Trap/door feature branch

[Nick]

All right, I've been thinking way too much about this, and you guys are going to be the "beneficiaries".

Currently, the trap process works like this. The player walks along and is about to step on a trap.

1. Does the character notice the trap? If no, go to step 5; if yes, to step 2.
2. Does the player choose to disarm the trap? If no, go to step 9; if yes, to step 3.
3. Does the character succeed? If yes, go to step 10; if no, to step 4.
4. Do they set off the trap? If no, they return to step 2; if yes, they go to step 5.
5. Do they save from the effects (eg dart misses)? If yes, they go to step 10 if they've hit the trap (and therefore are on it), or return to step 2 if not; if no, they go to step 6.
6. The character suffers the effects of the trap, and goes to step 7.
7. There may be extra effects (like spikes in a pit) - do they save from these? If yes, they go to step 10 or return to step 2 as in step 5; if no, they got to step 8.
8. The character suffers the extra effects, and again goes to step 10 or returns to step 2.
9. The player must choose to retreat, avoid the trap or deliberately hit the trap and go to step 5.
10. The player can continue past the trap.

Now, notice what the decisions are based on: searching skill (1), player choice (2, 9, 10), disarming skill (3, 4), trap power (currently the same for all traps) (3), armour class (well, for the only traps where this save is possible) (5) and a random roll (7) - 6 and 8 aren't choices.

What the current changes do is make 1 an automatic yes, taking searching skill out of the process and meaning the first decision belongs to the player. Some think this is a good thing, others don't; in any case, I plan to postpone that conversation and do the following:

• Make trap power variable, so that some traps are harder to disarm than others;
• Add more types of save in step 5 and 7;
• Make all traps give a meaningful choice in step 9, so no more traps in the middle of rooms (except in vaults where there is a carpet of traps);
• Add many more traps, with more variety, and with some having more steps between 4 and 9.

Then we'll see where we are.

[Nick]

One thing I am finding to be a pain is that it's so much harder to find stairs when I want to dive. Tedious wandering.

Possibly mapping can be made more easily available earlier; also, I hope that the dungeon will become less tedious

Another suspicion I have (which I have for the rune-id branch as well) is that the race/class balances need to be readdressed. We keep taking away some of the things that set a race or class apart, e.g., the advantageous searching skill of rogues has been removed. What is the compensation to this class for the changes?

None yet. These changes are certainly balance altering, but I'm not rushing to re-balance - I'd rather get the main changes done, and then try to think of ways to re-balance which constitute improvement to the game.

Edit: Also, having to hug the walls to find doors. Replacing one tedium for another tedium doesn't seem an improvement.

There should be no secret doors at entrances to rooms, they should all be internal. That said, internal includes entrances to rooms within rooms.

The changes so far in this branch do mean there is more exploration, as opposed to travel from known point to known point. The next challenge is to make that exploration interesting.

[debo]

Lol. Well, in an old version of TomeNET, there was a trap called "Goodbye Charlie" that stripped a character naked and recalled him immediately to town. Felt like receiving a huge rocket up the a**, except more painful.

That. Is. Amazing.

[calris]

I haven't played this branch (yet) as I'm in the middle of a game - as soon as I die I'll try it.

My thoughts are (some stated previously) - some already covered by Nick.

• Finding and disarming traps is a trivial exercise already - apart from vaults, nobody would notice if they never got created anyway
• You get one chance to disarm a trap - you either disarm it or it gets set off. I see no real point in burning turns trying to disarm a trap. Sure, monsters can move up to you while you disarm, but in the real world, we rarely disarm traps with monsters around (well I don't)
• When a trap gets triggered, that's the end of the trap
• Make traps more dangerous - traps should always be a REAL threat to the player
• Add a 'feeling' to traps - nothing will make a player think twice more than 'This trap heralds certain death'
• Make traps more varied - the more we can create traps in config files the better
• There appears to be a bit of angst over stairs and secret doors with detection gone. I play a mage - I take finding doors for granted. But I also explore *every* level completely, so finding stairs is not a worry for me. I'm thinking secret doors should only exist to hide something important/powerful (i.e. the entrance to a vault) - but then we have to scum ever perimeter of every room - I think treatment of secret doors and areas is going to be the big sticking point
• Traps should only appear where they have a purpose - Nobody puts a security device in the middle of their lounge room. And if you want to prank a mate/partner, you use the door.
• Maybe instead of secret doors at vault entrances, we should have traps, with the vault surrounded by perma-walls. That way, we know there is something important, and we need to decide if we want to risk 'certain death' by setting of the trap. I remember, a long time ago, coming across a greater vault. This was before 'preserve artifacts'. A used a potion of enlightenment - Ringil was in that vault. The very first square - a Dracolich. I took the risk... the sequence of events was "The wall turns to mud"... "The Dracolich breaths Nether"... "You Die". I paid the price for taking the risk.
• Angband is, at it's heart, a game of Risk versus Reward. Nearly every death after level 10 or so can be attributed to taking unnecessary risks (off screen Dracoliches being one of the few exceptions). Traps are rarely part of this equation - I like the idea that they will be

