Trap/door feature branch

[t4nk]

Actually, I see it the other way around. Deeper levels tend to get too monotonous,

I think that's a totally separate issue. The game clearly doesn't have enough content (especially monsters) for 100 levels. That can be fixed by reducing the number of levels, increasing the amount of content, or both.

while exploring large, cavernous early levels tends to be fine.

With such things as radius 1 los, warriors being severely overpowered, mages having to rest 72 (IIRC) turns to regenerate 1 point of mana, poor variety of monsters, very small chance of finding good items or interesting places (vaults), it doesn't feel very fine to me!

[fizzix]

Yes, please. Especially early levels (like in Sil). That would solve so many problems. I guess it's fine if deep levels are huge?

Actually, I see it the other way around. Deeper levels tend to get too monotonous, while exploring large, cavernous early levels tends to be fine.

[t4nk]

The other super easy solution is to reduce level size.

Yes, please. Especially early levels (like in Sil). That would solve so many problems. I guess it's fine if deep levels are huge?

[Ingwe Ingweron]

I think detect traps shouldn't exist (or at least be a rare bonus with enlightenment or some such), and ditto for detect doors. Taking out detect stairs, on the other hand, would make fast diving too annoying, and it's lame as an individual spell, so I ended up leaving them all in for now. What's really needed is a better solution to the "find downstairs" problem.

As is evident from my several posts on this topic, I am thoroughly on the other side of this issue. Not that it matters, since Nick is God here. As my punishment, He will probably make me descend past that malevolent force on DL 127.

[Pete Mack]

The other super easy solution is to reduce level size. If necessary, reduce the various detection radii as well. (Both player's detection and monsters' detection.) There is still a detect stairs in any case: magic mapping.

[fizzix]

The super easy solution to the downstairs problem is just to increase the number of down stairs on a level to 10 or so.

The question is should finding the downstairs be an interesting difficulty in the game or not? Perhaps it can be a difficulty only on select levels?

(Once I played a custom version where it was *hard* to get down. Only one downstairs per level, and all teleport effects and such moved you back upwards. It was a bit tedious, not recommended).

[Derakon]

I think detect traps shouldn't exist (or at least be a rare bonus with enlightenment or some such), and ditto for detect doors. Taking out detect stairs, on the other hand, would make fast diving too annoying, and it's lame as an individual spell, so I ended up leaving them all in for now. What's really needed is a better solution to the "find downstairs" problem.

Random idea: a compass item that the player carries, which tells them what direction various things are in. Common compasses would tell the player what direction stairs are in, with a wide radius; less-common varieties could tell the player what direction monsters or items are in. Sort of a super-fuzzy detection, as all you know is a direction and that it's close enough to be within the compass' range of effect.

Implementing the GUI for such an item would probably be a bit of a pain though.

[Nick]

I find the new traps refreshing, but I have a fairly big problem with them. They are way too common, and way too easy to disarm. I'm thinking traps on the order of 1 or 2 per level, with a few more scattered around in vaults would be far better than current. I do like that traps are more intelligently arranged, and they serve as obstacles rather than "gotcha, forgot to detect traps, haha!" But I find that they wind up being an annoyance in their current incarnation.

For trap disarming, it might be useful to provide some indication of how difficult the trap is to disarm. Instead of quoting a disarm chance in the character file, maybe quote a disarm strength. Then you can display a trap strength. If traps are significantly rarer, you can make each trap interaction longer. So you have a few turns to disarm a trap, the first would be to get an estimation of how difficult it would be to disarm a trap. Then looking at the trap would give you the chance of disarming it, activating it if you attempt to disarm, moving past it, and activating it if you attempt to move past. Then you can be given the choice of attempting to disarm the trap or trying to move past it.

Yeah, this is good thinking.

It also bothers me that detecting traps is still very easy to do, but the detection boundary has been removed. If detect traps exist, so should the boundary.

I think detect traps shouldn't exist (or at least be a rare bonus with enlightenment or some such), and ditto for detect doors. Taking out detect stairs, on the other hand, would make fast diving too annoying, and it's lame as an individual spell, so I ended up leaving them all in for now. What's really needed is a better solution to the "find downstairs" problem.

[spara]

@spara--the reason to make them less dangerous is so that trap detection may become purely probabilistic. You will then occasionally step on them entirely without warning. But doing that with an arbitrary summoning trap is too high probability instadeath.

Sure. But with the current implementation in master you won't accidentally step on a trap. You only trigger it on purpose or when failing to disarm. The thing that I feel problematic and somewhat frustrating is the number of traps. You are quite often forced to try disarming them and at low clevels that seems to be quite hazardous. I would lower the number of traps rather than make them less dangerous, but that's just my opinion of course.

[Pete Mack]

@spara--the reason to make them less dangerous is so that trap detection may become purely probabilistic. You will then occasionally step on them entirely without warning. But doing that with an arbitrary summoning trap is too high probability instadeath.

[spara]

I concur, there are way too many traps around now that they are more intelligently positioned. Maybe just lowering the percentages outside vaults would do the trick?

And please, don't make them less dangerous, I like the way they currently are .

[Pete Mack]

You might consider the way Sil does traps. The traps are not generally deadly, except for web and roost occasionally--no really nasty summoning traps. And there is no detection, but a pretty good chance of detection (>50% with a little Perception ability) when moving adjacent.

[fizzix]

Here are my thoughts on the new traps now that I've had some time to play around with it.


I find the new traps refreshing, but I have a fairly big problem with them. They are way too common, and way too easy to disarm. I'm thinking traps on the order of 1 or 2 per level, with a few more scattered around in vaults would be far better than current. I do like that traps are more intelligently arranged, and they serve as obstacles rather than "gotcha, forgot to detect traps, haha!" But I find that they wind up being an annoyance in their current incarnation.

For trap disarming, it might be useful to provide some indication of how difficult the trap is to disarm. Instead of quoting a disarm chance in the character file, maybe quote a disarm strength. Then you can display a trap strength. If traps are significantly rarer, you can make each trap interaction longer. So you have a few turns to disarm a trap, the first would be to get an estimation of how difficult it would be to disarm a trap. Then looking at the trap would give you the chance of disarming it, activating it if you attempt to disarm, moving past it, and activating it if you attemp to move past. Then you can be given the choice of attempting to disarm the trap or trying to move past it.


It also bothers me that detecting traps is still very easy to do, but the detection boundary has been removed. If detect traps exist, so should the boundary.

[Bogatyr]

The "unbarring of the ways" priest prayer does not protect against traps from chests. That's either a bug in the code or a bug in the UI describing the effects of the spell. "Safe from traps" is easily understood (as I did) to include traps in chests. It's an asymmetry that doesn't make sense. I'm running this nightly:

angband-win-4.0.3-384-gb14d9ec

[Nick]

Nick, here is a savefile for the "Kill Boss, But Don't See Stairs" bug.

Thanks, I'll see what I can make of that.