Traps. Avoidance, detection, meaning.

[Nick]

Actually, I'd say there's another option.

(3) traps cannot be avoided without activities that present other risks.

This is a good point, and it's kind of already the case. Often traps can be avoided, but sometimes not. I know when I play O/FA, I will usually avoid traps if possible rather than disarming them, because of the risk of a disastrous failed disarm - so they are IMHO doing their job.

This suggests to me that there is nothing fundamentally wrong with traps in V, but maybe some numbers need tweaking.

[d_m]

I don't have time at the moment to read the post about traps, but I should say that several of the devs have been giving some time to thinking about traps.

I will post more when I have a chance and can collect the thoughts I've heard on the topic.

[Atarlost]

Actually, I'd say there's another option.

(3) traps cannot be avoided without activities that present other risks. Making reliable trap avoidance require digging through granite could lead to real decisions as to whether the trap or monster generation is more dangerous if trap dangers, monster generation rates, and digging difficulty are suitably tweaked. This might involve the addition of a new, harder rock after stat gain.

I'd say it's also okay for traps to be relevant only to some classes. Rogues pay in combat capability relative to warriors to get utility spells and some of those utilities make traps a non-issue for them. I think that's okay in principle, though if traps become more serious it might need to be balanced perhaps through something like delayed access to teleportation magic. If mages were to lose their remaining non-spell damage options it wouldn't be out of line for them to have trap trivializing spells either. In their case it might be retaining stone to mud instead of trap destruction.

[PowerDiver]

If you want traps to be relevant, you need either

(1) the player cannot detect traps reliably
or
(2) detected traps cannot be avoided reliably

Anything else is just a variation of the current setup of "press A not to die".

[EpicMan]

Place traps on doors, not on floors

Proposed solution: trap doors, not floors.

If traps were only found on door spaces, then the player would be able to tell where traps could potentially be found, and could afford to not cast detect traps all the time everywhere he goes. Dtraps is still nice, but a warrior with reasonably good searching could go without a Dtraps device and not expect to get screwed eventually.

Instead of just setting off traps when entering a space, they would also be set off when opening the door. For summoning traps the door could also be opened when set off to allow for more summons to be close.

It would be intuitive to the player (once they learn that doors can have traps) without having to come up with intelligent trap placement algorithms.

We can keep the most dangerous traps (teleport, summon, etc) without

[EpicMan]

First I will frame the question, next I will provide my answer

Assumption: Want a way to allow searching for traps to be useful and don't want trap detection to always be required for optimal play.

The problem with traps is that, if any trap has a serious bite (summon trap, etc) you must be careful whenever doing something that could trigger such a trap. Since traps are randomly scattered on the floor that means you must check for traps on every floor square you intend to cross. This either means spamming search every step or using detect traps all the time, which boils down to a 'press A not to die' effect. If we want to make detecting traps nice to have but not required all the time, we must either make sure stepping on a trap won't kill you, or that you are not in danger of setting off a trap on every floor space in the dungeon. At least those are the only two options I see.

We can make traps less dangerous so you don't have to push it, but if you are hurt any trap that can damage you could be fatal, so most trap types must be removed to get rid of trap deadliness. At that point traps are about as interesting as finding broken daggers in the dungeon.

Option B:
Change trap placement so that a limited subset of tiles in the dungeon can have them. This could be done with AI-type intelligent placement or by restricting trap placement to certain types of squares. As the former would be a lot of work to do well, and would have to work well to make a difference from the status quo, I will examine the latter.

What means do we have of deciding where to place traps such that the player will recognize potential trap locations where the occurrence of said locations is uncommon enough the player doesn't need to depend on trap detecting everywhere he goes, just on occasions that the player can recognize?

[pampl]

Summoning runes on chests are pretty evil, as well. If we're going to make chest traps interesting we should probably make them worth opening though.

[camlost]

I wasn't able to come up with anything inspiring for chest traps -- I'd be inclined to just remove them unless we can do something interesting with them.

Take a look at Sangband's chests, particularly "(Strange Magicks)". Chests that scatter their contents, explode, teleport themselves, all sorts of fun stuff.

[CunningGabe]

I spent a bunch of time yesterday thinking about traps. I like the idea of traps becoming rarer but more interesting, and removing most trap detection/disarming spells and such. Rather than harming the player directly, I think most traps should force the player to adapt their tactics or to pay particularly close attention to their surroundings. Here are a few ideas...