[Rydel]

Calris seems right about the impact a visible trap has in combat in this version (practically none). However, I think this is more of an issue with how the game places traps. A lone trap in the middle of a room isn't a threat. You want to attack that monster a turn fast? Just walk diagonally. Even if, though some weird placement, you still need an extra turn, the impact of that turn vs the trap is minimal.

A system that places traps in groups (See the Distribution section of this for an example: http://www.gridsagegames.com/blog/2015/08/traps/) would probably make the strategic impact of this change a lot more significant.

[Pete Mack]

If you want to make traps count, add 'shimmering runes', a la NPP.

[Nomad]

So what are the options for intelligent placement in rooms that would make traps harder to avoid?

1) Lines of three across doorways.

[bc=black]
###[color=#C08040]+[/color]######
#.[color=cyan]^^^[/color]....#
#.......[color=cyan]^[/color]#
#.......[color=cyan]^[/color][color=#C08040]+[/color]
#.......[color=cyan]^[/color]#
#........#
##########[/bc]

OTOH, it's probably more efficient just to create trapped doors.

2) Rings around objects or staircases:

[bc=black]
###[color=#C08040]+[/color]######
#........#
#.[color=cyan]^^^[/color]....#
#.[color=cyan]^[/color]>[color=cyan]^[/color]....#
#.[color=cyan]^^^[/color]....#
#........#
##########[/bc]

This might work with sufficiently tempting bait, though again, allowing trapped staircases or traps on the same square as objects would probably be a neater way to achieve the same effect.

3) Straight line barriers:

[bc=black]
###[color=#C08040]+[/color]######
#........#
#[color=cyan]^^^^^^^^[/color]#
#........[color=#C08040]+[/color]
#........#
##########[/bc]

Work if you really need to get across a room, but there's always the possibility of just digging round or trying to phase past.

4) Filled rooms:

[bc=black]
###[color=#C08040]+[/color]######
#[color=cyan]^^^^^^^^[/color]#
#[color=cyan]^^[/color]?[color=cyan]^^^^^[/color]#
#[color=cyan]^^^^^^^^[/color][color=#C08040]+[/color]
#[color=cyan]^^^^^^[/color]>[color=cyan]^[/color]#
##########[/bc]

But would anyone bother to take something like this on for less than vault treasure?

A lot of the trouble with visible traps is that you can pick your battles most of the time in Angband, and traps don't even get up and chase you, so it's quite hard to put the player in a position where they feel any pressure to actually tackle a nasty trap rather than find a way round it. Maybe instead of free-standing traps, we should be thinking along the lines of trapped doors, staircases and objects?

[Pete Mack]

Do take a look at NPP. About 20% of traps can zap you in LOS.

[calris]

So what are the options for intelligent placement in rooms that would make traps harder to avoid?

