Sil-Q 1.5 beta, first release

[Bill Peterson]

The generic use command "," lets you search skeletons. This should be mentioned on the help screen (let me know if it's not). "/" and direction from an adjacent square also works I think.

The help text for "," only talks about picking things up or navigating stairs. I probably should have tried that except that my muscle memory is fixed on "g" to get things off the floor.

[Quirk]

I will, eventually, thanks. Does it do what it says on the description? Doubling shield protection if not moving sounds similar to vanilla?

Does what it says on the tin. In Vanilla you only got the bonus against ranged attackers or if you did not take an action last turn - which made it a very niche player with Focused Attack. Getting the bonus while trading blows makes it a lot stronger.

High weight weapons are usually a liability in the current system though, especially with Rapid Attack giving such a good use for surplus strength. A normal strength 3 character can realistically exepct to get to strength 5 by the very endgame (gauntlets and melee ability), 9 under the effect of both !Strength and ,Rage. There are Gundor and rings of strength, but those are generally edge cases. A, say, weight 12lb curved blade would be noticeably worse than a 4lb one in almost all cases as is.

True for curved blades, but the popularity of great axes etc has grown the last little while and generally heavier is seen as better. Song of Whetting has brought the meta back to lighter weapons somewhat, but I'm planning to replace that with a new song.

I'll need to look at Rapid Attack again once stat potions go, it does rely a bit on that bonus 3 Strength.

Yeah. Given thought to full monster recall? Meta-knowledge is a googling away anyhow nowadays, and having to tab out into the wiki constantly is my least favorite part of learning roguelikes.

Try Options | Interface Options | Know all monster info.

With perception, you could try giving all enemies/items a stealth rating, tie difficulty to light level and distance and have partial successes displaying limited information (akin to Listening). Being forced to play with incomplete information would be a pretty strong incentive to upgrade it, even for melee types.

We have this, and this is how cat assassins work. However most enemies aren't that stealthy (and arguably most shouldn't be). Might look at making more late game enemies sneaky in this regard.

words of command

So in general I dislike these as consumables in their own right, and see no need for these to be limited use.

I am open to them being a form of magic that can be worked by someone holding a staff. As described before, there will probably be several words of command accessible from one staff (my current sketched design has something like a dozen possible words of command, of which any staff would have three to five).

Making them uniques would add even more xp into the lategame though. Maybe just jack up their stats to 11? They're easy enough to avoid and could help hammer home that not everything that can be fought should be. Maybe even make mature dragons nigh unkillable so as to require high stealth to loot their hoards?

XP in the lategame is not necessarily an issue if balanced around, particularly with the loss of stat potions. The bigger issue is the avoidance. Looting 950' forever without serious risk because the monsters are slow or territorial trivialises the late game.

Have you played Dungeon Crawl? There's a few themed hell dungeon branches in the endgame that randomly bombards the player with hell effects ranging from status effects to summoning monsters and whatnot, kind of like the ancient and terrible curse in some Angband variants (Zangband? It's been years). Maybe something like that replacing the more nonsensical traps, getting stronger and more dangerous the deeper you go? Could also tie into cursed items and replace the "sticky curse" which plagues roguelikes.

This is something to think about. This would need carefully done as one consideration is that I don't want to break the game for pacifists, who are very squishy. They too are overpowered at 950' currently thanks to Lorien, but the survival margin if things go wrong can be quite thin.

[Quirk]

The manual says that orc skeletons may contain armor. I've (x)amined a number and found nothing. Is this just the RNG playing with me or is some other command used?

The generic use command "," lets you search skeletons. This should be mentioned on the help screen (let me know if it's not). "/" and direction from an adjacent square also works I think.

[Bill Peterson]

The manual says that orc skeletons may contain armor. I've (x)amined a number and found nothing. Is this just the RNG playing with me or is some other command used?

[Infinitum]

No, though the plan is to Tolkienise herbs and potions a lot further, as I have a strong distaste for the gamey sound of Potions of Strength and Herbs of Weakness.

