1.3 Wishlist Thread

[Infinitum]

Well, it's a slow day so I took time to reread some old threads and noticed that there really are quite a few good ideas/constructive criticism from the community scattered across the forum. However, one has to read through a lot of discussion to get to them, so I thought maybe just bring everything together in one thread instead? Also, I'm just plain curious in what direction people here prefer their roguelikes.

Now, in order to keep everything reasonably comprehensible maybe a gentle(wo)men's agreement is in order, hence:

THREAD RULES:

• List whatever you want to see included/excluded in the next Sil version, no matter how (un)likely it is that half/Scatha will actually take you up on it. Pet peeves and grievances encouraged!
• One post per user. Edit your post if you want to expand upon your list. This means no posting feedback or comments on eachothers list. Having an opening paragraph discussing stuff is fine, as is iterating other peoples list items as a show of support.
• Keep explanations reasonably short - quantity over quality is the name of the day here.

-------------------------------------------------------

Anyhow, my list:

• Mouse support.
• Remove the fuel clock.
  
• Remove the food clock.
  
• Remove or change non-canon vermin (ie worms, dragonflies, centipedes and molds).
  
• Change the chasm algorithm to not block off parts of the dungeon (if this means only encountering them in special rooms so be it).
  
• Either remove Leaping or combine it with a less situational ability.
  
• Remove Greatswords/Greataxes - they're not historically accurate, and the ability to combine any weapon with a shield hopefully adds some tactical considerations. Also, Greatswords are mostly just less versatile Bastard Swords.
  
• Do away with the dedicated Bow slot, alternatively require the player to spend a turn (and a keypress) swapping between the melee and ranged loadouts. At the moment bows are a nobrainer since they allow for free potshots whenever at no inventory cost.
  
• Have dedicated thrown weapons take up quiver slots (with a maximum of 10 per slot) instead of inventory space. Disallow throwing stuff directly from the backpack (throwing wielded weapons should still be ok though!). Merge the [T]hrow command with the [F/f]ire commands (launching whatever is in the corresponding quiver slot). Introduce javelins to replace spears as throwing weapons. Have all dedicated thrown weapons have the same weight for simplicity.
  
• Remove item destruction, acid degradation and theft since they encourage metagame behaviour (dropping valuable items prior to fights etc).
  
• Some people mentioned replacing Potions with herbs - I like this since there's precedent set for magical plants (Athelas) in the source material, and stuff growing undrground makes more sense than discarded magical brews. This would also free up the "!" glyph for..
  
• Words of Command! Maybe replace staffs and be functionally identical to scrolls with Will checks and Voice costs? I'll take anything as long as they're implemented somehow though..
  
• Alternatively, if replacing staffs with WoC and removing the food clock maybe use "!" for all consumables (including crude flasks of orcish liqour), "?" for words of power and "_" for horns? Would be somewhat more in line with what other roguelikes use for their potion, scroll and wand equivalents respectively (ok, so Horns would technically use the staff glyph but still).
  
• Alternatively alternatively, hot up the naming scheme for potions similar to how Horns were changed from [metal] trumpet? Even [adjective/material] flask would be a lot more evocative than the current [color] potion.
  
• Have a set number of forges per game somehow. Having forges being continously generated on certain floors until they are used maybe?
  
• Set all forges to 3 uses.
  
• More Smithable Mithril items! All metal items should have a Mithril counterpart (except maybe warhammers). Likewise, Being able to smelt and reforge Galvorn Armour would be neat.
  
• Move Horn production from Jewelry to Channeling, depending on Will instead of Smithing. Make Channeling characters able to craft Staves.
  
• Replace trapdoors with Alarm Traps+ that summons large amounts of monsters to the level instead ("You hear drums in the deep!").
  
• Have spotted nets be disableable like ordinary traps, using a strength/freedom check instead.
  
• Remove the Mewlip maprot.
  
