Sil: What are your least liked features of Sil?

[BlueFish]

Maybe for us veteran Angbanders it is harder than usual to treat dungeon levels as something more than an abstraction. People used to other roguelikes treat dungeon levels with more respect.

Can you be more specific? I know persistent dungeon roguelikes like Nethack would make no sense with "preserve". But the design differences between persistent dungeons and effectively infinite and non-persistent dungeons are pretty clear. I think it unfairly minimizes the importance of "preserve" as a design consideration to chalk it up to arbitrary culture based on what you're used to.

I remain convinced that a preserve=off mode serves designers more than players.

[Derakon]

What do you mean by "serves designers more than players"? The designers are trying to make a fun game. The players want to have fun when playing. Their goals are not exactly opposed to each other.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Can you be more specific? I know persistent dungeon roguelikes like Nethack would make no sense with "preserve". But the design differences between persistent dungeons and effectively infinite and non-persistent dungeons are pretty clear. I think it unfairly minimizes the importance of "preserve" as a design consideration to chalk it up to arbitrary culture based on what you're used to.

I remain convinced that a preserve=off mode serves designers more than players.

Philosophically, I'd intuitively side with you on this, but I can accept half's and Scatha's point of view, also. My take on it: generated dungeon levels and any objects on them are much more "real" in Sil than the vast infinity of dungeon levels that the RNG is potentially able to create.

If you choose not to explore a level, there will be consequences. Skipping a level is a wasted opportunity. Sil is not really about infinite dungeons in the same way as Angband is. (I thought Sil was Angband with a time limit, originally, but turns out it is something else.)

Gameplay-wise I just accepted that switching levels prematurely is supposed to have a little cost in Sil. I guess that will impact my playing, but I'm not sure whether the impact will be positive or negative. I'll have to actually play the game a lot more to find out.

[locus]

Level feelings are the worst, most gamey nonsense. Definitely don't want them in Sil.

I dunno how "realistic" it is that artifact generation density goes down over time, but if it has good gameplay effects it has good gameplay effects. The only issue I can see is that excessive level-generation artificially reduces artifact density because you'll create a bunch of artifacts and drive up the artifact counter. Maybe fighting stair abuse is all to the good but it seems bad to do it with opaque mechanics.

[decoy]

I'd like to say in response to people complaining about Lore-Master that it's only the existence of Lore-Master that keeps me from listing "the ID minigame" among my least liked features of Sil.

Yes, I absolutely love being able to spend experience to "opt out" of the "ID minigame." Not my idea of fun, so I appreciate the ability to opt out after a few hundred feet.

My least-liked feature is the randomness of the lower levels. I've had amazing games where the difference between an amazingly fun game and yet another corpse at 300' was one lucky find of a nice weapon or lantern or something. I realize that if it were easier, the winner-board would be even more overrun than it already is, but I do end up effectively "throwing away" probably dozens of characters for every decent run.

EDIT: whoops, I meant upper levels, not lower levels. Early levels is perhaps more clear.

[BlueFish]

What do you mean by "serves designers more than players"? The designers are trying to make a fun game. The players want to have fun when playing. Their goals are not exactly opposed to each other.

No, but they can be subtly opposed. As every programmer butts their head against a few hundred times in their lives, an elegant "design" doesn't necessarily translate to the best user experience.

[taptap]

No, but they can be subtly opposed. As every programmer butts their head against a few hundred times in their lives, an elegant "design" doesn't necessarily translate to the best user experience.

I really would be careful what I wish for - when the changes you propose lead to wildkhaine, clouded, hm etc. to win with 15 artefacts a little too often, the result will be more likely a generally increased rarity of artefacts. The system should allow you and me to find enough to get by but prevent the few from finding too much at the same time.

For this discussion: Artefact creation depends on depth as well as far as I know, so all questions of principle aside the likelihood of finding artefacts goes up as I go down, whether I miss a few unrevealed artefacts or not. Skipping floors early / midgame might lead to missing a few artefacts but it gives you more time to spend to in deeper depth where you find more. It is imo more completionism than actual experienced scarcity of artefacts because of "not fully exploring" floors that leads to this argument.