Athelas and Miruvor have a good deal more First Age canonicity than words of power though, and while other herbs and potions will not have quite the same weight of validity, herbs and potions will be kept.

Ok. Tying at least some of the stronger effects (eg stat boosts) into whatever system you'll use for words of power could allow you to gate them behind some xp/stat investment though.

Try the new Blocking skill, it gives high Protection characters a lot of oomph.

I will, eventually, thanks. Does it do what it says on the description? Doubling shield protection if not moving sounds similar to vanilla?

Currently I'm trying to add variety rather than narrow it, but Balanced does rather more than +1 (it's closer to +3), and Cumbersome couldn't really be modelled by adding weight - adding weight will not negate crits given a high enough roll, and will provide more room for the strength bonus, making it much less of a drawback. Balance and weight are very different things. Light weapons improve crits, heavy weapons damage from Strength. A badly balanced weapon should improve neither.

In most cases with similar attack/evasion it probably would be, yeah.

High weight weapons are usually a liability in the current system though, especially with Rapid Attack giving such a good use for surplus strength. A normal strength 3 character can realistically exepct to get to strength 5 by the very endgame (gauntlets and melee ability), 9 under the effect of both !Strength and ,Rage. There are Gundor and rings of strength, but those are generally edge cases. A, say, weight 12lb curved blade would be noticeably worse than a 4lb one in almost all cases as is.

Stealth players will already in general be strongly aware of enemy Perception, which increases with depth somewhat similarly to Melee, Evasion and Will. Point taken that many heavy-armour players won't have had to care before now though.

Yeah. Given thought to full monster recall? Meta-knowledge is a googling away anyhow nowadays, and having to tab out into the wiki constantly is my least favorite part of learning roguelikes.

I definitely share this concern with Perception, which is one reason I'm keen to tie it into the new Focus mechanic. The connection to trap detection was never a particularly happy one from my viewpoint, and there are only a small number of invisible enemies even after my additions.

With perception, you could try giving all enemies/items a stealth rating, tie difficulty to light level and distance and have partial successes displaying limited information (akin to Listening). Being forced to play with incomplete information would be a pretty strong incentive to upgrade it, even for melee types.

Will I think does have a lot more relevance particularly in the late game. While resistance to effects like stat drain is available, it competes with lots of other possibilities and often players are relying on Will to carry the day. I am a little concerned that Will losing relevance to staffs may have an effect - I may tie Perception to Focus regen and Will to maximum Focus, though I'm worried about overly complicating a new mechanic.

Vampires do have the lategame problem of going pop on contact with warrior types though. There's also song of staying adding 10+ on demand once you reach the depths.

If you're open to suggestions, back when I tried to bother half into implementing words of command, I liked to imagine them being vestiges of the song of creation lingering on Arda. Listen closely in the right spot and you might yet hear them. Commit one to memory and one might speak it once, using its power in the process. 100% fan fiction, but Gandalf made it sound like he somehow used a limited resource when he spoke that door shut in Moria.

In gameplay terms, that means they could be functionally identical to current staves ("items" with unknown number of charges), but would need some amount of perception to become aware of, voice usage to be spoken, and be maybe be stored in a separate inventory which size depends on willpower or similar. Tweak the power levels and effects and that might make high willpower/perception "mages" more viable.

Regarding staves, I like your suggestion above effectively making them take up a shield slot and provide non-melee-combat bonuses. Don't recall Gandalf wacking orcs with his staff in the books, he had Glamdring for that.

I have been considering making the Nameless Things That Gnaw The Roots Of The World that Gandalf and the balrog fled upwards from into a series of horrifying and very dangerous uniques (without acid) - not quite Ungoliant dangerous, but close to it. (Ungoliant may get a heavy buff: as a match for Morgoth, she should be terrifying. Bit iffy on the canonicity of her hanging round Angband though).

Making them uniques would add even more xp into the lategame though. Maybe just jack up their stats to 11? They're easy enough to avoid and could help hammer home that not everything that can be fought should be. Maybe even make mature dragons nigh unkillable so as to require high stealth to loot their hoards?

