Sil 1.1

[Starhawk]

Weird. I had Loremaster and I only saw his melee attack listed. Which had me baffled about what was shooting my wonderful, artifact-toting death machine to pieces while I was trying to run to a corridor to do battle. It wasn't until I turned around (having realized I wasn't going to get away alive) and got within light radius that I saw the arrows coming from him. Went to check Just How Powerful they were (i.e. "how is he doing all that damage?") and didn't see any of the related numbers.

Ah well. What I wouldn't give for a stack of ?PhaseDoor. I love your game, but it is hard, hard, hard.

[half]

It would be cool if the Doorkeeper (and other arrow-shooting uniques) had their archery abilities listed in the monster memory. Ow, ow, ow.

These should already be in there. They certainly show up with Loremaster and a quick debug test suggests they appear as soon as you are hit with an arrow by one.

[Starhawk]

It would be cool if the Doorkeeper (and other arrow-shooting uniques) had their archery abilities listed in the monster memory. Ow, ow, ow.

[Patashu]

This whole present experience thing has taught me that I would be equally entertained by just opening up any roguelike, starting up debug-mode, and just creating random exceptional objects all day. I feel so shallow now.

Have you considered playing Diablo?

[Magnate]

This whole present experience thing has taught me that I would be equally entertained by just opening up any roguelike, starting up debug-mode, and just creating random exceptional objects all day. I feel so shallow now.

There's a space for you on the devteam ;-)

[HallucinationMushroom]

This whole present experience thing has taught me that I would be equally entertained by just opening up any roguelike, starting up debug-mode, and just creating random exceptional objects all day. I feel so shallow now.

[debo]

actually if memory serves he used to have this property, and we took it out (and gave his attack a boost) when we removed it from other monsters. We were thinking of letting him use the song of sharpness when monster abilities come in.

that is even cooler!!!!

[Scatha]

If this is the case, maybe it might be fun to give his melee attack a 'sharpness' effect? I know that there aren't any monsters that have this right now, and it might be too shocking to protection-based player to suddenly lose half their armor against a (+33, 2d8) attack, but I think it might do something to make him a bit less of a pushover at the depth he occurs.

Actually if memory serves he used to have this property, and we took it out (and gave his attack a boost) when we removed it from other monsters. We were thinking of letting him use the Song of Sharpness when monster abilities come in.

[debo]

I just read the Children of Húrin (fun read) and had a crazy idea: wasn't Maeglin supposed to be carrying Anguirel around at the time of his capture?

If this is the case, maybe it might be fun to give his melee attack a 'sharpness' effect? I know that there aren't any monsters that have this right now, and it might be too shocking to protection-based player to suddenly lose half their armor against a (+33, 2d8) attack, but I think it might do something to make him a bit less of a pushover at the depth he occurs.

It would be even cooler to give him Anguirel as a unique drop, but I don't like the idea of having a unique drop with sharpness on it

I had a bunch more jolts of inspiration while reading it, but this is the only one I remember haha

[Starhawk]

I would like to chime in and state that starting with a random gift has been fun for me, too. Like some of the others in this thread, it's forced me to look at builds outside my comfort zone.

And proof that artifacts don't make the game too easy: I just had a character start with a fantastic Greatsword gift, stumble over Fingon at 200' then fall through a crumbling floor into a room where Glamdring sat, unguarded, on the floor. And STILL managed to get corralled by a mob of Easterlings and plinked to death. The lack of escapes in this game is really brutal. Wish I'd taken Exchange Places.

[debo]

Interesting. Scatha and I had been looking forward to the present season and to see what people's reactions would be. They are put in as an Easter Egg as a reference to the old Mac game Dark Castle. I like time-based things of this kind.

We avoided having large game-changing random effects early on in the game to avoid start-scumming. I still think this was a good design decision, though I'm very glad to hear that the presents can also lead to good effects on gameplay (as well as just fun). The idea of having this as an unlockable optional mode as well as a time of year mode might well work. As I said, we'll think about it.

Well, ideally I'd be able to pick my starting present from a list rather than randomly getting one I'd really want this optional mode to be scored differently (or not at all) though, to make it clear that it's not "Sil proper" or something.

Anyhow, it was just an idea. I can always emulate it myself with wizard mode

[half]

This whole present thing has made me believe that the "start with a single artefact / cool item" mode would be a great mode / unlockable for Sil 1.2 (or whatever the version number will be).

Interesting. Scatha and I had been looking forward to the present season and to see what people's reactions would be. They are put in as an Easter Egg as a reference to the old Mac game Dark Castle. I like time-based things of this kind.

We avoided having large game-changing random effects early on in the game to avoid start-scumming. I still think this was a good design decision, though I'm very glad to hear that the presents can also lead to good effects on gameplay (as well as just fun). The idea of having this as an unlockable optional mode as well as a time of year mode might well work. As I said, we'll think about it.

[HugoVirtuoso]

The 'random' really plays into this and makes gameplay much more interesting, in my opinion.

My proposal for v1.2 or future versions:
The 'finely wrapped present' should be implemented AS A an aptly-named 'half and Scatha's Challenge mode' BIRTH OPTION, if possible, to generate automatically on the 2nd level the player enters, i.e., on the level when the first forge gets generated, BUT WITH the perma-triple-Sil curse, WHEN OPENED!

[WildKhaine]

Yep, have to agree. It's been a lot of fun messing around with different abilities and styles. Nice to start with a artefact and build around it.

[fph]

My thoughts exactly! This mode is great because it encourages you to adapt your playstyle to the objects you start with, instead of taking the same abilities over and over. It's fun.