Survey

[Quirk]

I find myself with a lot of questions, and I don't want to make a great many poll threads, so I'm going to try a survey thread with a bunch of questions and see if I can get some answers. It's okay to skip answers if you have no strong opinion, but the more I have the better. Please feel free to explain your answers at more length if you want.

1) Should Morgoth be killable?

2) Would you be in favour of removing Song of Slaying and reworking the end-game in order to make the Song tree more viable?

3) Do you play stealthy characters?
a) if yes, are they too hard, too easy or just right?
b) if no, is it from lack of interest or for other reasons?

4) Do you play smiths?
a) if yes, are they too hard, too easy or just right?
b) if no, is it from lack of interest or for other reasons?

5) Do you use any of these weapons frequently?
- Daggers
- Quarterstaffs
- War Hammers
- Throwing Axes
- Great Axes
- Sceptres

Do you feel any of these need strengthened, or do not currently contribute?

6) Do you use Robes?
- if not, how much evasion would it take to make them useful?

7) Do you find Focused Attack makes for interesting play?

[Infinitum]

1) Should Morgoth be killable?

I remember seeing a suggestion that V either comes back to life and/or is only knocked unconscious in the throneroom (ie returning to chase the player regardless) which seems like a fair compromise.

2) Would you be in favour of removing Song of Slaying and reworking the end-game in order to make the Song tree more viable?

Yes, but then again Slaying is one of the more interesting songs to begin with. The way abilities are paid for encourage players to only invest in one major song, and too many simply patch up equipment holes (making them a sketchy investment early). Buying multiple songs with one ability might help alleviate this.

3) Do you play stealthy characters?
a) if yes, are they too hard, too easy or just right?
b) if no, is it from lack of interest or for other reasons?

Nope. Lack of interest mainly; play Sil as a pretty straight hack n' slash.

4) Do you play smiths?
a) if yes, are they too hard, too easy or just right?
b) if no, is it from lack of interest or for other reasons?

Not really. A very small smithing investment (4 points + Jewelry) is worthwile to take advantage of the early forge and improve the chance of getting feanorian lamps eary. Mid-lategame a ~10k investment gets a (+2,2d5)[+2] sharp mithril sword with danger which is worth it if no quality weapons have dropped otherwise. Dedicated smiths are a trap otherwise.

5) Do you use any of these weapons frequently?
- Daggers
- Quarterstaffs
- War Hammers
- Throwing Axes
- Great Axes
- Sceptres

Nope. Sometimes I keep a greataxe around for statue-smashing, but drop it once I have a mattock.

Do you feel any of these need strengthened, or do not currently contribute?

All of them are vastly inferior to swords. Sceptres can probably be dropped altogether. Throwing weapons in general probablyneeds an overhaul.

6) Do you use Robes?
- if not, how much evasion would it take to make them useful?

Nope. Superflous item type imo; surely the player already wears clothes underneath his armor? [+1] would make them worth considering, but doesn't make much sense from a simulation standpoint.

7) Do you find Focused Attack makes for interesting play?

Never use it.

[Philip]

1) Should Morgoth be killable?

I oppose non-killable monsters. If it has a stat block I should be allowed to kill it. It should be much much harder though.

2) Would you be in favour of removing Song of Slaying and reworking the end-game in order to make the Song tree more viable?

Probably not removing, since it has great roleplay value and is an interesting mechanic. Something needs to be done though.

3) Do you play stealthy characters?
a) if yes, are they too hard, too easy or just right?
b) if no, is it from lack of interest or for other reasons?

Not really, and I couldn't stop myself from dying to late fast-moving monsters, but probably because I'm just incompetent.

4) Do you play smiths?
a) if yes, are they too hard, too easy or just right?
b) if no, is it from lack of interest or for other reasons?

Not much, tried once, got reasonably far, but it doesn't fit with my playstyle very well, so I stopped.

5) Do you use any of these weapons frequently?
- Daggers
- Quarterstaffs
- War Hammers
- Throwing Axes
- Great Axes
- Sceptres

The only daggers I use are Nargil and Angrist, and only in specific situations. If throwing were viable, though...
I have technically used a Quarterstaff early on an archer, but no.
War Hammers, not outside of dedicated smithing weapon. I suspect it's because it's hard to stack STR early, and you can always use a Great Axe instead.
Throwing Axes should remain useless or non-existent for as long as throwing is useless.
Great Axes are fine as they are, they're the only plausibly usable weapon with 4d on it, though I wouldn't be opposed to the -to_hit being toned down a little.
Scepters are fine if you haven't found any decent stat-sticks, don't do melee, and find a +Song or +light one.
Worth mentioning - Greatswords are completely useless, since Bastard Swords are better in almost every conceivable situation.

6) Do you use Robes?
- if not, how much evasion would it take to make them useful?

+1 evasion seems fine to me as a base, really. If you want to differentiate them from cloaks, while keeping them mostly worse than Leather Armor, give them 1d1 protection too.

7) Do you find Focused Attack makes for interesting play?

I wouldn't know, never having played it. I prefer mobile Flanking types to Block/Controlled Retreat/whatever other things fit the combo.

[Derakon]

I oppose non-killable monsters. If it has a stat block I should be allowed to kill it. It should be much much harder though.

