[ November 05, 2007: Message edited by: Tormy ]
quote:
Originally posted by Doler 12:
<STRONG>Perhaps the dragon was hit in a few weak spots? So perhaps you get lucky. Sadly my traps are useless becouse the goblins are broke at this version. So i dont know if you got lucky or the traps are really too powerful.</STRONG>
Hm the dragon walked into more traps. I always place traps in areas. Yeah these traps are extremely powerful imho. Either way he died very fast. I am unsure that how many traps killed him, I would say 4 or 5.
Also its very easy to construct traps.
It should be either much more "expensive" to construst traps, or the damage what they do must be lowered.
Hm also some creatures should get a special trait "sense trap" or something, to make things more interesting.
quote:
Originally posted by Gangsta Spanksta:
<STRONG>Well, I look at this version of DF as an Alpha version to the new game. Really, it isn't ready for prime time, yet. The next version, I am hoping will be mostly a bug fix and polishing version,</STRONG>
Well yeah, but traps are insane powerful since the beginning. ;)
When sappers are added - which won't be before too long - siegers will have the option of making their own entrances to your fortress, thereby bypassing the standard cheap defenses that we all know and love.
Sappers are going to change the game for the better. I can see them ending the reign of weapon traps as the be-all and end-all line of defense and increasing the value of melee soldiers ten fold. We'll be building barracks along the fortress to perform a function similar to "lymph nodes".
I've also wanted to see poisoned water and food supplies (from master thieves) in order to drive you outside to fight. And I just had another idea: what if master thieves could re-set traps to go off when a dwarf steps on them?
• Traps are dangerous to walk on for your people, with the small possibility of accidentally triggering them, but they can be disarmed and rearmed by throwing switches connected to them. Higher quality traps with higher quality mechanisms are less likely to misfire. Masterwork traps may never go wrong. Dwarves that construct junky traps that trigger on friendlies get a bad thought about it.
• Traps require a space above, below, or to the side of them for the mechanics and "weapon" of the trap, whatever that is, be it cage, rocks, or otherwise. Certain traps must be done in a certain way, so for example stonefall, or swinging spiked balls, have to use the space one z-level above, not to the side or anything. Weapon traps with crossbows or bows can be set to a distant wall and fire down a corridor or across a room.
• Visitors like thieves, diplomats, and merchants will identify traps when possible and will report any found to their civilization if they escape alive. Diplomats and merchants can do this automatically (assumed to be told by you about any traps they might cross) and pass on the same chance to accidentally trip them that your people do; interlopers thieves and kidnappers have to search for them, and find it harder to identify and bypass high quality traps (harder rather than easier to bypass, as in in the case of the dwarves and those instructed on how to get around them).
• Identified traps give the victim a defense bonus if they do trigger. Weapon traps trigger an attack; the victim can better block if they're expecting it. Stonefall traps, I'm not sure how they work now, but I would like them to just drop a big rock on the victim from above using combat mechanics, again giving a chance to block or dodge or take the hit well. Victims with shields may have an especially large block bonus against crossbow or bow traps if they're expected.
• Intelligent invaders and attackers will have scouts to spot and disarm or smash traps. Scouts will sneak ahead and try to identify and disarm traps before the army has to deal with them, breaking the triggering tile and requiring them to be repaired. Higher quality traps are harder to disarm. The main army can try to smash traps, but need to have access to the wall/floor/ceiling the trap is rigged up into. Smashed traps may or may not be fully salvageable for parts.
• Low quality traps with low quality parts have slow triggering mechanisms and make a horrible grinding sound with large moving parts and things sliding around before they nail the target, giving ample time for them to dodge or get on guard, thus reducing their effectiveness. They also have a chance of just not triggering when they should have, and in the case of self-reloading traps (weapon traps), are more likely to jam. The opposite is true for high quality traps.
• If after all of the above, the trap triggers and connects, traps will do just as much damage as they do now.
quote:
Originally posted by Jonathan S. Fox:
[QB]Here is how I would envision traps being reworked:• Traps are dangerous to walk on for your people, with the small possibility of accidentally triggering them, but they can be disarmed and rearmed by throwing switches connected to them. Higher quality traps with higher quality mechanisms are less likely to misfire. Masterwork traps may never go wrong. Dwarves that construct junky traps that trigger on friendlies get a bad thought about it.
