Traps

[Moerit]

When i started on producing content, there was one sentence which was burned in my brain.
Its written in the Advanced map making tutorial at the wiki:

36. Traps are really necessary![...]

I integrated traps in the new maps i made, but if these would stay the only one with traps it would be a bit...sad.

I had the idea of picking randomly maps from the worldmap and edit them with some more or less mean traps.
What do you think of this idea in general? If you like it i may post the edited maps in the developers section to don't spoil the new traps :p.

[Zukero]

Why not, but I'd say only in the dungeons and not in the first ones.
No traps in the wild open.

[rijackson741]

I would say add some more, but don't overdo it. Too many, in all the dungeons, would get annoying.

I think a few in the wild open would be OK too (quicksand patches for example!), but never on a path, and never in a settlement.

[Raner]

I agree they could add something, however a lot depends on how they are implemented. They can't be simply thrown around, but need to be thought out and placed carefully. I think they could have a place outside, particularly in dungeon-like areas, e.g., BWM.

Has there been any discussion about detection/disarming via items, skills, etc? Or do you rely on the human player to identify and avoid? In the later case, I must comment on the imprecise nature of AT's controls. I am not the only one who has trouble moving exactly where I intend to. Deadly traps could make that annoyance severely not fun.
Or are we limiting our possibilities to 'visible' traps ala quicksand, swamp, etc.?

On a side note, I fully intend to work to integrate the scenery as fully as possible in anything I develop. Some of the newer techniques are verrry intriguing.

-Raner

[rijackson741]

Or are we limiting our possibilities to 'visible' traps

IMO a trap should always be visible in some way. It does not have to be obvious that it's a trap, but there should be some sort of appropriate indication.

[Moerit]

IMO a trap should always be visible in some way. It does not have to be obvious that it's a trap, but there should be some sort of appropriate indication.

I agree with you in this point. And thats the challenge, like raner said:

[...] however a lot depends on how they are implemented. They can't be simply thrown around, but need to be thought out and placed carefully.

Indeed i thought about traps also in the wild (maybe:" You stepped on an ant nest", reduces AC by 5% for 10-20 rounds ). These won't be deadly but a bit annoying.
In total i would estimate about 20 new traps, where the most will be in "dungeonlike areas" (maybe 7 in the wild) spreaded over the whole worldmap

[Flaming]

Yes give me pain!

This is a rough but realistic fictional world.

Wouldn't bandits but traps everywhere?

IMO a trap should always be visible in some way. It does not have to be obvious that it's a trap, but there should be some sort of appropriate indication.

A trap needs to be semi concealed. An inconspicuous bear trap is a good idea or even a pit trap with leaves over it!

[Moerit]

What about a potential chance of activating the trap? Dont know if it's possible with the current code.
A 1x1-square could give an "invisible droplist". You may have a chance of 10% to obtain the "trap activate status" (May be possible when this is integrated:

There are two features I was thinking of adding in the code that may suit your needs:
- Removable quest progress. That would be easy to code. I may also add it in the content editor so that only quest stages that are marked as removable could be removed.
- Global variables. Arbitrary numbers saved in the player's hidden stats as a pair id-> integer, to keep track of stuff. For example: how much you donated over time to each temple...

Then a 9x9 big sorrounding area will actually trigger the trap when the "trap activate status" is on...well it doesn't has to be 9x9 (only when usen "when enter" in the script-area). Could be also a 1x1 big square which triggers on round/full round/always

[rijackson741]

Maybe in some traps you can find something nice. That way, if you are clever enough to avoid them, you lose out . For example: http://andorstrail.com/viewtopic.php?f= ... and#p43277

[Zukero]

With the current game engine, I don't see how we could have two distinct outcomes, like "90% to activate trap, get item otherwise".
Two options are there however:
- Add a "chance %" to the dialogues' actor conditions reward, so that entering a trap only has X% of chance to apply an actor condition. Not difficult to code. Could also add a "hp bonus" reward, that would give hp (with negative HP = damage) to the player.
- Add a hidden droplist at the spot, so that on the first time the player falls in the trap, he will get a chance to grab the items in place.

The trap's dialogue could also give the chance to "disarm" it, using hidden quest progress and replace areas, but that would require me to code the map object groups activation/deactivation feature with replace area. Not that hard though.

The "in development" scripting engine could also handle all this kind of stuff, and more flexibly... but who knows when I'll manage to get it done....