Trap/door feature branch

[Nick]

This is a branch to test out the proposed changes to traps and doors. It is far from complete - in particular, there are no new traps - but it's ready for some testing. Note that it's not built on the rune-based ID branch.

Changes are:

• All magical detection of traps, doors and stairs removed
• Traps and secret doors are noticed as soon as the player steps next to them (unless blind or confused)
• Magical disarm is gone, red book casters get a "disable traps" spell which renders safe any adjacent traps, green-book casters' Unbarring Ways spell now gives them the temporary "TrapSafe" status allowing them to walk across traps without triggering them
• Search command and searching status have been removed as obsolete
• Secret doors only appear inside rooms, not at the entrances to rooms or at corridor junctions

There are builds up for Windows and OS X, and source is here.

Please let me know your thoughts. I am certainly intending to make traps more interesting, but I think the changes to here should give an idea of how it might play.

[fizzix]

What might be nice is to mark off sections of the dungeon as "secret sections" these won't show up on mapping or monster/object detection unless the door to them are open, and the doors to each end are secret doors.

I'm not sure how this works in our current dungeon generation though.

[Nomad]

What might be nice is to mark off sections of the dungeon as "secret sections" these won't show up on mapping or monster/object detection unless the door to them are open, and the doors to each end are secret doors.

I'm not sure how this works in our current dungeon generation though.

You could maybe generate the rest of the level first, then try to place additional rooms connected by secret doors. Give squares within the hidden areas a special flag that marks them as unmappable, and maybe also gives a small OoD boost to floor items, higher odds of stairs, etc. (Or you could create some actual templates for specific secret rooms so they're like mini-vaults with either a slightly OoD treasure, a staircase or a tval-based item stash inside.)

[Carnivean]

(Or you could create some actual templates for specific secret rooms so they're like mini-vaults with either a slightly OoD treasure, a staircase or a tval-based item stash inside.)

While I like the idea, wouldn't this create an obvious blank space where a room must be?

[Nomad]

While I like the idea, wouldn't this create an obvious blank space where a room must be?

I don't know, there's a fair bit of open space left in Vanilla level generation. And the hidden rooms could easily be very small - say a little 3x3 chamber with traps surrounding a central treasure, or even just a single-square 'closet' containing a treasure or staircase.

[Derakon]

Unless these secret areas are completely opaque to all forms of detection, they'd be pretty obvious, wouldn't they? I mean, you'd see that there's monsters and items and so on in them. And if they are completely opaque, then you leave the player open to getting unpleasantly ambushed...

[calris]

I'm wondering what the philosophy behind this is? I like that traps keep me on my toes - if I forget to cast detect traps, well that's my own silly fault. Traps and hidden may be such a minor feature for gameplay, but they add a depth I'm worried Angband will lose. Noticing traps as soon as you step near them just seems so totally wrong.

To be honest, I never thought monsters creating traps made any sense though.

I between this and Rune ID I feel I've missed some major discussions and arrived just before a major turning point . Don't get me wrong, I LOVE everything in the latest version, especially the new 'double edged sword' items like 'Ring of the Dog'. The dropping of cursed items feels a bit wrong though. I'm just a little worried that Vanilla Angband is almost becoming a variant in it's own right.

Not meaning to be critical of your work - just feels strange

[Derakon]

I'm wondering what the philosophy behind this is? I like that traps keep me on my toes - if I forget to cast detect traps, well that's my own silly fault. Traps and hidden may be such a minor feature for gameplay, but they add a depth I'm worried Angband will lose. Noticing traps as soon as you step near them just seems so totally wrong.

The problem with old traps was that you had to cast Detect Traps all the time. It was a bit of mindlessness because trap detection was freely available from early on, so you just spent 1 in every 200-500 turns using detection and then carrying on as normal. Most of us felt that this didn't really contribute anything meaningful to gameplay, so Nick's experimenting with alternate approaches.

