Sil: What are your least liked features of Sil?

[Infinitum]

The way the Sil system ties simple mechanics to simulation is beautiful and should not be changed under any circumstances. Besides, the early game is chancy enough without making early armor even more important than it currently is.

As for items only providing positives "making you feel awesome" and "being good game design".. eh. To each his own I suppose; I quite like weighing pros and cons against eachother, and having a naked player character as the baseline makes more sense than an arbitrary maximumally cumbersome armor or whatever.

[intently]

The way the Sil system ties simple mechanics to simulation is beautiful and should not be changed under any circumstances. Besides, the early game is chancy enough without making early armor even more important than it currently is.

As for items only providing positives "making you feel awesome" and "being good game design".. eh. To each his own I suppose; I quite like weighing pros and cons against eachother, and having a naked player character as the baseline makes more sense than an arbitrary maximumally cumbersome armor or whatever.

Sure, I can see how these design choices make sense for the Sil player community. And I understand that the goal is to make a game that "some people love", rather than "lots of people like".

But there's a reason that most games don't have gear and abilities with lots of penalties to balance against each other

[taptap]

My overall point is that it is less fun to trade off penalties than to trade off bonuses. I'd rather choose between [+2,1d4] and [+0,2d5] than between [-1,1d4] and [-3,2d5], even though the choices are functionally equivalent.

Why is it more fun to gain melee and evasion by wearing rags instead of being naked? I simply do not understand this. I really try, but how is that related to any kind of fun? It actively removes choices from the game - no point in staying away from the awkward great helm or the gauntlets with melee penalty anymore, the first armour is always an upgrade then.

D&D derived games usually have no armour penalties, because evasion and armour is represented by the same abstract number "armour class" - so you can't really model a trade off with that. That these systems are so common is not due to superior design, but due to path dependency (just like qwerty-keyboards).

[intently]

Why is it more fun to gain melee and evasion by wearing rags instead of being naked? I simply do not understand this. I really try, but how is that related to any kind of fun? It actively removes choices from the game - no point in staying away from the awkward great helm or the gauntlets with melee penalty anymore, the first armour is always an upgrade then.

I agree, it doesn't make sense that rags would be better than being naked. If one were inclined to pursue this direction of modification, it would make sense to give an explicit evasion and to-hit bonus for naked characters.

[Philip]

But that's just inflation. You'd have to make every effect that query's evasion or attack stronger and you'd be almost exactly where you started, except suddenly characters have 5500 HP (I'm looking at you, void-diving TOME). There might be a slight personal effect, but it's just not worth rebalncing around.

[wobbly]

I'm with taptap & Infinitum on this one. I find the penalty to evasion representing the weight of armour aesthetically pleasing & the fact that Sil doesn't go the whole cool! MEGA BONUS STUFF path one of it's major attractions.

I played TOME 4 a bit & while it's a great fun game, having thousands of hp and doing hundreds of damage points wore thin on me. The day Sil starts having SUPER HIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (ok, ok it does have criticals!!!) & FEEL GOOD BONUS!!!!. YOU ARE A SUPERHERO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! MEGA MOVE!!! WOW!!! kind of stuff is the day it loses it's charm for me.

Ok, I'll stop being silly now & just say, I prefer it the way it is now. I know you don't really mean it the way I've put it above, just exaggerating for emphasis.

[intently]

Ok, I'll stop being silly now & just say, I prefer it the way it is now. I know you don't really mean it the way I've put it above, just exaggerating for emphasis.

I shouldn't have tried to recommend a "fix", but should instead have left my "least liked feature" to stand on its own

[locus]

I think it would be a good idea for robes to provide +1 Evasion to make them equivalent with cloaks. You would not need to give rags +1 Evasion: in this manner, you could make robes actually better than rags, which they currently are not and it's sort of silly.

