"New" Angband: First Impressions

[Nick]

But yeah, I think what really needs to be done with traps is make them feel like an integral part of the experience of the game. IMO that means they need to tie into the other core components of the game -- stuff like monsters, items, spells, and the dungeon terrain itself. I don't know what that looks like, I just know that right now traps don't really feel cohesive, which is why my first question is "what purpose are they intended to serve?" I hope that if we can get that nailed down, then the form they should take in-game, and the specific ways in which they tie to other core components, should be more readily apparent.

My agitating for "make traps always visible" is sort of operating with the baseline assumption that the form traps take doesn't change much, and is more of a patch job of "if we must have traps, let's at least make them not interfere with the main gameplay flow." The key problem there being that I don't see current traps as being in the main gameplay flow; they're intrusive, a distraction and an annoyance. In a hypothetical future version they wouldn't necessarily be so, and thus they wouldn't have to be guaranteed to be visible.

This makes sense, although I am a bit reluctant to go around this particular mulberry bush again. I think it's worth a try seeing how much a simple reduction in frequency helps, and then having a think about deeper questions for 4.2.

[Ramelandil]

I, for one, think the suggestion to make traps affect monsters would be one good way to make them feel more integral. It's always seemed weird to me that I couldn't lure monsters to an explosive death or a one-way trip 50' deeper because they'd just run over traps with impunity. I also think it would make rogues feel "sneakier", as they'd be the best at seeing the traps in time to turn them against their enemies. Perhaps "smart" or "observant" enemies could also stop short of them, instead using ranged abilities / spells with higher probability, back off, or path around them.

[Egavactip]

Now there's your problem. You're playing tiles. Nick only does the coding; nobody's actively doing development on the tilesets. Switch back to standard ASCII, and everything works perfectly.

Switch back? You mean, do something I have never done and would never ever do, because it is ASCII (pretend that is not normally written in capital letters but I have nevertheless written it in capital letters for outraged emphasis)?

[Moving Pictures]

If you read all this closely enough, you will understand that the current situation is a result of rejecting pretty much every other system imaginable (including traps always being visible), many of them more than once. So we're going to try keeping it with the frequency adjusted.

Understand, I am not against traps. I just find it odd that a trap on a random part of Level 2 would be able to squirt under-equipped characters three-four times. And why? I expect traps in a vault, or guarding that cave of orcs/vampires/whatever. Don't take those away. And the alarms - they make sense, too.

[olbib]

I've never gotten past level 50, so I don't know what traps are like in the later areas, but from reading the suggestions here I have a few random ideas.

What if, traps are always visible, traps never affect the player, traps always affect monsters, and traps only trigger once? This would be very different, but it might be more interesting. Traps could also affect an area instead of just a single square, and they could have different power levels with higher level traps affecting a wider radius.

[Drokk]

I've never gotten past level 50, so I don't know what traps are like in the later areas, but from reading the suggestions here I have a few random ideas.

What if, traps are always visible, traps never affect the player, traps always affect monsters, and traps only trigger once? This would be very different, but it might be more interesting. Traps could also affect an area instead of just a single square, and they could have different power levels with higher level traps affecting a wider radius.

I think that would strongly deviate from their intended purpose. Traps are supposed to be a lynchpin of creating an oppressive environment, a casual reminder that the dungeon is dangerous and hostile.

Thematically this wouldn't make sense also, as Morgoth's minions wouldn't be setting traps for one another. They aren't effected by the traps as the implication is they had some hand in setting them.

[Gwarl]

The frequency isn't the problem, and adjusting it won't help. The problem is spiked/poisoned pits on the upper levels. They can kill a level-appropriate character outright. By CL 5 or so the current system works rather well, but first impressions will relate to taking 40 damage + bleeding from a spiked pit.

[Pete Mack]

@Gwarl--dying to low level traps is extremely rare, and they encourage good gameplay (though not as much as they did when deadly traps appeared at DL 1): to avoid death by trap, level up fast in the early levels

[Gwarl]

Check the complaints from new/returning players since the trap system was reworked. They complain about lethal early traps, because early traps are lethal now. Being on DL1 doesn't prevent you walking into an undetectable pit trap for 40 damage + poison + bleeding. Traps just need to scale better, or possibly be special cased for the first 5 DLs or so and then I think we'd see fewer complaints about the brand new system.

