Sil: What are your least liked features of Sil?

[Mikko Lehtinen]

In practice, I find this to be a nonissue as well, aside from the gnawing feeling that you're missing out on something.

OK! So this not the most important of game mechanics, but a minor mechanic discouraging going up and down repeatably, and maybe pushing you to map a bit more of each level before you descend. Which is not bad.

[wobbly]

This reminds me. I dislike single turn armour swaps. Sil's stealth system exasperates this, in that it can be tactically advantageous to sneak around in robes of stealth then change in to mail while an orc's wak-ing you with a large sword. I try to ignore the option, but it is damn tempting sometimes.

[debo]

Did I understand this right: exiting a dungeon level that I haven't mapped completely might reduce my chances to find artifacts later (not only the one that was on the level)? Does the game telegraph this to the player somehow? Sorry for repeating questions, but I'm not a Sil expert and I don't think these were answered in the thread.

I like artifacts getting stolen or destroyed.

The probability of an item generating as an artefact is based on the # of artefacts that have been generated in the past. So yes, if you dive past artefacts without finding them, it will hurt your chances of finding more later.

In practice, I find this to be a nonissue as well, aside from the gnawing feeling that you're missing out on something. Artefact rarity isn't exactly a problem in Sil, imo -- if anything, it's the opposite. It's pretty common for straight-up fighting winners to come out of the dungeon having found 8+ artefacts, if you look back at past dumps.

What might be entertaining is to be shown the list of artefacts generated in your game upon death -- imagine the delicious anguish of dying at 700' only to discover that Ringil had shown up on a floor that you dove past!

(Seriously, can we please have this as a feature? I mean it.)

[debo]

That sounds pretty good to me. I might be an outlier in this regard, though; for example I'm not certain that artefacts should all be immune to acid damage.

I actually assumed that artefacts _could_ be stolen. I think this is a pretty large nonissue either way, though -- the only times I've ever had artefacts at shallow enough depths for orc thieves, I can more or less guarantee that I was wielding them

Edit: Maybe some sort of cat thief is in order. A cat that is largely not dangerous but can steal artefacts or swaps from your inventory at 650'-700' could be fun!!

[debo]

Though whenever I kill a thief, he tends to drop a backpackfull of stuff, so I know he's been sweeping the level.

Just in case you didn't know this yet (I certainly didn't for a long time) -- if you examine an orc thief when they're in LOS, you actually get to see everything they're carrying

[wobbly]

I don't mind artifacts being destroyed, but it would bug me a lot if it created a situation were I was tempted to constantly un-equip items before a fight. This already annoys me with green worms. I can carry enough junk armour at that stage to swap in to before a green worm fight.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Did I understand this right: exiting a dungeon level that I haven't mapped completely might reduce my chances to find artifacts later (not only the one that was on the level)? Does the game telegraph this to the player somehow? Sorry for repeating questions, but I'm not a Sil expert and I don't think these were answered in the thread.

I like artifacts getting stolen or destroyed.

[AnonymousHero]

He also convinced me to get rid of Angband's tradition of saying that orcs can't pick up weapons of orc-slaying

WAT?!?! I never realized that this was the case, but a little code diving seems to confirm it... Assuming "rf_is_inter(m_ptr->race->flags, mon_flags)" means what I think it means.

[taptap]

That sounds pretty good to me. I might be an outlier in this regard, though; for example I'm not certain that artefacts should all be immune to acid damage.

I like the possibility to destroy artefacts. (I did even destroy Calris last time I saw it just for roleplaying reasons.) I like when artefacts can be stolen, although this will remain a very rare case of actually have unworn/unwielded artefacts when meeting orc thieves. I also believe it is clever for orcs to carry away orc slaying weapons (other orcs will be mightily impressed).

Acid damage to artefacts, however, would be truly awful. Yeah, the robe of Aredhel [-2] or the -3, -4 2d2 Corslet of Fingon - enjoy! It would make low perception play (resist status effects w/ will and acid with appropriate armour) much weaker. This wouldn't necessarily be a problem for me, but adding bottleneck skills everyone has to have isn't good.

I agree that is an interesting challenge, but in practice most items orc thieves pick up are out of the players LOS.

Spot on. I never had it with artefacts. But it is quite common that the early wooden chests which are quite common in this depth are carried away. On the other hand, if you manage to trail a orc thief with a stealthy char his behaviour can be quite telling. One of the few hints you get for IDing items apart from meta data such as the depth it was dropped first or actually consuming them.

[BlueFish]

3) not wanting to encourage strange tactics

I think this is the main reason for allowing artefacts to be lost. I had been roughly sticking to the Angband tradition and Scatha (with a fresh perspective) kept pointing out strange things this led to and convinced me to simplify things. For example, if (as in Angband) they can't be lost until identified, then there are sometimes strong reasons to not identify things you suspect to be artefacts. The major one is that given Sil makes artefacts less common the more you find, so you might try to deliberately not find the weak ones. I could remove this balancing factor, but I think that would be a much much bigger game balance change. The diminishing artefact finds actually smooths out two key things with artefacts. It makes people find a more regular number of them, and it lets people find weaker ones earlier without finding too many later.

Thanks for the explanation, half.