• Make Trolls properly fear Trollbane characters.
  
• Make Dragonbane characters have an additional save versus breath attacks (1dx, where x is perception/4 or somesuch?).
  
• Change Ancalagon's glyph from "d" to "D".
  
• Introduce Gostir as a new unique dragon, perhaps as a hatchling and early Entrancer/Fearcauser?

  GOS-, GOTH- dread. .... Gostir 'dread glance', dragon-name [THE]

  It's unclear whether it's the name of an individual dragon which Tolkien intended to use, an alias for one of the named dragons or simply a nickname for the species as a whole. Still, it makes for an interesting unique.
• Scaring Morgoth makes him drop the crown. -

  [Fingolfin] passed over Dor-nu-Fauglith like a wind amid the dust, and all that beheld his onset fled in amaze, thinking that Orome himself was come: for a great madness of rage was upon him, so that his eyes shone like the eyes of the Valar. Thus he came alone to Angband's gates, and he sounded his horn, and smote once more upon the brazen doors, and challenged Morgoth to come forth to single combat. And Morgoth came.
  
  That was the last time in those wars that he passed the doors of his stronghold, and it is said that he took not the challenge willingly; for though his might was greatest of all things in this world, alone of the Valar he knew fear. But he could not now deny the challenge before the face of his captains; for the rocks rang with the shrill music of Fingolfin's horn, and his voice came keen and clear down into the depths of Angband; and Fingolfin named Morgoth craven, and lord of slaves. Therefore Morgoth came, climbing slowly from his subterranean throne, and the rumour of his feet was like thunder underground.

  tl;dr Morgoth is a sniveling cur* and deserves to be treated as such. Bonus points for making everything else in the throneroom go neutral in disgust should this happen. More importantly, it makes straight fear-based characters a somewhat more viable build.
  *whiny bitch

[Arseface]

EDIT- Woops, missed the rule bit.

I just want to be able to jump over Morgoth and pluck his crown with Leaping.

[HallucinationMushroom]

Want: Rfear on the Will tree, or somewhere.
Nerf?: Song of slaying too OP once song score hits teens. Perhaps a ceiling on bonus? If I can still kill Morgoth then something is wrong.

[bagori nd]

Things other people have said that I agree with:

(a) Require a turn to switch between melee and ranged loadouts. It would be both balanced and realistic. Whenever I take potshots right before or after melee attacks I feel like the Peter Jackson Legolas. Continue to allow thrown weapons to be used immediately, without the switch.
(b) Drop maprot. Let mewlips hallucinate instead, maybe.
(c) Nerf Song of Slaying. I think its power curve should be flatter overall: bigger bonuses earlier, lower later. Maybe Song skill could do more to stop it from degrading as fast.
(d) Change Ancalagon to a "D."
(e) Do something about Leaping.
(f) Words of power.
(g) Morgoth should ALWAYS survive for the ascent. If he is killable at all, it should be in a final fight to the death above ground, Fingolfin-style.


EQUIPMENT
- Robes should give [+1]; filthy rags could be "piecemeal armor" or something and give a point of protection. Useless-by-default item types annoy me.

- Buff Azaghal. Maybe it could have a Str or Con bonus, to make it a more interesting off-hand weapon.

- Emeldir is too awesome not to have an artefact of her own.

- Make most potions herbs. Remaining potions that are not Orcish Liquor should be rarer and do multiple things at once, a la potions of Miruvor. Example: Ent-draught! (Maybe combines !Healing and !Str.) Also tactically advantageous: do you use a potion when you could benefit from one of its effects, or all?


MONSTERS AND THE DUNGEON

- More monster abilities! Uniques with multiple abilities; more monster variants with different abilities. Orc gladiators with Blocking; Cat duelists with Controlled Retreat, etc.

- More tactical terrain! In a perfect impossible dreams-come-true world: cover, elevation, furniture, flame jets, etc.

