Sil: What are your least liked features of Sil?

[wobbly]

A minor one: When you run (. direction) you don't move the right way to maintain sprinting.

[debo]

Question: Why is there variance in the number of torches you start with? It seems to vary between 2 and 3 (in inventory). This just seems... silly, lol, all your other starting conditions are more or less fixed (even the # of uses at the 100' forge now). I've honestly just started startscumming to make sure I get a 3 torch character...

[debo]

Ah, thank you! Had no idea that was there.

I keep forgetting to use this in my videos!!!!!

[Nomad]

Many people prefer this the other way around (i.e. Escape over Enter), and Escape is more typical for brining up menus. However, I think there is still an option to disable escape for the menu (and use 'm' instead).

Ah, thank you! Had no idea that was there.

[half]

After playing the latest version for a couple of weeks, I've realised that my least-liked feature, silly as it is, is the fact that the Escape key brings up a menu. I habitually use the Escape key to clear -more- prompts, since that's what I'm used to doing in Angband, and I keep bringing up that bloody menu every time. Would definitely prefer it if the menu was activated with the Enter key like in Vanilla instead.

Many people prefer this the other way around (i.e. Escape over Enter), and Escape is more typical for brining up menus. However, I think there is still an option to disable escape for the menu (and use 'm' instead).

[Nomad]

After playing the latest version for a couple of weeks, I've realised that my least-liked feature, silly as it is, is the fact that the Escape key brings up a menu. I habitually use the Escape key to clear -more- prompts, since that's what I'm used to doing in Angband, and I keep bringing up that bloody menu every time. Would definitely prefer it if the menu was activated with the Enter key like in Vanilla instead.

[half]

Thanks for the ideas everyone. This thread has worked perfectly. I'm looking forward to when I next have time to fix some of these longstanding gripes.

[clouded]

I hear a lot of complaints about the hjklyubn keyset. Having to use ctrl on certain movement keys for unrelated commands is very awkward and it also prevents ctrl+dir from being "interact in this direction" which is a very natural and convenient thing. It would be easy to unify the two keysets, there are only a few overlapping commands.

l -> x (same as crawl and angband)
L -> W (same as angband)
x -> I (same as angband)
u -> a (same as brogue(?))
a -> A
b -> remove
T -> remove

Neither bash nor tunnel commands are necessary when you can ctrl+dir in that direction to do it.

Edit: I forgot about the destroy command. I think it should go too, it is only used in a single place which could use ',' which interacts with whatever is under you.

[debo]

Also, this is a little on the "maybe whiney" side, but have you ever thought of toning down the kemenrauko melee damage a little? +11 means they'll still hit pretty often, and their earthquake gimmick + high defense + dig through walls is already pretty impressive. They usually create situations where you are insta-surrounded by digging around your corridor, which means you're fighting with an evasion penalty, and hitting for 4d8 is pretty crazy.

Ringrauko and Ururauko seem pretty one-trick-pony, in comparison. If you have evasion that is worth anything, and you remember that they're dangerous, you can stomp either of them with impunity, even if they do hit way hard.

Hithrauko are still my favorite So annoying to get hallucinated at that depth.

OK, that's all the Sil I have in me for a while o/ lol

[debo]

Hmmn, interesting comments on the ascension. There are some parts I really like -- the gates are SO COOL, for example. But I think I'd enjoy it a lot more if every upstair was an up shaft. Generally after I've beaten the throne room, I want to win the whole game. Climbing 20 floors + crumbling stairs can take a REALLY long time though, especially since you feel like you've "won" already.

I didn't realize shadow bats moved faster than shadow spiders. In any case, I still think you're wrong If you have light radius 1 or 2 and a shadow spider sights you from a hallway, it's on top of you before you really know what's happening. You can 'run' and try to take advantage of the territorial thing, but if it gets one blinding hit in good luck trying to take advantage of territory. At least shadow bats move erratically. I actually like the bats as a monster.

[clouded]

I'm not sure what you mean about not being able to run from shadow spiders, they have the same territorial behavior as the other spiders. Shadow bats blinding you would be much more annoying to me, maybe they wouldn't be able to kill you (I don't even know what melee they have to be honest) but now you would have an even faster monster with even higher evasion that you can't shake off blinding you. If anything, I'd like to remove shadow bats, they don't particularly add anything and that way you know all of the things around 500ft that emit darkness are going to be something nasty.