Note in particular that if you only notice a trap when you step next to it, then your planned route through a room may be suddenly changed. This could potentially cause problems for you during a fight -- whoops, there's a dart trap in your way. Do you step around it, taking more time and/or leaving yourself open to attacks from more monsters, or do you step through it and take your chances?

To be honest, I never thought monsters creating traps made any sense though.

I can't really disagree, but since only a couple of monsters have the ability (just Wormtongue and Harowen, if I recall correctly), it doesn't bother me. Two enemies have a unique ability that makes fighting them more interesting; that's all to the good.

I between this and Rune ID I feel I've missed some major discussions and arrived just before a major turning point .

Oh boy, did you ever! There's been a lot of talking about what if anything we should be doing. And just because Nick's taking the initiative to try some things out doesn't necessarily mean those things are going into Vanilla proper. My best advice at this point is to playtest and give your feedback, for good or ill. If something doesn't work, then it won't go into an official release. At least, that's the theory!

(Sorry for not doing any playtesting myself. I've had other stuff going on)

[fizzix]

I can't really disagree, but since only a couple of monsters have the ability (just Wormtongue and Harowen, if I recall correctly), it doesn't bother me. Two enemies have a unique ability that makes fighting them more interesting; that's all to the good.

Saruman, and I think, maybe, Ogre Mages. Let's see who else we missed.

Ogre Shaman, Master Thief, Castamir, Sorcerer, Shelob, Skull druj. Mouth of Sauron, Feagwath,

[calris]

Note in particular that if you only notice a trap when you step next to it, then your planned route through a room may be suddenly changed. This could potentially cause problems for you during a fight -- whoops, there's a dart trap in your way. Do you step around it, taking more time and/or leaving yourself open to attacks from more monsters, or do you step through it and take your chances?

Does this mean traps will be harder/impossible to dissarm? If so, I agree this could be a positive game changer and could pave the way for aome very interesting new vault designs.

Oh boy, did you ever! There's been a lot of talking about what if anything we should be doing. And just because Nick's taking the initiative to try some things out doesn't necessarily mean those things are going into Vanilla proper.

And I do truely appreciate what Nick is doing. There is no doubt Angband is a better game than the last time I played. To give you some perspective, I was playing pretty much non stop through most of Ben Harrison's tenure. I remember day one of the Borg. I stopped player just before Ben stopped maintaining.

My best advice at this point is to playtest and give your feedback, for good or ill. If something doesn't work, then it won't go into an official release. At least, that's the theory!

Right now I'm helping out with some code quality issues (sound sub system, memory leaks, etc.) - that's what floats my boat . And if that can give Nick more time to focus on features, all the better

[Derakon]

Saruman, and I think, maybe, Ogre Mages. Let's see who else we missed.

Ogre Shaman, Master Thief, Castamir, Sorcerer, Shelob, Skull druj. Mouth of Sauron, Feagwath,

Huh, really? Shelob seems a little out of place (I guess it's supposed to represent her webs, but that doesn't really work very well) but the others seem basically fine.

[takkaria]

Shelob seems a little out of place (I guess it's supposed to represent her webs, but that doesn't really work very well)

We could definitely introduce some webs traps

[Nomad]

Okay, some thoughts and observations after a bit of quick playtesting:

• I got an "Assertion failed!" message at one point upon trying and failing to disarm a pit trap. It didn't actually crash the game (I just clicked "ignore" and was able to disarm the trap on the next try) and so far I haven't managed to repeat it.

• Rings and amulets of searching still currently exist, but presumably don't actually do anything any more? Ditto bonuses to search skill on various egos and artefacts.

• Trap placement needs to be more intelligent with this system. Traps in corridors and vaults still work, but random traps in rooms are pointless and trivially avoidable - they would have to appear in a ring around objects/staircases or a line running all the way from one side of the room to the other to actually be any sort of obstacle.

