Sil-Q 1.4.2 release

[Infinitum]

With regard to choosing starting loadouts, there's not a lot of sense in dwarves having a bow option

Well, the Dwarfes of Tolkien seems prett pragmatic compared with the axes-or-bust stereotyoe that spawned from Gimli. Maybe change the Archery penalty to a bow.. un-proficiency to keep in line with the Elf affinity changes? Having a third choice for background after choosing race/house sounds neat.

Maybe even swap the dexterity penalty for a stealth malus; Dwarfes naturally being worse fighters than Edain is a tad weird. Dislike the Sindar strength malus for the same reason. Both could lose a point of constitution to compensate perhaps?

Oh, and came across a minor display bug; known ego items pulled from skeletons still show up as (special) in the log (and then show up properly id'd in the inventory window).

[Destragon]

Well, personally speaking, I often start without assigning any points at all, and decide what I need as I go, so that's not a solution that works for me.

To be honest, I think it would probably be alright if there is a downside to that strategy. I'm still newb, but the way you can just save up your xp right until the point where you know exactly what you're gonna need and then be able to spend it all in one turn is pretty powerful, I think. Aspects of strategy games also include things like having to do preplanning, being attached to your choices, investing for the future, etc.

With regard to choosing starting loadouts, there's not a lot of sense in dwarves having a bow option, and pacifists are relatively unpopular choices. Starting with nothing at all isn't very serious unless you're unlucky with weapon drops on 50' so I'm not sure how much challenge it really adds.

Sure, dwarves might have a xp malus to using archery, but that doesn't mean they are completely incapable of using it.
And I know pacifism isn't exactly popular, but maybe it would become less of an unpopular choice once there is a starting option that actually suggests it to the player as a challenge/ playstyle. Having that option start with a harp, cape or whatever bonus item would make it more appealing and probably more viable.
The "Deprived" start could also start with no torches and no food, if that makes it sound more of a challenge.

Yeah, about the weapon drops, I think if the game had this loadout/background selection in the character creation, then the equipment item drops on the first dungeon floors would/could probably be tweaked around a bit to be more rare. This sounds like a bit of a bigger change though, so I dunno.
For example, if an archer start existed, then the amount of early arrow drops could be dialed down, but this would maybe be bad for people who want to play some sort of mixed character.

Which is not to say the idea is to be dismissed out of hand. Different loadouts might be appropriate. I am thinking of things like a traveller with cloak and staff, a warrior with helm, sword and broken shield... I'd have to think about it.

Yeah, that's pretty much what I meant. A slight bit of backstory flavor and some basic starting gear. I think DCSS actually has a similar system, where after choosing your race, you get to choose a character class, which basically just decides your starting gear (and I think some of your starting skill values).

In my last game as archer, I started with most of my skill invested in archery and none in melee, but then it took like 3 floors or so until I actually found a bow. I guess maybe this is just something you have to learn as a new player, that you can't really just start as an archer immediately, but maaaaybe it would be better if you could just start with a (crappy) bow instead.

[Quirk]

I think the different races/ houses starting with different equipment could add some nice flavor to the game, but for the question of starting with a melee or a ranged weapon I think it would be better to have it linked to the starting skill values instead, as I think they give a better indication for the individual backstory of the character and the desired playstyle of the player.

Well, personally speaking, I often start without assigning any points at all, and decide what I need as I go, so that's not a solution that works for me.

With regard to choosing starting loadouts, there's not a lot of sense in dwarves having a bow option, and pacifists are relatively unpopular choices. Starting with nothing at all isn't very serious unless you're unlucky with weapon drops on 50' so I'm not sure how much challenge it really adds.

Which is not to say the idea is to be dismissed out of hand. Different loadouts might be appropriate. I am thinking of things like a traveller with cloak and staff, a warrior with helm, sword and broken shield... I'd have to think about it.

[Destragon]

I've actually considered this for elves in general and Sindar Falathrim in particular. I would prefer starting gear that suggested a traveller arriving in Angband with intent. Elves would maybe get a short sword, Falathrim a dagger and more arrows. This is weaker for melee characters than starting with a curved sword though, and I'm a bit nervous about making the early game overly difficult again having toned things down from the relative brutality of 1.3.

I think the different races/ houses starting with different equipment could add some nice flavor to the game, but for the question of starting with a melee or a ranged weapon I think it would be better to have it linked to the starting skill values instead, as I think they give a better indication for the individual backstory of the character and the desired playstyle of the player.