- Fighting Morgoth to the death should be scary. The best way to facilitate this is if, again, Morgoth always flees the first time you "beat" him. If you make him flee and fight him again, he should come back stronger. There should always be a nontrivial chance that Morgoth will kill you, no matter how strong you are, to the point that trying to kill him should almost always be a Plan B.

[phaethon]

This thread makes me excited about the next Sil release. The more roguelikes I play, the more I confirm how awesome Sil is.

• Mac OS X Cocoa build - my biggest wish
• Make Morgoth revive when you leave the throne room if he was killed. Escapes are too easy/boring without Morgy in pursuit. If you really MUST reward a player with a nice high score for killing him, make Morgoth's stats even scarier on the ascent to balance it out (e.g "Without the chains of Mandos, Morgoth returns from the dead with a vengeance!").
• Anchor forge spawns to the game turn and depth, not turns since the last forge spawn. A full game should probably be limited to ~9-10 forges (or whatever number you think) if all are found. Depth should be a factor so that a 15k turn speed run could get some credit for diving and thus get more than half the max amount of forges. Does that make sense? Maybe a candidate algorithm would be better at conveying the idea... when a level is generated, the chance of a forge could be something like:
  

  turnCount = min(gameTurn,30000); // limit turn count to 30k for forge spawn calculation
  turnWeight=6; // e.g. forces 6 forges to be spawned from turn count
  depthWeight=4; // e.g. forces 4 forges to be spawned from maxDepth
  // maxForges=turnWeight+depthWeight
  forgeChance = (turnCount*turnWeight/30000)+(maxDungeonLevel*depthWeight/19)-(forgesAlreadyGenerated)

  Forges are a big reason for the game clock balance, and refactoring the spawning mechanism could make it a non-issue. I love smithing characters, but forges are a fickle lover. Maybe that's how it is supposed to be, but I like the idea of decoupling the balance of forges from the balance enforced by minDepth.
• Keep greatswords because they let you swap to a two-hander in one turn (rather than swap to Bastard sword + remove shield). They also force tough tactical decisions when you find a good artifact 2-hander but don't really want to drop your shield either.
• Fix the 100 ft vaults error message

Edit: * A keypress to list all visible items would be nice (I think it is the "]" key in some other *band variants). Someone else pointed out that the staff of treasures interface is really lacking. I agree, and this is one way to help that.

[taptap]

* Ignore this thread
* Change torches to candles and let them flicker while sprinting
* Add an artefact hammer with the stun ability (for advanced trolling)
* Remove flaming arrows
* Match hair / eye colours in char generation
* Fix dagger knockback (proposal: only use "applied strength" via weapon strength bonus instead of the strength stat)
* Add no regeneration (other than from vampirism / healing) challenge mode.

[absolutego]

off the top of my head
and following the OP's advice: just what i'd like, realistic or not


*** MAJOR THINGIES ***

- better balance and more depth in abilities. i know sil is meant to be short and has already plenty of breadth (you can win it without killing anything!), but most chars are some mix of brawler/archer and those tend to be very similar. that's because many abilities are boring, just worse than others, or plain bad. heavy weapons are sort of bad/weird given that momentum exists. the will tree is really dull (light resistance, poison resistance, confusion resistance, crit resistance... and potentially interesting abilities like strength in adversity are rather useless). i've won sil what, 20-30 times? and i still like it, but i don't play it anymore because my games look so much alike. (more races/houses would also be nice but i understand adhering to canon doesn't give you much wiggle room.)

- have everything id on use. i know some people who play roguelikes like this stuff; i don't get it. a few (equippable) items would need adjustments to work around curses but that's good. side benefit: removes staves of self-knowledge.

- remove the light clock and the food clock. i don't even carry backup light sources or food past the early game.

- remove staves of treasures. they promote bad habits and have a terrible interface.

- early game could have stuff other than orcs.

