Remove traps set by enemies.

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susitsu
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Re: Remove traps set by enemies.

Post by susitsu » Fri Jun 01, 2018 5:51 pm

Good free traps are not placed by mobs, nor do I have the time of day to risk not getting xp from a PvE kill due to my own traps. They're also definitely a poor choice for PvP.

I absolutely ignore the traps. I come home exhausted from work every day, and grinding is not fun. I enioy my dungeons at least making sense to me.

If they were made more dangerous, I'll stack reflex gear and ignore them.

Literally please remove.

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MissEvelyn
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Re: Remove traps set by enemies.

Post by MissEvelyn » Fri Jun 01, 2018 5:56 pm

Jack Oat wrote:
Fri Jun 01, 2018 2:01 pm
If nothing else, they're annoying and make an already cancerous grind fest even more tedious and frustrating.
If grinding is already frustrating and tedious and you're clearly not having fun, why even bother?

As for the traps, I enjoy that they add unpredictability to the game. It's a RP server, which means that not every location of every trap, hostile, trigger, etc. should be known to us players.


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Hunter548
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Re: Remove traps set by enemies.

Post by Hunter548 » Fri Jun 01, 2018 6:18 pm

MissEvelyn wrote:
Fri Jun 01, 2018 5:56 pm
Jack Oat wrote:
Fri Jun 01, 2018 2:01 pm
If nothing else, they're annoying and make an already cancerous grind fest even more tedious and frustrating.
If grinding is already frustrating and tedious and you're clearly not having fun, why even bother?

As for the traps, I enjoy that they add unpredictability to the game. It's a RP server, which means that not every location of every trap, hostile, trigger, etc. should be known to us players.
Too much unpredictability isn't a good thing. Not long after the trap system first went in, I took a lowbie party through the Bendir Orc Caves. We transitioned down to the lower level, and hit 8 fire traps right at the transition down. Entire party wiped, and literally nothing we could do about it; Our rogue hadn't even finished loading in when the first traps started going off, and hit a couple of traps after they loaded in just trying to pick up bodies. We certainly couldn't have immunized ourselves against fire sufficiently.

There's not much RP in "if everyone in your party doesn't have a fast enough connection and reaction time, rocks fall and everyone dies." This may be a roleplay server but it's also a game. I know I sure wouldn't want to come back to a server where that was one of my first experiences on it.
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susitsu
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Re: Remove traps set by enemies.

Post by susitsu » Fri Jun 01, 2018 7:02 pm

Let me just separate this from my post worded differently.

Leveling is required to progress my character, for new rp goodies and for them to have the weight and sway that follows it to throw around.

Going out and rp grinding makes it really hard for me to think about what my character would say and my rp quality may as well halve on the basis we're walking.

I hate this and again...

Again...



Grinding is not fun. It is a god awful requirement on this server that has at least recently becoming far more streamlined and partially sane. Only partially.

So instead of driving people away to actually fun games, because when I'm frustrated about leveling I know I do that, we could just...remove something simply in the way.

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Jack Oat
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Re: Remove traps set by enemies.

Post by Jack Oat » Sat Jun 02, 2018 1:31 am

MissEvelyn wrote:
Fri Jun 01, 2018 5:56 pm
If grinding is already frustrating and tedious and you're clearly not having fun, why even bother?
If lifting weights is difficult, why even bother?
If studying is hard, why even bother?
That's a pretty dumb question and REALLY nit-picky. I grind because I enjoy what comes from the result. I don't enjoy the process. Like Susitsu said.
MissEvelyn wrote:
Fri Jun 01, 2018 5:56 pm
As for the traps, I enjoy that they add unpredictability to the game. It's a RP server, which means that not every location of every trap, hostile, trigger, etc. should be known to us players.
I can understand unpredictability. That's something to admire and strive for. But that's not what this is. There's a difference, as I said, between well-established unpredictability and dumb gimmicks that are slapped on like a band-aid to be a OSFA solution. Traps like this are the latter.

As is we have honestly impressive mob design where a lot of mob types have 'specialties' to them. Undead have their strengths and weaknesses, trolls do as well, etc. etc. etc.

I'd prefer to see a shift in focus toward making mobs truly unique. Give them unique tactics/strategies/spells/abilities that mimic their RP style. Fighting in a place where the enemies are well-trained? Have the melee ones try to block or engage to keep the Mages behind them alive longer. Fighting in a place where the enemies are skullduggerous? Have them use the Rogue grenades once in a while, to switch things up.

Change the dungeon and spawn locations to represent this as well. Invading a fortress? Expect enemy foot-soldiers to occupy chokepoints with mages/archers behind them, where you may not be able to reach instead of being in the middle of the open. I wouldn't even mind occasional traps set in the module to be randomized throughout a Rogue-ish dungeon. Just not set by the NPCs since that stuff is wonky, unfun, and just about every mob type does it with no explanation.

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Duchess_Says
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Re: Remove traps set by enemies.

Post by Duchess_Says » Sat Jun 02, 2018 1:53 am

I appreciate that the devs are trying to add some randomness but these monster-set traps do seem to be problematic. Even on my high search rogue with keen senses I seem to not see them a lot of the time until they go off so I wonder if all works as it should. But traps in general I think should be a situational things when in dungeons or used by NPCs if only because the majority of classes don't have the ability to deal with them.

