Reworking/changing Silent Specters

[unbalanced]

I think it may be a good idea to work on Silent Specters, as I don't think they are well designed.
They are often very easy to deal with , or next to impossible if you can't run away - Silence can be hard to deal with anyways but Silent Specters can be way worse than Mennas, who doesn't have it on permanently.
If you encounter Silent Specters in a Ziggurat as a spellcaster you are pretty dead, unless it's early on or if you get lucky and can get to the portal before monsters surround you.
They makes it almost impossible for spellcasters to clear Ziggurats that would otherwise not be very hard at all. In a situation like this there is really not much you can do, I just died like that and it felt quite unfair.
The moment I saw Silence in Zig:26 I knew that I'm already dead. There is now way to kill several Silent Specters or run away from the swarm of enemies that surround you when you can't blink.
DDoor may be an option, but I don't really see how it will help you get past anything that surrounds you. Even with melee capability there is no way to clear such a Zig level with a character that is a spellcaster at its core.

I don't know what kind of change would be good, maybe some sort of modification to Silence or to the Silent Specter as to not create situations where death is unavoidable.
Even removing them completely, or just from Ziggurats when they are a little broken.
As it is right now I don't see a way my DECj could beat or run away from a high Zig level that has Silent Specters.

Sorry for the rant, I could be wrong but I wanted to at least mention this.

[Sandman25]

Mages can use wands, rods, lamps of fire/phials of flood, ranged weapons, melee weapons.
Some monsters are very hard for pure melee characters, it is ok to have monsters which are very hard for pure casters IMHO.

[KoboldLord]

Ziggurats are a pretty degenerate feature in the first place, but it isn't like you don't know that you're going to be randomly facing silent specters when you go in there. You need a countermeasure in your Ziggurat Kit. Fortunately, silent specters are extremely fragile and vulnerable to almost everything, so the miscellaneous evokables that you already have in your Ziggurat Kit for dealing with other things can be used to handle them, too. You just go WHOOSH with your lamps of fire and SPLOOSH with your phials of water and then murder everything that isn't dead yet and your evokables will be charged back up for the next Ziggurat level.

[unbalanced]

Mages can use wands, rods, lamps of fire/phials of flood, ranged weapons, melee weapons.
Some monsters are very hard for pure melee characters, it is ok to have monsters which are very hard for pure casters IMHO.

Yes but wands and whatever won't help with the amount of enemies that are in Ziggurats, and in a situation like that Silent Specters are not hard - they're impossible.
Or maybe I'm just a bad player, but I really think some change is needed.

[crate]

What is the actual problem with them that you think needs to be addressed? If you are saying that silent spectres make it hard to kill things if you primarily kill things with spells, well, um, yes, that's kind of the point. It would in fact be a lot more of a problem if they didn't do that.

(Personally I don't think the prevent-casting-spells thing is problematic in ziggurats; I do think they cause some problems in zigs but those are related to the fact that noise waking up dudes is kind of expected for zigs to "work" at all (but then I also don't think zigs really work anyway so...).)

Outside of ziggurats you can just melee them (you even get helpful pre-ID'd holy wrath weapons now for your 0-skill melee dudes) and you always have the option of evocations or such. If you're doing a zig with no wands and no evo skill and you die to a silent spectre I'd call that your fault. (Crawl is nice enough to not place them on pan floors and such anyway, where there would perhaps be a legitimate complaint.)

There are problems with silent spectres (most notably the fact that it's often more helpful to drag one around alive instead of killing them) but I'm not sure how fixable those are.

[unbalanced]

What is the actual problem with them that you think needs to be addressed? If you are saying that silent spectres make it hard to kill things if you primarily kill things with spells, well, um, yes, that's kind of the point. It would in fact be a lot more of a problem if they didn't do that.