- 950' should have shaft traps: you fall back into 950'. if that's too weird for you reflavour it as "losing your bearings" or something (credit: marvinpa).

- tighter dungeon clock. should advance faster if you're diving hard (way beyond min depth). less 950-scumming.

- do something about the ascent but i don't know what. i just don't have the patience to deal with it if morgy's alive.


*** MINOR THINGIES AND INTERFACE THINGIES ***

- change the default keyset so it plays nice with vi keys. this is an important entry barrier for GCU folks.

- show monster status (alert etc). as a background colour?

- combine inventory and equipped items (i can't recall what the game calls it right now).

- do not reassign letters after you id something. i keep messing up when i want to drop things.

- remove corrosion traps.

- revert the thingy which makes traps so common in vaults. traps should never be deterministic anyway.

- make traps single-use. not so sure about this one but i would like to see how it plays.

- you should either detect traps or not depending on skill, without the number of turns being a factor.

- remove rings with penalties. it forces you to keep _sanctify or _id around at a point you should not have to anymore. also it doesn't play nicely with the way items are generated at shallow depths (jewellery at 50'-100' is often bad).

- i forgot about this one: more random item generation.

- do something about chasms. i wouldn't mind removing them, but having them cut off corridors less often/never might work too. i still don't see much use for them, but i haven't thought about it much.

- somehow get rid of the smithing kit. that's 90% of why i don't like smithing. i have no idea how to detach it from grace though. smithing on artefact hammers should definitely go.

- a minor thing that's very easy to fix: make halluc herbs not last a million turns, specially since you can't wait them out with a single button press.

- make staves stack (and call them scrolls or whatever fits tolkien lore) so you don't lose 20 consumables to a single breath (or rather: so you don't just dump it on the floor then fight whatever (bonus points: stepping on known squares so you're not shafted before going back to pick it up)).

- vaults are always nice! not necessarily big ones.


*** ANGBANDEF ***

- tower defense minigame where you play as morgy.

[debo]

Monster status shows as a background color in all the non-gcu ports. It was the hardest thing for me to get used to when I switched to gcu.

[wobbly]

Ok, my list:

Prevent Orc warriors from chain charging

Allow charge to work with throwing weapons (Pretty sure it was normal to throw javelins while charging)

Add Words of Power

Give Boldog fear resistance (he's cleary wielding his spear)

Allow spiders/flyers to enter/leave via chasms (like orcs & stairs)

Allow single fine weapons/armour without artistry to make non-Feanor/dwarf smiths more viable (You still need the Skill Points anyway)

Take away the prerequisite for leaping & allow an evasion check to jump back from triggered pits, trapdoors & deadfall traps with leaping

Combine Inner Light/Curse-breaker (I've never ever taken curse-breaker), maybe replace with resist fear.

Give orc champions Strength in Adversity, Give orc thiefs leaping

Allow channeling, majesty & songs on artifact robes & scepter

Make trap detection, pick locks a little easier (about +2 from where it is now)

Reduce voice cost on horns to 15, remove double skill check

Give dwarfs hammer proficiency. Add a combat artifact hammer (cruel blow?)

Allow lore keeper to auto-id bad potions/herbs

Change bow slot to swap weapon slot. Disable shield slot while wielding 2handers/bows

Edit: Shields of wrath are taking way to long to auto-id: Been wearing 1 for a 200' now, can see on the side-bar everything is agressive, even without that the 1st time a pack monster behaves like a troll & steps in to the doorway it's obvious.

Edit2: On non-canon monsters - dragonflies might not fit the canon specifically to my knowledge, but they very much fit the feel of mirkwood from the hobbit & the surroundings of mordor in the return of the king. & mechanically have a place, if removed something similar should be taking their place. Molds I'd never miss, then again I don't care either way here.

