Sil 1.1

[debo]

I thought an easy interim fix might just be to have Morgoth get progressively more 'enraged' as he takes damage. Perhaps at level 1, his damage and evasion could increase, at L2 he gets a speed boost, etc. This would let chars who are just trying to steal a Sil have the "normal" experience, while providing a bit more challenge for those dead-set on killing him.

I do think that for newer players who are just trying to steal the Sil, Morgoth is at an appropriate level of difficulty right now. I.e. Dangerous but approachable.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

No; we did wonder about chances for weapon breaking a few years back, but I think you'll be glad to know we decided that might be a bit too frustrating.

I playtested and removed breaking weapons in Halls of Mist. I still think it would be fun if you could risk your melee weapon to do some sort of desperate super attacks.

Play Kamband if you like breaking weapons! Kamband's defining idea is that all objects will break eventually. Your hero is important, not the stuff he carries.

[Scatha]

As seen in my videos, I pretty much stop killing things past 600' unless there are easy-to-pick off stragglers. This is because I fear running out of arrows. A melee character does not need to worry about running out of sword

No; we did wonder about chances for weapon breaking a few years back, but I think you'll be glad to know we decided that might be a bit too frustrating.

[Scatha]

We know a few ways to deal with making Morgoth more powerful. In the future, he will have a few songs he can sing which will make him more powerful in an appropriate way (rather than just super hitpoints). In particular, this would be a form of distance attack, where he currently has none.

With the current mechanics we could give him the ability to entrance:

Then Húrin answered, Hithlum's chieftan --
his shining eyes with sheen of fire
in wrath were redenned: 'O ruinous one,
by fear unfettered I have fought thee long,
nor dread thee now, nor they demon salves,
fiends and phantoms, thou foe of Gods!'
His dark tresses, drenched and tangled,
that fell o'er his face he flung backward,
in the eye he looked of the evil Lord --
since that day of dread to dare his glance
has no mortal Man had might of soul.
There the mind of Húrin in a mist of dark
neath gaze unfathomed groped and foundered,
yet his heart yielded not nor his haughty pride.

However there are already a lot of deep enemies with that ability (dragons; Gorthaur); additionally it might just be too nasty as you will likely then be hit for about 7d10.

Perhaps he could have a slowing gaze, which also seems to fit the flavour of "groped and foundered"? We underuse slowing as a monster ability at the moment, as it is an interesting negative status effect but there is only one enemy with such an attack. I'm also unsure of the value of quick changes to improve gameplay versus leaving the status quo until we make an eventual change that we're very happy with.

[debo]

A larger question though, is whether late game archery is balanced in general. Is killing Morgoth (quite easily!) indicative of super archers roaming the depths with unprecedented control and safety, or is it the case that they are good in certain cases (say, against a lone Great Fire Drake at long range), but are bad in other cases (turning a corner to find Vallach adjacent). If the latter, then this is more a Morgoth issue than an Archery issue, which would be worth knowing.

As seen in my videos, I pretty much stop killing things past 600' unless there are easy-to-pick off stragglers. This is because I fear running out of arrows. A melee character does not need to worry about running out of sword

[Scatha]

Rapid fire gives you twice the shots but each shot is fired as if you had 3 less strength and dexterity. The strength penalty in particular is a big one. However when facing Morgoth (or other tough foes), you can buff with !Str and !Dex (+3 to both stats) to overcome this and just turn off rapid fire at other times. On the other hand, if you are a smith you can easily boost your stats to compensate (at least in 1.02 anyway).

Of course this stops you getting the usual benefit from those stat potions or whatever else you were using to boost your stats.

That doesn't quite hold with Strength, where characters will often have a weapon which suits their Strength perfectly, and temporary boosts are unhelpful. In particular there aren't any super-heavy bows, so one advantage of Rapid Shot is that it gives you a way of getting value out of high Strength.

[Scatha]

One thing that I've noticed is that boosting perception is really good at 950ft. If Half or Scatha want to delete this no hard feeling...

Could you explain this?

[half]

I think the core problem with late game archery is that all the cool things about it (flaming arrows, sharpness, rapid firing, crippling shot) make your archery roughly twice as good - and most of them stack multiplicitly.