• Circling the inside of rooms looking for an exit is certainly less frustrating now. On the other hand, secret doors are now so readily apparent they just seem a bit pointless, and might as well just be ordinary doors.

• Traps created by spell-casting monsters or scrolls of Trap Creation stay undetected unless you stand still and rest for a turn. Is that intended behaviour?

• Rods of detection have now lost much of their utility/advantage over carrying three other types of rods, and should probably be correspondingly shallower. In fact, I say remove the treasure detection capacity as well, and make them pure rods of monster detection.

• Not directly related to this branch, but having got used to rune-based ID I found switching back to the old pseudo system and semi-reliable ID-by-use so cumbersome and annoying it almost made the game completely unplayable. I didn't realise what a difference it makes even in the early game, but wow, it really does. Count me in for team rune-based ID!

Overall, I can't say I'm very keen on the "always notice traps/doors when adjacent" mechanic. There's not actually any kind of effort or luck involved in finding them, and no real chance of stepping into an unseen trap by accident (the blind/confused caveat is too rare an edge case to really come up much at all) so it just has the effect of making it feel a bit of an artificial non-obstacle that they're concealed at all and they might as well be immediately visible. I would much prefer less reliable - and maybe slightly longer range? - passive detection, even if that means I spend the early game continually walking into traps.

[takkaria]

I haven't played it, but I noticed that the logic for the new trap.txt-defined effects seems a bit off. In trap.c:

+		/* Save, or fire off the trap */
 +		if (saved) {
 +			if (trap->kind->msg_good)
 +				msg(trap->kind->msg_good);
 +		} else {
 +			if (trap->kind->msg_bad)
 +				msg(trap->kind->msg_bad);
 +			effect = trap->kind->effect;
 +			effect_do(effect, NULL, &ident, false, 0, 0, 0);
 +		}
 +
 +		/* Do any extra effects */
 +		if (trap->kind->effect_xtra && one_in_(2)) {
 +			if (trap->kind->msg_xtra)
 +				msg(trap->kind->msg_xtra);
 +			effect = trap->kind->effect_xtra;
 +			effect_do(effect, NULL, &ident, false, 0, 0, 0);
 +		}

In this case, even if you save by e.g. having feather falling instead of falling into a pit, the secondary effect can still trigger. I think the second block should be inside the first else {} block.

[Nick]

Thanks for all the feedback and playtesting - just a few quick comments:

What might be nice is to mark off sections of the dungeon as "secret sections" these won't show up on mapping or monster/object detection unless the door to them are open, and the doors to each end are secret doors.

I'm not sure how this works in our current dungeon generation though.

Dungeon gen is up for an overhaul too - there's actually a whole bunch of unused code which just needs to be let loose.

The dropping of cursed items feels a bit wrong though.

That's another one which is coming soon. Plan is to have a variety of interesting curses and have remove curse be variable (with a chance to destroy the item), so sometimes the player will choose to live with a cursed item if it is good enough in other ways. Here is a summary of a possible scheme.

Overall, I can't say I'm very keen on the "always notice traps/doors when adjacent" mechanic. There's not actually any kind of effort or luck involved in finding them, and no real chance of stepping into an unseen trap by accident (the blind/confused caveat is too rare an edge case to really come up much at all) so it just has the effect of making it feel a bit of an artificial non-obstacle that they're concealed at all and they might as well be immediately visible. I would much prefer less reliable - and maybe slightly longer range? - passive detection, even if that means I spend the early game continually walking into traps.

The main thing I had in mind was not rewarding repetitive actions (I had this thread open while I was coding this stuff). I'm certainly open to changing how it currently works in the branch if people come up with a better way.

This branch is really only half done - the other half is making new traps to fit the system, and rethinking placement, as you have already suggested. My feeling is that the current traps are kind of OK for low levels, but most of them are irrelevant pretty fast, and what we need are a lot more trap types which are interesting at deeper levels (there are some in that other thread).

So, ideas, people!