Actually, now that I think about it, why don't you just give a separate option during character creation, outside the race/house selection, that lets the player choose their starting loadout/background?
I came up with 4 different starting loadouts just now:

• Melee: Starts with a curved sword like normal right now.
• Ranged: Starts with a crappy bow, a handful arrows and maybe a dagger.
• Pacifist: Starts with no weapon at all, but with a harp or lute, if those get added to the game, and maybe a cape or robe.
• Deprived: Starts off with absolutely nothing. (Maybe with a bit of food.) This is a higher difficulty challenge run. I got the name from Dark Souls, which also had an option like this. I saw that some people really like starting off with nothing. This would make those people happy without making the game's difficulty explode for newbies.

You think Edain have it difficult? Try naked Edain.

If ancient sapphire serpents are really giving you trouble, you can now get a whopping 5 levels of cold resistance without artefacts (quarterstaff of the helcaraxe, bow of the falas, two rings, and a cloak of warmth). Probably still better to just avoid them.

Woah, didn't even occur to me that you can have more than 3 levels of elemental resistance.

[Wiwaxia]

First, thank you again for taking out the gender field. That means a lot.

I haven't had a chance to try out the archery abilities yet, but they look fun. Puncture looks like a very nice "fuck serpents" skill. I wonder if you could chew through a grotesque with it in a pinch.

I also like all the new special bows. I remember you talking about how hard it is to find interesting and not-broken things to put on bows, and think you did a good job with that here. It's not clear from the description exactly what Falmari does, but I look forward to finding or making one and finding out. Bows of the Falas actually help substitute for flaming arrows in an odd way, since one of the reasons I took it on non-archers was to deal with ringraukar, Gilim, and sapphire serpents.

If ancient sapphire serpents are really giving you trouble, you can now get a whopping 5 levels of cold resistance without artefacts (quarterstaff of the helcaraxe, bow of the falas, two rings, and a cloak of warmth). Probably still better to just avoid them.

[Quirk]

Oops. *Sharp Mithril Greatsword, naturally. 22 difficulty to smith w/Danger, 23 if you want to fiddle with the weight.

So by any character you mean any character with 6 Grace?

Reaching 22 takes 8 Smithing skill, 8 Masterpiece and 6 Grace.
9 Smithing lets you do it with 4 Grace, but that's another 900 XP.

[Infinitum]

Oops. *Sharp Mithril Greatsword, naturally. 22 difficulty to smith w/Danger, 23 if you want to fiddle with the weight.

[Quirk]

Nice! Haven't played around yet, but dabbled a bit reading through the abilities. How do Accurate weapons work mechanically?

You get to reroll your Melee roll when you miss an attack.

Smite looks neat, but might make 2-handers outperform light weapons for sneak attacks?

Subtlety stabbers tend to be fragile in stand up fights. Your enemies moving twice when you strike I think makes staying alive if your target survives rather more perilous.

Also noticed Mithril Greatwords being 3d6 by default with no corresponding increase in smithing cost?

Yup. They needed to offer something that offset the lack of versatility compared to bastard swords and lack of Strength scaling compared to normal greatswords. They already cost mithril to smith, which is in limited supply.

A 5500 xp investment (8 skillpoints, Weaponsmith, Artifice + Masterpiece by way of artifact hammer) now buys any character a (-2,3d6)[+1] sword at 3-5lb, which might honestly be worth it even if one chanced upon one of the sharp artefacts.

I am a little confused by this if we're still talking mithril greatswords. A much smaller investment will get you a 3d4 bastard sword with the same 3d6 stats and the ability to be used with a shield, and I don't think I understand the need for so much smithing. You would be sad to use it as an endgame weapon.

You're not thinking that a mithril greatsword gains 2 more sides for being used 2 handed are you? 2 handed weapons have the advertised number of damage sides baked in and have as long as I've played Sil.

Edit: if you mean you can smith a 3d8 mithril greatsword for 17 smithing - yes, sure. 17 smithing could also alternatively get you a fire-branded 3d6 one. You could have a 3d6 battle-axe (so actually 3d8) for 16 smithing and save on mithril. 17 Smithing plus mithril will get you a decent weapon.

[Infinitum]

Nice! Haven't played around yet, but dabbled a bit reading through the abilities. How do Accurate weapons work mechanically? Smite looks neat, but might make 2-handers outperform light weapons for sneak attacks?