Preserve ON even in the limited version would penalize the use of staffs of treasures as there is a premium on not revealing artefacts. General preserve ON takes the sting out of many fun situations where you try to lure enemies away even if you are too weak to handle them because they are sitting on or close to an item you want. Removing this experience would make pacifists, which I find currently very fun to play, dull - as you get a chance to find everything again as long as you explore more. This applies to a certain extent even to the limited version of preserve ON as you hear the enemies from afar with Listen (i.e. you get to decide before revealing any potential artefacts around and below them). Basically, pacifism would change from calculated risk taking, positioning, luring, strategic noise making to complete avoidance.

[BlueFish]

I've had it with purple molds. I'm going to take the one-time, short term hit of thinking I'm "cheating", and remove them permanently from my game. The builds I play don't find the early game easy. The flat percentage chance that your character will be hobbled by one at 150 or 200 feet before you've found 2 radius light, and hundreds of feet before a likely means of restoring it, I'm just done with it. The early game is hard enough as it is.

[debo]

If you really hate them that much, and your builds tend to be heavy melee/evasion to start, something as simple as buying one less point of each and putting all the XP in Will can go a long way to resisting the drain when you do run into one.

[BlueFish]

I just lost a really promising and fun game to not realizing I was in a web.

I play with "automatically dismiss --more-- prompts" on. That is non-negotiable. I won't push the space bar 3 times per combat turn, that will never happen.

But it's very easy to not realize you're in a web in that case. And you can die to a spider who you normally expect to be able to easily beat. They're fast, and get 2 attacks per round. They can kill you from full health, with a little luck on their dice rolls.

There needs to be an override for certain situations in this game which gives you forced --more-- prompts. Getting caught in a web would be one of those situations. Falling into a pit would be another. Both situations reduce your character to an infant.

Another way to potentially deal with it would be to color your character a certain way if they're incapacitated. But that's not necessary since the alert system is already built in.

Boy, that was a fun and interesting game. I was playing a 2/1/5/4 nogrod master smith. Tiny melee and evasion and difficult to get going but I found an amulet of blessed realm at 100' and I decided to baby him. I was above min depth pretty much the whole game. I even missed the second forge because I was chased of its level by 12 orc warriors. Didn't find my second forge till 500 ft. Didn't even find 2 radius light source till 400 ft. But i was babying him and I made it through. Shortly before he died, I found a War Hammer of Hador's House, 6 lbs, -1 melee and 4d3 damage. That's an amazing weapon. Cost 43 at the smith. After I found it, I found a forge - next to which was +3 forge gloves. I built a set of gloves of strength. I was doing 4d10 damage. So much fun. What a rare game for this build.

[BlueFish]

Actually all that needs to happen is to add status text for webbing the same as the status text for stunning. I never miss "stunned" status because it's right there at the bottom of my screen. Please add this, half and Scatha.

[debo]

Shortly before he died, I found a War Hammer of Hador's House, 6 lbs, -1 melee and 4d3 damage.

:O

Would have been a fun ~3lb weapon with finesse and momentum

[Patashu]

Actually all that needs to happen is to add status text for webbing the same as the status text for stunning. I never miss "stunned" status because it's right there at the bottom of my screen. Please add this, half and Scatha.

I like this idea a lot. What about also adding 'Unaware' if you attacked or were attacked by a monster you cannot see on your previous turn? After all, it's just as significant a penalty as 'Webbed'.

[half]

Actually all that needs to happen is to add status text for webbing the same as the status text for stunning. I never miss "stunned" status because it's right there at the bottom of my screen. Please add this, half and Scatha.

Good idea. I've added it in the development version.

[BlueFish]

Good idea. I've added it in the development version.

Thanks, half. Glad he didn't die in vain.