(Personally I don't think the prevent-casting-spells thing is problematic in ziggurats; I do think they cause some problems in zigs but those are related to the fact that noise waking up dudes is kind of expected for zigs to "work" at all (but then I also don't think zigs really work anyway so...).)

Outside of ziggurats you can just melee them (you even get helpful pre-ID'd holy wrath weapons now for your 0-skill melee dudes) and you always have the option of evocations or such. If you're doing a zig with no wands and no evo skill and you die to a silent spectre I'd call that your fault. (Crawl is nice enough to not place them on pan floors and such anyway, where there would perhaps be a legitimate complaint.)

There are problems with silent spectres (most notably the fact that it's often more helpful to drag one around alive instead of killing them) but I'm not sure how fixable those are.

It's more than just hard, in Zigs.
All I'm suggesting is removing them from there considering the difficulty bump they create.
You can't always get them with Evocable when there are several of them in a full Zig level.

Ziggurats are a pretty degenerate feature in the first place, but it isn't like you don't know that you're going to be randomly facing silent specters when you go in there. You need a countermeasure in your Ziggurat Kit. Fortunately, silent specters are extremely fragile and vulnerable to almost everything, so the miscellaneous evokables that you already have in your Ziggurat Kit for dealing with other things can be used to handle them, too. You just go WHOOSH with your lamps of fire and SPLOOSH with your phials of water and then murder everything that isn't dead yet and your evokables will be charged back up for the next Ziggurat level.

Evocations help, but when there are 5-6 of them and you are immediatly surrounded thanks to curse toes, it may not be enough.
Kind of hard to do but I guess you have a point.
I myself am not a very good player but I think the difficulty level should persist a bit more during Ziggurats.

[Sandman25]

Ziggurats are not consistent in difficulty levels. Sometimes you get Swamp and Orcs, sometimes you get Mummies and Orbs of Fire.

My last post, I really like current number of posts

[unbalanced]

Ziggurats are not consistent in difficulty levels. Sometimes you get Swamp and Orcs, sometimes you get Mummies and Orbs of Fire.

My last post, I really like current number of posts

So you won't post ever again?

The difficulty level in Ziggurats wasn't that bad. You can certainly beat Swamp and Orcs, as well as Mummies and Orbs of fire. Even if you add Pan lords it can still be done.
I'm just questioning the ability to beat a stacked level with Silent Specters in it.

[and into]

I'm just questioning the ability to beat a stacked level with Silent Specters in it.

It can be difficult or dicey, but far from unfair. Clearing a Zig without spells at all is much harder (but also possible).

An unspoiled player would probably die several times trying to clear Zigs just because they didn't think to bring this or that item that was available to them, but that's kind of hardwired into the idea of Zigs, and this is less of a problem because they are completely optional content.

As crate said, silent specters aren't doing their job unless they interfere with the usual firestorm-spamming strategies. As for the other problem crate pointed out, about carrying along the specter as a pet in order to take advantage of the silence field... I don't know. Maybe you could have the silence field disappear eventually if the player remains in it for a very long time. You could perhaps ameliorate that problem a lot by simply giving the specter a decent melee attack, too.

[Lyrick]

silent spectres on tomb floors are great, they do half my job for me

just don't waltz into a ziggurat as a melee-inept caster, because that's kinda their purpose (ie. getting melee inept casters killed)

there are many ways you can go about dealing with 57 hp monsters.

[Wahaha]

I don't think there's a problem with silent specters following the player, because they can't use stairs. I don't think that a specter that helps kill some enemies on one floor is a problem.

[crate]

I don't think there's a problem with silent specters following the player, because they can't use stairs. I don't think that a specter that helps kill some enemies on one floor is a problem.

yeah instead you leave one alive near the stairs so you can drag monsters from other floors to it

definitely not a problem at all!

[KoboldLord]

If you're going to try pulling Frederick or Jory through the stairs so you can kill them in a silence field, I don't know what to tell you. It certainly sounds much less safe than just avoiding them.