Part of the issue come from things like this. I should note that half of these are not quite multiplicative though. Flaming arrows is an extra 1dX, Sharpness depend on the monster protection, but is worth about 2d4 against Morgoth (or more with high Song). Rapid Fire and Crippling Shot are both roughly doublers though. Also, since there is protection in Sil, it can be that, say, adding your first 1d8 or so (Flaming Arrows, Poison, or Sharpness) might mean doubling the average net damage (damage after protection), even if it is less than doubling the raw damage.

I think the other main issue though is that archery during the main game is limited by the fact that you are quite vulnerable at range 1, and are adventuring through a dungeon with lots of tight corners (e.g. rooms and corridors are shorter than in V). It is also limited by the times you encounter enemies in groups, since you might be able to take out a lone enemy in four shots before it closes on you, but that is much harder with a group. I *think* that Crippling Shot is fairly well balanced in this context, as it typically takes a couple of shots before it works (for a non stealth archer) and by that time the enemy is quite close anyway. Flaming Arrows and Rapid Fire are of course also partly balanced by the extra arrow usage.

Against Morgoth though, there is only one of him, you can (sometimes) choose a location for battle and you don't care about wasting arrows.

We know a few ways to deal with making Morgoth more powerful. In the future, he will have a few songs he can sing which will make him more powerful in an appropriate way (rather than just super hitpoints). In particular, this would be a form of distance attack, where he currently has none. However we have other things to add for 1.2 and 1.3, so this more complex and appropriate fix will be waiting for some time. In the meantime, I suppose making him fire resistant and immune to Crippling Shot would do quite a lot.

A larger question though, is whether late game archery is balanced in general. Is killing Morgoth (quite easily!) indicative of super archers roaming the depths with unprecedented control and safety, or is it the case that they are good in certain cases (say, against a lone Great Fire Drake at long range), but are bad in other cases (turning a corner to find Vallach adjacent). If the latter, then this is more a Morgoth issue than an Archery issue, which would be worth knowing.

[Psi]

So could they stack additively instead? Rapid firing sounds like it's a problem (since presumably it's increasing your shot speed), but if you made each shot have only 75% normal force or something that might keep it from being overpowering in combination with other abilities.

Rapid fire gives you twice the shots but each shot is fired as if you had 3 less strength and dexterity. The strength penalty in particular is a big one. However when facing Morgoth (or other tough foes), you can buff with !Str and !Dex (+3 to both stats) to overcome this and just turn off rapid fire at other times. On the other hand, if you are a smith you can easily boost your stats to compensate (at least in 1.02 anyway).

[Fendell Orcbane]

One thing that I've noticed is that boosting perception is really good at 950ft. If Half or Scatha want to delete this no hard feeling...

[Derakon]

I think the core problem with late game archery is that all the cool things about it (flaming arrows, sharpness, rapid firing, crippling shot) make your archery roughly twice as good - and most of them stack multiplicitly. Clearly you'd be capped a lot sooner if, say, flaming/sharpness didn't stack and rapid firing/crippling shot didn't stack (e.g. rapid shots can't also be crippling shots and vice versa)

So could they stack additively instead? Rapid firing sounds like it's a problem (since presumably it's increasing your shot speed), but if you made each shot have only 75% normal force or something that might keep it from being overpowering in combination with other abilities.

[debo]

SO are you saying that you get more criticals from lighter weight bows?

Bow weight works the same way as weapon weight. Assuming no abilities taken yet,

#criticals = (attack roll - evasion roll) / (7 + bow weight)

(I assume it's the floor of that)

[Patashu]

I think the core problem with late game archery is that all the cool things about it (flaming arrows, sharpness, rapid firing, crippling shot) make your archery roughly twice as good - and most of them stack multiplicitly. Clearly you'd be capped a lot sooner if, say, flaming/sharpness didn't stack and rapid firing/crippling shot didn't stack (e.g. rapid shots can't also be crippling shots and vice versa)

[Fendell Orcbane]

Are they? They are obviously at their best for high strength archers, but I'm not sure they are better than shortbows for many of my archers, let alone the artefact bows. I think one of the five artefact bows (Celegorm's) is probably weaker in general, and the other four are competitive or typically better. You often get a lot of extra dice from criticals/poison/flaming arrows with archery, so having those sides or low weight is very useful.

SO are you saying that you get more criticals from lighter weight bows?

[half]

My main thought about potions of quickness is that they never last an entire fight. I don't care for them that much compared to stat potions, which last forever. Of course, I still use quickness in dangerous situations when I can.

Interesting. I find them better than the +3 stat potions.