Sil: What are your least liked features of Sil?

[Derakon]

If you still feel it is unbalanced, make it an ability that costs XP.

This kind of thing is always extremely tricky to balance compared to the current system, because suddenly the cost of carrying X is not "one inventory space and negligible weight", but merely "negligible weight". Let's say that the developers want the player to be able to carry 75% of the consumables that they would ideally have (and to make up the remainder through careful play and spending XP on abilities). Let's further say that they want the player to be able to carry a couple of swap pieces of gear. How many additional potions and herbs should you be allowed to carry by forgoing carrying an 8-pound jerkin? A 3-pound sword? I hope you can see how balancing this is difficult. Especially if the target weight for the consumables that the player "should be allowed to carry" is, say, 10 pounds. Potions and herbs don't weigh much, after all.

NetHack allows you to carry as much as you can handle based on your strength. But NetHack also implicitly assumes that you are making stashes of gear that you'll be returning to later (not to say that you must do this but it's very common); it also simply doesn't make many items available to the player.

The bottom line, though (in this and every other roguelike), is that you shouldn't be allowed to carry everything you want to carry. Items are there to let you be prepared for things, and you shouldn't be allowed to be prepared for everything.

[andrey]

Part of the game's balance is around the fact that you can't carry everything, even though there's so much good stuff you'd love to. Same for Brogue.

I agree with you, though I am not saying to remove the limit completely. There is still a burden limit. This will also make the Strength attribute more attractive.

If you still feel it is unbalanced, make it an ability that costs XP.

[locus]

Things that bother me about Sil:

1. Molds don't get marked on the map when you first encounter them. Every time I run into a violet mold in the dark, pass my will check, retreat, then accidentally run into the same violet mold again and fail my will check, I feel like going back to Crawl with its wonderful exclusion system.

2. Molds don't get a prompt "are you sure you want to move next to this mold and have your constitution drained" so if you are fighting a wolf or something and not being careful and it moves out of your way you can lose a point of constitution.

3. Forging is too random as to whether you'll ever find a second forge. I know you implemented a system that makes forges appear more regularly, but it seems like that only helps if you fully explore levels, which most of the rest of the game discourages you to do. And then enchanted/artifact forges make a huge difference depending on a die roll.

4. As an aesthetic matter, I'd prefer if items the player can ID by appearance such as Orcish Liquor, Miruvor, and most artifacts would just auto-ID, to remove a pointless part of the learning curve.

5. Song of Sharpness is too mandatory. Even non-combat characters need it to cut the Silmaril out of the crown if they don't find a sharpness weapon. And it's a huge investment for a character that might not otherwise even want to bother with Song.

6. The inventory rearranges itself such that I can't learn where my throwing weapons and healing potions are, I have to check every time.

[Patashu]

Is it possible to make an inventory bound only by weight and not by amount of things? I find myself constantly dropping good items, which is a bit annoying. We could add an ability that allows carrying more stuff.

Part of the game's balance is around the fact that you can't carry everything, even though there's so much good stuff you'd love to. Same for Brogue.

[Antoine]

Should the Naugrim get some innate fire resistance?

A.

[andrey]

Is it possible to make an inventory bound only by weight and not by amount of things? I find myself constantly dropping good items, which is a bit annoying. We could add an ability that allows carrying more stuff.

[bron]

One (extremely minor!) gripe I have is the the descriptions of some of the Abilities are too vague without any (to me) sensible reason for it. Now, I can understand if you don't want to drag out the gory details of exactly how, say, Knock Back works in the short Ability summary text. But I see no real reason for not explaining how, say, Heavy Armor Protection works. I mean, you do it for Hardiness after all.

So here are some abilities whose descriptions I think should be improved, and straw-man proposals for those descriptions:

Heavy Armor Use: Increases your protection by 1dX, where X is the weight of your armor in pounds, divided by 15 (rounded down).
[I should also interject here that the game should make it more clear that the "total weight" number shown on the Equipment screen is actually the total weight of the *armor* (only), not the total weight of the equipment.]

Poison Resistance: Opponents with a Poison Melee attack no longer get an extra die of damage. Does NOT offer additional protection against Poison Breath attacks.

Inner Light: Does not increase your light radius, but does add +1 to the light intensity in all squares within your current light radius.

Song of the Trees: Increases light level by 1 per 5 points of Song.

Song of Staying: Increases your Will by 1 point per 3 points of Song. Increases your protection by 1dX where X is Song / 3

[debo]

Does the strength bonus for Charge work correctly? According to the "combat rolls" window, I'm gtting the same number of sides to my damage rolls as I get without charge. The accuracy bonus from the dexterity bonus does seem to be applied though.

This is just a normal attack, using a long sword.