Also noticed Mithril Greatwords being 3d6 by default with no corresponding increase in smithing cost? A 5500 xp investment (8 skillpoints, Weaponsmith, Artifice + Masterpiece by way of artifact hammer) now buys any character a (-2,3d6)[+1] sword at 3-5lb, which might honestly be worth it even if one chanced upon one of the sharp artefacts.

Skimmed the prerequisite changes in song, but the existence of Quick Learner makes them kind of moot anyhow. It's already a bargain for melee characters what with it allowing one to skip some less useful prerequisites (Hardiness for Poison/Critical Resistance, Assassination for Opportunist, the aforementioned leapfrogging of the Smiithing tree etc).

[Quirk]

Is Sil-Q on angband.live already upated to 1.4.2 official i.e. the one with the last typo fixes and etc? I coudn't tell because the games list says "1.4.2 Alpha". Reason for asking is that I play to check for various bugs (once I know it is the real 1.4.2 official).

It is. I should probably rename it.

[HugoVirtuoso]

Is Sil-Q on angband.live already upated to 1.4.2 official i.e. the one with the last typo fixes and etc? I coudn't tell because the games list says "1.4.2 Alpha". Reason for asking is that I play to check for various bugs (once I know it is the real 1.4.2 official).

[Quirk]

The weird thing though is that the +1 is displayed even when you're not carrying a bow. Even during the character creation screen.

That looks like a bug, and on inspection, yes, while axes and swords check you're carrying them to give you the bonus, it appears the bow bonus appears on archery whether you have a bow equipped or not. Of course as you can only equip bows in the bow slot it's a bit of a cosmetic bug. I'll try to get it fixed for the next release.

Wait, does that mean that when a dwarf carries an axe as main weapon (or an elf a sword in the old versions), that they are suddenly slightly more accurate at throwing stuff because they got a general +1 to their melee skill for holding an axe (or sword)?

Hmm, you made me curious enough to check. The short answer is yes. The more intriguing thing is that it appears that throwing a weapon you are holding has always counted its bonus (with proficiency) twice. In Sil 1.3 with an elf with sword proficiency, when you throw daggers you gain +2 to accuracy - double the +1 blade bonus. There is also of course a -5 for throwing a non-throwing weapons.

This also makes me think that maybe affinities/masteries should be highlighted in the character screen? Maybe they should be in yellow or something.

Maybe. They're quite low-key effect-wise compared to many other things and I think it would take quite a bit of screen real estate to make it apparent what was going on.

I think the question is just if you really get anything out of it compared to just dumping the xp straight into the melee skill. I haven't yet won a game as an archer (or as any other kind of character), but in my 800ft run Versatility would have been a net loss in xp, unless I'm missing something here. I guess you should just not take that many archery abilities if you want to go for Versatility? They are all so good looking though.

Well, if you have 20 points in Archery and nothing in Melee, it would cost you 5500 XP to raise your Melee by 10 by buying points, and maybe 3K from buying Versatility. If you're spending all your XP on Archery abilities instead of Archery skill and have quite low Archery skill the calculation may be different.

Something to encourage this half-melee, half-ranged playstyle. Maybe not a good idea because that build would be locked out of all melee abilities (because otherwise Versatility would have been a waste).

I don't particularly want to encourage that playstyle. Archery is useful for most melee characters as is. Having Versatility and Point Blank both seems a bit much, but it's been like that since forever, some people use one, some use the other, some use both. On top of that, adding useful but non-broken archery skills is hard, so...

Have you considered making it so that a player who starts out with X amount of archery skill, or more archery skill than melee skill, automatically starts off with a crappy bow (slightly worse than a short bow I suppose) and a handfull arrows? Their curved sword should probably be replaced with a dagger in that case then though.

I've actually considered this for elves in general and Sindar Falathrim in particular. I would prefer starting gear that suggested a traveller arriving in Angband with intent. Elves would maybe get a short sword, Falathrim a dagger and more arrows. This is weaker for melee characters than starting with a curved sword though, and I'm a bit nervous about making the early game overly difficult again having toned things down from the relative brutality of 1.3.

[Destragon]

That's how bow proficiency works. If you had blade proficiency and wielded a sword you would see +1 to Melee.

The weird thing though is that the +1 is displayed even when you're not carrying a bow. Even during the character creation screen.

Wait, does that mean that when a dwarf carries an axe as main weapon (or an elf a sword in the old versions), that they are suddenly slightly more accurate at throwing stuff because they got a general +1 to their melee skill for holding an axe (or sword)?

