Sil: What are your least liked features of Sil?

[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

[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.

[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.

[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]

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]

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.

[debo]

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

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

[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...

[wobbly]

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

[wobbly]

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).

If you do end up changing the key binding there is a stupid one I do. I hit "l" to look at something & it clears the -more- prompt. Then I press the arrow key & it attacks something or moves somewhere stupid. I occasionally lose characters this way. I know it's my own stupid fault but I doubt I'm the only one.

[debo]

If you do end up changing the key binding there is a stupid one I do. I hit "l" to look at something & it clears the -more- prompt. Then I press the arrow key & it attacks something or moves somewhere stupid. I occasionally lose characters this way. I know it's my own stupid fault but I doubt I'm the only one.

Isn't there an option that forces you to use enter or some other cmd key to clear the more prompt? Or am I remembering things wrong?

FWIW this is why I use Esc to clear more prompts

[Nomad]

Isn't there an option that forces you to use enter or some other cmd key to clear the more prompt? Or am I remembering things wrong?

FWIW this is why I use Esc to clear more prompts

Same here. I think Angband has or had the option to only clear -more- prompts with spacebar, but I also play Nethack, where spacebar is the "rest for one turn and let all the adjacent monsters have a free hit" button. Escape is the only key that's guaranteed not to be linked to any in-game action in any roguelike that I play.

So now that I've found that option for switching off the Escape menu I'm a much happier player!

[clouded]

I dislike how a player using subwindows is afforded more information on a given turn than one without subwindows. Yes, it's fine for this information to be more easily available, but to me it's unacceptable to have subwindows give an advantage like this. Examples:

If a player is carrying an unknown special weapon in their pack, they will be able to see the glyph glowing should they be using the inventory subwindow. A player not using this will need to spend a turn to throw this item or equip it in the dark in order to see this. Solution is to show the glyphs in the 'i' screen like the subwindow.

If a player steps on top of a weapon, using the inventory subwindow they can see its weight. Without this window they must pick it up and look in their inventory (probably also having to drop an item first), this can equate to taking 3 or 4 more turns than with subwindows! Solution is to either show the weight of an item when you examine it, or a much better would be to show a message like: "You see here: A Longsword (+0,2d5) 2.4 lb." This would be an enormous reduction of hassle for those without subwindows.

And obviously the most significant: Combat rolls are completely hidden without the subwindow. Adding these to messages would be sort of crazy with the one line message area (though an option would be nice...). At the least, you should be able to bring up the combat roll log as you can the message history, it is probably more important after all.

[WaveMotion]

I've groused enough about Mewlip amnesia on this forum, but I'd like to go on record in this thread that I still consider amnesia the single most annoying, unfun feature of the game. I won't try to claim again that I can write down the whole map whenever I encounter a Mewlip (admittedly that was a stupid argument) but I can still say that in a year of playing Sil I've never run into a situation where I felt I was in danger due to amnesia—at least violet molds do your character actual harm.

[fph]

I also play Nethack, where spacebar is the "rest for one turn and let all the adjacent monsters have a free hit" button. Escape is the only key that's guaranteed not to be linked to any in-game action in any roguelike that I play!

Nethack has an option to disable rest-on-space. Actually, wikihack says about it:

There is an option to rest when space is pressed, but this is not considered desirable.

I'd suggest *not* to change the current behaviour in Sil; esc is a rather standard key to bring up a menu.