- added slightly erratic movement to all of them (25% chance)
		- ancient serpents
			- removed the elemental auras
				- they were a bit confusing and too easy to force monsters to take damage
			- now have [6d4] instead of [7d4]
			- do an extra 2d4 breath damage do compensate
	- dragons:
		- can no longer make you forget the map
		- this ability is now unique to Mewlips
	- valar:
		- increased Morgoth's will and perception after you knock his crown off
			- due to him taking you more seriously as a threat
				- and the need to challenge you!
	- stone creatures no longer destroy staircases if they die on top of them
	- Shadows and Hithraukar now pass under closed doors
		- Shadows no longer pass through walls
			- there are now no invisible wall-passing creatures!

- combat
	- you now lose the stealth bonus against an enemy for the second/third attacks 
	  if they are woken up by the first attack
	- entrancement effects can no longer be 'chained'
		- you cannot be entranced while already entranced
		- you cannot be entranced if you haven't had a turn since last entranced
	- fixed a message bug when throwing potions

- stealth
	- monsters can now become less alert if they are out of sight and fail a check to spot you by more than 30
		- they lose a point of alertness for every point more than 30 that they fail by
		- they won't fall asleep though
	- Vanish is now implemented as a +10 bonus to this check

- abilities
	- Vanish: see above
	- you can no longer get an Opportunist attack when knocking a monster back
	- you now stop singing a song if you remove an item which was granting you that ability
	- Charge has been made quite a bit weaker, and also more interesting
		- it was by some distance the most overpowered ability, and should still be good
		- it no longer doubles your weapon dice
		- instead, your attack counts as if you have +3 Dex and +3 Str
			- a bit like an opposite of rapid attack
		- the ideal weapon for charging will thus be heavier than the ideal for normal attacks 
		- also charge no longer works if you are moving slowly (at speed 1)
	- Zone of Control, Opportunist, Flanking, Controlled Retreat
		- no longer work on unwary monsters or monsters during the 'truce'
		- as this was almost always not what the player wanted
	- a few fixes to Exchange Places
		- can no longer be done unless the creature is visible (removes exploits)
		- can no longer be done from within a web/pit
		- now triggers traps if you end up in one
	- Blocking now always works against all ranged attacks (fire breath, arrows, boulders etc)
		- thanks to Angloki for the idea
		- it still requires you to pass to get the bonus against melee attacks
		- it is also now an alternate pre-requisite for controlled retreat
	- fixed some oddities in the build up of the bonus to attack for Concentration
		- i.e. it didn't work for certain free attacks you made in the opponent's turn
		- now it builds the bonus by +1 if you made at least one attack since the start of your last turn
	- Song of Aule now gives a bonus of Song/4 instead of Song/5
		- who says we're just trying to make smithing less good?
	- Crippling Shot now no longer works on critical resistant monsters

- smithing
	- made forges appear a bit more regularly throughout the dungeon
		- this should help a lot in avoiding games with too few forges
	- increased the cost of the 'speed' attribute from 25 to 30 (at Psi's suggestion!)
	- increased the cost of stat points by 20% (the base has moved from 10 to 12)
	- increased the cost of damage sides by 25% (from 12 to 15)
	- increased the cost of brands, slays, sharpness
	- no longer get any benefits for putting penalties on items
		- it seemed cool, but just lead to them being put on Gloves of Smithing an the like
		- the one exception is Danger, which leads to quite a large difficulty reduction (-5)
	- there is now a discount of 20% on the difficulties of robes, crowns, sceptres
		- they now make good artefacts...
	- you can now make all special item types including the bad ones
	- the first forge is now guaranteed to be a normal forge with three charges
		- to avoid the temptation to start-scum
	- you are now asked to confirm spending points of smithing when making a masterpiece

- items
	- fixed a bug where blowing a trumpet of blasting could *heal* you
		- if your protection was higher than the earthquake damage
	- staffs of self-knowledge now show attributes of your off-hand weapon (if any)
	- dropped permanent lights now glow properly (at some point this stopped working)
	- chest contents generation slightly simplified (more chance of jewellery now)
	- removed halberds
		- while undeniably cool, they are more a late medieval swiss weapon
		- there are still glaives (which are mentioned in Tolkien) and Celebrist is now one
		- changed the glaive stats to halfway between the old Glaive and Halberd
	- renamed: 'leather gloves' to 'gloves', 'leather boots' to 'boots', 'steel greaves' to 'greaves'
	- removed rings of attention/wrath
		- enough wrath items already, especially with our other changes
	- removed amulet of danger
		- same reason, and there is a new cursed replacement amulet...
	- removed rings of True Sight
		- there are enough other True Sight types
	- improved Mithril Helms and Mithril Greaves
		- now all mithril items are better in at least one combat attribute
		- not merely weight and ignoring acid