Ungolianth and her brood has every reason to hang round Angband by the way, she still hungers for those sweet sweet Silmarils remember?

Removing the big stat boost potions will make tough late game enemies somewhat more worrying, though perhaps as you say the issue is more that there are fewer of them with a more territorial nature - drakes are unpleasant to fight, but unlikely to chase you, while troll guards are mostly no real threat to late game characters. Suggestions are welcome.

Thanks very much for all the testing. It's appreciated.

Have you played Dungeon Crawl? There's a few themed hell dungeon branches in the endgame that randomly bombards the player with hell effects ranging from status effects to summoning monsters and whatnot, kind of like the ancient and terrible curse in some Angband variants (Zangband? It's been years). Maybe something like that replacing the more nonsensical traps, getting stronger and more dangerous the deeper you go? Could also tie into cursed items and replace the "sticky curse" which plagues roguelikes.

Also no need to thank me. This is fun!

[Quirk]

Huh, was somehow convinced the silver veins of Moria weren't found until the second age. I stand corrected. Also fuck yeah, words of power! Any chance herbs/potions will be baked into them as well?

No, though the plan is to Tolkienise herbs and potions a lot further, as I have a strong distaste for the gamey sound of Potions of Strength and Herbs of Weakness.

Athelas and Miruvor have a good deal more First Age canonicity than words of power though, and while other herbs and potions will not have quite the same weight of validity, herbs and potions will be kept.

EDIT: The tiles of slaying ego weapons on the floor are replaced by black boxes when in foe proximity.

Clearly I need to look at slaying weapons with tiles. Have updated https://github.com/sil-quirk/sil-q/issues/19. Thanks.

* I like the new enemy designs. Maybe the Wraiths are a tad too harsh on armor-focused characters, especially as high evasion is generally better as is.

Try the new Blocking skill, it gives high Protection characters a lot of oomph.

* The "Balanced" re-roll could maybe be replaced by an additional +1 to hit and "Ponderous" no-crits effect could be replaced by just adding some weight to the item. Wouldn't change their function much and would reduce feature bloat. If you're replacing consumables with words of power, maybe consider nixing item weight altogether and replace current weapon weight with (a functionally identical) weapon balance rating?

Currently I'm trying to add variety rather than narrow it, but Balanced does rather more than +1 (it's closer to +3), and Cumbersome couldn't really be modelled by adding weight - adding weight will not negate crits given a high enough roll, and will provide more room for the strength bonus, making it much less of a drawback. Balance and weight are very different things. Light weapons improve crits, heavy weapons damage from Strength. A badly balanced weapon should improve neither.

* Didn't test Outwit; learning monster perception rates feels like a hassle compared to critical resistance for high armour characters, and it's superflous with high evasion anyhow. Do monsters have a default value tied to native depth similar to most other stats? Also the name could use some work; how smart are you really if they're punching you in the face?

Stealth players will already in general be strongly aware of enemy Perception, which increases with depth somewhat similarly to Melee, Evasion and Will. Point taken that many heavy-armour players won't have had to care before now though.

Outwitted enemies are generally failing to hit you with more than a glancing blow; I get one could argue that if you're so very clever they shouldn't hit you at all, but I don't think it's that bad a fit.

* On the whole, I'd say there's two pretty big balance issues atm. First off the grace skills feels severely underpowered save as prerequisites for abilities. I currently get 7 will for poison resistance and 6 perception for Rauko-Bane, and that's it. Never feel punished for not raising them higher thanks to all the Free Action/See Invisible/Clarity being tossed about. Song/Smithing are of course only used for abilities. Compare this with getting 20++ base melee/evasion for combat characters wanting to beat V.

I definitely share this concern with Perception, which is one reason I'm keen to tie it into the new Focus mechanic. The connection to trap detection was never a particularly happy one from my viewpoint, and there are only a small number of invisible enemies even after my additions.

Will I think does have a lot more relevance particularly in the late game. While resistance to effects like stat drain is available, it competes with lots of other possibilities and often players are relying on Will to carry the day. I am a little concerned that Will losing relevance to staffs may have an effect - I may tie Perception to Focus regen and Will to maximum Focus, though I'm worried about overly complicating a new mechanic.