[locus]

Off the top of my head:

*Nerf weapons of sharpness. The song of sharpness nerf was a good thing overall, but it just exaggerates the already high value of randomly finding a sharpness weapon.
*Make it easier to pry Sils. I would support making the 2nd and 3rd Sils no harder to pry than the first. They can be balanced by the other factors: weapon-breaking, additional monster spawning, the curse. Durdling around spamming k for 500 turns in the throne room because you weren't lucky enough to find two sharpness weapons really sucks as gameplay.
*Combine Leaping and Dodging into a single skill, with the abilities of both.
*Make Charge not activate if you swapped places with an ally recently.

[one-eyed]

# UI

- Either an in-game Key Mapping option or a dedicated text file for easy editing
- Change the way torches and lanterns occupy multiple inventory slots if in different fuel levels [suggestion in next section]

# Gameplay

- Remove fuel from light sources altogether. Along each source's light radius, add light levels (similar to Inner Light's ability) to balance them out. Multiple copies of the same light source become redundant
- Remove the food clock altogether
- Remove the dedicated bow weapon slot (Shooting)
- Some general (re-work / re-balance) on: Will skills and Forging (both on skills and the frequency of forges)

[Raajaton]

I'd love to see a terminal window added to view items on the floor. It's something I can't live without in Vanilla, and I think it would help immensely in Sil. I tend to miss certain herbs quite a bit, as some colors make them very hard to see. Plus, I have a tendency to forget sometimes about items I've dropped while attempting to shuffle around inventory. Having a window that I can reference the items I've seen on the floor on that level would be a big quality of life change for me to make sure I don't miss something I don't want to live without.

[tungtn]

It'd be nice if the Sil manual covered smithing in more detail than it does at the moment, e.g.

• actual items and their associated costs (XP, stats, forge uses)
• how point requirements stack together
• what enchantments are available for different types of items
• how costs change when altering aspects of an item
• what special powers can and cannot be combined

Compared to the detail in the other sections of the manual, the smithing section is oddly vague. Even though I've played the game to the point of reaching Morgoth, I've never done much any smithing because it seems like such a black box system.

[bron]

I'm hoping that half manages to stay on schedule from prior years, and release a new version come Jan. (I admit I doubt that his new daughter will allow that, but it could happen.) So time for all of us laggards to step with last minute suggestions/requests for 1.3

- Add something like the Angband ']' command, to list all the objects on the screen (and their locations). I've often wanted to check someting like this just before descending a level, to see if I've e.g. missed a Dark Herb or other difficult to spot object.

- Put Resist Fear in the Will tree somewhere. I'd suggest adding it to Clarity (and also changing the Clarity enchantment to include it).

- Allow Strength to reduce the evasion penalty of armor, 1 for 1.

- Allow "of Sharpness" to be an Enchantment for swords/axes/polearms

- Allow "of Free Action" to be an Enchantment for hand-gear. Right now, only boots have it (unless you count "of Final Rest" weapons).

- Allow "of Frost" Enchantment on a cloak. Or possibly make the existing "of Winter's Chill" also resist fire.

- Remove the "Artistry" smithing skill. Instead, use wobbly's suggestion and allow any smith to change one number that would formerly have needed Artistry. To change more than one number, you need to use Artifice, or re-forge the piece.

- Allow re-forging.

- Add +1 to each continuous attempt to pry out a Sil. Like Concentration, but with no limit.

- Buff Dwarves a little bit. Add Will affinity, and for the House that already has Will affinity, add Melee affinity.

[damn]

Maybe I'm boring, but I like a lot Sil the way it is now. I'm not sure I'll appreciate all the changes I've seen listed in this tread.
From my point of view, the areas were we could work are:

- skills : remove of leaping skill (I'd like every one can leap with an ability check dexterity based with malus weight-related, like stealth). Dodge give you a +X bonus to this ability check
- weapons: greatsword / bastard swords could have a major delta between them (not a big issue, just a nice to have)
- monster skills: nice add-on, we can work some more in this way