- {special} items
	- adjusted the depths and rarities across the board
	- added several new special item types, including cursed ones
	- made some large changes to the special items types
		- changed the single type slaying items (Orc Slaying etc)
			- most now slay two types of monster and are named for a place
			- Final Rest instead has Free Action on it
			- note that 'of Gondolin' now refers to the orc/troll weapon
				- since the blades from Gondolin in the books glowed when orcs were near
				- the old 'of Gondolin' weapons are no more, though 'of Nargothrond' is similar
		- removed (Avenger)
			- though there is a new artefact shortsword with riposte
		- added a sticky curse to (Vampiric)
		- removed 'of Brilliance'
			- these were introduced before slaying weapons glowed and it is inelegant to have both
		- removed Boots of Slowness
			- just too nasty
		- removed Gloves of Agility
			- special gloves were too similar to rings
		- removed Gloves of Clumsiness
		- changed Gloves of Weakness to Gloves of Treachery
			- now with a nice bonus...
		- changed name of Gloves of Power to Gloves of Strength
		- added Gloves of Swordplay
			- to compete with Gloves of Strength
	- fixed a bug where some special weapons wielded from the floor wouldn't glow properly
	- fixed the auto-identification of lanterns of brightness when refuelling them
	- unified the True Sight types of helms and light sources
		- so identifying one identifies them all
		- this had slipped past me before

- artefacts
	- added 21 new artefacts
	- realised that quite a few of the artefact weapons were just too crazy and toned them back
	- added descriptions for those artefacts which didn't have them
	- set Calris aflame like all good Balrog swords should be, and made other changes to it
		- we think it is really strong now and people are crazy not to be using it more...

- dungeon
	- added some T-intersections in the corridors
	- fixed two bugs in dungeon generation which could lead to doubled and tripled doors
	- no rubble generated before 200 ft anymore

- traps
	- made false floors half as common as other traps
	- webs can no longer be generated in dead ends

- food
	- it is now harder to get gorged (so it can't happen unless already 'full')
	- the gorged effect wears off even faster

- interface
	- added an onscreen main menu with all the interface commands
		- it can be accessed with (m) or (Escape)
			- the latter can be turned off if you find it annoying
		- I intend this to be the main way to access many of these commands
			- and in future versions I will remove direct access to some:
				- e.g. Colours, Macros, Knowledge, Options, ...
				- but not Character Sheet, Save, ...
		- comment on the Angband Forum if you have concerns about this
	- added back in the 'auto_more' option
		- (I still wouldn't want to use it though!)
	- stopped it wasting a turn when you try to pick something up and nothing is present
		- also improved some interface oddities surrounding 'pick things up by default'
	- stopped it wasting a turn when you decide not to make anything at a forge
	- fixed bug with being warned about dropping your shield when you wouldn't have to do so
	- added prompt warning you about being forced to drop your two handed weapon when wielding a shield
	- the object knowledge screen now displays potion/herb/staff etc types that you have seen in previous games
		- this is useful for the process of elimination...
	- fixed some interface bugs for smithing:
		- the name of an artefact is no longer reset when returning to the artefact submenu
		- selecting menu options via their letters now works properly

- display
	- the iron crown no longer shows up multiple times in the knowledge menu
	- fixed some issues relating to Morgoth before and after being uncrowned
	- staffs now display how many times they have been used when unidentified
	- fixed a bug with the combat rolls window
		- it wasn't displaying the old info correctly in many cases
	- creating any object at a forge is now noted in the notes section
		- including the stats and weight
	- slight modification of messages for failing to tunnel
	- fixed a bug where the player would identify their off-hand weapon when their main weapon struck truly

- platform specific
	- linux version
		- X11 now supports solid block walls and highlighted unwary/sleeping creatures
		- X11 now supports the initial menu and more user friendly loading of characters
		- GCU now makes the map quadrant of its virtual terms as large as possible
			- thanks to bron for the patch!
	- mac version
		- can now easily open savefiles generated on other platforms (e.g. competition saves)

- challenge modes
	- all of these were buggy!
		- no artefact mode no longer generates monster-specific artefacts
			- like Spear of Boldog etc
		- straight down mode now works correctly
		- disconnected stairs mode now works correctly

- behind the scenes
	- notes are no longer temporarily stored in 'notes files'
	- this should finally put an end to all the problems with these files!
	- fixed some potential bugs in targetting, dungeon generation, hallucination

- thanks
	- thanks go to many of the denizens of angband.oook.cz for their suggestions and bug finding
		- this really does help to improve the game!
	- thanks also go to our wonderful beta test team
		- I have no idea how they played so many games so quickly

[Quendus]

Thanks for adding auto_more back in. I'm going to play Sil a lot more often now.

[ekolis]

Cool! Time to give Sil another go-round!

- no longer get any benefits for putting penalties on items
- it seemed cool, but just lead to them being put on Gloves of Smithing an the like
- the one exception is Danger, which leads to quite a large difficulty reduction (-5)

I hope you also removed the ability to forge items with penalties (apart from Danger), then? Otherwise people will be wondering what's the point of putting penalties on items, or doing so thinking there's some secret benefit!

[ekolis]

Hmm, the description for Polearm Mastery still mentions halberds...

[Scatha]

I hope you also removed the ability to forge items with penalties (apart from Danger), then? Otherwise people will be wondering what's the point of putting penalties on items, or doing so thinking there's some secret benefit!