[T-Mick]

For what it's worth, using a robe or cloak to conceal your exact body position is a legitimate and historical technique in duels, and would be a good justification to give robes +1 evasion.

[wobbly]

I shouldn't have tried to recommend a "fix", but should instead have left my "least liked feature" to stand on its own

Nah, that would of been a shame. Maybe just ignore my comment, I think I was a little sleep deprived when I wrote that.

+1 on robes is kind of interesting, I don't think I've ever used them. Would make robes of permanence a little more enticing.

[half]

While I prefer the current system and the way that the bonuses and penalties are simulationist (while still being simple and fun mechanically), I do see where intently is coming from. Sometimes two different ways of framing the exact same gameplay can have different fun levels. It can actually be easy to forget this as a game designer, so it is useful when people point it out.

I'm not averse to [+1] for robes. I suppose my only problem with it is that it is a bit odd to get a bonus if you are also wearing a cloak (which almost everyone is).

[skadefryd]

Adding something like 1d1 protection makes more sense to me, personally––it's not redundant with a cloak, and it's easy to see how a thick robe might offer some padding against minor hits or scrapes.

[HallucinationMushroom]

If it's a hot elf maiden I'm all for robes giving +1 grace.

[one-eyed]

Greetings, everyone. First post here, so I'll preface it with two (perhaps way too long) introductory disclaimers, which you are free to skip.

#1: Concerning Roguelikes: I'm quite new to the genre, having only played a little of some of the commercial and less roguish ones. That said, Sil is my first roguelike proper and I haven't even finished it once. I'm currently reaching 500ft with consistency (always playing Noldor), but I've never got past 650ft yet.

#2: Concerning Tolkien: And here lies at least one of the reasons why Sil, of all other roguelikes, was my choice for getting into proper roguelikes. The Silmarillion is currently the last book I've read, but I'm still studying it. I'm currently reading the '07 publication of the Children of Húrin, but I've been trying to learn as much as possible about the First Age of Arda (and only after that will I read the Ring Trilogy).

@half: First of all, congratulations, for IMHO, your game is great. The mechanics are well thought out and the way you've handled the setting is nigh spotless, perhaps the major achievement of Sil. Besides that, I very much look up to the way you handle development and how you communicate in the forums.

Now here are some of my critiques of a game that I want to see become the best it can be. I very much trust that half will make the right calls on what to change, so here is just some feedback that may or may not help at all in the development of Sil (and that most likely has been brought up by someone else before).

#1: Having never been a fan of inventory systems in most RPGs, I'm usually quick to complain about them. The way light sources with different number of charges occupy individual slots seems like an interface consequence more than a conscious design decision and I'd argue the same in regards to potions and arrows (stacking up to 99). Although I do see the benefits of a inventory management system, I don't think the way potions, light sources and arrow stacks work right now is nowhere on par with the rest of the game.

#2: I believe the ID system favors Perception in a way that unbalances builds a little (again, disclaimer for limited experience with the game). Not only is Perception already very useful for a handful of different things (and has very useful Abilities throughout), but the way you get 100 experience per item ID makes it hard to come up with an argument against picking Lore-Master every game. The ability itself, I'd argue, is invaluable and the experience investment will quickly pay for itself. Perhaps giving it diminishing returns like the way experience is earned for encountering and killing monsters might offset this a little or maybe moving it into Smithing, which would arguably still makes sense theme-wise.

[intently]

#1: Having never been a fan of inventory systems in most RPGs, I'm usually quick to complain about them. ...

Amen. Obviously Sil inherited the inventory system from Angband, and Angband inherited its system from Rogue (or whatever), but the system is inelegant and annoying. I'm sure it was selected for ease of programming way back when, but it would be awesome if someone could conceive of a better inventory system. For every game ever.

#2: I believe the ID system favors Perception in a way that unbalances builds a little (again, disclaimer for limited experience with the game).

Yeah, Lore-master is too awesome. I'm not a fan of the ID-minigame in general though.