Sil 1.4 wishlist

[wobbly]

I like them too. I had quite a promising character die a while back when I chased a shadow bat in to a dark room only to find myself fighting 2 creeping horrors which were now blocking the entrance. I can't say I've ever felt the need to drop gear to fight one.

[Serephina]

I like them! They're a mix of Melwips and those stalker statue fellows. As in, they can potentially cause damage beyond the current engagement (which Sil likes) and dealing with them asks you to fight or flight, both with pros and cons.

[ripforareason]

Suggestion: Please edit creeping horrors out of the game. Dropping your staves and generic, non rAcid items works perfectly well since they aren't exactly powerhouses, but going through the whole song and dance of dropping 8 items every time I encounter one is quite annoying, as is trying to kite them.

[nea]

Chasms interact weirdly with darkness right now. When they aren't lit, they're displayed as blank squares, but hovering over them with the 'Look' function will reveal them. I'd be nice if they were displayed normally, just like walls or immobile monsters.

EDIT: Perhaps this is just an issue because I'm using the curses interface, which apparently doesn't support the full color palette. If that's the case, 256 color support would be nice!

[JEB Davis]

Remove momentum. Restore the glory of great axes and greatswords! I don't understand why people want to streamline everything else out of existence (moving Sil ever more to a single "best practice" build), but don't want to remove the ability that broke things in the first place.

I agree with this.

1: if you have no torch but have a weapon of Gondolin equipped I want the tiles around you to be turned blue when enemies are near by

2: magma pools (it's Angband they are bound to exist)

3: Utumno artefacts (I also want artefacts to feel more "special")

4: An option to go up Thangoridhrim when you reach the surface (it should have different map generation, new enemies and items to give players an incentive to go up there and maybe rescue Hurin

5: More interesting vaults and the ability to add tiles more easily (especially to the vault palette)
Also massive vaults (bigger than Morgoths throne room) AND vaults that are guranteed to spawn (and take up the whole floor) which will allow custom maps eg Barad Dûr which would be very cool

6: Fissures that bubble with magma at a radius of 1-2 tiles

7: Balrogs get fire breath ability and a ranged whip ability which can disarm

8: Palantir artefact it has 3 charges and will reveal the entire floor, after the 3 charges it will take a point of will when you use it

9: staffs that cause a flood

10: more ominous messages like "you hear a distant howl" an example I have come up with is "you hear growling" or "you hear the crackle of fire" which would mean a Balrog or Dragon are nearby, or "you hear a rumbling laughter" - Morgoth mocking you

11: Morgoth can occasionally set his will against you which will temporarily make enemies attracted to your position or it could slow you down or make you hallucinate

And the original post.

[bron]

Don't know about Momentum ... if people think it needs to be removed or at least nerfed, I'd say it should be changed to just allow you to add one extra strength, e.g., 4 str on a 3 lb. sword. Just because that is simple and easy to understand.

I think Heavy Armour Use should be buffed to also reduce the Evasion penalty of your body armor, based on your strength. Say, half your strength, rounded up. We might see strong characters use Hauberk's more often.

Resist Fear needs to go in the Will tree, somewhere, somehow.

Personally I find Smithing to be fun and interesting, but seems like it rarely pays off. I'd suggest two things to re-balance this: make it easier to smith good stuff, and make the stuff you find lying around be worse. Thus: (1) remove the "Artistry" ability, and the need for it: you can make Fine weapons and armour if you have enough skill, without needing an extra Ability. (2) No "double-fine" items in the dungeon. If you want a sword with both a plus to hit and an extra damage side, you have to make it yourself.

[bagori nd]

1) Remove momentum.
2) Remove damage rings. (Usually better than somewhat similar strength rings.)
3) Add a no regeneration mode. (For stealthy chars to play around in.)

Thirded, re: removing damage rings. In addition to being bad for gameplay, I find them really immersion-breaking (which matters in Sil)--they differ from Strength rings only in virtue of quasi-metagame considerations, and it's hard to envision how they work.

I'm not sure about removing momentum, though. Much of the reason it's so impactful imo is that it's a Strength prerequisite; if you want Strength and don't want Knock-Back (both true of lots of players), there's effectively no cost to taking it. Without damage rings, it's not obvious that it would be as big a problem as it is; though it might still be best to remove it, I'd suggest first trying one or both of the following:

(a) slightly nerf momentum such that it increases the Str limit to 2 * weight - 1 (and hence only benefits weapons that weigh at least 1.5 lb.), and/or
(b) remove or revise the prerequisites for the Strength ability.