Sil is transparent enough about its mechanics that I'd hope nobody would think there was a secret benefit.

That said, several of the curses also have situational benefits. Finding cool uses for "penalties" can be great fun, and I wouldn't want to remove the possibility of that. Or perhaps that counts as a secret benefit?

[debo]

Dammit you guys, I was supposed to record my Sil 1.0.2 throne-room video tonight... now you've forced me to make a very difficult decision!!

These changes look awesome!! Some things are missing that I expected (cruel blow / etc having effects dependent on proportion of HP damage inflicted, Morgoth getting some more significant abilities), and a lot of things were added that I didn't know were in the works. Very excited!!

I also spoiled myself and checked out artefacts.txt and monsters.txt... cool stuff!!! Several new flags that I don't recognize.

[debo]

I'm very interested to see how the charge nerf affects the early game... heavy weapons are uncommon in the first few floors, so the +3 str part of the effect might not really assert itself until the deeper depths. I also won't be able to use Charge as a crutch for my stealth-stabbers in the first 700'

It seems like bruiser characters took a bit more of a hit in this release than stabbers, or even archers.

Also -- I remember some discussion of longbows being changed from 1d9 to 2dx -- was this tested and discarded, or is it still on the (ever-growing) chopping block?

[Patashu]

I like the sound of all these changes except...


...

Hmm...

I can't remember which one it was I didn't like! So I guess I like them all after all

Can't wait to play again!

[debo]

Ah... I spoke too soon. Charge is actually really neat now -- the +3 dex means your weapon gets better at what it does when charging. So +3 to DEX with light weapons means that you'll get better criticals (more dice), whereas +3 to STR with heavy weapons means you'll get more sides. Interesting. Charge might actually still be very useful for my stabby types -- more useful than it was previously, in fact.

Enough theorycrafting

[HugoVirtuoso]

I noticed that v1.1 underscores the importance of Identifying items, more_so_than_in_v1.0.x. During the journey of my third v1.1 character, three special items caused an Oathwraith to show up at 450ft, a record! Fortunately, I survived and, of course, picked up Lore-Master well_in_advance and tossed out the three offending *Dangerous* equipment afterwards. I'll let everyone figure what new *Dangers* lie within the new special_equipment_items.

Speaking of Charging, although it has some nice touches, it's not as strong as before, in my opinion. I doesn't have the double-dice damage. I realized this when charging a Giant multiple times... :/

[clouded]

Ah... I spoke too soon. Charge is actually really neat now -- the +3 dex means your weapon gets better at what it does when charging. So +3 to DEX with light weapons means that you'll get better criticals (more dice), whereas +3 to STR with heavy weapons means you'll get more sides. Interesting. Charge might actually still be very useful for my stabby types -- more useful than it was previously, in fact.

Enough theorycrafting

I didn't actually get to test that, but in 1.0.2 charging at something didn't give you the assassination strike, I'm not sure if it's changed. If you have focused attack it's always going to be better than +3 anyway I'd think.

Congratulations on the new release, I'll mention this around ##crawl and hopefully bring some new players.

[HugoVirtuoso]

In case the players didn't know, lanterns *do* stack in v1.1. I wanted to point this out.

[debo]

Question -- why do we still have tridents AND spears? They seem exactly the same to me? This is not a criticism, it's actually something I've been wondering about for a while. Tridents are just a bit heavier, IIRC.

[debo]

I didn't actually get to test that, but in 1.0.2 charging at something didn't give you the assassination strike, I'm not sure if it's changed. If you have focused attack it's always going to be better than +3 anyway I'd think.

Congratulations on the new release, I'll mention this around ##crawl and hopefully bring some new players.

I just meant that in the early game, when assassination still sucks, I can potentially do good damage with charge and a light weapon. Alternately, I can use assassination to get the first hit off, and then switch to charge if needed -- +3 is quite a big help in the first half of the game.

[WaveMotion]

Question -- why do we still have tridents AND spears? They seem exactly the same to me? This is not a criticism, it's actually something I've been wondering about for a while. Tridents are just a bit heavier, IIRC.

Tridents have a [+1]. And (as of 1.1) their weight helps you get the most out of Charge. Admittedly tridents are still not the best weapon to charge with.

I guess tridents are better to throw if your strength is greater than 6. This is also a marginal concern.

Ah... I spoke too soon. Charge is actually really neat now -- the +3 dex means your weapon gets better at what it does when charging. So +3 to DEX with light weapons means that you'll get better criticals (more dice), whereas +3 to STR with heavy weapons means you'll get more sides. Interesting. Charge might actually still be very useful for my stabby types -- more useful than it was previously, in fact.

Enough theorycrafting

The +3 dex is probably more useful for mitigating the melee penalty on whatever huge (your strength + 3)*(1.0 or 1.5)-pound weapon you are using. All in all Charge now seems more explicitly geared toward heavy weapon users than for light weapon users, and significantly less great for both in comparison to previous versions. This is a good thing—now interesting tactical alternatives like Polearms or Focused Attack no longer have to compete with something that doubled your damage output.