Sil-Q 1.5 beta, first release

[Quirk]

Originally Posted by 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?

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.

[Quirk]

Originally Posted by Infinitum

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.

Originally Posted by Infinitum

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.

Originally Posted by Infinitum

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.

Originally Posted by Infinitum

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.

Originally Posted by Infinitum

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).

Originally Posted by Infinitum

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.

Originally Posted by Infinitum

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.

[Bill Peterson]

Originally Posted by Quirk

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.

[Bill Peterson]

Quirk, are you planning to put back the menu entries for the other graphics tile sets? I was looking forward to seeing how the new tiles were implemented and what could be done to put the Gervais tiles into the new scheme. In 1.4.2 the tiles worked, they just didn't always show the correct images.

[Infinitum]

Originally Posted by Quirk

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.

Oh, right. Didn't notice. Maybe add a blurb about attacking not disabling it to clarify?

Try Options | Interface Options | Know all monster info.

!!! Is that a Sil-Q thing? Can't believe I've missed that. Nice! Any chance of having it on by default?

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.

Agreed, maybe a more thorough rework of them is in order. Kind of coming up dry on more monsters to add otherwise, but the Fell Beasts (Nazgûl mounts) could maybe fit the bill of numerous, loud, fast patrollers to create situations (although having it that deep and underground might be a bit of a stretch):

Originally Posted by TRotK

a winged creature: if bird, then greater than all other birds, and it was naked, and neither quill nor feather did it bear, and its vast pinions were as webs of hide between horned fingers; and it stank. A creature of an older world maybe it was ...

[Quirk]

Originally Posted by Bill Peterson

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.

Ah, right. Yeah, looking at it the control and / text mentions "disarms/opens chests and searches skeletons", but the , text seems a bit tacked on. I may have to look at reworking that.

[Quirk]

Originally Posted by Bill Peterson

Quirk, are you planning to put back the menu entries for the other graphics tile sets? I was looking forward to seeing how the new tiles were implemented and what could be done to put the Gervais tiles into the new scheme. In 1.4.2 the tiles worked, they just didn't always show the correct images.

No, I have no plans for this. Sil was implemented with a fine disdain for tiles, and it's taken a bunch of work with a very accommodating artist to work round issues caused by showing damage and Listen; I'll clearly need to do more to make Rage fit. There is unlikely to be a reasonable mapping to the Gervais tiles now in any case.

[Quirk]

Originally Posted by Infinitum

Oh, right. Didn't notice. Maybe add a blurb about attacking not disabling it to clarify?

It comes right after Dodging in the tree which gives you the bonus for moving on your last turn, so I hope it wouldn't be too ambiguous to a new player as Dodging doesn't give you any bonus for attacking. Writing disambiguating text designed to specify that it's not the legacy behaviour is a wee bit awkward.

Originally Posted by Infinitum

!!! Is that a Sil-Q thing? Can't believe I've missed that. Nice! Any chance of having it on by default?

Yup, went in a version or two back. If you save your preferences I think it should stick, but it defaults to off to preserve mystery for those who like that sort of thing.

Other Sil-Q quality of life improvements you may like are [ and ], which give you a list of visible monsters and visible objects respectively. Someday these may be documented.

Originally Posted by Infinitum

Agreed, maybe a more thorough rework of them is in order. Kind of coming up dry on more monsters to add otherwise, but the Fell Beasts (Nazgûl mounts) could maybe fit the bill of numerous, loud, fast patrollers to create situations (although having it that deep and underground might be a bit of a stretch):

I have been considering "Mother of the Fell Brood" as a possible unique though as you say a peak on Thangorodrim would seem a more fitting location for her and her children.

[wobbly]

Hey Quirk are you planning on updating this on angband.live, or is the nightly already it?

[Quirk]

Originally Posted by wobbly

Hey Quirk are you planning on updating this on angband.live, or is the nightly already it?

Once I get back to mechanics I might update angband.live, but the recent changes have been pretty much all tiles, which I don't think angband.live supports.