Sil: What are your least liked features of Sil?

[taptap]

Wrong as in strange or wrong as in cheating? It is certainly part of the intended use of Controlled Retreat, so it isn't cheating/exploitative.

As in strange. I use controlled retreat as "space consuming quickness effect" - but often get little work out of the blocking, that I take to get there. Having no shield with my strong melee characters doesn't help either.

[half]

Is anyone actually doing this? I mean resting a turn and only attack with controlled retreat? I like controlled retreat, but I never would bring myself to rest and retreat. It just feels wrong.

Wrong as in strange or wrong as in cheating? It is certainly part of the intended use of Controlled Retreat, so it isn't cheating/exploitative.

[taptap]

Also, Focused attack and Controlled Retreat. Be well protected, and do loads of free damage when you move.

Is anyone actually doing this? I mean resting a turn and only attack with controlled retreat? I like controlled retreat, but I never would bring myself to rest and retreat. It just feels wrong.

[Philip]

Also, Focused attack and Controlled Retreat. Be well protected, and do loads of free damage when you move.

[taptap]

Double block rolls for shields when you don't move? How can you ever do any damage or escape then?

... and ranged attacks regardless of movement!

[half]

Thanks for the bug report!

[debo]

Speaking of throwing weapons, can we make sure the 'melee brands' (e.g. things that aren't gondolin, doriath, or nargothrond) get removed from them in the next version? Esp. the cursed ones, they have some weird effects.

I just found a stack of three (+1,2d4) {special} throwing axes, so I wield-id'ed one. It stuck, I have curse-breaking so I took it off. (I also have lore-keeper.) Then I had:

2 throwing axes (vampiric) (+1,2d4) {cursed}
a throwing axe (vampiric) (+1,2d4) {uncursed}

So I thought, ok I 'll just wield the other two and break their curses also so they'll stack. Now I have

2 throwing axes (vampiric) (+1,2d4)
a throwing axe (vampiric) (+1,2d4) {uncursed}

I suspect that uncursed throwing axe will never stack with anything ever again I can't seem to hand-edit the {uncursed} part of the inscription myself.

Beyond the stacking issue, you can also throw cursed weapons without invoking the sticky curse, which is sort of odd...

[BlueFish]

Sharpness will be nerfed? That is news to me.

I think half has mentioned something about toning it down and making it feel less mandatory.

However, I doubt sharpness will be nerfed to a point where it forces you to high strength play, that many different builds are viable is the main strength of Sil and I don't see half changing that. Most likely there will be a slightly more difficult sharpness song with a slightly smaller sharpness effect, i.e. you may end with 35% where you had 27% now.

Hopefully the song skill requirement will go down rather than up. It's a bad combo currently with it being so important to many builds and yet so high up the song tree that you have to be a partial "song" build to take it. Reducing its effectiveness (even as it scales with Song) and lowering the song requirement would seem to work well, IMO. Sharpness starts out at 50% protection reduction for normal amounts of grace and the requisite 10 song. It could start out at 20% reduction and still be quite useful - turning 5d4 prot into 4d4. But maybe they have more substantial changes in mind, I don't know.

[taptap]

This will become more important in the next version presumably after they nerf "song of sharpness", which reduces enemy protection and basically makes strength as underpowered as you say.

Sharpness will be nerfed? That is news to me. However, I doubt sharpness will be nerfed to a point where it forces you to high strength play, that many different builds are viable is the main strength of Sil and I don't see half changing that. Most likely there will be a slightly more difficult sharpness song with a slightly smaller sharpness effect, i.e. you may end with 35% where you had 27% now.

Anyone who believes strength is underpowered at the moment is invited to play 0 or -1 strength fighters. It is possible, but a pain until you get subtlety. And yes, quite a few enemies resist critical hits.

[Derakon]

I'm hard pressed to come up with historical precedents of lone people wandering the hills and forests and caves and killing things while wearing martial armour and weaponry of any sort whatsoever (e.g. mail, shields, swords?), so I don't see that as a very fair challenge for anything to be able to meet. I wouldn't be shocked if many (all?) types of throwing weapons are anachronistic, but I haven't encountered strong evidence either way.

I think you're right in that adventurers, ronin, wandering lone mercenaries, and the like were vanishingly rare at best. If nothing else, society tends to frown on dangerous armed people who have nobody taking responsibility for their actions.

As for throwing weapons, Roman throwing darts are pretty well-documented. I'm not so familiar with the javelins myself. Usually when I think of javelins, I think of launching them with an atlatl, but I suppose that javelin-throwing as practiced in the Olympics presumably has some basis in ancient martial arts. Similarly, there's documented evidence of e.g. early man taking part in a mass stoning of a herd of baboons, but usually when you think of throwing rocks in a martial context, you think of using a sling.

In short, while thrown weapons can be effective, launched weapons tend to be vastly more so. The increase in leverage translates to an increase in velocity and thus capacity to cause damage.

[BlueFish]

Also I find the abilities quite beginner unfriendly, although I'm not really sure if that's a problem or not. I guess a lot of them are really useful when you know how to use them, but I find it difficult to see how for a lot of them. Double block rolls for shields when you don't move? How can you ever do any damage or escape then? Or they will work well with other abilities that you can't afford to get for ages (eg. I imagine that Dodge and Flank work well together, but I've not managed to get that far). Also the pre-requisites have a similar problem in that you have to take less useful (to my eyes anyway) abilities before taking the one you actually want. It also reduces flexibility.