Good Idea, I like the switch part, but I want to expand on it even further. Traps *WILL* go off if one of your people will walk on them, unless they have a skill for avoiding traps, and they laid the traps in the first place. Furthermore, Traps are set to be *on* by default; you have to build the switch and link it to the trap if you want to switch it off. I think this is better, because we already have the feature for our dwarves to avoid dangerous areas that we can setup just for enemies. In that case, you are likely not to want to turn it off, especially since a thief, spy, assassin, gremlin might do so.
[ November 05, 2007: Message edited by: Gangsta Spanksta ]
I'm certain once other things like damage and creature AI are reworked, traps will be more balanced.
quote:
Originally posted by Gangsta Spanksta:
<STRONG>But that wasn't what you said; you said "now" as in this version. :q</STRONG>
Ah well, I meant that they are very powerful, but I guess you also know it since you play DF. :D
Anyways!!! You know what? Traps are ok, but ONLY if the AI civilizations will also use them when we will invade their cities with out dwarves.
That would balance things out. However...I dont know that Toady can make an AI like that..I mean that the AI will have no idea probably that where to place taps, how many traps should be placed etc.
[ November 05, 2007: Message edited by: Tormy ]
quote:
Originally posted by Capntastic:
<STRONG>Traps hitting your own guys is a terrible idea, simply because it would make unskilled mechanics worthless (They're already pretty slow to raise), and make an early game defensive system impossible.I'm certain once other things like damage and creature AI are reworked, traps will be more balanced.</STRONG>
Not necessarily. First off, you mark the areas that you are building traps in as off limit. I didn't say anything about traps going off when you build them; it is when you step on them that they go off. The guy who laid out the traps, also knows where they are at, since well that is how it usually is when you build something yourself. I suppose adding a mechanism to connect the trap to a switch wouldn't set it off either. Again, it is walking over them. I'm not too sure about this though; what makes you think that someone not skilled in setting up traps should be setting them up? I like to create a decent mechanic myself for my games. Perhaps, an unskilled mechanic would have trouble with complex traps vs. stone fall or cage fall. Perhaps, an unskilled mechanic also wouldn't be good at hiding the trigger? This kind of makes me think of some unskilled person creating a pipe bomb and blowing themselves up. Maybe, the game needs difficulty levels? With HARD being more realistic.
quote:
Originally posted by Tormy:
<STRONG>Ah well, I meant that they are very powerful, but I guess you also know it since you play DF. :D
Anyways!!! You know what? Traps are ok, but ONLY if the AI civilizations will also use them when we will invade their cities with out dwarves.
That would balance things out. However...I dont know that Toady can make an AI like that..I mean that the AI will have no idea probably that where to place taps, how many traps should be placed etc.[ November 05, 2007: Message edited by: Tormy ]</STRONG>
It's not as hard as you think. Entrances to a fortress, trapped. Prearranged vaults like you have in angband could have prearranged trap settings with some randomness. You could have a file loaded in, that has hundreds of these prearranged things for example. Also, fortresses are usually already built, so it doesn't have to be as much AI, though some could be used.
quote:
Originally posted by Gangsta Spanksta:
<STRONG>It's not as hard as you think. Entrances to a fortress, trapped. Prearranged vaults like you have in angband could have prearranged trap settings with some randomness. You could have a file loaded in, that has hundreds of these prearranged things for example. Also, fortresses are usually already built, so it doesn't have to be as much AI, though some could be used.</STRONG>
Hm yeah maybe. Lets say all cities will have predefined trap placement methods. We invade the town, the attack is failed, but lot of traps will be rendered useless. Another script should do the job, that the traps should be replaced again.
Yes, this could work also. Some minor AI would be good to have in this case, at least to place traps at random locations, so not only the predefined places will be trapped.
quote:
Originally posted by Jonathan S. Fox:
<STRONG>Here is how I would envision traps being reworked...</STRONG>
I like these ideas, but I think that all of that would be quite a ways down the road.
quote:
Originally posted by Gangsta Spanksta:
<STRONG>
I'm not too sure about this though; what makes you think that someone not skilled in setting up traps should be setting them up? I like to create a decent mechanic myself for my games.</STRONG>
BTW, I think it is a tendency of the player not to look at the whole picture, when it comes to adding things to a game. Just look at the suggest area in the forums. The vast majority of things people want are things that will make life easier. As a developer, if you make the game easier in one fashion, you have to make it harder in another to balance things out. Dwarf Fortress is supposed to be hard. This current version is already too damn easy! The whole rush for winter thing was one of the things that made the game fun. In fact, I think farming during winter is a mistake, but it may be there because the game is finely tuned yet, and until the kinks are worked out it may be needed. At least, I hope it is only temporary. There many things I miss in the current version. The flooding. The Running away from water in the initial flood. Sacrificing a pawn dwarf to the magma. This version needs things added to make life more difficult.