* More importantly, difficulty drops off a cliff after 800' or so. Plenty of reasons why, eg lots of combat xp, fewer monsters overall, more territorial monsters, scrying staff abuses, monsters not being able to keep up with player evasion etc. You can still die to V in the throne room or not having protection around breathers, but that's about it really. Prior to that the difficulty curve feels more or less spot on.

Yeah, this is a big issue. It's been around for quite a while - 950' has been farming depth since I started playing Sil - and I do have some intentions to address it, though they're not very firm right now. The last levels could possibly benefit from being shrunk.

I have been considering making the Nameless Things That Gnaw The Roots Of The World that Gandalf and the balrog fled upwards from into a series of horrifying and very dangerous uniques (without acid) - not quite Ungoliant dangerous, but close to it. (Ungoliant may get a heavy buff: as a match for Morgoth, she should be terrifying. Bit iffy on the canonicity of her hanging round Angband though).

Removing the big stat boost potions will make tough late game enemies somewhat more worrying, though perhaps as you say the issue is more that there are fewer of them with a more territorial nature - drakes are unpleasant to fight, but unlikely to chase you, while troll guards are mostly no real threat to late game characters. Suggestions are welcome.

Thanks very much for all the testing. It's appreciated.

[Infinitum]

Aw. Got complacent and wailed at one-star-V whilst surrounded. Splat.

General impressions:

* I like the new enemy designs. Maybe the Wraiths are a tad too harsh on armor-focused characters, especially as high evasion is generally better as is.

* A lot of the new equiment tests vs rareish damage types eg bleeding and stun or checks metabolism which makes identification a bit harder. Probably not a big deal once I've gotten used to them, although I'm not a fan of the ID game to begin with.

* The "Balanced" re-roll could maybe be replaced by an additional +1 to hit and "Ponderous" no-crits effect could be replaced by just adding some weight to the item. Wouldn't change their function much and would reduce feature bloat. If you're replacing consumables with words of power, maybe consider nixing item weight altogether and replace current weapon weight with (a functionally identical) weapon balance rating?

* Staffs of Dismay spawned late for me. Mass confusion seemed a bit underwhelming at that point, but I guess it could be used as an unreliable escape in some situations.

* Inner light feels very strong right now. Never needed Song of the Trees with it (and a brilliant feanorian lamp lategame) except versus Ungolianth and some odd ancient spiders.

* Didn't test Outwit; learning monster perception rates feels like a hassle compared to critical resistance for high armour characters, and it's superflous with high evasion anyhow. Do monsters have a default value tied to native depth similar to most other stats? Also the name could use some work; how smart are you really if they're punching you in the face?

* On the whole, I'd say there's two pretty big balance issues atm. First off the grace skills feels severely underpowered save as prerequisites for abilities. I currently get 7 will for poison resistance and 6 perception for Rauko-Bane, and that's it. Never feel punished for not raising them higher thanks to all the Free Action/See Invisible/Clarity being tossed about. Song/Smithing are of course only used for abilities. Compare this with getting 20++ base melee/evasion for combat characters wanting to beat V.

* More importantly, difficulty drops off a cliff after 800' or so. Plenty of reasons why, eg lots of combat xp, fewer monsters overall, more territorial monsters, scrying staff abuses, monsters not being able to keep up with player evasion etc. You can still die to V in the throne room or not having protection around breathers, but that's about it really. Prior to that the difficulty curve feels more or less spot on.

[Infinitum]

Huh, was somehow convinced the silver veins of Moria weren't found until the second age. I stand corrected. Also fuck yeah, words of power! Any chance herbs/potions will be baked into them as well?

EDIT: Looks like there's two spaces in Scatha's description, after "and by some force,". Maybe replace "and by some" with "and whether by", would improve the flow imo.
EDIT: The tiles of slaying ego weapons on the floor are replaced by black boxes when in foe proximity.
EDIT: Not a bug, but ancient spiders/spiders of Gorgoroth have very similar tiles

[Quirk]

Cool. Picking up ID'd ego items from skeletons erroneously displays them as (special).

