Trap changes

[Derakon]

The '-' command should toggle auto-alter-on move for one step, if I recall correctly. So if you really want to set off a trap, hit '-' and then walk onto it.

[takkaria]

The '-' command should toggle auto-alter-on move for one step, if I recall correctly. So if you really want to set off a trap, hit '-' and then walk onto it.

In modern V, the command is 'W' for 'Walk into'.

[CunningGabe]

The '-' command should toggle auto-alter-on move for one step, if I recall correctly. So if you really want to set off a trap, hit '-' and then walk onto it.

Technically, that doesn't quite work as grinder intends (and as takkaria points out, the command is now 'W'). 'W'alking onto a trap does let you move there without trying to disarm it, but with the current setup, a high dex helps you avoid setting off a trap. So if your dex is high enough and you don't have the time to try several times to disarm a trap, you could just walk onto it and hope that it doesn't trigger.

[saarn]

I find the new trap scheme to be very playable, but traps feel defanged. Playing with rogues, traps never bother me now. I don't think this is the mechanism's fault, because the reason they feel "easier" is because the system is preventing careless errors (whoops, I hit left arrow, not d left arrow. crap). This seems like a positive.

I was wondering if the system might be modified a bit so that perception gets reduced during combat (hitting/being hit by monsters) with some sort of a timer in player turns. This would roughly parallel the idea that the character is too busy fighting things to notice subtle traps. I would imagine the timer working both ways (gradually reducing perception, and requiring some cool down before it returns to normal). With this change, fleeing down an unknown corridor, or teleporting away from monsters and walking around would be a lot more dangerous. If traps could get re-hidden based on current perception, that would be even nastier. . .

[Taha]

Playing the latest nightly from May 20th. Description and name on the priest spell of find traps doors and stairs are unchanged. Took using a scroll of trap detection to realize that yes, the green DTRAP indicator still worked, and no the spell didn't. Keeping descriptions and names updated is pretty important to playtesting when making backend changes like this. Also, that spell is worth less now.

Preface for the rest of this: I thought the old trap system was a good balance between occasionally interesting and mostly ignored. Detecting traps after the early game was always part of another detection, so not an irritant to me.

I don't understand the goal of making traps in general interesting. Interesting things in the game provide experience, drops, or have a high potential to kill you. Usually 2 out of three. Traps have none of the first two and very little of the third - similar to molds, but less experience and less dangerous.

To get traps to be "interesting" requires increasing the danger or the reward. On the danger side, always visible + effects stay within their square makes that impossible. Deadly + hidden adds random instadeaths, currently discouraged. And changing traps to operate outside their territory (turrets?) is probably too far in variant territory to be backported to vanilla. They already meet the interesting test in the early game for disarming experience / potentially deadly / helpful for id-by-use, but are nearly irrelevant past dlvl 15-20.

Increasing rewards is currently traps in vaults, when you have to disarm and get past to get to good items, and tunneling around is not an option.

I have read through this thread, but don't see any persuasive reasons to think you can make interesting, rewarding, dangerous but not-instadeath traps that remain that way through the end game. It's like making the mold varieties interesting and rewarding to the end - maybe not possible, is it actually worth focusing on? - In the vanilla framework that is, obviously massive changes make it possible.