Damage sides are only applied if your weapon is heavy enough. You get 1 damage side per point of strength per pound of weapon weight.

If you have 2 strength and charge a monster with a 3lb 2d5 longsword, your effective strength is 5. But you're only wielding a 3lb sword, so you'll still only get 3 bonus damage sides (2d8).

(This changes when you buy momentum, but is otherwise now constant for all weapons.)

[BlueFish]

Does the strength bonus for Charge work correctly? According to the "combat rolls" window, I'm gtting the same number of sides to my damage rolls as I get without charge. The accuracy bonus from the dexterity bonus does seem to be applied though.

This is just a normal attack, using a long sword.

[Pete Mack]

The obvious alternative is to make all skill points come from the same source, so that any skill point makes others (slightly) more expensive, while skill points in the same branch still become significantly more expensive...

[Nomad]

The comment on many songs being expensive to take is spot-on I think. In my opinion the skills mechanic is the only one in the game which isn't perfectly thought-out and working like a Swiss clock. The fact that multiple skills on the same tree are more expensive discourages too much specialization. Often the characters end up looking very similar because, well, you should pick at least 1-2 skills from most groups since the first ones are almost free, and you can't pick too many of them because they quickly become too expensive.

On the other hand, I do not see an easy solution for this.

Maybe some sort of specialisation bonus? Like once you have, say, five skills from the same category, or more skills from one category than all the others put together, then further skills from that group could be reduced in cost.

Or even the option to pick a specialisation at character generation (although for balance purposes it should probably be set up so you don't get any benefit immediately, only when it comes to the cost of later skills).

[fph]

The comment on many songs being expensive to take is spot-on I think. In my opinion the skills mechanic is the only one in the game which isn't perfectly thought-out and working like a Swiss clock. The fact that multiple skills on the same tree are more expensive discourages too much specialization. Often the characters end up looking very similar because, well, you should pick at least 1-2 skills from most groups since the first ones are almost free, and you can't pick too many of them because they quickly become too expensive.

On the other hand, I do not see an easy solution for this.

[wobbly]

On the subject of worms, I find there tendency to spiral out of control so quickly a little frustrating. . Particularly clear worms. Lost a couple of promising characters when I tried to flee, only to find myself in a room full of clear worms. Possibly dropping their spawn rate or their perception (they don't seem like they should be paying as much attention as they do).

Perhaps a little more diversity in the early level monsters also, so repeat play of the 1st couple of levels is a little less dull & repetitive.

I too wouldn't mind seeing leather be a little more common early on, surely there's no need to have a level full of filthy rags & no leather. Maybe the early orc soldiers could have a chance to drop one, or a round shield?

Also agree on the comment earlier about songs being a little expensive if you wish to diversify. I find myself wondering whether to avoid useful early songs because of costs to later songs I might need.

[Cirion]

In terms of flavor, the monsters on the upper floors feel a bit generic. I can imagine seeing worms, molds, and so on in Angband, but they aren't particularly evocative of Tolkien. Once you get below about 200' or so, the mix is much more like what I would imagine encountering in the fortress.

I would dearly, dearly love to have just one or two more inventory slots. It doesn't seem like it would make a big difference, but I often feel like I need to pass up a useful backup weapon because I'm fully stocked on potions.

[debo]

A major factor behind equipment balancing is to make thematic choices and effective choices coincide.

Which is why I never would have brought it up unless specifically asked for negative feedback

Sceptres and Quarterstaves just aren't martial weapons, so shouldn't compare well for that. The image of an adventurer descending with a sceptre is an unusual one.

I can't remember offhand which egos appear on sceptres -- if they were all passive buffs of some kind (majesty, defiance, light, etc) then this would be fine, but pretty much the only one I've ever seen are vanilla ones (useless) or fire (also, largely useless). I would also personally like it if crowns and sceptres were basically guaranteed to roll with an ego attached, but that's probably asking too much. I guess having vanilla crowns and sceptres scattered about the dungeon is thematic, in a way

In a similar way, we don't think -- thematically -- that everyone should want to use the heaviest armour available. Hauberks and Kite Shields are deliberately at the top end of that.

I personally think these are fine. I also think that I only tend to use them when the melee penalty has been blunted by 1 or 2 b/c of the generation roll, but that's just me. Kite shields, in particular, are a godsend if you find them before archers show up, regardless of the melee penalty.

I should note that, compared to most people who seem to play this game, I am not a very clever player. I don't tend to find niche uses for things etc, I just sort of elbow my way through the game with stuff I think is cool. I'm guessing a lot of these equipment snags are just things I haven't put the energy into using yet because, in my mind, this Bigass Sword of Head Cleaving is just way simpler to use.