Good catch. Might be a tricky one to figure out, and it's fairly minor so I might come back to it at a later point.

EDIT: Not really a bug, but noticed many of the new items are kind of difficult to manually ID compared to Vanilla. Course, could be me not being used to the new ID metagame. Makes inventory managing somewhat frustrating in the midgame, even with Channeling and _Understanding. Not inding self knowledge either..

Any particular items or types of items that you're finding this with? I think most weapons should still be fairly easy to ID.

EDIT: Speaking of, is _Recharging still in? I recall it recharging oher staves twice per charge with Channeling last version, which seemed unintentional.

Yes - largely this is because Channeling basically lets you use half charges, and Recharging recharges a full charge. Arguably this is a bit too good, but I'm planning a larger overhaul of consumables and it's probably still not as broken as Earthquakes was...

I'm thinking of having rebooted staffs be off-hand items that gain Focus depending on time spent and Perception skill, which can be spent on a variety of "Word of" abilities e.g. "Word of Opening" or "Word of Whetting". Focus will be a bit like spell points, and each staff will have a random assortment of abilities. It's a bit Gandalfy, and not very First-Agey, but it's much more Tolkienish than the limited-use consumable way staffs work currently and it incorporates the "word of command" and "spells of men and elves" in a way that makes staffs meaningful and doesn't overlap with songs. Quarterstaffs will then perish.

This is a ton of work though so it may not happen soon.

EDIT: Were blunt weapons changed? They no longer trivializes statues?

Yup, in 1.4.2, addressing feedback from Scatha. Sceptres got removed, and IIRC warhammers and quarterstaffs got buffs.

EDIT: Wolf-Hame of Drauglin tile is missing
EDIT: The inventory glow of slaying egos seems bugged, eg half the battle axe icon disappears when Dramborleg is close to raukar.

Great stuff, will raise issues.

EDIT: Speaking of Hames; there are currently no acidproof non-artifact cloaks far as I can tell. I'd prefer if item decay was nixed altogether tbh, blundering into traps/horrors is just feels frustrating and gamey.

Yeah I dislike acid too tbh, it's more the question of how to redo the enemies to make them somewhat interesting with a different mechanic. I come up with new mechanics every so often (met attercops yet?) so they will get the chop sometime.

EDIT: Glaurung's tile kind of looks like it has wings, which it doesn't have in the lore (maybe swap it with Gostir).

Will pass on to Microchasm.

EDIT: Mithril Greaves of Nogrod seems weird. Nogrod is a Dwarfen city, but all Mithril in Middle Earth was brought by the Noldor from the west (prior to Moria).

Well, the founding of Moria - Khazad-dum - comfortably predates the start of the First Age, and it grew wealthy from trading mithril. Did Telchar and Gamil Zirak have the chance to trade for and work Moria-silver? I'm happy to believe so.

EDIT: Dragohir, the Elfbane's tile is missing.
EDIT: Galvor Armour tile is missing.

Great, will update relevant issues.

[Infinitum]