[Arrhythmia]

If you're going to try pulling Frederick or Jory through the stairs so you can kill them in a silence field, I don't know what to tell you. It certainly sounds much less safe than just avoiding them.

I've done this with Khufu; since he was on the floor beneath a silent specter I could just stair-dance until he followed me up without tormenting me. It's not that unsafe.

[mikee]

Probably the main part of this thread belongs in the advice forum. There are many ways to deal with silent specters in ziggurats of course, or else very few zigs would have been cleared by now. Personally, I've killed them many times with spells, too (I don't think I've ever carried evocables into a zig just to fight silent specters). It requires changing your strategy, which to me is the point of silent specters and suggests that zigs are currently where they work best.

[RoGGa]

I feel maybe a screen capture of the original scenario could be beneficial.

[Sar]

Ziggurats are supposed to be "the hardest dungeon of the game" not "get a level 9 spell and collect your free loot" (even if it feels more like the latter sometimes).

[Magipi]

Probably the main part of this thread belongs in the advice forum. There are many ways to deal with silent specters in ziggurats of course, or else very few zigs would have been cleared by now. Personally, I've killed them many times with spells, too

From the thanks this post got I guess its meaning was clear to a lot of people. For the sake of all the others (including me) I ask: How?

[Sar]

on top of my head are summoning spells (especially the new Dragon Call), ring of flames

edit: also maybe Tornado if you can cover the distance from the edge of silence to the specter before it expires

[mikee]

You can also cast storm spells from outside of the silence field and eventually they'll walk into the clouds and die. Or you can storm most of the level anyway before even dealing with them. Probably the two most important resources in zigs are all the space and the fact that you're probably faster than everything. There's not much to stop you from manipulating where you are in relation to monsters or auras.

[Lasty]

They makes it almost impossible for spellcasters to clear Ziggurats that would otherwise not be very hard at all. . . . Even with melee capability there is no way to clear such a Zig level with a character that is a spellcaster at its core.

I think other posters have already done a good job of answering the proposal aspect of this. I'd just like to highlight that I think the premises behind the quoted statements above are the source of the problem you're experiencing. Crawl allows you to train and develop your character in any direction that's supported by the loot that spawns, and while some species have a harder time developing one aspect of their training than another, there's plenty of experience to allow you to become whatever kind of badass you want.

I've written many times before about the way some players seem to get fixated on the idea of making a certain type of character (a "caster", a "melee dude", etc.), and I'll say it again: if you create a well-rounded character with a variety of offensive and defensive skills you'll find that there are many fewer circumstances that are mortally threatening or which feel unfair.

[Turukano]

if you create a well-rounded character with a variety of offensive and defensive skills you'll find that there are many fewer circumstances that are mortally threatening or which feel unfair.

I'd like to quote Tolias from a chat a few months ago:

Tolias: dont remind me
Tolias: that was a won game
[...]
me: What do you think is a "won game"? After doing lair and mines?
me: ... and rPois...
Tolias: no, having a) a way to kill reliably b) escape methods c) enough key resistances
me: When you got to the orc shops and have rPois, start for the first lair runes, this is often the case
Tolias: yeah

I think I mentioned this quotation in another topic - but I really like the way Tolias defined the word "won" so precisely with a few words.

[damiac]

a) a way to kill reliably b) escape methods c) enough key resistances[/b]

A good list, but it's missing a key item: d) The sense and concentration to properly choose between a and b.

Also, minor nitpick, but it actually doesn't really address the OPs complaint, unless you don't consider conjurations a way to kill reliably (Which isn't an unreasonable position, I suppose)

[Zooty]

Also, minor nitpick, but it actually doesn't really address the OPs complaint, unless you don't consider conjurations a way to kill reliably (Which isn't an unreasonable position, I suppose)

The game was won until he went out of his way to lose it.

[damiac]

Sure, but that's not on the list Turukano posted.