A couple of ideas from me:

1) 'Trophy Cabinet' - Trap could a combination of Summon Monster and an elemental ball attack that will destroy the item. Put a ring of speed in it with a Lightning + Summon trap

[bc=black]### #####
#.......#
#..[color=cyan]#[/color]^[color=cyan]#[/color]..#
#..[color=cyan]#[/color] [color=cyan]#[/color]..#
#..[color=cyan]###[/color]..#
#.......#
#########[/bc]

2) The 'Shortcut':

[bc=black]  # #   [color=cyan]#[/color]  # #   
  # #   [color=cyan]#[/color]  # #   
  # #   [color=cyan]#[/color]  # #   
### ####[color=cyan]#[/color]### ####
#.......[color=cyan]#[/color].......#
#.......[color=cyan]#[/color].......#
#.......[color=cyan]#[/color].......#
#.......^.......#
#.......[color=cyan]#[/color].......#
#.......[color=cyan]#[/color].......#
#.......[color=cyan]#[/color].......#
[color=cyan]#################[/color][/bc]

3) 'Run Away?' - Player enters the level in the room. Teleports and recall are prevented. Dragons are asleep. Activating the trap wakes all of the dragons

[bc=black]  [color=cyan]###################[/color]
  [color=cyan]#[/color].................[color=cyan]#[/color]
  [color=cyan]#[/color].................[color=cyan]#[/color]
  [color=cyan]#[/color]...............[color=red]dd[/color][color=cyan]#[/color]
[color=cyan]###[/color].............[color=red]dddD[/color][color=cyan]#[/color]
.^@............[color=red]dddDD[/color][color=cyan]#[/color]
[color=cyan]###[/color].............[color=red]dddD[/color][color=cyan]#[/color]
  [color=cyan]#[/color]...............[color=red]dd[/color][color=cyan]#[/color]
  [color=cyan]#[/color].................[color=cyan]#[/color]
  [color=cyan]#[/color].................[color=cyan]#[/color]
  [color=cyan]###################[/color]
[/bc]

4) 'One Way Trip' - Not so much a 'trap' as disarm is guaranteed to fail. A targeted teleport into a vault - The area in the vault prevents teleports and recal. At the end of the vault is a 'trap' that teleports you out.

[Derakon]

ToME 2 makes extensive use of targeted-teleport "traps" (called Void Jumpgates) in its special levels. I will caution that they are extraordinarily dangerous to use, and only really usable in ToME 2 because the player's power level is so exceedingly high. Dropping the player into a space they cannot control is tantamount to a death sentence, especially if that space is in any way exposed.

[calris]

Dropping the player into a space they cannot control is tantamount to a death sentence, especially if that space is in any way exposed.

That is the whole point - Risk versus Reward. The player needs to assess if they think they are powerful enough to take the risk. Teleport and Recall are prevented - ESP and Detection are not.

I just walked away from a vault that had a Greater Hell Wyrm ~2000' out-of-depth. I'm a level 29 mage without Tensors so no chance of a fire res boost. I REALLY wanted to crack it open, but in the end I had to walk away.

[TJS]

'Run Away?' - Player enters the level in the room. Teleports and recall are prevented. Dragons are asleep. Activating the trap wakes all of the dragons

I think that if you arbitrarily need to mangle half the game mechanics to get a feature to work, then that feature probably needs a bit of a rethink.

I think the whole approach to traps in this thread is going in the wrong direction. Make the trap effects interesting and challenging and everything else is solved (I do think detect traps should definitely go though).

By the way instead of the "once only" detection chance, traps should be randomly given a level and you can see any traps that have a level the same or less than your searching skill. So if you put on an amulet of searching you will see traps that you've already failed to notice (it doesn't make sense that this would not help you otherwise).

[Carnivean]

(I do think detect traps should definitely go though).

Why do people keep saying this? What classes do they normally play?

[TJS]

Why do people keep saying this? What classes do they normally play?

The reason is that currently once you have detect traps the it becomes completely trivial and boring to avoid traps. It just adds a layer of tedium to the game without adding anything interesting whatsoever.

I play all different types, priests, mages and warriors normally.

[Carnivean]

The reason is that currently once you have detect traps the it becomes completely trivial and boring to avoid traps. It just adds a layer of tedium to the game without adding anything interesting whatsoever.

I play all different types, priests, mages and warriors normally.

I play mostly mages, and while I agree that it is tedious to continually detect (not just traps but everything), I can't agree that mages should lose something so integral to their ethos. A mage solves everything with magic, and that has to include traps.

Breaking mages isn't the answer to traps being tedious.

As I've said before, the answer to having to repeatedly detect traps/doors/stairs/visible monsters/invisible monsters/treasure is to make it a buff.