Sil: What are your least liked features of Sil?

[HallucinationMushroom]

This is a little like the post I made in the concepts thread, where I give my character a set amount of xp using debug commands, but he never uses any more. It is a lot of fun, but understandably breaks the opening game, which can lead to breaking the rest of the game if you build your character in such and such a way. I play this now and again with 45,000xp, which is a lot, even though compared to the 80,000+ you usually get by the end it's not as much. It's a lot of fun, and a challenge if you put your points in less than optimal ways, which is fun too. Maybe try monkeying with it, make some of your own edits to the idea?

I could ramble on and on about the 'why' I did this, but to boil it down, since so much is stripped out already... hp gain, low magic, general numbers mechanics... why not push it further and remove xp as well?

[taptap]

I wonder how a Sil would work were you start with 20k XP but all XP in the dungeon is effectively halved. When I got deep I always had the feeling that the beginning was tough but at a certain point I can blast away everything. Sure enough, a single misstep can kill even then - and it usually does. Be it
cats or any other easily underestimated opponent. Just sometimes it feels I spend a disproportionate time dodging around orc archers and running away from sword spiders (which is in a way good so the game is a challenge all the time), but troll guards I can take down in two moves.

[Patashu]

If you need a real timer for Sil, you can always use the excellent WSplit that speedrunning streamers use. Make a split for reaching each depth and try to set real time records, maybe It even has a built-in reset counter, to track your resets!

[HallucinationMushroom]

Kind of similar to that, I've almost asked about adding a clock about 20 times, then decided against requesting said clock. I don't want there to be an implied hurry-the-hell-up tool, but, I've often thought it would be really cool to know exactly how much time I'm dumping into Sil. You could then scrape it for me Debo with your webscraper! I know Heng/Entro has a clock, and some other short variant... Xband, or tiny, I forget which. Edit: Tiny

[debo]

You read the messages? I'm too busy staring at the left side of the screen at my hp. Change the walls of the special rooms to blood red or something? Make all shrooms yellow and orange and pink? Make all uniques multi_color. There you go, all good. And ugly. Damn I'm feeling snarky today. I love you guys.

That reminds me of something I wanted to put in the challenge thread -- play a game where you're not allowed to take more than e.g. 1 second to make any move lol

"speed sil"

I got the idea from watching your throne room video

[HallucinationMushroom]

If the game had told me I was somewhere special, I probably would have stayed

You read the messages? I'm too busy staring at the left side of the screen at my hp. Change the walls of the special rooms to blood red or something? Make all shrooms yellow and orange and pink? Make all uniques multi_color. There you go, all good. And ugly. Damn I'm feeling snarky today. I love you guys.

[debo]

The , for herbs blends in with the . on my screen causing me to often miss them.

SO MUCH THIS. Dark-shaded small items in general are terribly hard to see, but the , is so close to the . of the dungeon floor that I miss them constantly.

Exchanging between 2-hnd & 1-hnd + shield is convenient 1 way but not the other. I end up doing this quite a bit if I say, have a weapon of doriath & of gondolin. Perhaps keep the shield in it's slot & just disable it when wielding a 2-hnder? (or if you just fired a bow). I seem to remember at least 1 variant just changes the shield slot to a on-back slot when wielding a double hander.

This is even worse with 2-weapon fighting -- I constantly trip over that prompt that says "wield in your off-hand? [y/N]".

[debo]

This reminds me -- this would probably be a pain to implement, but if you go back in my chardump history you'll see a lot of comments written _after_ i've perused my notes like "OMG I FOUND FINGON AND I DIDN'T REALIZE?!?!?!"

When the game detects that you've discovered an artefact with Loremaster, or that you've seen a unique coming, or that you've entered a special area (ESPECIALLY THIS ONE), it would be nice to have a thematic message and possibly a prompt so that you realize it.

Like "you feel a chill as you remember Ulfang the Black from blarhgoutofwordsalready"

When I first started playing Sil, I would routinely find places on 800'-950' that seemed really dangerous, and would bail out of them, only to discover later that it was the Chambers of Thu, or Glaurung's Hoard, or whatever. If the game had told me I was somewhere special, I probably would have stayed

Even something as simple as duplicating the message that already goes into your notes and flashing it at the top of the screen would be badass.

[wobbly]

Not so much a least liked as much as a couple of interface requests:

The , for herbs blends in with the . on my screen causing me to often miss them.

Exchanging between 2-hnd & 1-hnd + shield is convenient 1 way but not the other. I end up doing this quite a bit if I say, have a weapon of doriath & of gondolin. Perhaps keep the shield in it's slot & just disable it when wielding a 2-hnder? (or if you just fired a bow). I seem to remember at least 1 variant just changes the shield slot to a on-back slot when wielding a double hander.

Being able to access the manual in game would also be a bonus.

[taptap]

I don't think there's anything so explicit (like there is for crowns, robes, and sceptres). But mithril items do have better base stats than regular items. The difficulty is higher, but only around as much as it would cost to get that bonus on a fine item regularly (I think normally about a point less, but I can't remember). If you try to stack that particular bonus -- for instance you want a sword with high accuracy -- then the increasing costs for the same kind of bonus mean that you're noticeably better beginning with a mithril base.

Is that what you meant?

I believe I was looking up high end armor with a certain set of enchantments (sustain most stats, 1-2 resistances) and stats (low penalties) both in mithril and normal once and recognized the mithril one being a few points less difficult. I have no way to check it now.

If this isn't true, I apologize and would like to register this as an idea

[Scatha]

Afair: You start at a higher difficulty, but the difficulty increase per enchantment is less than with normal metal, so for really complicated artifacts you end up with lower difficulty.

I don't think there's anything so explicit (like there is for crowns, robes, and sceptres). But mithril items do have better base stats than regular items. The difficulty is higher, but only around as much as it would cost to get that bonus on a fine item regularly (I think normally about a point less, but I can't remember). If you try to stack that particular bonus -- for instance you want a sword with high accuracy -- then the increasing costs for the same kind of bonus mean that you're noticeably better beginning with a mithril base.

Is that what you meant?

[Psi]

Wow... never thought I have news for the player who made so many winning smithing chars.

Afair: You start at a higher difficulty, but the difficulty increase per enchantment is less than with normal metal, so for really complicated artifacts you end up with lower difficulty.

Fascinating - thanks for the info.

[taptap]

Anyone...?

Wow... never thought I have news for the player who made so many winning smithing chars.

Afair: You start at a higher difficulty, but the difficulty increase per enchantment is less than with normal metal, so for really complicated artifacts you end up with lower difficulty.

P.S. Turns out this was all wrong. Misunderstanding resulting from taking Mitril Corslet as base and comparing to equal stats non-Mithril item.

[Psi]

I never knew that! How does it make enchanting easier?

Anyone...?

[fph]

Not daring to pick up things in certain rooms is quite common whenever I try a stealthy character...

Let me add one point to your excellent list of subtle things in which Loremaster gives you an edge: risk-taking. If you see an un-ID'd amulet in a vault close to a red D, you are tempted to try and run for it (either killing the dragon or using stealth). If you knew from the beginning that it's a constitution<-1>, you'd spare the risk.