ID: the game (tips and tricks)

[Scatha]

One natural alternative would be:

Rest for status change or until hitting a colour-change threshold (25%, 50%, 75%, 100%).

Then if you did want to rest for full health you could do that with -- at worst -- Z,Z,Z,Z. And it would add easy, natural breakpoints for people who wanted to rest up partially, as well as helping the player to think of doing this.

[HallucinationMushroom]

I have to concede that fully healing after every fight is silly... but I had simply just never thought about the rest-heal-time mechanic. It takes what looks 1/1000th of a second, so to me, it's an instantaneous thing. Since I don't value turncount, even with a game with a mindepth clock, I have no incentive to not fully heal.

With my Nethack example, earlier, I eventually just played wounded because it was so frustrating to wait around for forever. In a game like Sil, where everything strive to cut out a lot of bull, changing heal breakpoints would be a gentle nudge to morons like me. I wouldn't mind. I'd still just hit ShiftZZZZ. haha

[mrrstark]

What is the issue with high turn count? Since I don't often get past half way down, I'm not even clear what the disadvantage of just resting after every fight is.... food? light? score? morgoth gets more evil?

[clouded]

What is the issue with high turn count? Since I don't often get past half way down, I'm not even clear what the disadvantage of just resting after every fight is.... food? light? score? morgoth gets more evil?

It gives you less time to scum 950' for items and xp.

[half]

One natural alternative would be:

Rest for status change or until hitting a colour-change threshold (25%, 50%, 75%, 100%).

Then if you did want to rest for full health you could do that with -- at worst -- Z,Z,Z,Z. And it would add easy, natural breakpoints for people who wanted to rest up partially, as well as helping the player to think of doing this.

That's good. I can see why you design the game!

I'm still not sure about changing the default behaviour, but if I were to, this would be a likely option.

Another thing that occurs to me is actually making it take slightly longer in realtime to rest. I've already done this with running down corridors and think it improves the experience there. With resting it would provide a little more feedback that this is a tradeoff.

[debo]

This is sort of a dumb idea, but have you guys ever thought of rendering the turncount right on the main stats panel? I guess there's not a lot of room left there, but below where the monster health bar usually appears or something might work?

Even putting it next to the current depth or something might work -- as might rendering it as "turns spent on this floor".

[Derakon]

Even putting it next to the current depth or something might work -- as might rendering it as "turns spent on this floor".

Wouldn't "Turns until you must descend/cannot ascend" (possibly rendered as "turns remaining") be the most pertinent indicator? Since that's the main thing that the turn count is mechanically relevant for.

[debo]

Wouldn't "Turns until you must descend/cannot ascend" (possibly rendered as "turns remaining") be the most pertinent indicator? Since that's the main thing that the turn count is mechanically relevant for.

That works too Turncount also goes to total score, though!

[Derakon]

That works too Turncount also goes to total score, though!

Sure, but since the number will jump up whenever you take a staircase, it suffices (for the score-conscious) to maximize it no matter what.

If you want to check your total turns spent e.g. so you can compare against past performance, I'd say that's more of a character-sheet kind of thing.

[fph]

If you don't like breaking immersion with turncounts, another good idea could be changing the color of the depth-in-feet indicator: green means you still have lots of time to hang around at that depth, yellow for "hurry up", red when your time on the current depth is expired.

[Zireael]

If you don't like breaking immersion with turncounts, another good idea could be changing the color of the depth-in-feet indicator: green means you still have lots of time to hang around at that depth, yellow for "hurry up", red when your time on the current depth is expired.

This is a great idea, actually!

[debo]

Great idea but I wanted turncounts displayed just so you'd be aware that resting burns through turns like crazy If that color only changes for some macro # of turns, it won't help that much!

No reason we couldn't combine those things!

Now I feel bad for causing all this speculation with my bad idea haha

[locus]

The idea that diving 300' in over your head corresponds to the color dark green might not make intuitive sense, though. Red means danger, not "things are too easy".

[HallucinationMushroom]

The clock is a lie.

[taptap]

Sure, but since the number will jump up whenever you take a staircase, it suffices (for the score-conscious) to maximize it no matter what.

If you want to check your total turns spent e.g. so you can compare against past performance, I'd say that's more of a character-sheet kind of thing.

Turn-burning on stairs was changed with the last version as far as I know. (You really should play Sil already )

For me seeing the turncount on the main stats panel would be mainly useful to schedule actions when buffed up, say after 20 turns you should be prepared that quickness wears off, after 40 turns that the stat potion won't last longer. Especially with fast being shown at another place, I tend to overlook it when not explicitly looking for it. Some people said somewhere you could turn it on, but I never managed to do so.