quote:
Originally posted by Jonathan S. Fox:
<STRONG>Here is how I would envision traps being reworked:• Traps are dangerous to walk on for your people, with the small possibility of accidentally triggering them, but they can be disarmed and rearmed by throwing switches connected to them. Higher quality traps with higher quality mechanisms are less likely to misfire. Masterwork traps may never go wrong. Dwarves that construct junky traps that trigger on friendlies get a bad thought about it.
• Traps require a space above, below, or to the side of them for the mechanics and "weapon" of the trap, whatever that is, be it cage, rocks, or otherwise. Certain traps must be done in a certain way, so for example stonefall, or swinging spiked balls, have to use the space one z-level above, not to the side or anything. Weapon traps with crossbows or bows can be set to a distant wall and fire down a corridor or across a room.
• Visitors like thieves, diplomats, and merchants will identify traps when possible and will report any found to their civilization if they escape alive. Diplomats and merchants can do this automatically (assumed to be told by you about any traps they might cross) and pass on the same chance to accidentally trip them that your people do; interlopers thieves and kidnappers have to search for them, and find it harder to identify and bypass high quality traps (harder rather than easier to bypass, as in in the case of the dwarves and those instructed on how to get around them).
• Identified traps give the victim a defense bonus if they do trigger. Weapon traps trigger an attack; the victim can better block if they're expecting it. Stonefall traps, I'm not sure how they work now, but I would like them to just drop a big rock on the victim from above using combat mechanics, again giving a chance to block or dodge or take the hit well. Victims with shields may have an especially large block bonus against crossbow or bow traps if they're expected.
• Intelligent invaders and attackers will have scouts to spot and disarm or smash traps. Scouts will sneak ahead and try to identify and disarm traps before the army has to deal with them, breaking the triggering tile and requiring them to be repaired. Higher quality traps are harder to disarm. The main army can try to smash traps, but need to have access to the wall/floor/ceiling the trap is rigged up into. Smashed traps may or may not be fully salvageable for parts.
• Low quality traps with low quality parts have slow triggering mechanisms and make a horrible grinding sound with large moving parts and things sliding around before they nail the target, giving ample time for them to dodge or get on guard, thus reducing their effectiveness. They also have a chance of just not triggering when they should have, and in the case of self-reloading traps (weapon traps), are more likely to jam. The opposite is true for high quality traps.
• If after all of the above, the trap triggers and connects, traps will do just as much damage as they do now.</STRONG>
Very good ideas. :cool:
quote:
Originally posted by Gangsta Spanksta:
<STRONG>BTW, I think it is a tendency of the player not to look at the whole picture, when it comes to adding things to a game. Just look at the suggest area in the forums. The vast majority of things people want are things that will make life easier. As a developer, if you make the game easier in one fashion, you have to make it harder in another to balance things out. Dwarf Fortress is supposed to be hard. This current version is already too damn easy! The whole rush for winter thing was one of the things that made the game fun. In fact, I think farming during winter is a mistake, but it may be there because the game is finely tuned yet, and until the kinks are worked out it may be needed. At least, I hope it is only temporary. There many things I miss in the current version. The flooding. The Running away from water in the initial flood. Sacrificing a pawn dwarf to the magma. This version needs things added to make life more difficult.</STRONG>
Agreed. The new version is very easy. 1. We can farm in winter 2. we can make farms without any irrigation.
We sorta went off-topic btw :D ... but its clear, that farming would need a rework imo. The old version was better regarding farming.
Also I still dont understand that how can we farm on sand without irrigation. It is making no sense imo.
[ November 05, 2007: Message edited by: Tormy ]
It's a nice sandbox at the moment, but many of the key features that will make it a game aren't in yet. The game isn't unbalanced; there simply is no balance at the moment, since there's nothing to be balanced against.
But one thing I do have to say: Players should not have to struggle against the interface or repeatedly do the same things in order to play the game. A lot of people in older versions would say, repeatedly, "make XYZ harder, we want a challenge!" -- "make noble harder, make farming harder, make traps harder", and so on. Those things are not intended to be the game's primary challenges. The game's primary challenges haven't even put in an appearance yet.
