Angband doors

[Timo Pietilä]

Hello.

I think that we need to do something for doors in angband. Monsters can go thru them too easily, jamming them requires lugging around heavy spikes. Opening and closing doors could be useful tactical feature, but it isn't currently used much.

Few ideas:

- Ability to lock a door without spikes (one turn action). Effectively same as jamming. smart monsters without bash door, but open door should get thru locked door after few tries (like against rune). Jammed and locked door should take more time (double rune).
- Monsters with bash door should take some time to bash doors (locked or jammed doesn't matter, treat as single rune).
- Maybe different kind of doors? Stone, steel, wood?
- Mage "wizard lock" spell that can close and lock a door from distance. Something that Gandalf did in Moria against Balrog. Would be useful against breeders and escaping in bad situation by blocking LoS.
- trapped doors?

Comments?

[Sirridan]

I like this idea, I was always bothered by how useless spikes are, or rather, how much use they give versus their weight and the fact they take up an inventory slot.

Seems it would be interesting if a bunch of orcs are charging down a hallway that one could close the door and prepare to fight them, rather than to just close the door to block LOS from the archers/shaman before trying to recall or port away. (That is of course before a character could handle them trivially.)

[buzzkill]

- Maybe different kind of doors? Stone, steel, wood?
- Mage "wizard lock" spell that can close and lock a door from distance. Something that Gandalf did in Moria against Balrog. Would be useful against breeders and escaping in bad situation by blocking LoS.
- trapped doors?

Steel and stone doors sound cool, but if locked or stuck they could be a significant obstacle to the player as well as his enemies. Possibly impassible. Not just anybody can force open a large stone of locked steel door. Are you prepared to lock off sections of the dungeon, or are these just for flavor?

A heavy steel door instead of solid granite as the entrance to a vault sounds right. Put a key somewhere on the level, so one doesn't NEED to carry a digger (or scum for one)?

Wizard lock sounds very good. I suppose monsters with disenchantment (the closest thing to dispel magic we have) could pass. I'd also like to see spells affect doors. I don't see why a fie ball or acid attack doesn't degrade a door or just destroy it.

If you're going to have doors that lock, then you needs keys, else it's just a a sliding bolt mechanism which is just jamming without the spikes. I'm not necessarily opposed to such (as long they are placed selectively), but if these doors were very hard to pass, it would make the game easier (I see that as an AI weakness).

[kaypy]

Most characters should be able to pick locks eventually (current vanilla min chance is 2% per turn) and a stronger door wouldn't necessarily be harder to pick, just to bash. You could just assume the locks are as currently exist, but unlocked doors can be locked quickly. At worst it would be a similar difficulty to digging around the door.

A few additional possibilities:
Sneaky critters (to prevent tag proliferation, anything with steal or set traps?) could unlock doors automatically. For bonus points, let them sometimes lock them behind themselves (just for that moment of horror when a player suddenly realizes that the passage they were fleeing down is now blocked). Fleeing monsters could also lock doors (test how close the player is first?)...

Would we need to have a separate set of doors for unlocked vs not lockable, or assume all doors can be locked? Would we need to keep track of the original strength of the lock? (currently there are a bunch of door tiles for varying degrees of locked/jammed)

[nppangband]

NPP has doors set up this way. I don't think it is as fully implemented as described above, but the doors become harder to open the more you jam them with spikes. I like the idea of being able to jam them with magic as well. Unfortunately spikes are still too heavy for most characters to carry them around.

[Nomad]

My idea would be some kind of Rod of Locking and Unlocking, to replace both spikes and the current wands of Trap/Door Destruction (which are not even worth picking up so far as I can see). Use the same rod to either seal an ordinary closed door or unseal a jammed one. If it's a rod rather than a wand then the player can't get trapped in a dead end by running out of charges, and a long enough recharge time forces you to make a tactical decision about which door to pick rather than sealing a bunch at once.

Monsters would have to be able to bash through or unlock them, but it should take at least a little time. I think it would be a good rule of thumb that they should always break through doors in less time than it takes for Recall to activate, because otherwise you can just lock yourself in and make your escape every time.

[d_m]

This is an interesting thread. I was already on the verge of removing iron spikes from the game, and I also agree that monsters shouldn't be able to instantly unlock/bash down doors if the player struggles with it constantly.

