Plans for 4.1 - 4.3

[Nick]

Random unrelated thought, but could something be done to beef up throwing as a viable fighting tactic? The mechanic exists but the game doesn't currently do much with it - maybe it would be possible to add some throwing-specific weapons like darts or shuriken and create a stealth/throwing Assassin class.

FAangband already has this

[MattB]

FAangband already has this

Ah, it's been a while.
I missed it.

[mushroom patch]

A warm tip re: traps... Traps that you can't detect by explicit player actions are bad. Also, traps that you can't detect except by repetitive, tedious player actions are bad. This means: If you have traps, you should also have efficient ways to find them (read: detection spells and effects).

Traps are bad in general. If they don't do anything dangerous, they just shouldn't be in the game. If they do something and it's actually dangerous, then they create further incentive not to move, something angband already has way too much of.

If you want to just randomly hit the player with effects they have no way of avoiding, you should make it time-based, not position-based. Like "The malice of Morgoth makes you go jump in a lake!" or whatever flavor-y thing you come up with. As good or perhaps better is not randomly hitting the player with effects they have no way of avoiding tho.

[Derakon]

We've had tons of discussions about how to do traps correctly. I don't think anyone really disagrees with you (on this point, anyway ), though I admit to being worried when I hear about people saying "you get one chance to detect a trap, which is based on your perception skill, and if you flub it, whelp."

IMO traps should be visible always, but hard to avoid. They provide "terrain" for combat that forces you to adjust your plans. Stuff like turrets, spiked floors, crushers, etc. that provide incentives or disincentives for moving in certain ways, and could apply to both the player and to monsters.

[Nivra]

Imagine the weak, nerdy kids at your school, and how quickly they might be able to wield a 2-3lb weapon. That's one turn.

Precisely the exact same amount of time it takes to remove Full Plate Armor and wear Adamantite Plate Armor instead.

[Nivra]

We've had tons of discussions about how to do traps correctly. I don't think anyone really disagrees with you (on this point, anyway ), though I admit to being worried when I hear about people saying "you get one chance to detect a trap, which is based on your perception skill, and if you flub it, whelp."

IMO traps should be visible always, but hard to avoid. They provide "terrain" for combat that forces you to adjust your plans. Stuff like turrets, spiked floors, crushers, etc. that provide incentives or disincentives for moving in certain ways, and could apply to both the player and to monsters.

This idea I really like. I also don't like traps as currently implemented.

In fact, perception as a whole seems very... oddly implemented. Currently, it really only matters in early game before reliable detection, then it becomes meaningless. The depth where ego-items which boost searching become more common is also the depth where you get detection and perception becomes useless.

I wonder if some sort of rune-like trap detection system could be implemented with differing degrees of difficulty of traps all the way down to dlvl-100. Once you learn how to detect spiked pits, it becomes easier or automatic, but the initial learning of how spiked pits are takes some time and experience (falling into them a few times). Perception skill increases the chance of learning how spiked pits work so you can see them. Then make ?/- of detect traps all about boosting your perception chance? Just spitballing here trying to make perception useful for all 100 dlvls and hold onto the traps as terrain idea.

[Nick]

To summarize:

Traps - basic principle is less traps, less dangerous, harder to avoid. No more specific trap locations in vaults. Magical trap detection and specific searching for traps to be removed. The player will have one chance to detect nearby traps, dependent only on perception/searching skill. The player will also get a saving throw against the effects of traps. Consider allowing objects in trapped grids and/or trapped objects.

A warm tip re: traps... Traps that you can't detect by explicit player actions are bad. Also, traps that you can't detect except by repetitive, tedious player actions are bad. This means: If you have traps, you should also have efficient ways to find them (read: detection spells and effects).

Traps are bad in general. If they don't do anything dangerous, they just shouldn't be in the game. If they do something and it's actually dangerous, then they create further incentive not to move, something angband already has way too much of.

If you want to just randomly hit the player with effects they have no way of avoiding, you should make it time-based, not position-based. Like "The malice of Morgoth makes you go jump in a lake!" or whatever flavor-y thing you come up with. As good or perhaps better is not randomly hitting the player with effects they have no way of avoiding tho.

So my starting point was that detection spells and effects are repetitive, tedious player actions. Once you have access to trap detection, you just have to remember to do it every time you leave the detected area (we've even provided a natty border), and you'll never hit a trap unaware.

Hence the idea of trap avoidance being a matter of increasing your perception/searching and saving throw. I'm seeing that as something that makes the chance of actually being affected by a trap diminish to almost nothing by the end game.

There's a lot of movement already required in Angband - I don't think incentive not to move is really a thing.

We've had tons of discussions about how to do traps correctly. I don't think anyone really disagrees with you (on this point, anyway ), though I admit to being worried when I hear about people saying "you get one chance to detect a trap, which is based on your perception skill, and if you flub it, whelp."

IMO traps should be visible always, but hard to avoid. They provide "terrain" for combat that forces you to adjust your plans. Stuff like turrets, spiked floors, crushers, etc. that provide incentives or disincentives for moving in certain ways, and could apply to both the player and to monsters.

No-one important disagrees, anyway

What you've described is just terrain. Would you have traps being disarmable, and still have the disarming skill?

There is potential to have varying findabiity and disarmibility - so more dangerous traps more likely to be detected, and harder (or easier) to disarm.

More opinions on this very welcome.

[Derakon]

What you've described is just terrain. Would you have traps being disarmable, and still have the disarming skill?

