Sil-Q 1.5 beta, first release

[Quirk]

Figured out the circumstances. I'm usually playing on laptops and usually prefer to use the arrow key and keyboard numbers for movement. Can't get it to work with them. It works fine using the numpad though.

Gonna keep the numpad working in mind though, thanks.

Hmm. I have it working with both cursors and vi-keys on a Dell XPS. Could you check whether having numlock on or off affects this?

[Infinitum]

Number lock does nothing. Holding control just seems to deactivate all number keys on the keyboard altogether. Can't strike the air using them and whatnot. Running on a 64-bit Windows 10 home.

[MicroChasm]

Number lock does nothing. Holding control just seems to deactivate all number keys on the keyboard altogether. Can't strike the air using them and whatnot. Running on a 64-bit Windows 10 home.

I'm also using 64-bit Windows 10 Home, and using ctrl does seem to deactivate the number keys for me as well. The arrow keys still work with ctrl just fine though. Using ctrl with vi keys doesn't work as expected either.

[Infinitum]

Finally beat the beta! Had another thought about the lategame balance; remove Bane? Rauko-bane pretty much trivializes most of the dangerous and mobile enemies in the depths.

Also the Oaths seem plain bad in its current form. Too many hoops to jump through for a single stat-point, especially since Power and the various stat booster abilities exists. Vengeance is plenty strong though, pretty much a guaranteed criticals vs the enemies that matter.

[Quirk]

Finally beat the beta! Had another thought about the lategame balance; remove Bane? Rauko-bane pretty much trivializes most of the dangerous and mobile enemies in the depths.

I took a step toward addressing this already in the beta, by making the glass cannon rauko a little less dangerous and upping the danger from spiders and undead. I am not sure it swings the pendulum away from Rauko-Bane given the number of dangerous uniques. However Bane is one of the more fun abilities and I'd be sorry to see it go.

Also the Oaths seem plain bad in its current form. Too many hoops to jump through for a single stat-point, especially since Power and the various stat booster abilities exists. Vengeance is plenty strong though, pretty much a guaranteed criticals vs the enemies that matter.

I think the logic is a little off here since stat points stack, and just as the ability to take both Subtlety and Finesse makes Subtlety a gamechanger even though on the surface it is a weaker Finesse, the existence of a strictly weaker additional way to get a stat point is made more potent by other ways to get stat points existing, not less. (This is particularly true for Con and Gra, less Str and Dex).

However I'm open to the possibility some or all Oaths need boosted.

Silence - an additional Dex point late game is probably worth 4K XP, maybe more, based simply on the cost of melee, evasion and stealth. Assuming other Will skills are taken and the Oath costs 1.5K or 2K, it's a 2K discount. This has to be set against not taking songs. For elves this makes little sense, and with Whetting as it is I think even Edain would prefer the songs. Post Whetting replacement it improves but Silence may still need more love. I would appreciate others weighing in.

Honour - an additional Str point is very relevant if you have a weapon that can make use of it, but the balance currently favours Whetting a bit I think and hence lighter weapons. This may improve but the annoyance factor of enemies escaping may require a bigger bribe.

Mercy - this is already strong for pacifists, who will happily take every Gra point they can get. Potentially also relevant on an Elbereth build. The restriction is very painful for non-stealthy characters without Elbereth. I am reluctant to boost this as I think it's one of the most obvious Will tree picks for pacifists already.

[wobbly]

So some stuff from my latest play through.

The new block is very strong. If you get to whirlwind with block/heavy armour you can really tank a lot. It's probably ok, it gets ridiculous but so does flanking + ZOC.

The duration on fear is very annoying. I'm not sure if its the initial duration or the max duration, probably the later. I did multiple laps of a dungeon wielding Boldogs spear with a couple of darting horrors waiting for it to wear off & it didn't. I gave up and left the level & it still lasted long enough that I thought my character might of been bugged.

Killed Morgoth with Dramborleg & a shield. Was weaker then what a big 2-hander would of done but also a lot safer. I guess that's a fair trade off.

[Quirk]

So some stuff from my latest play through.

The new block is very strong. If you get to whirlwind with block/heavy armour you can really tank a lot. It's probably ok, it gets ridiculous but so does flanking + ZOC.

Thanks for the heads up. Much as I'm glad to see whirlwind viable, that does suggest high protection builds are getting extremely solid. Not the worst possibility as you say, high evasion has ruled the roost for quite a while. However I'm a wee bit concerned that it's making it easier for new players to build a tin can that's very hard to open but which does relatively little damage, making combat into a bit of a slog. Does this seem plausible?

The duration on fear is very annoying. I'm not sure if its the initial duration or the max duration, probably the later. I did multiple laps of a dungeon wielding Boldogs spear with a couple of darting horrors waiting for it to wear off & it didn't. I gave up and left the level & it still lasted long enough that I thought my character might of been bugged.

Could be a bug. I haven't touched fear in recent times, but if something decremented it below zero it's not impossible the counter wrapped round or something. I'd have to figure out how to replicate it if something like that did happen.

Killed Morgoth with Dramborleg & a shield. Was weaker then what a big 2-hander would of done but also a lot safer. I guess that's a fair trade off.

Looks like everything was settled inside a couple of hundred turns even so, which is quite light by the standards of some historical Morgoth-duels.

[wobbly]

Thanks for the heads up. Much as I'm glad to see whirlwind viable, that does suggest high protection builds are getting extremely solid. Not the worst possibility as you say, high evasion has ruled the roost for quite a while. However I'm a wee bit concerned that it's making it easier for new players to build a tin can that's very hard to open but which does relatively little damage, making combat into a bit of a slog. Does this seem plausible?

Well it was certainly already plausible at least in the orc - easterling depth, it happens quite regularly with smiths who have not much in melee but really nice armour. The new Wraiths were certainly hitting hard, whispering shadows of course & Ancient Spiders always hit for a lot. I think there would of been a fair few things that were getting through that I just ignored because I had high damage output & a Fingolfin's con.