Traps. Avoidance, detection, meaning.

[Timo Pietilä]

Hello.

There was a trap discussion recently, but it was in not in it's own thread. So I opened a new one.

My feelings about traps are that they should be avoidable without detection given right stats like very high DEX combined with perception, avoidable with detection without needing to go around them with greater success and disarm-able only with detection (obviously).

Trap placement should be somewhat "intelligent", so that you won't get traps anywhere, but are more likely to find them in some spots of the dungeon (like room entrance), corridor crossroads and so on.

Then we should remove the trap detection as spell and make char notice traps in distance if he makes a detection roll (a bit like dwarf sensing treasure, but only for LoS).

[ewert]

I think removing trap detection is a good idea. LoS trap detection up to 4 paces away? With chances as x, x/2, x/3 and x/4 where x is search% to spot? Make default "move into known trap" an avoidance move with dex based success, and disarm is only command based. Class and level + int + wis for search% if it isn't already (wisdom usually contains intuition in many games, and acts for spot checks etc.). That trap placement non-randomness is good idea too.

Removing trap det spells would definitely streamline the gameplay, and also brings forth a new element into the game: traps. Yeah, I know, sounds stupid, but really traps at the moment are pretty much only inconvenience of tedium ... =P

[kaypy]

Rather than outright removal, detect traps/doors could just become a duration perception enhancer.

With ranged detection, the max range should probably be when your detection ability runs out of steam rather than a fixed amount. Although I suppose you might just assume for convenience that the player wont have *that* much light- I assume blindness et al already ruins your searching?

I think if finding traps the hard way becomes the norm, something will need to be tweaked wrt trapdoors though...

Oh, and one other point on 'intelligent' placement: while we tend to be setting the enemies to be immune to traps, it might still be more sensible looking to put traps in places where there are (inconvenient) paths around the traps. It would be more realistic not to want to have to dodge your own traps, right?

Better yet, if you could tweak the AI to slow down or go around trapped squares- just for that time you see the orc mob flow around that one tile and go "Wait a minute..."

[fizzix]

Oh, and one other point on 'intelligent' placement: while we tend to be setting the enemies to be immune to traps, it might still be more sensible looking to put traps in places where there are (inconvenient) paths around the traps. It would be more realistic not to want to have to dodge your own traps, right?

Better yet, if you could tweak the AI to slow down or go around trapped squares- just for that time you see the orc mob flow around that one tile and go "Wait a minute..."

I think the idea is that if you know the trap is there you can avoid stepping on whatever triggers it as you walk by. Unfortunately, @ cannot coexist on a trapped square unless it gets disarmed first.

You should definitely get a trap detection attempt for any trap that's in LoS in a lit square.

[nppangband]

You will have to factor in how to handle secret doors as well. The same spell that detects traps also detects hidden doors.

[Timo Pietilä]

Unfortunately, @ cannot coexist on a trapped square unless it gets disarmed first.

I don't think it would be impressive coding challenge to change that. That would allow also "persistent" traps like spider webs that immobilize but do not paralyze @. I think we should change that.

[Derakon]

My main problem with doing away with trap detection is that it leaves the game more open for "Whoops, something you could not have known about killed you." Right now that's largely limited to things like warriors, priests, and paladins who venture into drolem country without generic-monster detection and get really unlucky. I.e. the current unavoidable-instadeath rate is small. If we're going to increase it, I'd rather it be by something suitably impressive (e.g. ancient dragon popping up at 800'), not by the player blundering into a teleport trap and getting dropped in the middle of some gravity hounds that he purposefully avoided earlier.

If you plan to just do away with trap detection and replace it with trap noticing, then trap noticing needs to have equivalent reliability -- basically, that means that traps are automatically seen once you step next to them. Or else traps need to have zero instadeath capability. No teleport, no summons, no paralyze.

[EpicMan]

But right now traps are tedium. Except for the very beginning traps are just a rote 'cast DTraps when I get to the edge of detection or take the stairs' and act as a speed bump 'cast destroy traps then move'. If you want to leave things like that we might as well turn traps into hostile glyphs that take a turn to break before we move on them; with always-available trap detection they are just speed bumps where you press A not to die/get hurt.

In fact, we could just stop generating traps past dungeon level 10 or so without changing gameplay very muchm, aside from freeing up one inventory slot. Traps are in this regard very similar to food right now - it is purely an inconvenience.