Yeah there are a lot of really cool synergies. But at my medium-experienced level of play I'm still hard pressed to find many of the more complex 'tactical' ones useful as compared to the simple ones like Power (adds damage) or charge or sprinting (adds speed). Then again there can be a difference between fun and useful, and you can always play the "easy" race if you're struggling to survive with a fun set of skills to play around with.

Is strength underpowered? It's probably just the fact that I don't know the game well enough, but it just seems to buff damage a bit as its main function. Whereas dexterity helps you hit stuff, helps you evade, increases stealth and also increases damage through more critical hits. And it unlocks a load of abilities. Another nerf to strength seems to be the way heavier weapons are less likely to score a critical hit. You'd think that the weight and power of a hit could cause a critical through shear force as it tears through armour or breaks bones.

It's probably not underpowered if you use a heavy 3 die weapon. It'll add 1.5 average damage per strength point in that case. That may not sound like a huge amount but with the way protection works, by subtracting itself from damage, your net average damage can be pretty low against high protection enemies, and that 1.5 extra can increase average damage by a large percent.

This will become more important in the next version presumably after they nerf "song of sharpness", which reduces enemy protection and basically makes strength as underpowered as you say.

[half]

Not exactly realistic, but a good compromise to keep the item count low.

That's right. You need to do a certain amount of abstraction when designing a game. My general view on throwing weapons in Sil is that I'm not too fussed by them being in the game or not. Some people like to have them and would accuse the game of being unrealistic if you couldn't throw things, others accuse it of being unrealistic if you can, most don't really mind much either way. I definitely wouldn't want throwing weapons to be too powerful since it is very difficult to get a good interface for them and it would be bad if everyone was best off using something that is not that representative of the era depicted and has a somewhat haphazard interface.

I will say though, that I'm not sure whether throwing weapons were only used in formations. Obviously that is where most of the evidence is but that would be true regardless as most killing with dedicated weapons presumably happens in war. I'm hard pressed to come up with historical precedents of lone people wandering the hills and forests and caves and killing things while wearing martial armour and weaponry of any sort whatsoever (e.g. mail, shields, swords?), so I don't see that as a very fair challenge for anything to be able to meet. I wouldn't be shocked if many (all?) types of throwing weapons are anachronistic, but I haven't encountered strong evidence either way.

[taptap]

I'm a bit off topic here, but...

For both the franks and romans, these throwing weapons were used en masse before the army entered melee, as a way to disorient the enemy army and make their shields hard to use.

I doubt anyone carried a stack of javelins or axes around, it would've been too heavy. I can't think of any accounts of people carrying more than 2. And they were never a general purpose weapon, just something to begin a battle with.

...

This is all to say, "throwing weapons" as they are in Sil are mostly just a fantasy thing.

En masse and to break formations is the most important point in my opinion. Hard to do this in a single-player game like Sil. Otherwise Sil is pretty close with only a few spears / throwing axes that can be useful in certain situations (early spiders, giants, dragons) but no way for sustained combat. Personally, I always hold on to a few spears in early and midgame with non archery, melee builds.

But the Romans knew lighter javelins than a pilum as far as I know (that were more specialized throwing weapons). I believe debo is right, that overspecialization in throwable spears would damage feel and gameplay in Sil. In a way the amazing carrying capacity without encumbrance in Sil makes spears a cross between a real spear in melee and a light javelin when throwing. Not exactly realistic, but a good compromise to keep the item count low.

[evilmike]

Throwing weapons - I also have a little bit of a problem with these conceptually (have there been any fighters in real life that throw axes about instead of holding them? Imagine carrying a load of axes about just to throw once each.) and without a quiver type slot for them they are too much hassle to use. Dunno this is probably just me again. I wouldn't suggest adding a quiver for them though as that would seem even more odd

I'm a bit off topic here, but...

The Franks famously used throwing axes, although as far as I know, each soldier only carried one or two. I can't think of anyone else who used throwing axes, except maybe some native Americans in the eastern USA (they used tomahawks, but I think those were more of a general purpose axe). The Roman legions threw javelins before engaging in melee, each soldier carried two. For both the franks and romans, these throwing weapons were used en masse before the army entered melee, as a way to disorient the enemy army and make their shields hard to use.

I doubt anyone carried a stack of javelins or axes around, it would've been too heavy. I can't think of any accounts of people carrying more than 2. And they were never a general purpose weapon, just something to begin a battle with.

In the case of daggers I don't think specialized throwing daggers were ever a thing for actual military/combat uses. More like, you'd throw your dagger as an improvised projectile if it actually made sense to. Carrying a whole bunch of daggers around would be impractical.

I'd guess darts would be the most common thrown weapon in history but even then, it made sense to use them with a sling. Neither of which exist in sil.

This is all to say, "throwing weapons" as they are in Sil are mostly just a fantasy thing.

[MarvinPA]

UI wise I don't like having to hit * to see anything in my inventory etc. and keep pressing escape to clear messages all the time which brings up the menu. And you have to pick up stuff to see how much it weighs. Would also be nice to have Angband style information about how much damage on average a weapon does or armour absorbs when you examine it.

There's an option to automatically display those lists, "Automatically display drop-down lists", and one to clear -more- prompts with any key (are those really both not true by default?). The weight thing annoyed me too so I patched it to make weight always visible.

Not being able to read about all the possible item types as a new player was a huge pain for me as well. An awkward work-around is to start a separate game and use your starting experience to get Lore-Master, and check out the items on the item knowledge screen (~). Ideally you'd just always be able to view item knowledge though (I partially implemented this, but didn't figure out how to display full item descriptions without leaking identification information yet).