There is potential to have varying findabiity and disarmibility - so more dangerous traps more likely to be detected, and harder (or easier) to disarm.

More opinions on this very welcome.

I'm not opposed to the disarming skill -- you're choosing to take time to disarm traps, which time you may not have in a moment of crisis. But I'd replace the Perception skill with a Trap Avoidance skill which gives you a saving throw against traps as you (intentionally) move through their areas of effect -- that way you're making an informed gamble.

I definitely agree that trap detection as a repetitive, "automatic" do-this-or-risk-a-tiny-chance-of-being-screwed strategy is dumb. My problem with hidden traps as a concept is that they remain a completely random screw-you factor. Certainly you can mitigate the screw-you effect by having better perception (or by having 100% accurate detection spells that you spam everywhere), but at its base I don't find it to be an interesting mechanic.

I mean (to pander to debo for a moment here), if there was a stat that governed how likely you were to be chosen for target practice by a deity armed with a rocket launcher, and the deity usually had lousy aim so even if your stat was low you'd usually just take some chip damage, but sometimes they'd completely obliterate you -- is that a good mechanic? I can focus on getting that stat up to reduce my odds of being chosen as target practice*, but it remains a "small chance of getting completely screwed" type of thing. What makes it worse is that it's not a rocket-launcher-wielding deity, but just some stupid trap littering the dungeon. Stuff like that should only ever be an accessory to your murder, not the primary instigator.

I guess Free Action is pretty similar, come to think, except the odds of getting obliterated by rocket launcher-wielding Carrion Crawlers are so much higher.

* And in the old days I could cast a spell that would distract the deity with a new copy of Guns & Ammo Magazine, but I'd have to cast it regularly for the rest of my life or risk getting shot at.

[mushroom patch]

To summarize:

So my starting point was that detection spells and effects are repetitive, tedious player actions. Once you have access to trap detection, you just have to remember to do it every time you leave the detected area (we've even provided a natty border), and you'll never hit a trap unaware.

Better than searching tho. If you think detection is repetitive, you should make it a duration effect with long or infinite duration.

Hence the idea of trap avoidance being a matter of increasing your perception/searching and saving throw. I'm seeing that as something that makes the chance of actually being affected by a trap diminish to almost nothing by the end game.

What derakon says about this is more or less correct.

There's a lot of movement already required in Angband - I don't think incentive not to move is really a thing.

smh. Moving is bad. You don't want to move in any serious fight and out of combat you want to move as little and as efficiently as possible to reduce the odds of waking things unintentionally, running into traps, etc. At the same time, you don't need to move to generate more levels w/ default birth options and there is absolutely no gameplay reason to explore levels without a clear goal revealed via detection spells or effects.*

*: I know you guys think fuzzy detection and disconnected stairs somehow change this analysis, but you're mistaken.

[Carnivean]

If you think detection is repetitive, you should make it a duration effect with long or infinite duration.

I think I like this idea.

[Bogatyr]

Well I for one have looked once or twice at tiles and will never play them. You just cannot beat the information density of ASCII: more info on the same sized screen. A nice change would be allowing variable ASCII resolution in fact: fit the entire level on large monitors with no need for "windows". That would remove the entire "offscreen" problem which would be a welcome "good bye."

A *critical* feature, especially for newbies, would be a much clearer, summarized, searchable key-map help screen. The current approach takes forever just to find the key for the action I already know I want to do.

[mushroom patch]

Well I for one have looked once or twice at tiles and will never play them. You just cannot beat the information density of ASCII: more info on the same sized screen. A nice change would be allowing variable ASCII resolution in fact: fit the entire level on large monitors with no need for "windows". That would remove the entire "offscreen" problem which would be a welcome "good bye."

Should just reduce max vision/effect range to 10 or so, tbh.

[kandrc]

A nice change would be allowing variable ASCII resolution in fact: fit the entire level on large monitors with no need for "windows". That would remove the entire "offscreen" problem which would be a welcome "good bye."

Just resize your window. I've played this way for at least the past 10 years, probably longer. I used to adjust my font so that I could optimize for the largest font that allowed a full dungeon. Not necessary any more; the default font size is large enough and fits with room to spare.

I've never quite understood why somebody would want a subwindow with, e.g., their inventory, when it forces them to sacrifice a full view of the dungeon. Today, with a 4k monitor, I can fit a complete dungeon and still have room for 8 or so subwindows, but I still see little use for them. That full dungeon context is huge, but if I'm looking at my inventory, I'm not looking at the dungeon, so no need for a subwindow.

[Rydel]

Multiple monitors. I can keep things like the character sheet, equipment, inventory, etc up on another monitor, while still giving an entire monitor to the dungeon view, so I'm not sacrificing anything.

[fizzix]

I mean (to pander to debo for a moment here), if there was a stat that governed how likely you were to be chosen for target practice by a deity armed with a rocket launcher, and the deity usually had lousy aim so even if your stat was low you'd usually just take some chip damage, but sometimes they'd completely obliterate you -- is that a good mechanic? I can focus on getting that stat up to reduce my odds of being chosen as target practice*, but it remains a "small chance of getting completely screwed" type of thing. What makes it worse is that it's not a rocket-launcher-wielding deity, but just some stupid trap littering the dungeon. Stuff like that should only ever be an accessory to your murder, not the primary instigator.

The major issue you have with hidden traps is their deadliness. So stuff like trap-door and teleport traps are probably fine. As are the various gas traps and dart traps. The pit traps are pointless. So really we just need to reduce the danger of summoning traps and we're done?