Traps, again

[Philip]

I like most of the newest version, though I think Rogues should get magical trap detection at about the same time Mages do, and Priests should not get it ever, in order to make classes more consistent with their strengths (Rogues, sneaking around with magic assistance, Mages, dungeon control, Priests, healing and healing and also healing). It really bothers me that Priests are miles better at detection than Mages are. Priests get Detection, which shaves off several turns at every detection and allows you to see everything at once. Priests get magic mapping, which is just plain amazing. Priests eventually even get Clairvoyance. For a field where Priests are terrible early on, and Mages specialize in, that feels wrong.

[Nick]

I like most of the newest version, though I think Rogues should get magical trap detection at about the same time Mages do, and Priests should not get it ever, in order to make classes more consistent with their strengths (Rogues, sneaking around with magic assistance, Mages, dungeon control, Priests, healing and healing and also healing). It really bothers me that Priests are miles better at detection than Mages are. Priests get Detection, which shaves off several turns at every detection and allows you to see everything at once. Priests get magic mapping, which is just plain amazing. Priests eventually even get Clairvoyance. For a field where Priests are terrible early on, and Mages specialize in, that feels wrong.

Possibly you're right. The current plan is for classes to get serious examination for 4.2 (and we're really not short of changes already for 4.1), so for now I'm inclined to keep fairly close to the status quo.

[gameplay appreciator]

I think you will find that the simplest and best way to deal with traps is to remove them. They are static, rather unthreatening features. The interaction with detection effects is certainly a concern, but not really the key problem with them. They penalize movement in a game where movement is already best avoided. More than just telling the player to take as few moves as possible to avoid waking up monsters, traps further tell the player to remember what tiles he has traversed so that he runs less risk in backtracking after picking things up or killing monsters. If you aren't doing this when you play, it is only because you know traps pose no real threat anyway.

The general question of detection in angband isn't just about tedium, though. One might ask what the function of walls is in a game where in principle you can know where everything is all the time in spite of them. Why bother with mechanics like light? Why compute fields of view at all? You can see everything without light or even line of sight! That old standard we all love to know, The Legend of Zelda, gives approximately the same level of player knowledge available in angband at the cost of constant vigilance and key mashing completely for free and there does not appear to be any price in terms of balance, flavor, or style.

[zog]

OK, I've had a good long think about this, and considered all the comments that have been made. A couple of philosophical points first:

• The current, 4.0.5, gameplay boils down (with some exceptions in the early game) to "everyone has magical trap detection, and everyone uses it all the time, unless they forget to".

I don't agree with that assessment. Take these two scenarios:

1) You just used your last teleport option to get out of a losing battle, only to land a few squares away from an angry Dracolich in an unexplored (and therefore undetected) part of the level. You can use the next turn to either turn into a corner and get out of its sight, or to cast Detect Trap and risk it breathing onto you. What would you do?

Well, duh. Of course you turn the corner, and accept the fact that a trap may be there--the probability that there is a trap and it would kill you is a lot smaller than that of the Dracolich unloading nether onto you in the next turn.

Notice that there is no "forgetting" in this scenario--the only mistake I had made was being too feisty against a powerful enemy in the previous battle, without exploring and clearing out the level first. The game must punish such arrogance, and traps are effective mechanisms for that.

2) Some monsters, like Saruman, lay traps around you. The whole point of that attack is to make you waste your time with detection and/or disarming, and it is effective: I've fallen through trap doors more than once because I stupidly decided to pursue a dying Saruman without checking for traps. Again, this is exactly the type of penalty that the game should enforce.


For both 1) and 2), your proposal would make traps inconsequential.

[Nick]

I don't agree with that assessment. Take these two scenarios:

1) You just used your last teleport option to get out of a losing battle, only to land a few squares away from an angry Dracolich in an unexplored (and therefore undetected) part of the level. You can use the next turn to either turn into a corner and get out of its sight, or to cast Detect Trap and risk it breathing onto you. What would you do?

Well, duh. Of course you turn the corner, and accept the fact that a trap may be there--the probability that there is a trap and it would kill you is a lot smaller than that of the Dracolich unloading nether onto you in the next turn.

Notice that there is no "forgetting" in this scenario--the only mistake I had made was being too feisty against a powerful enemy in the previous battle, without exploring and clearing out the level first. The game must punish such arrogance, and traps are effective mechanisms for that.

2) Some monsters, like Saruman, lay traps around you. The whole point of that attack is to make you waste your time with detection and/or disarming, and it is effective: I've fallen through trap doors more than once because I stupidly decided to pursue a dying Saruman without checking for traps. Again, this is exactly the type of penalty that the game should enforce.


For both 1) and 2), your proposal would make traps inconsequential.

OK, that was a slight exaggeration on my part. On the other hand, it was a slight exaggeration on your part that the proposal renders traps inconsequential, because it includes retaining some invisible traps. So we're even

The "create traps" spell is a good point, and one that hasn't got enough consideration in this discussion. That is a genuine case where the invisibility of traps adds directly to their gameplay value in an obvious way.

One of the things I am envisaging with this system is that there is a bit more variation among traps. For example, takkaria mentioned webs - you could have a web as in FAangband, which is always visible, can always be cleared in a single turn, but can't be escaped without clearing it. So if Saruman creates traps, there could be a combination of visible and invisible traps appear, and the player still has interesting choices to make.

[Pondlife]

The "create traps" spell is a good point, and one that hasn't got enough consideration in this discussion. That is a genuine case where the invisibility of traps adds directly to their gameplay value in an obvious way.

On the subject of the monster create traps spell, I think the "cackles evilly about traps" message should be removed or changed. Why would an intelligent monster shout out "I've just created traps all round you"?