Cool. Picking up ID'd ego items from skeletons erroneously displays them as (special).
EDIT: Not really a bug, but noticed many of the new items are kind of difficult to manually ID compared to Vanilla. Course, could be me not being used to the new ID metagame. Makes inventory managing somewhat frustrating in the midgame, even with Channeling and _Understanding. Not inding self knowledge either..
EDIT: Speaking of, Channeling doubles the effect of each _Recharging charge, making it effectively four times as efficient.
EDIT: Were blunt weapons changed? They no longer trivializes statues?
EDIT: Wolf-Hame of Drauglin tile is missing
EDIT: The inventory glow of slaying egos seems bugged, eg half the battle axe icon disappears when Dramborleg is close to raukar.
EDIT: Speaking of Hames; there are currently no acidproof non-artifact cloaks far as I can tell. I'd prefer if item decay was nixed altogether tbh, blundering into traps/horrors is just feels frustrating and gamey.
EDIT: Glaurung's tile kind of looks like it has wings, which it doesn't have in the lore (maybe swap it with Gostir).
EDIT: Mithril Greaves of Nogrod seems weird. Nogrod is a Dwarfen city, but all Mithril in Middle Earth was brought by the Noldor from the west (prior to Moria).
EDIT: Old exploit, but digging through walls with Mattocks of Belegost is usually more turn efficient than walking the long way around. Also trivializes chasms.
EDIT: Dragohir, the Elfbane's tile is missing.
EDIT: Galvor Armour tile is missing.
EDIT: Got a "you emerge even deeper in the dungeon" message whilstmoving from 950' to 900' (min depth 900')? (Was able to repeat it; doesn't show the message every time though).
EDIT: Got it wrong earlier, there is a tile for the silent watcher, only it looks more like a floating yellow eye and not like a statue? The original inspiration were the screaming Stone Chimeras during Sam's rescue of Frodo from the orc watchtower in the Return of the King iirc.

[Quirk]

Glyphs of Warding also miss tiles. Don't suppose you have a known to do list? Otherwise can just keep mentioning what comes up.
EDIT: As do Shadows enemies, not sure if intentional though.
EDIT: Also, there are no uniquely colored artifacts in tiles (that I've seen yet). Not of great importance, but it does the player an edge using ASCII graphics.
EDIT: No tile for Silent Watcher

Have opened three issues here:

https://github.com/sil-quirk/sil-q/issues

so it's publicly visible what's being tracked.

I probably will fix Whispering shadow text, but it's not changed since Sil so I'm not prioritising it, and unique artifacts are on the "would-be-nice" list, but it would be good to get the missing tiles fixed first.

[Infinitum]

Glyphs of Warding also miss tiles. Don't suppose you have a known to do list? Otherwise can just keep mentioning what comes up.
EDIT: As do Shadows enemies, not sure if intentional though.
EDIT: Also, there are no uniquely colored artifacts in tiles (that I've seen yet). Not of great importance, but it does the player an edge using ASCII graphics.
EDIT: No tile for Silent Watcher

[Quirk]

Got a few games in with the new tiles. Stupid deaths midgameish so far, pretty rusty.

Scatha the Worm lacks a tile, making it invisible. Being under the effects of Rage also replaces enemy tiles with black boxes. The Whispering shadow blurb could perhaps use a editorial, the "sounds (voices?)" looks a bit rough.

Hey thanks Infinitum, this sort of feedback is amazingly useful.

[Infinitum]

Got a few games in with the new tiles. Stupid deaths midgameish so far, pretty rusty.

Scatha the Worm lacks a tile, making it invisible. Being under the effects of Rage also replaces enemy tiles with black boxes. The Whispering shadow blurb could perhaps use a editorial, the "sounds (voices?)" looks a bit rough.

[Quirk]

Played around a bit with the tiles, looks great overall! Especially like the wolves. Do like the extra earlygame monsters as well. Did find a few angband weapons as well. Neat, although that's a lot of extra XP for the ealry-midgame? Has anything been changed/removed to compensate?

Some of the more powerful egos are a good deal rarer now, and in particular the stat-boosting egos "Of Might" and "Of Resilience" are now mithril-only. Mid-game you may have more experience, but you're less likely to have that end-game-worthy stat point.

Removing Danger/Smithing bonuses was the right call, didn't really notice any cost reductions to compensate though? Artifact shortbows can still be imbued with resistances which makes them effectively a third jewelry slot for melee characters.

End-game smithing should be a little weaker, but early to mid-game should benefit from the guaranteed forges now being at 100, 300 and 500 and the greater variety of egos. I had the aid of some smiths very adept at breaking the game to test this in what was originally the 1.4.3-beta before tiles entered the picture.

Haven't played around with the new abilities yet. How do the Oaths work? Do they straight up forbid you from certain actions or are the bonuses forfeit if you do or what?

The bonuses are forfeit if you do; however you will be warned when taking an action that will violate an active Oath and need to confirm you are willing to break the Oath before going through with it.