1. Certain rooms could have a trap that generates a field with some bad effect. For example, maybe players and monsters have -10 to speed while they are in that room. This is especially cool because if you're clever, you can wait just on the outside of the room and lure monsters into it -- and then pepper them with arrows and spells.

Other effects could include draining a stat while you're in the room, or continual HP loss. Many status effects could be applied this way -- though it's best if it can affect monsters too. Heck, the effects don't even have to be negative. A room that grants +10 to speed is also neat!

2. There are lots of cool possibilities for doors and stairs:
* A trap that closes and locks every door in a 10-square radius.
* A down staircase such that the first time you try to go down, a monster comes up the stairs and pushes you off the staircase tile.
* Completely false doors and staircases that don't work at all (or even worse, that attack you!)

3. How about monster statues that come to life if you trigger a trap? Or monsters that only patrol a certain path, attacking you only if you get in their way? (New "monsters" representing inanimate objects could be created for the latter; for example, swinging scythes.)

4. There are also interesting ways to trigger a trap. Maybe a trap triggers only on item removal (Indiana Jones style!) Or maybe a certain unmoving monster is really a decoy, and attacking it sets off the trap.

I wasn't able to come up with anything inspiring for chest traps -- I'd be inclined to just remove them unless we can do something interesting with them.

[ewert]

Warriors get their int/wis when they get it, which is to say later rather than sooner. Aren't you really saying this is yet another way warriors get screwed?

I don't see any reason to tie perception to a spellcasting stat, and I really don't see any reason mages or priests should be better at noticing traps than warriors.

But they get their dex sooner, so unless you are playing a half-troll warrior stumbling into traps and just grunting along ... oh wait, that's what half-troll warriors probably would do!

Remember with this scheme detecting traps is not the be-all-end-all, since you can just not trip them with high dex. I doubt mages get 18/200 int AND wis anytime soon, nor priests. Actually getting that high dex would be the safest surefirest way to avoid traps ...

[Timo Pietilä]

If the trap door remains in and ironman: no up stairs remains in as well traps can hose the player badly enough that infallible detection is needed.

How about infallible avoidance instead? Enough DEX gets you out of the harm, and with detection you don't even trigger it. Traps should have different levels of difficulty and trap door should be one of the easiest to notice.

Ironman should not be considered when game balance is in question: it is a challenge. If it makes that challenge a bit harder, then it makes it a bit harder, and that's it. Artifactless has more meaning, because that tells a bit about item balance.

[Atarlost]

If the trap door remains in and ironman: no up stairs remains in as well traps can hose the player badly enough that infallible detection is needed.

Even non-ironman being dropped a level can be frustrating enough on some levels that most players will want infallible detection available.

I'd call the trap door a fairly iconic trap, far more so than the teleport or summon trap.

[nullfame]

I like finding trap doors. It's like finding a down staircase. I purposely use trap doors more often than I disarm them. If I want to disarm them (it is in my way to something I want) I find another way around since I often don't want to risk it. Otherwise I want to save it to use later. This should be fixed.

Maybe when you are new and think 1-2 levels deeper is more dangerous (it's not) they have a psychological effect. Obviously losing loot on the ground is a good negative effect. I think trap doors should be fixed using any/all of:

1. Make them teleport level at random (not always down) or always teleport up.

2. Don't let player get first turn after taking a trap door. I don't think this fixes it but at least you run an additional risk taking them as an escape/staircase.

[Tiburon Silverflame]

If int/wis are a bonus to perception, this does *not* imply that warriors are inherently hosed.

But people, you're all off track. It's not that there are no good ideas, but they're all isolated changes, and none of them address the root issues. The importance of trap *detection* is related to the risk traps pose, and to trap frequency; both of these are related to the broad question of "what do we want the role of traps to be?"

We're discussing changes, so it's NOT automatic, IMO, that e.g. teleport traps will remain in the game, or that summoning traps will summon any monsters at the DL of the trap (maybe treat a summoning *trap* like a chest...the items in the chest are lower level than the chest itself, or alternately use thematic summoning [elementals, undead, dragons] with more limited numbers, or some other variation).

Until we have a set of traps effects and traps frequencies, we can't say how crucial trap detection is going to be.

[PowerDiver]

This would also have a side-effect of giving warrior like classes real tangible benefits from int/wis bonuses atleast until they have 18/200 dex ...

Warriors get their int/wis when they get it, which is to say later rather than sooner. Aren't you really saying this is yet another way warriors get screwed?

I don't see any reason to tie perception to a spellcasting stat, and I really don't see any reason mages or priests should be better at noticing traps than warriors.