Plans for 4.1 - 4.3

[Derakon]

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?

Replace the deity-with-a-rocket-launcher with a guy that appears out of nowhere and slaps you in the face. Now the incentive to boost the "don't get slapped" stat is lower (because the consequences are less dire) -- which leads to more players getting slapped, which if anything increases the annoyance factor.

What purpose do traps serve? Does that purpose require them to be invisible to some fraction of the characters that play the game? I know that historically (game-wise, not real-life historically), traps have been hard to see, but there's plenty of precedent in fiction for traps that are readily visible but still difficult to deal with. I conceptually find that kind of trap to be a lot more interesting than the one where either you notice it and trivially avoid it, or you don't notice it and something annoying happens.

Keep in mind that a visible trap can be a lot bigger than the invisible kind. You can coat an entire room with spikes and it's still fair, because the player has to make the conscious choice whether or not to step on the traps. While with an invisible trap -- what decision is the player making? Literally nothing at the time that the trap is relevant; the decision was made earlier, when they decided what gear to wear. But deciding the value of +1 perception vs. anything else is stupidly difficult as it depends on the frequency of traps, the deadliness of those traps, and also on how much you care about being able to see most traps if you still can't see all traps -- if there's even a fairly minute chance that the tile you're about to step into contains a trap you haven't noticed, then you're going to play very differently compared to if you can act with confidence.

As a general rule I feel that Angband should not stochastically hide things from the player. There are absolute unknowns (you can't see things outside your view radius, for example) and absolute knowns (object detection reveals the location but not type of items), but there shouldn't be "X is known to you, but Y is not even though it's functionally identical to X, solely because of a roll of the dice" kinds of hidden information.

[Bogatyr]

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

Don't want to reduce range….being able to see a full level all at once on a huge monitor would be pretty neat.

[Derakon]

Don't want to reduce range….being able to see a full level all at once on a huge monitor would be pretty neat.

He's talking about how far your character can see (and very relatedly, how far ranged attacks and spells can reach). Currently that's, what, 28 tiles? Which is kind of preposterously huge. There's a small-view-ranges birth option that you can play with which reduces these significantly.

[Nick]

He's talking about how far your character can see (and very relatedly, how far ranged attacks and spells can reach). Currently that's, what, 28 tiles? Which is kind of preposterously huge. There's a small-view-ranges birth option that you can play with which reduces these significantly.

Better than that - view and spell/missile ranges are in lib/gamedata/constants.txt. You can set them to whatever you like.

[debo]

Replace the deity-with-a-rocket-launcher

ummmm if this is a literal deity with a rocket launcher, please do not remove it what the hell

[Derakon]

ummmm if this is a literal deity with a rocket launcher, please do not remove it what the hell

You didn't comment when I added it in the first place, so I assumed you didn't care.

[Nick]

What purpose do traps serve? Does that purpose require them to be invisible to some fraction of the characters that play the game? I know that historically (game-wise, not real-life historically), traps have been hard to see, but there's plenty of precedent in fiction for traps that are readily visible but still difficult to deal with. I conceptually find that kind of trap to be a lot more interesting than the one where either you notice it and trivially avoid it, or you don't notice it and something annoying happens.

All right, you make some good points. You people need to design me a new trap system. Go nuts.

[mushroom patch]

The problem with visible traps is that there are very few situations where you actually need to pass any particular square or set of squares. It essentially only happens in vaults, so the game's in a pretty poor bargaining position. The effect has to be less bad than using stone to mud to get around it, assuming you'd get rid of disarming and related spells/effects to make these visible traps matter at all.

[Bogatyr]

[*]Terrain - all rubble to become passable, but blocking line of sight...

I had an angband dream the other night! (3rd person, just like playing the game viewing the screen). I was in a corridor that dampened magic effectiveness, I cast m-a-d to light it and it only became partially lit. I wondered if there were melee-dampening areas for warriors. There was a "coagulated pool" on the ground where you could gather up the "stuff" there and make it into a scroll that would restore your mana (but only against a particular monster?).

Made me think: magic & melee & launcher dampening/enhancing terrain could really make for more interesting tactics! Also, if you allow smiths ala Sil for forging weapons, why not a laboratory for creating magical items?

[caruso]

• Theme - look at being a little more thematically consistent (along the lines of Angels -> Ainur).

There is a patch by Jeff for changing angels to Ainur and Maiar in Vanilla. I hope it's still compatible with 4.x

[Carnivean]

There is a patch by Jeff for changing angels to Ainur and Maiar in Vanilla. I hope it's still compatible with 4.x

Nick was citing a change that was already done.

[mushroom patch]

[...] magic & melee & launcher dampening/enhancing terrain could really make for more interesting tactics! [...]

As it stands, the player never has to accept a fight on unfavorable terms. You can always fight where you want to by some combination of luring and creating favorable terrain. The existence of terrain such as you describe would not change that, leading to one or more of the following situations:

1.) Terrain that puts the player at a disadvantage becomes meaningless through already standard tactics.

2.) Terrain puts the player at an advantage, but not as much as digging zig-zag tunnels and so forth, so again it is meaningless in fights that actually matter.

3.) Terrain puts the player at an advantage to a greater degree than even zig-zags etc. and it becomes useful (but of course not important since things are easy enough with zig-zags) to lure monsters across levels to favorable terrain.

4.) Terrain of a given type is everywhere on some levels.

Notice that 1 and 4 can combine to make the terrain meaningless -- you just leave the level.

As you can see, only 3 makes an impact on the game and it's a negative impact (players trying to play as carefully/optimally as possible will be obliged to engage in tedious, excessive luring). 4 is also probably bad, since it would further encourage stair scumming.

There are a ton of issues to address before things like terrain make sense in vanilla.

[Derakon]

All right, you make some good points. You people need to design me a new trap system. Go nuts.

Ha, okay. Give me some time to think, and I'll make a new thread.

[Nick]

Ha, okay. Give me some time to think, and I'll make a new thread.

I've been thinking already, and may beat you to it. Or not.

[Rydel]

With the traps being in pointless places, perhaps how traps are generated could be altered to take care of that, placing traps in meaningful places, such as in narrow hallways or in front of doors. This would require the player to decide if they want to deal with the trap, or look for another way around.

Traps could be placed in various patterns to facilitate this, such as a 1x3 line in front of a door so walking diagonally can't bypass it. Perhaps a room could be filled with a maze of traps, so the player can either walk the long way through it or try to disarm/tough out the direct route. These could either be all the same trap (so one weak trap doesn't effectively negate the whole thing) or a mix of traps (allowing the player to pick their poison)

I think the traps should be visible so that the player is actually making an informed decision in these scenarios. This would also remove the need to continually and tediously check for traps.