The difficulty, as I see it, is: if Morgoth is killable, but only by extremely strong builds, then a substantial majority of the players will only play those extremely strong builds, because they feel they have to in order to get a "true" win. In other words, making it harder to kill Morgoth just further constrains which builds are considered viable, and/or adds an element of luck (in terms of getting the right drops/forges to prepare your Morgoth-slaying kit).

Therefore, if you want to preserve a variety of viable builds, Morgoth must either be killable by most reasonable builds, or not killable by any.

[Gwarl]

I play smiths pretty much exclusively. They're almost just right but also not and I'll have to put up a wall of text if/when I find the time and energy.

Short answer, a shuffle of the skill tree might be appropriate, I'll lay out the exact details later.

[Antoine]

What about allowing Morgoth to be wounded (slowing him and making him pursue less often on the ascent) but not actually killed?

A.

[Gwarl]

wrt Morgoth: You could make him effectively unkillable by giving him progressively more lethal attacks (something that can't be dodged or resisted like nether breath. I believe the classic angband elements are still in there somewhere) as the fight goes on until every turn longer you spend in combat is a chance of being instagibbed. If this was for instance a flat 1/10 chance per round to hit for 200 damage the player would only have a 35% chance of surviving 10 rounds. If Morgoth can soak up 40 rounds of damage the player's chance of survival assuming immunity to all non-instadeath moves the chance of survival drops to around 1.5%. He's not technically unkillable in such a case it's just really stupid to try and will probably cost you your win. Which seems about right, Beren didn't even try he gtfo'd

[clouded]

1) I agree with what Derakon said, though I think those type of players just like playing in a certain way anyway (look over Psi's dumps for example). The original intention of half and Scatha was for a Morgoth kill to be much rarer than what became evident on the ladder.

2) I think it's too easy to use in the throne room and actually sort of bad anywhere else. It gives a massive -10 stealth penalty for +3 or so accuracy, not really a tradeoff I want when it causes you to get swamped by so many things.

3) I've played my fair share of pacifists and combat stealth characters, it's been quite a while since I've played so I can't fully remember but I think stealth overall is in a good place - it is strong (with high enough stealth and some songs you are basically undetectable) but still requires attention and caution.

4) One of my least favourite things about Sil if I'm honest. It constantly tempts you by seeming fun and flavourful but ends up being annoying due to the random nature of forges and the "correct" strategy being to spend the first however many forges building a smithing kit and then making crazy stuff at the end. Pretty much always when I tried I would smith some things early on and then abandon it later when I didn't find forges or invest enough to make it take off. I just avoid it now.

7) The true synergy of focused attack is in a stealth assassination build where it's an integral part and without it, maybe not viable. Besides that I do think it is fun and interesting, there are lots of situations where you can put it to use during natural gameplay too.

Good to see someone making a Sil fork by the way. Also, didn't see it mentioned when I glanced at the other thread but flanking is too good, you don't need to care about positioning and you get better defense at the same time, it's the easiest melee style.

[Gwarl]

Parting blow is also too good. I'd implement these as having a % chance to fire (50? why not) rather than every time the conditions are met.

[wobbly]

1) Mostly fine either way. Killing him being rare would be my preference I guess.

2) Alternatively rebalanced to be more of an all game thing. I think do what you want here. It'll be interesting to see the result.

3) Played a fair few stealth characters, they seem fine. Being able to play a pacifist is actually one of the great things about Sil. I think most players just prefer warriors. It's the in-between that's a bit on the hard side. Not stealthy enough to sneak, not enough melee/evasion to fight.

4) I enjoy smiths but I think they need work. Currently they can be pretty frustrating.

5) Daggers - Don't even use these on low-str stabbers unless it's one of the sharpies or an early fine poisoned dagger(pretty rare). Actually that's not entirely true I sometimes throw them in the 1st 50'-100'
Staves/Sceptres - Junk. The 1 sceptre ego useful to a singer, I'd rather a spear of vanyar.
Hammers - Battle Axes are strictly better except for a rare good hammer find. Even more so when you consider hammers get a worse slay bonus on things like gondolin & can't use sharpness.
Great Axe - Fun as a challenge but hard to pull off. That said I'm more confident killing Morgoth with a great axe & a heap of str then I am with a polearm
Throwing Axe - Spears are better if you're throwing

6) Robes - robes of stealth can actually be pretty good if you're playing a sneaker. I'm not bothered that they are useless to a warrior

7) Focused Attack - Mostly what clouded said. I'll just add that it's great on stealth archery. You can actually kill a fair few things with a bow without a huge investment in the archery skill.

[Serephina]

1. No opinion
2. I really liked Slaying, but now that I think about it I don't think I've really skilled it since worms where gone. I'm not sure why you think the other songs are nonviable, I use Trees, Este, Freedom, and Smithing.
3. Very poorly, so I can't give good feedback on how the farey past 600'
4. Yes I smith. I think the power curve is U-shaped, with amazing utility for a few pts, then quickly diminishing utility until I can get it to 30ish
5. I use Warhammers (heh), Throwing Axes (until I need the space), rarely a great axe.
6. Robes only If I can smith an amazing artifact, or the artifact one drops. Otherwise leather.
7. Focus I've goofed off with and enjoyed, but resulted in weak gimmicks.