[Moving Pictures]

Check the complaints from new/returning players since the trap system was reworked. They complain about lethal early traps, because early traps are lethal now. Being on DL1 doesn't prevent you walking into an undetectable pit trap for 40 damage + poison + bleeding. Traps just need to scale better, or possibly be special cased for the first 5 DLs or so and then I think we'd see fewer complaints about the brand new system.

Yeah, I'd be comfy with the occasional single-digit damage, some confusion/blindness now and then, but scaled down. I'd also have no issue with some spooky nasty things later on, and frankly say so having lost a char to a summoning trap that I clumsily triggered due to bad gameplay. I should have lost @, because I played like a moron.

What I find frustrating is that you can find a trap,, fail to disarm it, get gassed, wait until you're no longer confused, then trigger the same trap up to two-three times more! I figure after the first time, the chance of being harmed should decrease dramatically. Practically, it goes like this: if I've been gassed, I hold my breath; if I've been blinded, then I will close my eyes; if II've been roasted by fire, then whatever fuel did the roasting the first time is surely depleted a second, right?

[Derakon]

What I find frustrating is that you can find a trap,, fail to disarm it, get gassed, wait until you're no longer confused, then trigger the same trap up to two-three times more! I figure after the first time, the chance of being harmed should decrease dramatically. Practically, it goes like this: if I've been gassed, I hold my breath; if I've been blinded, then I will close my eyes; if II've been roasted by fire, then whatever fuel did the roasting the first time is surely depleted a second, right?

Would it make sense for traps to only be triggerable once? So you can walk around the trap, or try to disarm it, or just blunder into it and take your licks?

[Drokk]

Would it make sense for traps to only be triggerable once? So you can walk around the trap, or try to disarm it, or just blunder into it and take your licks?

Personally I think this is the way to go. I've had some pretty frustrating instances of getting confused/blinded multiple times from the same trap, having to wait in-between disarm attempts. Falling into the same pit twice feels a bit absurd.

[Ramelandil]

The multiple-trigger issue, now that I think about it, is part of what frustrates me too. Especially with those teleport traps my less-magey @s repeatedly get bamfed to the other side of the level trying to disarm while some juicy room behind them blows me a Bronx cheer. Not to say that sufficiently smart enemies wouldn't plan it that way.

I do see the objection to having monsters fall prey to traps they might themselves have laid. However, while it's been a long time since I read Tolkien's non-LotR works, I don't recall Morgoth's servants being any less fractious than Sauron's. Therefore, I find it plausible that the left hand might be ignorant of the right hand's traps. That is to say, not all the monsters are going to know about every trap, and some of them could reasonably be exploitable against the monsters.

Having traps be one-time would play into this further, I think, because if even a half-troll @ is smart enough not to fall for an already-triggered trap, so are most of the enemies. It also prevents abuse like turning trapdoors into repeatable (if slow) "delete monster" effects.

[olbib]

Here's another idea. When you "disarm" a trap, it stays there, but it only affects monsters since you've modified it.

[Moving Pictures]

Would it make sense for traps to only be triggerable once? So you can walk around the trap, or try to disarm it, or just blunder into it and take your licks?

Certainly at the early levels. At the later depths, I have no real qualms to some magic trap dropping 100 points of mana storm a few times, if @ doesn't get the message the first time.

I do see the objection to having monsters fall prey to traps they might themselves have laid. However, while it's been a long time since I read Tolkien's non-LotR works, I don't recall Morgoth's servants being any less fractious than Sauron's. Therefore, I find it plausible that the left hand might be ignorant of the right hand's traps. .

I have no problem with monsters native to the level avoiding traps. However, there is no reason a summoned critter should know the traps are there, though presumably, powerful critters (dragons, etc) would sense and avoid/neutralize/whatever.

But we do have cases where monsters don't co-operate. Had a situation where some unique summoned nasties. Can't remember the details, but the summoned critter breathed on the summoner, softening the unique up a little to allow @ to collect a few easy XP. So yeah, that summoned nasty ought to blunder into a trap or two....