[ripforareason]

I don't know, just because something is powerful doesn't mean it's bad and needs removal. At least Concentrate can bring up interesting combats if you are fighting more than one enemy at once. I'm still not really sure how good it is, since a lot of things can break it as of right now.

Flanking is way more OP than momentum or mpa-sil Concentrate, imo, but having things like Flanking, ZoC etc. make Sil combat fun and not like other roguelikes where one camps in a corridor.

With Momentum, I've never really felt compelled to take it before 950-1000'. It's rare for me to go over 4 Strength, and if I am in a fight where I really want to use a strength potion, often times it's a unique enemy like a balrog or something, which leads me to switch to a greatsword or bastard sword instead. I've only really been impressed with it when I have a deathblade and a damage ring or two. Maybe deathblades are more of a problem than momentum, since you can often find one in the (+2-4, 1d9) range, whereas shortswords are closer to (+0-1, 1d7).

[Serephina]

Extending what debo said about artifact generation properties, getting your hands on the less common artifacts also allows for more kooky builds which in turns makes less common skills better picks.

Someone mentioned above about not having forges count for the hidden turn counter unless seen by the player; this is also a great idea for artifacts. I can't really treat the dungeon as infinite when I feel that there's a strong, hidden incentive to fully clear levels.

Possibly an even better way (for forges, at least) is to just guarantee forges at X, Y, and Z feet and mention it explicitly in the manual, and anything further is the low% random generation's. Or hey! Just wave a magic wand and fix forging's U-shaped power curve, easy!

[debo]

I don't mind certain weapons being clearly superior to others, but I really dislike momentum. As I've said before, I'd like for artefact probabilities to be much flatter and decoupled from base item type, since the artefacts themselves are often quite different than the base type and provide a lot of variety.

[wobbly]

Removing prerequisites on songs might be good, it's incredibly annoying having to take slaying or aule on a pacifist if you want sharpness for the crown. Also while I like Elbereth it would be nice to take freedom on a non-elbereth singer.

[wobbly]

I'm going to 2nd what taptap is saying. Damage rings are an automatic pick, I'm always going to wear 2 to fight Morgoth & when you add in momentum shortswords & deathblades reach d14/d15 which melts Morgoth. I'd also consider making Finrod rarer or weaker, so the choice isn't so often Finrod or clearly inferior boots.

Disagree with removing focus. As ripforareason has said he always takes it in mpa-sil. It's too good if you're not paying extra. Plus focus is part of builds like polearms or assasination and such.

[taptap]

1) Remove momentum.
2) Remove damage rings. (Usually better than somewhat similar strength rings.)
3) Add a no regeneration mode. (For stealthy chars to play around in.)

There are two things breaking the logic of strength and sufficient weight for larger dice, one is momentum, the other is damage rings. Without them you had a clear choice: increase the size of your dice or increase the number of your dice. And there also was the question how to leverage peak strength when buffed, which tends to be 4 points higher still.

When an ability looks like an autopick to you, yes you ripforareason , then it just might be too good, especially if it knocks out a whole lot of gameplay as irrelevant. (And looking at the winner ability statistics momentum is one of the most common picks even though only introduced later.)

Now, I don't particularly care about "current meta" "best practice" builds. The one thing that kept Sil fresh enough for me to return now and then is the possibility to win in many different ways. I believe this was a design choice. What I see in some proposals in this thread is streamlining into one or two optimal brawler builds while removing non-optimal but previously viable options.

[ripforareason]

Remove momentum. Restore the glory of great axes and greatswords! I don't understand why people want to streamline everything else out of existence (moving Sil ever more to a single "best practice" build), but don't want to remove the ability that broke things in the first place.

Not sure this would really change that much. It would just shift the meta-game from light weapons like mithril longswords to bastard swords since they're strictly better than greatswords, and you can often utilize all your strength points with rapid attack. the problem is more "greatswords being strictly worse than bastard swords in most cases", the exception is basically having Saithnar or Calris but then you also have Anglachel and Anguirel which are better since Saithnar doesn't have free action any more and walking around with Calris makes me feel insecure.

On top of this, axes are IMO almost strictly worse than swords even if you are a Naugrim.

edit: also, there are a whole lot of good swords in the game. If I look at recent-ish morgues that got reasonably far in the game, I see a whole lot of Glamdring, Delmereth, Anglachel, Anguirel, etc., and not really a whole lot of generic ego weapons.

[Patashu]

Remove momentum. Restore the glory of great axes and greatswords! I don't understand why people want to streamline everything else out of existence (moving Sil ever more to a single "best practice" build), but don't want to remove the ability that broke things in the first place.

If Momentum is removed, will we get Stun back?