Trap/door feature branch

[AnonymousHero]

I think it could be creatively limited, though. Maybe it makes a loud bang that wakes up nearby monsters. Maybe it uses up a full turn (ala D&D) so all the monsters get to act once you arrive. And yes, it would effectively be the highest level teleport spell, only found in rare books, very expensive on SP, very high chance of failure.

No. Just no.

ToME 2.x has targeted teleport if you Possess an appropriate corpse (an example, some other classes get it too). Someone once descended 30 levels in the Nether Realms/Void by "abusing" targeted teleport on levels which a) are only populated by dragons/demons, aka. summoners and breathers, and b) are devoid of any walls, i.e. everything has LoS immediately, and c) has no air, which means constant (pretty hefty) damage every single turn. Said player may have abused other things, but targeted teleport was what made the whole endeavor even remotely feasible. All of this with ~1000HP, btw.

[Nick]

In a world with both magic and secret doors, magic will be created to find secret doors. Necessity is the mother of invention. This also applies to traps.

The idea of a "detect doors" spell working only on mundane doors makes it a useless spell. Why would anyone need to magically detect a door they can find by... looking at it...? That's why in D&D "Detect Secret Doors" is a spell that exists while "Detect The Door I Can See In Front Of Me" is not.

On the subject of no more detect-traps, now traps become visible when adjacent- isn't the fundamental point of a trap to catch or harm the unwary, i.e. not being seen ahead of time? I don't agree with the auto-visibility thing. But then that, of course, makes magical detection necessary again.

I like the idea of causing traps to be placed more intelligently- that's a great idea. But I don't think the solution to detection-tedium is to erase it and make traps auto-visible.

In D&D, there aren't infinity traps and secret doors available just from going up and down a stair, so it is much more feasible for every occurrence to be meaningful. Transforming D&D-inspired mechanics into something that works in a computer game is not going to result in an exact copy, because they are two very different types of game.

[Rowan]

I won't address your opinions on hidden traps, because that's well-covered ground by now.

Fair enough, if you don't feel like discussing it further. Though after reading the thread, my understanding of the discussion boils down to

"Magical Trap Detection is tedious and should be removed."
"This makes traps a bigger risk, so let's make them auto-visible when you get close."
"Ok. Hey let's also place the traps more intelligently."
"Good idea."
"Hey, I miss magical trap detection! Put it back the way it was!"
"No."

Sure, I was just presenting yet another argument in favor of bringing back trap detection, but in-world it stands to reason trap detection would exist. Further, I get the impression the trap situation really hasn't been completely solved yet anyway, whether or not there's detection.

I feel like my comment about secret-door-detection is still valid, even if the discussion about trap detection is a closed subject.

Targeted teleport is an insanely powerful spell, even when constrained to line-of-sight.

I think it could be creatively limited, though. Maybe it makes a loud bang that wakes up nearby monsters. Maybe it uses up a full turn (ala D&D) so all the monsters get to act once you arrive. And yes, it would effectively be the highest level teleport spell, only found in rare books, very expensive on SP, very high chance of failure. Hell, there could even be a strong argument for a limited confusion-effect when you arrive and get your bearings. It could be done, I think, and could be a lot of fun. But if Nick doesn't think it's viable or there just isn't the interest, I get that too. Just seemed like a great idea when it came up, but it never really got addressed.

[Derakon]

I won't address your opinions on hidden traps, because that's well-covered ground by now.

I knew I forgot something!

Someone suggested a spell that would teleport to a chosen square within a small range. What comes of this idea? Currently there's just short- and long-range random teleportation, but it would be amazing to have a high level spell that would give targeted teleport (maybe just within line of sight?).

Targeted teleport is an insanely powerful spell, even when constrained to line-of-sight. The ability to move from point A to point B without occupying the intervening space, and therefore without leaving yourself open to attacks from monsters that can see said intervening space, is probably too powerful to give to the player.

Mm, maybe if it only came in the form of scrolls or portions, and rarely at that. It might be nice to have a high-level teleportation consumable. Absolutely not as a spell that spellcasters could cast at will, not even if it cost 100SP (because Potions of Restore Mana exist).

[Rowan]

I knew I forgot something!

Someone suggested a spell that would teleport to a chosen square within a small range. What comes of this idea? Currently there's just short- and long-range random teleportation, but it would be amazing to have a high level spell that would give targeted teleport (maybe just within line of sight?).

[Rowan]

A few thoughts:

In a world with both magic and secret doors, magic will be created to find secret doors. Necessity is the mother of invention. This also applies to traps.

The idea of a "detect doors" spell working only on mundane doors makes it a useless spell. Why would anyone need to magically detect a door they can find by... looking at it...? That's why in D&D "Detect Secret Doors" is a spell that exists while "Detect The Door I Can See In Front Of Me" is not.

