Sil: What are your least liked features of Sil?

[emulord]

I guess the problem is "ironman" has clearly defined rules. unmentioned invisible descent clocks do not.
I was like "no I want to go up, why do all the stairs crumble? >.<"
"Ok i died because the game wouldnt let me do what I want!"
"Oh thats a design feature"

Maybe it lets you < but says "The guardians of angband are aware of your presence in this area" and all enemies are awake and more numerous / deeper.

It doesnt make ingame sense right now, and clearing the same dungeon level never made sense for me in vanilla because logically they should get a army of dragons/balrogs and go kill you.

[taptap]

Throwing weapons once more. Played around with them a bit and am a bit unhappy with their current state.

Throwing axes lost a lot of power with the changes to the STR bonus system, daggers lost only 1 point, throwing axes went from 2d7 (with STR 3) to 2d5, spears are more or less the same unless you are really strong. Momentum is not only very high in the skill tree, it is also quite useless for chars of middling strength otherwise.

The other problem is the inventory nightmare. I would love to have a quiver type of equipment, but doubt it will happen. It is good that they don't vary in weight like other equipment but even the different fine items have attack bonus, damage bonus or attack+damage bonus and all these combined with different slays makes it possible to have a dozen different slots used up only by one throwing weapon type. Unless I am lucky to find 4 of a special-type I end up throwing away the good weapons just to keep the larger stack. The consolidation of the slays to Nargothrond / Gondolin / Doriath was probably already made partly for this reason.

Would it be possible to consolidate the fine items for throwing types in a similar way. Say instead of having -1, 1d10 and +0, 1d9 spears, +1, 2d4 and +0, 2d5 axes only one type of improvement for a throwing weapon with a single improvement, say damage sides are always the first improvement, second improvement goes to attack bonus (they are simulating what is possible with artistry aren't they?). This would already help a lot, you could hold on fine items with a more reasonable hope to build a stack of them.

[BlueFish]

Perhaps if you're above the "mindepth" There is a message that says "This area looks boring. The treasures of Angband are found deeper" and forges/artifacts/(food/torches??) stop dropping.

I've mentioned before that Sil, without a time limit, would be much easier than vanilla, and would need to be entirely re-balanced. This may be slightly obscure from most players, but I think they'd notice it soon enough if the time limit was removed. Even with such a restriction as you propose. Healing consumables are very important and unless you restricted those too, such a design would not make the rationally cautious player dive before they were "ready" (i.e. impervious). At some point you open up a playstyle which is doomed to failure - a player cowering at a depth which is, by definition, incapable of allowing them to progress in the game.

As Half alluded to earlier, divesting vanilla Angband of its core conflict - that of the human player's boredom vs their desire to win - opens up lots of roguelike gameplay goodness. Even if it also opens up lots of sentiment to close that right back up.

[BlueFish]

Okay, fair enough. I admit to not having a strong feel for how the time limit affects gameplay, since I still haven't tried the game yet. Sorry guys!

That's hilarious.

[BlueFish]

99.9% of players would choose the absolute more lenient time limit, because you don't care about score until you win regularly.
Once you do care about score, you're good enough to be able to play quicker than the toughest time limit, so the time limit choice is irrelevant to you expect 'I pick the one that gives me more points'.
I think this is not the correct approach.

I agree. Score is essentially meaningless in roguelikes but for those who compete on public ladders. An insignificantly small percentage of players.

The combination of the time limit and the smaller dungeon (in breadth and depth) squeezes out more roguelike gameplay goodness that, in vanilla Angband, only exists for players experienced, skillful, and masochistic enough to play Ironman by choice. In vanilla, ironman, for all its cultural cache, doesn't appeal to many, because it's so frustrating, compared to the gameplay they're accustomed to, while they learned the game. (Which was already hard!)

The shorter playtime of Sil makes its enforced "ironman" style of play acceptable to most rogelike players, I think. Certainly, such a concept could never work in a new game which must be learned from scratch, and which had the breadth and depth and playtime of vanilla. The simplicity of Sil allows it to contain things that more complicated games cannot.