This also makes me think that maybe affinities/masteries should be highlighted in the character screen? Maybe they should be in yellow or something.

I'd say versatility lost some kick when song of slaying disappeared. You used to be able to still slam the throne room that way on an archer. Haven't tried it recently but I'd say it still has some juice if you ever need to herb of rage yourself out of a situation. It has always been a weak ability but useful for various niche builds.

I think the question is just if you really get anything out of it compared to just dumping the xp straight into the melee skill. I haven't yet won a game as an archer (or as any other kind of character), but in my 800ft run Versatility would have been a net loss in xp, unless I'm missing something here. I guess you should just not take that many archery abilities if you want to go for Versatility? They are all so good looking though.
Maybe it should work on your total archery value instead of just the archery skill points? (This isn't how it already works, right?)
Maybe it should be a prerequisite for a new ability that gives you a bonus for alternating between melee and ranged attacks or something like that? Something to encourage this half-melee, half-ranged playstyle. Maybe not a good idea because that build would be locked out of all melee abilities (because otherwise Versatility would have been a waste).

Slightly lucky, but I do try to load the player up with more arrows early on as playing an archer without ammo is miserable. If you're profligate and run out later that's more on you.

Have you considered making it so that a player who starts out with X amount of archery skill, or more archery skill than melee skill, automatically starts off with a crappy bow (slightly worse than a short bow I suppose) and a handfull arrows? Their curved sword should probably be replaced with a dagger in that case then though.
This might reduce the need to spam arrow drops on the first floors and gets rid of that awkward beginning where an archer has to fight with a terrible melee attack until they can find a short bow lying around.

[wobbly]

I'd say versatility lost some kick when song of slaying disappeared. You used to be able to still slam the throne room that way on an archer. Haven't tried it recently but I'd say it still has some juice if you ever need to herb of rage yourself out of a situation. It has always been a weak ability but useful for various niche builds.

[Quirk]

In my run, I think the Deadly Hail ability was the strongest part of the kit. Rout would help make killing fleeing enemies a cakewalk and then I'd use that kill to deal massive damage to the next enemy and so on. I remember getting 8d8 damage rolls, but that would probably be reduced to 8d7 now with the longbow nerf. Although, now we can also have the new Ambush skill to get another damage die against unwary enemies.

Good, I'm glad to hear that. Deadly Hail does a lot of damage but it does require some positioning and setup and is harder to make work when ambushed by dangerous enemies. Flaming Arrows, the old Sil skill, did an extra damage die on every shot. It was flavourful but a tiny bit broken.

With the halved Evasion though it is hard to give Archery almost any meaningful tools at all, it is a bit overpowered by default. Hopefully reduced damage sides should counter it a little.

Does the Versatility ability make sense in the archery tree?

Good question. I tend to avoid it but I see some very experienced players who take it, so I assume it's still good enough. Will keep an eye on archers in 1.4.2 though.

There is still some weirdness in the tutorial. It tells you that it gave you access to the Song of Slaying and Song of Trees even though the actual songs you get currently are Song of Challenge and Song of Silence.
And it also kinda tells you to use the song of slaying to kill the wolves, despite that song not existing anymore.

That is a fantastic catch and one I had completely missed. Thanks for spotting that.

I'll update to make it a bit saner.

The tutorial telling you to use Song of Slaying against the wolves made me realise that there wasn't really any song to help with damage dealing after its removal. We do have Song of Whetting now, but that looks more like a late game thing and only for low-weight, critical melee characters. Should there be another song that helps melee characters take out swarms of enemies like the wolves in the tutorial (some sort of AoE effect like whirlwind attack?) or should the tutorial just give Song of Staying to the player instead?

I'd probably go with Staunching over Staying for early game but I might teach different songs entirely.

By the way, why is it possible to get Song of Whetting with just 4 points of song? Are there even any weapons that weigh 0.5lb?

Daggers.

Edit:
Just noticed that Elves are still displayed as having +1 to archery in the character screen as if they had archery affinity instead of bow proficiency

That's how bow proficiency works. If you had blade proficiency and wielded a sword you would see +1 to Melee.

I thought the drop rate of arrows was reduced, but I just found over 350 arrows on the first two floors of the dungeon. Does the early dungeon just have a high arrow drop rate?

Slightly lucky, but I do try to load the player up with more arrows early on as playing an archer without ammo is miserable. If you're profligate and run out later that's more on you.