On the subject of no more detect-traps, now traps become visible when adjacent- isn't the fundamental point of a trap to catch or harm the unwary, i.e. not being seen ahead of time? I don't agree with the auto-visibility thing. But then that, of course, makes magical detection necessary again.

I like the idea of causing traps to be placed more intelligently- that's a great idea. But I don't think the solution to detection-tedium is to erase it and make traps auto-visible.

Please bear with me- I'm trying to catch up on 16 pages of opinions, conversations, branch changes being made and unmade, so I'm a little dizzy with information. To the best of my knowledge, this stuff hasn't been solved yet, so I post.

[Nomad]

Just spotted that I messed up the layout of one of the rooms in the room_template file when I added the traps. Here's the fixed version:

[Chud]

An interesting behavior I believe I noticed, playing the most recent nightly master -- early in the game, picked up a normal shield (no runes indicated, anyway). Later it was damaged by acid, and thereby acquired an unknown rune, which of course turned out to be enchantment to armor, as the shield was now [2, -1].

I guess the acid etched the rune into the shield. :-) Those fireflies have really good control!

Also (unrelatedly), targeting a spell at 'closest' (using ' ) targeted a creeping coins before I had discovered it to be a monster.

EDIT: Sorry, disregard this one. It targeted a monster behind it and happened to hit the coins along the way.

[Nick]

Hmm what's the purpose of traps then? Or did you also remove trap disarming?

They're positioned so they're in the way more often, and disarming carries the risk of setting off the trap.

[PowerWyrm]

I think you've missed here that searching/perception has now gone. Traps and secret doors are automatically noticed on walking next to them.

Hmm what's the purpose of traps then? Or did you also remove trap disarming?

[Pete Mack]

If you want good detection as a warrior, play rogue. Warriors simply can't expect to avoid monsters via detection until they get a suitable magic device or ESP. There are ways to partially work around this, but bottom line, warriors need teleportation. (Rod of Light, Illumination, good infravision.)

[calris]

My feeling is that it is just a concept which doesn't translate very well into Angband as it currently stands, and I'm definitely against trying to shoe-horn something in for the sake of satisfying a vague general principle

I agree 100% - As I said, gameplay wise, the removal of the 'find by chance' mechanic works very well

On the other hand, I'm certainly receptive to looking at proposals for searching-related mechanics which do fit the game.

Not search related - perception related. The ability for the player to make decisions based on information only available if @'s perception is high enough. In a way, this was essentially what pseudo-id was all about. A few things 'perception' could effect:

• When looking at a monster, the health bar could indicate how dangerous the monster might be
• High perception causes monster recall info to be collected faster
• Coloured stairs to indicate feeling of next level
• Detecting buried treasure deeper in wallls

As for stealth, I am certainly planning to revamp that, along with sound propagation and monster awareness. In fact that may even require another feature branch

Glad to hear stealth is on the radar - Another thing perception can impact is how far away @ can 'see' a monster - If @ has low perception and the monster has high stealth, then the monster will not be visible at a distance, whereas if @ has high perception and the monster has low stealth, @ will see the monster a lot further away.

[Nick]

This whole concept of @ not having any kind of 'perception' feels a bit wrong to me. Stealth and Searching have always been stock features of RPG games... Sure we have level feelings, but they are the same for every @

I fully understand (now that I've played the Trap feature a bit more) that gameplay is a lot smoother without searching, but it feels like it is missing something, but I can't put my finger on what that 'something' is.

I take your point, but I think we should go one step at a time.

The perception and searching mechanics in 4.0 were only used to notice traps and secret doors, and so should be removed with the changes to those. If we then feel that there should be some sort of searching in the game, we can think about what it should do and how to implement it. My feeling is that it is just a concept which doesn't translate very well into Angband as it currently stands, and I'm definitely against trying to shoe-horn something in for the sake of satisfying a vague general principle. On the other hand, I'm certainly receptive to looking at proposals for searching-related mechanics which do fit the game.

As for stealth, I am certainly planning to revamp that, along with sound propagation and monster awareness. In fact that may even require another feature branch

[calris]

This whole concept of @ not having any kind of 'perception' feels a bit wrong to me. Stealth and Searching have always been stock features of RPG games... Sure we have level feelings, but they are the same for every @

I fully understand (now that I've played the Trap feature a bit more) that gameplay is a lot smoother without searching, but it feels like it is missing something, but I can't put my finger on what that 'something' is.

I'm going to throw a completely crazy idea out there... It's not related to traps, but it is related to perception...

What if, based on @'s Perception, @ got a bit of insight into the next level. So instead of having plain white staircases, we could have green, yellow, orange, and red corresponding to the combined monster/object feeling of the next level - The higher @'s perception, the more accurate the representation - with low perception, most staircases would still be white. This way, perception is a valuable asset, and the player gets to use it to choose how risky they want to play

[Nick]

And for that matter items of Searching?

Yes, not removing those was on oversight.