It's not obvious to me that "number of artifcats generated" maps so cleanly to "number of artifacts found". But it seems that that's the assumption of this mechanic. The propensity of a player to leave parts of levels unexplored (maybe they dive quickly, maybe they have to flee often, etc) would have a big influence on that. I'm fairly sure most of my deep-surviving characters leave more dungeon area unexplored than explored, due to a combination of wanting to dive quickly, and needing to flee levels. When you flee a level, it is often at the start, when monsters from every side converge. Which means the whole level remains unexplored and all artifacts on it are lost.

It seems that the odd tactics, which I agree would happen, aren't really a product of Preserve=off as much as they're a product of the RNG fudging based on number of artifacts already generated. Removing that and keeping preserve=on seems to me to be the simplest solution. Artifact generation chance could be tweaked then as necessary for balance.

4) allowing interesting non-lethal challenges

If an orc thief picks up a suspected artefact (or other great item) it creates an interesting short term challenge: can you stop them escaping? This involves unusual tactical challenges, is often possible with clever play, and is not that bad if you fail. Indeed it is more of a carrot challenge than a stick challenge -- a bit like having a mini quest that would give you a great item if you succeed and no penalty if you fail.

I agree that is an interesting challenge, but in practice most items orc thieves pick up are out of the players LOS. It's always a good idea to try to kill orc thieves, but this scenario where you're motivated to get that particular item is rare, from my experience. Though whenever I kill a thief, he tends to drop a backpackfull of stuff, so I know he's been sweeping the level.

Now that I see we still have the 'artefacts immune to theft' rule from Angband, I'm actually inclined to remove that and allow them to be stolen (if they are in your pack). There is only one (rare) type of monster that can do this. It appears quite early in the game when you probably only have a few artefacts. You can always just wear the artefact to prevent any loss, so I don't see a problem with this.

I'm a bit dubious about these "fun" sorts of attacks which are relegated to single monsters (mewlip maprot being the other). If they are truly fun and truly present interesting challenges, why make the mechanic disappear after the first 30 minutes of playtime?

[fph]

I also wonder if people would complain if we changed their names from 'artefacts' to 'very special items' if people would complain so much. I think people are just used to the behaviour of 'artifacts' in Angband, or think of them like 'artifacts' in D&D (which are much more powerful).

Many ARPG à la Diablo have "unique items"; the name would fit well here, too.

He also convinced me to get rid of Angband's tradition of saying that orcs can't pick up weapons of orc-slaying etc.: these are precisely the things that orcs would want to take away from you. c.f. the Troll's treasure containing Orcrist and Glamdring.

Change this behavior? Aaargh! Heretic! Don't you dare! It's always been like that, I love it, it's the best way to play and no one should question it!

Just kidding... I never noticed that orcs can't pick up weapons of slay orc; if it goes away it seems a good thing. It looks very nethack-ish.

[half]

I also wonder if people would complain if we changed their names from 'artefacts' to 'very special items' if people would complain so much. I think people are just used to the behaviour of 'artifacts' in Angband, or think of them like 'artifacts' in D&D (which are much more powerful).

"Oh, you're thinking of 'artifacts'! Sil just has 'artefacts'. They're much less powerful and like special items can get destroyed..."


PS

One of the things that Scatha was particularly unimpressed by when I told him about it, was that people could identify artifacts in Angband by trying to destroy them... He also convinced me to get rid of Angband's tradition of saying that orcs can't pick up weapons of orc-slaying etc.: these are precisely the things that orcs would want to take away from you. c.f. the Troll's treasure containing Orcrist and Glamdring.

[half]

That sounds pretty good to me. I might be an outlier in this regard, though; for example I'm not certain that artefacts should all be immune to acid damage.

Now we sound like teachers who, in response to someone's request to be regraded on question 3, have a closer look at question 2 and decide they had been overly generous rather than overly harsh...

I was thinking along the same lines though. I came to the conclusion that the acid damage in Sil is a bit random and hard to avoid. When it does happen, there is no going back (as opposed to when the thief starts running away and you need to drink the potion of quickness to beat him to the stairs!). Having worn artefacts get degraded and having them just disappear in the inventory are both pretty frustrating, so I'm OK with the liberal dose of IGNORE_ACID, IGNORE_FIRE that we hand out.

[Scatha]

Now that I see we still have the 'artefacts immune to theft' rule from Angband, I'm actually inclined to remove that and allow them to be stolen (if they are in your pack). There is only one (rare) type of monster that can do this. It appears quite early in the game when you probably only have a few artefacts. You can always just wear the artefact to prevent any loss, so I don't see a problem with this.

That sounds pretty good to me. I might be an outlier in this regard, though; for example I'm not certain that artefacts should all be immune to acid damage.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Thanks for the explanation!

We are particularly annoyed by things that are so unrealistic that they seem nonsensical. This doesn't come up here, but is a major reason why we have connected stairs.

Connected stairs leading to a completely different level is equally nonsensical to me, and leads to completely nonsensical gameplay in Angband. That's why I favour non-connected stairs there. In Sil connected stairs don't lead to nonsensical gameplay, so it fits better.

The major one is that given Sil makes artefacts less common the more you find, so you might try to deliberately not find the weak ones.

Does finding an artifact mean picking it up, seeing it, or being on the same dungeon level?

If the last one, then this mechanic leads to bad feelings now and then when the player descends without clearing the whole dungeon level. I would think twice before descending, and then usually do it anyway because of the other mechanics. But probably the other considerations have more weight.

I may copy this mechanic, maybe slightly tweaked, to Halls of Mist.