[Patashu]

Okay, fair enough. I admit to not having a strong feel for how the time limit affects gameplay, since I still haven't tried the game yet. Sorry guys!

Darn it, get around to playing Sil!

Perhaps if you're above the "mindepth" There is a message that says "This area looks boring. The treasures of Angband are found deeper" and forges/artifacts/(food/torches??) stop dropping.

How is this not mechanically equivalent to the forced descent clock?

[emulord]

Forges (including enchanted and the artifact forge) and artifacts can be generated any time you reload a level, making scumming until you have a full set of artifacts optimal play if there is no clock.

Perhaps if you're above the "mindepth" There is a message that says "This area looks boring. The treasures of Angband are found deeper" and forges/artifacts/(food/torches??) stop dropping.

[Derakon]

Okay, fair enough. I admit to not having a strong feel for how the time limit affects gameplay, since I still haven't tried the game yet. Sorry guys!

[Patashu]

Perhaps the player could select from a range of time limits at the beginning of the game, then? And of course these would impact their score. So you could have a leisurely time limit, then the current limit, and then a strict one.

99.9% of players would choose the absolute more lenient time limit, because you don't care about score until you win regularly.
Once you do care about score, you're good enough to be able to play quicker than the toughest time limit, so the time limit choice is irrelevant to you expect 'I pick the one that gives me more points'.
I think this is not the correct approach.

[Derakon]

Perhaps the player could select from a range of time limits at the beginning of the game, then? And of course these would impact their score. So you could have a leisurely time limit, then the current limit, and then a strict one.

[Patashu]

However, you still have weight limits, reasonable drop limits, and exp limits. The last one is not true in Angband, so theres less "oh I should wait to dive til i can get a new spell" incentive. Plus you can still run into purple molds, worm masses, situations to kill you, etc. Grinding forever is not the optimum strategy and any roguelike player worth his salt knows that.

I don't want to scum forever, I just want to not be forced quite as quickly while I'm learning the game.

Forges (including enchanted and the artifact forge) and artifacts can be generated any time you reload a level, making scumming until you have a full set of artifacts optimal play if there is no clock.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

The roguelike Alphaman had a great clock for that. The Grinch was going to release a nerve toxin in a week, so you had to stop him before that time.

Larn was probably the first roguelike with a time limit like this. You had to find a cure potion for your ailing daughter. Larn is one of my all-time favorite games.

[emulord]

If there is no descent clock then reloading a level indefinitely will keep getting you more food, more light, etc. allowing you to sustain yourself, and more equipment, more artifacts, more consumables, etc. giving you an incentive to scum forever. We're back in Angband territory.

However, you still have weight limits, reasonable drop limits, and exp limits. The last one is not true in Angband, so theres less "oh I should wait to dive til i can get a new spell" incentive. Plus you can still run into purple molds, worm masses, situations to kill you, etc. Grinding forever is not the optimum strategy and any roguelike player worth his salt knows that.

I don't want to scum forever, I just want to not be forced quite as quickly while I'm learning the game.

[emulord]

This could tie in with why we are trying to get the Silmaril anyway. We need to fetch yon Silmaril to win fair maiden, or light up our bedroom to read, or something... but if it isn't accomplished by x amount of turns, then it doesn't matter anyway.

The roguelike Alphaman had a great clock for that. The Grinch was going to release a nerve toxin in a week, so you had to stop him before that time.
There was also a food and sleep clock, which tended not to matter as much.

[taptap]

I like a somewhat abstract mechanism to force descent. The other way that occurs to me would be downstairs only - which I admire as a challenge - but I am not able to achieve that and it doesn't work well for different builds (singers when the only corridor is blocked by molds)... imo the standard approach of people not socialized into grinding is most likely scout / clear a floor and go down, but not do it, go up, go down, do it again there might be something useful here, do it once more, who would voluntarily do that?

New curse messages: Like it for gloves of treachery or fury / vampiric weapons (items with a kind of benefit) but the -1 dex ring?