On the topic of the thread, a few things came up for me when I played again recently too.

Firstly, the way monsters are displayed as "an enemy" when you are examining them while raging. It's a pointless bit of interface screwing, since it is easily bypassed by recalling when examining them (of course, the correct thing here is being able to see what things are always, not restricting recalling or something silly).

Secondly, the ascension. I've complained about it before and even complained about it in this thread a little, but I'm going to mention it again because I really get sick of it. It puts far too much emphasis on having certain skills and items, especially revelations and drastically increases in difficulty and length if you don't have them. I don't particularly like ascensions in any roguelike I've played, I appreciate the feature of Angband that you can just quit the turn you kill Morgoth and say "finally I don't have to play this anymore".

[debo]

b) I've noticed a weird pattern with most of my games.. I was trying to figure out why the game suddenly becomes so difficult at 600', and I think I've found the answer.

For the first 500', I rarely meet monsters out of depth. Maybe 50'-100', sure. But as soon as I hit 550' or 600', I almost always have to be prepared to face the next 300' of levels all at once, because there are often rooms that house VERY out-of-depth monsters. I've had many games where I fight greater werewolves long before I see a single vanilla one.

I never used to notice this before, because I often played stealth characters and could sneak around things.

This isn't really so much a complaint -- I don't mind it all that badly -- as it is a question -- did you guys really intend for the game to play this way? I imagine the monster depths were supposed to progress fairly evenly, but because "interesting room" probability goes up with depth, you are frequently going to be meeting out-of-depth monsters at deeper depths. So that begs the question -- are monster depth levels really that meaningful past 600'? Is this an accidental "interaction" of two features, or did you sort of see it working this way?

It might be interesting (or perhaps not) if out-of-depth monsters could somehow be confined to their "special rooms". The wandering monsters in this game generally have no qualms about opening doors to special rooms and letting everything leak out if you make the slightest bit of noise I dunno. This is more of a ramble than a complaint

Actually you know those special rooms with warding symbols trapping a monster in them? That could be neat trick to use more often... that way if I peek inside a special room and see, say, Fingon hiding in a corner surrounded by monsters 200' out of depth, I can _choose_ taking the risk to go in there and fight them, instead of having the choice made for me...

[debo]

OK, I was on a trip recently with a long flight, and I killed about 30 Feanor artistry starts 4/3/3/3 (which I now call the "beefcake build")

I have two comments:

a) I really hate shadow spiders. Seriously. They are not fun anymore. I think it would be way more interesting if shadow BATS could blind you, because 1) gorcrows did that a few floors ago, so I can sort of see the pattern, 2) it would be more a case of other monsters having to be around to kill you, rather than the bat doing it.

I frequently have characters with a lamp and inner light who fight a shadow-spider 1-1 when they can SEE it and still basically almost die to it most of the time. And you can't even run. I get so sick of meeting these damn things.

I think it would be a lot more fair if the blindess thing moved to the bats. I'd even like shadow spiders to have speed nerfed, but that is probably going too far.

There is no other spider in the game that I'm really afraid of. The next ones in sequence are basically a joke compared to shadow spiders -- at least you can run from the other ones if you can't see them.

The difficulty curve with spiders in general is sort of weird. Sword spiders are very dangerous. Distended spiders... sometimes, but really they're sort of pushovery. Shadow spiders are off the scale. I can't even really distinguish between the next two types (gorgoroth and ancient) because usually I just roll over them.

[taptap]

Careless is a relative term, but I lose CON to violet molds at least 40% of my games, in the early-game. With one-radius light, they're unavoidable in corridors. Definitely qualify as my least liked feature of Sil so far. But I love and appreciate Sil and I'll keep slogging on with my stealth melee @ commanded by an unfortunately unobservant and careless captain of the keyboard.

Well, I usually spend a few points in will and play with quite high grace and I like perception (keen senses) too - you want listen anyway sooner or later if you are playing stealth build.

[BlueFish]

I don't share the feelings of some regarding violet molds either. Violet molds are so rare now, that even with my careless play I rarely lose constitution to them anymore.

Careless is a relative term, but I lose CON to violet molds at least 40% of my games, in the early-game. With one-radius light, they're unavoidable in corridors. Definitely qualify as my least liked feature of Sil so far. But I love and appreciate Sil and I'll keep slogging on with my stealth melee @ commanded by an unfortunately unobservant and careless captain of the keyboard.