Also, I actually hate the (B)ash command because of the annoying mini-paralysis effect. Does anyone think that is useful? Given that things like tunneling through solid rock don't do that, tunneling through a door (e.g. bashing it down) shouldn't either. Also, the idea of a raging Half-Troll warrior having to stop to pick locks because bashing a door down is so hard/stupid is just wrong.

Timo, I think as a first step I will try to make it harder for (especially weaker) monsters to bash down doors and probably make it a little easier on the player (and remove iron spikes). After that we'll see where we are. What do you think?

P.S. I like the idea of spells/wands/scrolls of locking/unlocking in theory but I think it's a change that needs to be thought out a bit more. I would rather not add keys to Angband.

P.P.S. I disagree about tactics... I feel like I am always closing doors to avoid LOS with spell casters as I retreat from them.

[Hajo]

The bashing paralysis looks odd to me too. If one prepares to bash down a door, they shouldn't be sruprised and off balance to the amount of being paralyzed. Rather I'd expect that weaker caharacters (low con?) hurt themselves in such attempt occasionally.

[RogerN]

IIRC doors have an internal "door strength" that varies between 0 and 7. Monsters have a chance to unlock or bash the door which is proportional to their HP. Once you get deep enough, though, almost all monsters have enough HP to bash or unlock a door on the first try.

Perhaps instead of immediately bashing down a door, a successful bash could just decrease the strength of the door? That way it might take multiple turns to break through a strong door, even for tough monsters.

I believe the exact same mechanics are used for locked doors.

[Atarlost]

This is an interesting thread. I was already on the verge of removing iron spikes from the game...

What about instead giving them a secondary use? Suppose you could also lay them down like caltrops? Anything passing the tile would take a little bit of damage and have the same chance of dispersing them on entry as for a rune of protection. (but not of avoiding damage) This would be a useful defense against breeders. Several spiked tiles in a corridor would kill a lot of rats or lice, and inflict some damage to stuff like cave orcs. Later they'd be useless, but that's okay. Most tactical choices are introduced as you progress. Having one that fades in usefulness as you progress would make a nice change and might help make the beginning of the game a little less tedious.

[Timo Pietilä]

Also, I actually hate the (B)ash command because of the annoying mini-paralysis effect. Does anyone think that is useful?

I think that possibility of getting stunned would be better than paralysis.

Bashing used to be method of attacking monsters too. Shield bashes could stun monster while doing small damage, but stunned monster cannot act, so you get few next moves free. At some point that was removed ...or was it? Testing....yes, can't bash a monster anymore.

[nullfame]

I close doors like a maniac and use create doors all the time. I try and close off corners of the dungeon whenever I can. I find doors give me some tactical advantages and give me some sense of when a monster is on my tail.

Spikes, IMO, have very limited useful life. So does a wand of sleep monster so that isn't in itself a bad thing. If I find them I carry them, adjusting the stack for weight and dropping them when I need the slot. I can only recall 1 occasion where I used the spikes but it saved my character. I came across some form of kobold and he was clearly going to kill me. I phased, ran away, closed and jammed a door with the maximum number of spikes (after looking up the command for jam door). He never got through.

I rather enjoyed that experience. OTOH does it make sense to keep a mechanic used in 1-2% of all games? Not to mention the only times spikes are useful is very early when character loss is no big deal. They could be made lighter or stronger or both. I'm not opposing the removal of spikes and wouldn't miss them if you did, just sharing an experience...

[Hariolor]

I think opening/closing a door should cost zero energy (or a negligible amount once fractional blows is implemented). Currently I find myself frequently using the strategy of 'close door repeatedly' against weaker monsters who have chased me down. To whit

I close door

Kobold opens door

I close door

Kobold opens door

/ repeat until HP/SP are restored enough to phase, teleport, rejoin the fight, etc

I find it patently absurd that i can keep thirty uruks at bay merely by repeatedly slamming a door in their face.

[Pete Mack]

Opening a door taking a fractional turn doesn't require fractional blows. There's already support (for drop & pickup).

[andrewdoull]

Part of the problem is that too many monsters can both open and bash doors. I'm pretty sure reducing this would make doors more interesting at lower levels.

Andrew