[takkaria]

On the subject of the monster create traps spell, I think the "cackles evilly about traps" message should be removed or changed. Why would an intelligent monster shout out "I've just created traps all round you"?

Same reason villains in films tell the protagonist their plans. It's more fun that way.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

Same reason villains in films tell the protagonist their plans. It's more fun that way.

"Goldfinger"

Bond: Do you expect me to talk?

Goldfinger: No, Mr. Bond. I expect you to die!

Goldfinger exits. Bond escapes the laser table.

"Austin Powers-The Spy Who Shagged Me"

Dr. Evil: As you know, every diabolical scheme I've hatched has been thwarted by Austin Powers. And why is that, ladies and gentlemen?

Scott: Because you never kill him when you get the chance, and you're a big dope?

"The Incredibles"

Lucius: [Bob and Lucius are sitting in a parked car, reminiscing] So now I'm in deep trouble. I mean, one more jolt of this death ray and I'm an epitaph. Somehow I manage to find cover and what does Baron von Ruthless do?

Bob: [laughing] He starts monologuing.

Lucius: He starts monologuing! He starts like, this prepared speech about how *feeble* I am compared to him, how *inevitable* my defeat is, how *the world* *will soon* *be his*, yadda yadda yadda.

Bob: Yammering.

Lucius: Yammering! I mean, the guy has me on a platter and he won't shut up!

[Gwarl]

I quite like traps as they are. However, having said that, I don't think they really add anything to roguelike gameplay. They're just flavour at this point. Having said that, first the problems:

• Being able to always detect every trap makes them largely meaningless, except as a matter of diligent spam. Where this is radius one (search) or a wider area (detect).
  
• Having a % chance to detect traps is even worse as it encourages repeat searching/detection or else RNG deaths.

There is also the secondary issue of detection spells making searching and perception obsolete.

My proposal: Bring back perception, have traps within LoS detected automatically based on a deterministic comparison with the perception skill.

Searching then only applies to finding hidden doors. Provide a level feeling related to the danger/detectability of traps on the level. Replace the detect traps spell with one which informs the caster of the number of undetected traps within their vicinity.

Traps randomly placed in the 'normal' dungeon should be fairly non-threatening overall, so a diligent play who wants the cognitive load of spamming nerfed trap detection gains an advantage, whereas one who does not is subject to some usually non-disastrous annoyance depending on their perception score. However, in places that players recognise as potentially being trapped like vaults and special rooms there should be some means of assessing the risk posed by proceeding, and potentially dire consequences for ignoring the risk.

I think the availability of any trap detection spell by class is part of the much wider case of the availability of magic in general in angband. There is a lot of redundancy with different types of consumables replicating spells in many forms - by endgame a warrior is usually able to do almost everything a rogue does and many things a mage does (I don't play green book classes so can't comment on those). I wouldn't single out trap detection magic for restricting availablitiy as part of a trap reform - rather, I'd assume a character had the spell available and then adjust their experience of traps based on perception score.

So there are two parts to the proposal. Allowing characters who do not or cannot search for or detect traps to identify more of them according to their perception score, and for characters relying on magic to detect traps to be more discriminating and less foolproof in their approach. The intended effect being to close the gap and thus reduce the 'need' for detection spam.

[Sideways]

The "cackles evilly about traps" message used to be just "cackles evilly", with no direct mention of traps.

[Nick]

OK, latest plan is now implemented in current master on the nightlies page (this change breaks savefiles). Changes:

• Searching skill is back, with new values. Currently (ignoring race and equipment bonuses) rogue gets 100% at CL50, ranger 90%, priest 80%, others 70%. Each +1 to searching from equipment gives +5%
• Traps get a visibility rating between 0 and 99, player notices trap when it comes into LoS if player searching is greater than trap visibility
• Mages get early trap detection spell (detects all traps), priests get it as part of Detection, no other magical trap detection
• Create traps now scatters traps (1 in 4 chance for any grid) in a radius of 3 about the player
• Vault records still say where to put traps, but a trap will appear in the appointed place 1 time in 4

These are the major points, but there is obviously a lot of detail in searching skill progress, trap visibilities etc which I'm skimming over. I'd really like people to play this for balance and bugs; in particular the trap visibilities may require adjustment.

[chknflyrice]

With the specific instance you are talking about I feel the only interesting choice is if they didn't always create same amount of traps every time. The point was to have an interesting decision but really I cant see a scenario that you wouldn't take the one turn guaranteed clear. The other option is to search/det then disarm (two turns minimum) or step on it (possibly disastrous).

Unless I misunderstood.

EDIT:OK so by the time I saw/commented you already addressed it. Good show.

[Nomad]

I don't seem to be encountering any trap types other than trap doors and pits in the early game. (Messing about in debug mode with scrolls of Create Traps, it seems as if you only get those two types until devel 20, after which summoning traps show up, and then the other types don't seem to show until dlevel 40.)

Also, the trap.txt file has stray extra "visibility:0" lines at the end of the entries for 'summon foe' and 'hellhole'.

[chknflyrice]

I don't seem to be encountering any trap types other than trap doors and pits in the early game. (Messing about in debug mode with scrolls of Create Traps, it seems as if you only get those two types until devel 20, after which summoning traps show up, and then the other types don't seem to show until dlevel 40.).

Agreed. I'm in DL35 and I don't think I have used a single >.

Also summoning runes are showing with the ^ symbol in original tiles.

Also my saves aren't saving. It is trying to pull my saves from vanilla and not showing my @ on this version. How do I fix?

Sorry just read the trap file... they are supposed to look like that.

[Nick]

Looks like I might have messed up the trap selection process. Will check.