I'd rather see randomness manifest in different ways. Not sure what is possible or not, but having a small chance for a different set of monsters in a dungeon than you'd expect to be there (while still being of similar challenge and level) would be a fun thing to happen occasionally and break up the grind. Like you go to the orc caves and a gang of bandits or something got there ahead of you so you have to fight them instead, even though you'd prepared for a different fight. Or NPC rival adventurer parties could sometimes wander dungeons and pick fights to chase you out. These are just some silly ideas but you get the point, something instead of traps which are just punishing "gotchas" more than anything.

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msterswrdsmn
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Re: Remove traps set by enemies.

Post by msterswrdsmn » Sun Jun 03, 2018 11:30 pm

The problem i've noticed with npcs setting traps is they don't disappear. Some areas i've wandered into had not a single enemy around, then....bam~ Stepped on a trap. There are several issues with this

1. Trap Stacking
As hunter mentioned, npcs may have a tendency to stack traps right on top of each other/in the same area as each other. I've noticed that the npcs seem to drop traps as soon as they spawn, meaning that if no one disarms/triggers the traps, the subsequent respawns will drop more traps in that area until you have a literal minefield to run over.

As far as I can tell, set traps sit where they are indefintely until something sets them off or disarms them, which creates the above issue.

Individually, they aren't bad, but randomly taking 48 damage from the randomly set acid blob trap (higher damage, the save is only to prevent paralysis, not avoid damage) is fatal for wounded or lower level characters.

2. No correlation
Some enemies wander really far away from the traps they set (asabi come to mind) because they have a large detection range. This means "where I fight npcs" may not (or in the asabi case in open areas, will not) be the area the traps are sitting. Making it difficult to determine where the crap is.

3. No defense
Aside from flat out stepping on them, a lot of characters aren't going to have disarm trap, or a high enough disarm trap, to effectively deal with the traps. Or even see them. Mifune has a reasonably high seach for his level, and I still have issues finding the things when in combat/just leaving combat.

4. They're usually not that great
Its not really worth recovering the traps either, as everything i've seen so far was average quality or lower. Thankfully, it means the damage usually isn't too bad. It does, however, mean that they're not worth recovering, and don't come off as anything more than a nuisance, even for skilled trappers. I don't know if they get better at higher levels, but seeing how even a lower level character can start using deadly traps at low levels (or creating them via craft traps, as alchemist fire is cheap and easy to find), a handful of subpar average traps aren't terribly useful.

Combine that with the fact that starting at lower-mid levels, you start running into npcs with improved evasion or high saves, average and strong, and even some deadly traps loose a lot of utility relatively early on.

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Peppermint
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Re: Remove traps set by enemies.

Post by Peppermint » Tue Jun 05, 2018 7:25 am

msterswrdsmn about sums it up. The fact that traps will just pop up literally anywhere (and are never cleaned) is a deal breaker to me.

Bluntly speaking, the NPC trap system seems kind of half-assed. It does not a good addition make.

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Scurvy Cur
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Re: Remove traps set by enemies.

Post by Scurvy Cur » Sat Jun 09, 2018 6:09 am

The issue with the NPC trapsetting is that it doesn't really create a challenge that most players will ever play against. Instead, it accomplishes one of two things:

1. An area has only a few rogue spawns, or is configured such that most parties will more or less trigger set traps as they step on them. In this case, the traps are basically a tax on healing supplies (or your -pray) button. In this case, there's no real gameplay challenge, there's just an additional chore load for people traversing the area. It's easy enough to deal with, but couples a net loss in gameplay enjoyability to zero net gain.

2. An area is chock full of rogue spawns, is frequently traversed, and there's plenty of space to walk around traps. What happens here is that traps accumulate, sometimes stacking upwards of 5 deep. They mostly don't trigger, but when they do they probably delete a player. There's also probably not a lot of play around it because very few players that see the big blob of traps will walk onto it, and those that don't see the blob can't mitigate it by the old "go slow and heal between traps" standby when they walk onto a stack. Sometimes this is exacerbated by trap pileup on a transition, which allows basically no counterplay. This also doesn't add a whole lot of new gameplay dimensions. It just arbitrarily deletes someone for walking onto half a dozen parties' worth of traps all at once.

I'm all for deleting the system. It's on my list of three least favorite Arelith updates.

Bar that, two changes would make the system itself far less draggy, while still putting the "quasi random damage" element in areas, if people for some reason are super attached to the concept:

1. Put a timer on the traps. Let them wipe a few seconds after the map empties of players. This way you don't risk having accumulation.

2. Put a distance check on the placement and block placement if it's too close to an area transition.


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ReverentBlade
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Re: Remove traps set by enemies.

Post by ReverentBlade » Sat Jun 09, 2018 8:22 am

I don't think they add much either, to be honest. I tend to isolate and pull single mobs using corner sneaking (fist monk is weak), so the random traps just tend to be an extra medkit or two. It is just random...expense...rather than a challenge. Running into "leftover" traps from some fight hours ago is also kinda lame.

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