If you're worried about increasing the % of non-player-created instadeaths make traps about 1/2 to 1/3 less common than they are now, except maybe in vaults. That way the "hit teleport trap', gravity hound breathes gravity (x8)...You die" is less likely to happen.

[Derakon]

I'm not saying traps can't be changed. I'm just saying that taking the current system and just changing the detection mechanic (from a perfect but tedious approach to an imperfect automatic approach) is not sufficient. Even if you just make traps less common, this amounts to, what -- an occasional, random penalty for race/class combinations with bad perception? Nobody's going to change their equipment loadouts just to be more likely to notice traps, especially if it requires losing capability against a more quantifiable threat.

I agree that traps, as they are right now, are not very interesting. But I also don't think they can be made interesting with only minor tweaks.

[Tiburon Silverflame]

I think these last couple comments beg this question:

What purpose do we want traps to serve in the game?

Without that as a basis, we're wandering around in the dark.

[Timo Pietilä]

My main problem with doing away with trap detection is that it leaves the game more open for "Whoops, something you could not have known about killed you." Right now that's largely limited to things like warriors, priests, and paladins who venture into drolem country without generic-monster detection and get really unlucky. I.e. the current unavoidable-instadeath rate is small.

I'd say our current instadeath rate is zero with patience. And that is a problem. You need to artificially increase your danger level to make game challenging. We need more challenge that cannot be countered by patience.

If we're going to increase it, I'd rather it be by something suitably impressive (e.g. ancient dragon popping up at 800'), not by the player blundering into a teleport trap and getting dropped in the middle of some gravity hounds that he purposefully avoided earlier.

If you plan to just do away with trap detection and replace it with trap noticing, then trap noticing needs to have equivalent reliability -- basically, that means that traps are automatically seen once you step next to them. Or else traps need to have zero instadeath capability. No teleport, no summons, no paralyze.

I have no problem with removal of teleport and summoning. Paralyzation however is not fatal in current vanilla unless you are into middle of monsters without FA.

I would like to see traps having some meaning. Not just some arbitrary random grid somewhere with a trap, so that you would not need to look for them all of time. They should be there to protect things. Mechanical guardians. In other words they should be way rarer and positioned so that you don't just wander in them. Vault entrances, perimeter defenses, alerting monsters. Maybe even thematic traps that tells you something about inhabitants of the dungeon. Place webs in corridors near spiders. Arrow-traps with rangers and orcs. Boulders with giants. If you die to that, then that did what it was there for.

[Timo Pietilä]

I think these last couple comments beg this question:

What purpose do we want traps to serve in the game?

Without that as a basis, we're wandering around in the dark.

That is the "meaning" part of the thread. What are they there for. I'd say they should be there for flavor and added danger and for smart person with some experience maybe work as a alert: "there is a trap, so there must also be something why it is there".

Our current traps are meaningless waste of time. Too easy to detect and disarm and too deadly to ignore. Kind of like aggravation, you either aggravate or not, you detect traps and not get hit by them or you don't detect and get hit by them. There is no mid-way.

[Tiburon Silverflame]

Too easy to detect and disarm and too deadly to ignore.

Too easy to detect: true.
Too deadly to ignore: false.

SOME traps *can be* deadly, but NO traps do enough damage to you (directly) to be considered deadly. The two we fear are summoning and teleport; these can immediately put you in a terrible position, facing considerable opposition that can kill you. Traps that paralyze or confuse can also be an issue.

But because there was no uniform concept, we've got a lot of very minor traps as well, that, as you note, are meaningless time-wasters.

So this is why we need to go back all the way to square 1, and start with the question I posed. The answer is the basis for all others:

--what kinds of traps do we want?
--how hard should they be to locate?
--how common should they be?
--how hard should they be to disarm?
--how much damage can they do, or conditions can they inflict?

[d_m]

Too easy to detect: true.
Too deadly to ignore: false.

I think what Timo meant was that since some of the traps are too dangerous to ignore (as you point out: summoning and teleportation) you can't afford not to detect traps, because you'll hit the "deadly" ones.

[nullfame]

I think new trap effects would be interesting and more damage by level.

Maybe remove the trap destruction spell from books and/or make the consumables more rare? That would force people to disarm more. I don't disarm summoning traps. I think twice about teleport and trap doors. If there were more interesting side effects and disarming was more of an issue I think that would make traps more of a challenge.