Trap/door feature branch

[Nick]

This is a branch to test out the proposed changes to traps and doors. It is far from complete - in particular, there are no new traps - but it's ready for some testing. Note that it's not built on the rune-based ID branch.

Changes are:

• All magical detection of traps, doors and stairs removed
• Traps and secret doors are noticed as soon as the player steps next to them (unless blind or confused)
• Magical disarm is gone, red book casters get a "disable traps" spell which renders safe any adjacent traps, green-book casters' Unbarring Ways spell now gives them the temporary "TrapSafe" status allowing them to walk across traps without triggering them
• Search command and searching status have been removed as obsolete
• Secret doors only appear inside rooms, not at the entrances to rooms or at corridor junctions

There are builds up for Windows and OS X, and source is here.

Please let me know your thoughts. I am certainly intending to make traps more interesting, but I think the changes to here should give an idea of how it might play.

[fizzix]

What might be nice is to mark off sections of the dungeon as "secret sections" these won't show up on mapping or monster/object detection unless the door to them are open, and the doors to each end are secret doors.

I'm not sure how this works in our current dungeon generation though.

[Nomad]

Originally Posted by fizzix

What might be nice is to mark off sections of the dungeon as "secret sections" these won't show up on mapping or monster/object detection unless the door to them are open, and the doors to each end are secret doors.

I'm not sure how this works in our current dungeon generation though.

You could maybe generate the rest of the level first, then try to place additional rooms connected by secret doors. Give squares within the hidden areas a special flag that marks them as unmappable, and maybe also gives a small OoD boost to floor items, higher odds of stairs, etc. (Or you could create some actual templates for specific secret rooms so they're like mini-vaults with either a slightly OoD treasure, a staircase or a tval-based item stash inside.)

[Carnivean]

Originally Posted by Nomad

(Or you could create some actual templates for specific secret rooms so they're like mini-vaults with either a slightly OoD treasure, a staircase or a tval-based item stash inside.)

While I like the idea, wouldn't this create an obvious blank space where a room must be?

[Nomad]

Originally Posted by Carnivean

While I like the idea, wouldn't this create an obvious blank space where a room must be?

I don't know, there's a fair bit of open space left in Vanilla level generation. And the hidden rooms could easily be very small - say a little 3x3 chamber with traps surrounding a central treasure, or even just a single-square 'closet' containing a treasure or staircase.

[Derakon]

Unless these secret areas are completely opaque to all forms of detection, they'd be pretty obvious, wouldn't they? I mean, you'd see that there's monsters and items and so on in them. And if they are completely opaque, then you leave the player open to getting unpleasantly ambushed...

[calris]

I'm wondering what the philosophy behind this is? I like that traps keep me on my toes - if I forget to cast detect traps, well that's my own silly fault. Traps and hidden may be such a minor feature for gameplay, but they add a depth I'm worried Angband will lose. Noticing traps as soon as you step near them just seems so totally wrong.

To be honest, I never thought monsters creating traps made any sense though.

I between this and Rune ID I feel I've missed some major discussions and arrived just before a major turning point . Don't get me wrong, I LOVE everything in the latest version, especially the new 'double edged sword' items like 'Ring of the Dog'. The dropping of cursed items feels a bit wrong though. I'm just a little worried that Vanilla Angband is almost becoming a variant in it's own right.

Not meaning to be critical of your work - just feels strange

[Derakon]

Originally Posted by calris

I'm wondering what the philosophy behind this is? I like that traps keep me on my toes - if I forget to cast detect traps, well that's my own silly fault. Traps and hidden may be such a minor feature for gameplay, but they add a depth I'm worried Angband will lose. Noticing traps as soon as you step near them just seems so totally wrong.

The problem with old traps was that you had to cast Detect Traps all the time. It was a bit of mindlessness because trap detection was freely available from early on, so you just spent 1 in every 200-500 turns using detection and then carrying on as normal. Most of us felt that this didn't really contribute anything meaningful to gameplay, so Nick's experimenting with alternate approaches.

Note in particular that if you only notice a trap when you step next to it, then your planned route through a room may be suddenly changed. This could potentially cause problems for you during a fight -- whoops, there's a dart trap in your way. Do you step around it, taking more time and/or leaving yourself open to attacks from more monsters, or do you step through it and take your chances?

To be honest, I never thought monsters creating traps made any sense though.

I can't really disagree, but since only a couple of monsters have the ability (just Wormtongue and Harowen, if I recall correctly), it doesn't bother me. Two enemies have a unique ability that makes fighting them more interesting; that's all to the good.

I between this and Rune ID I feel I've missed some major discussions and arrived just before a major turning point .

Oh boy, did you ever! There's been a lot of talking about what if anything we should be doing. And just because Nick's taking the initiative to try some things out doesn't necessarily mean those things are going into Vanilla proper. My best advice at this point is to playtest and give your feedback, for good or ill. If something doesn't work, then it won't go into an official release. At least, that's the theory!

(Sorry for not doing any playtesting myself. I've had other stuff going on)

[fizzix]

Originally Posted by Derakon

I can't really disagree, but since only a couple of monsters have the ability (just Wormtongue and Harowen, if I recall correctly), it doesn't bother me. Two enemies have a unique ability that makes fighting them more interesting; that's all to the good.

Saruman, and I think, maybe, Ogre Mages. Let's see who else we missed.

Ogre Shaman, Master Thief, Castamir, Sorcerer, Shelob, Skull druj. Mouth of Sauron, Feagwath,

[calris]

Originally Posted by Derakon

Note in particular that if you only notice a trap when you step next to it, then your planned route through a room may be suddenly changed. This could potentially cause problems for you during a fight -- whoops, there's a dart trap in your way. Do you step around it, taking more time and/or leaving yourself open to attacks from more monsters, or do you step through it and take your chances?

Does this mean traps will be harder/impossible to dissarm? If so, I agree this could be a positive game changer and could pave the way for aome very interesting new vault designs.

Oh boy, did you ever! There's been a lot of talking about what if anything we should be doing. And just because Nick's taking the initiative to try some things out doesn't necessarily mean those things are going into Vanilla proper.

And I do truely appreciate what Nick is doing. There is no doubt Angband is a better game than the last time I played. To give you some perspective, I was playing pretty much non stop through most of Ben Harrison's tenure. I remember day one of the Borg. I stopped player just before Ben stopped maintaining.

My best advice at this point is to playtest and give your feedback, for good or ill. If something doesn't work, then it won't go into an official release. At least, that's the theory!

Right now I'm helping out with some code quality issues (sound sub system, memory leaks, etc.) - that's what floats my boat . And if that can give Nick more time to focus on features, all the better