I like the change from the older version with all traps being marked. This allows the player to position correctly and think about where to move in order to fight, escape, etc…
But… Several times now I go down a stair… and instant mark. didn’t move off them just went down, or I am moving slowly as not to pull a large pack and BAMM instant Tele next to 12 mobs with spell casters that can para/sleep. And how I love going to d7 on the stairs and instant shaft to d10 and next to something I have no hope of killing or running from.
Its not just once or twice a run. my current DGHU tries to pull very few things at a time because attack delay is a thing with ranged (ughhh) and like 10 time now I have been shafted or tele’d next to a massive pack. And all my stealth is useless cause I get marked almost every floor.
I looked up the rando trap mechanic on the wiki and i understand that its based in depth and tiles exposed. Is there any counter play to this besides going Ashenzari every game.
I dont mind the mechanic in like Zot {i get it. its Zot Be Warned} but its costing so many consumables and killing a few runs for something i fell i have no control over.
I understand your frustration. But I guess if we want to have traps that create challenging and interesting situations, sometimes they have to be deadly as well. A hard thing to balance, I think.
Having a potion of cancellation or not makes a big difference when you get marked in a bad place.
After thinking about it a little more, I think a good compromise would be a message saying the “the Dungeon turn its gaze on you” letting me know that in 1-5 turns a bad thing would happen. could still be random but would at least give the player a chance to reduce or avoid the trap with smart play.
How would knowing beforehand that you are going to get shafted from D7 to D10 going to change the impact of the shafting? I don’t know what version you are playing. Currently you are limited to 1 shaft from exploration traps per branch + no shafting to final floor of rune branches or Zot.
Also I see that you mentioned delay with ranged weapons. I hope you’re not wearing some heavy armour (just wear a robe or steam dragon scales or something like that)!
Not really. There’s no true counterplay to exploration traps / sourceless malevolence / malevolent force happening in the first place, besides Ash. There are many early D shaft situations where you just lose, or have a good chance of just losing. At the same time, you at least have some counterplay after the trap happens (e.g. consumbles).
FWIW, since 0.24, the exploration traps have only been nicer.
I think that the problem mentioned is that you get shafted during a fight, so you’re at low HP before getting shafted. That’s definitely a situation where knowing when a trap happens would help. (Of course the solution is to not reveal new tiles during a fight, but still.)
It also helps in Zot:5, where you can pre-emptive haste before the teleport. If you get to haste + weapon swap, you lower your chance of the insta-kill combo by 70%.
If it’s any comfort, demigod and hunter both struggle to deal with traps, so combining them will make traps painful for much longer than most other combos. (If you want a ranged demigod, I recommend brigand: starting with curare and stealth reduces the impact of traps, and poison needles can substitute as a ranged weapon until you find a bow.)
That said, I think that traps should have some kind of delay before they become available. The first few turns in a new floor/branch is already like a trap (unknown number of enemies, no safe places to lure into, etc.) so I think having traps inactivate for a bit of time on a floor would be an improvement (ie. until 5% of all tiles on the floor are revealed.) Assuming players are notified when this happens, it also adds a bit of a strategic choice on whether to keep exploring (and risk a shaft) or take the first stairs you see (and face tougher monsters).
Demigod is a hard class that removes god powers, so not surprised if it has difficulty with early shaft traps. I am not sure that other classes have unnecessary issues with traps and they are fun.
If there was any issue perceived here then perhaps the fix would just be, allow demigods to use their enhanced skills to avoid shaft traps.
my only complaint with explore traps is that they trigger annoyingly frequently on stairs because of how many tiles going to a new floor reveals at once