You can start complaining about traps once there are proper intelligent armies in who actively try to work around them. Not before.
[ November 05, 2007: Message edited by: Aquillion ]
quote:
Originally posted by Aquillion:
<STRONG>It is absolutely pointless to even start to discuss balance or difficulty things at the moment, because none of the game's real challenges are in yet. I mean, armies don't even exist, they don't sap through walls, there's no magic (which is generally something that will be aimed at your dwarves), there's no dynamic rival civilizations that will expand alongside yours and try to take your land by force, there's no (proper, powerful) artifacts to start wars over, there's no meddling wizards or deities or whatever... you get the idea.It's a nice sandbox at the moment, but many of the key features that will make it a game aren't in yet. The game isn't unbalanced; there simply is no balance at the moment, since there's nothing to be balanced against.</STRONG>
True, but at least Toady can see the problematic points regarding balance, and he can develop the game in the future to make it balanced, when the new features will be added. Agreed?
:)
But as it is, if traps end up killing your own guys and are rendered useless, it makes mechanics pointless and makes getting an early game defense impossible.
quote:No. I disagree. We have no way of knowing whether these are actually problematic points until we can see the completed armies and opponents our traps and other features are meant to be tested against. It is a total waste of time to bother Toady about balance (or even to waste our time trying to judge balance) when there are still so many core features that need to be added.
Originally posted by Tormy:
<STRONG>
True, but at least Toady can see the problematic points regarding balance, and he can develop the game in the future to make it balanced, when the new features will be added. Agreed?
:)</STRONG>
Of course defense is easy right now. We don't really have anything to defend against. Toady threw a few quick-and-dirty dangers like dragons into the game to give us something to have fun with while we play with the alpha, but they're basically placeholders (dragon breath, say, doesn't actually use the magic system, since it doesn't exist yet.)
[ November 05, 2007: Message edited by: Aquillion ]
quote:
Originally posted by Capntastic:
<STRONG>Aquillion is correct.But as it is, if traps end up killing your own guys and are rendered useless, it makes mechanics pointless and makes getting an early game defense impossible.</STRONG>
Check out Jonathan S. Fox's suggestions. Those are really excellent. Hopefully Toady will have a look at those.
quote:
Originally posted by Tormy:
<STRONG>Hm yeah maybe. Lets say all cities will have predefined trap placement methods. We invade the town, the attack is failed, but lot of traps will be rendered useless. Another script should do the job, that the traps should be replaced again.
Yes, this could work also. Some minor AI would be good to have in this case, at least to place traps at random locations, so not only the predefined places will be trapped.</STRONG>
BTW, getting back on topic, the way people build traps in dwarf fortress isn't all that random either. Almost everyone builds a lot of traps at their entrance, which usually are stonefall traps. The long main hallway in the old version was also likely to be trapped. Traps near doors and stairs? Basically, traps all along the way to where you have your important stuff. There is some stuff that needs to be done still. Like when I build my fortress on a goblin base, I can see their whole layout, including treasures. That stuff should be invisible and shaded out! We should see floodgates as standard cavern walls! We shouldn't see channels of waters that lead up to them. Some traps are meant to be obvious. like when you have two statues aligning the walls of a long hallway, that may be a trap! The laydwarf may not think about this, but someone who invaded a fortress might, not that he would be skilled in finding the trap. He might stop and say, "I don't like this." You should have someone skilled at disabling and detecting traps if you invade.
quote:
Originally posted by Aquillion:
<STRONG>No. I disagree. We have no way of knowing whether these are actually problematic points until we can see the completed armies and opponents our traps and other features are meant to be tested against. It is a total waste of time to bother Toady about balance (or even to waste our time trying to judge balance) when there are still so many core features that need to be added.</STRONG>
Well yeah, basically Ive made this topic, because traps are literally killing everything hostile very easily. Invaders? Dragon? Everything goes down fast.
What Im doing now is the following: Im trying to minimalize the number of traps, and instead making a bigger "army". This is much more challenging. ;)
quote:
Originally posted by Aquillion:
<STRONG>It is absolutely pointless to even start to discuss balance or difficulty things at the moment, because none of the game's real challenges are in yet..
.
.You can start complaining about traps once there are proper intelligent armies in who actively try to work around them. Not before.
[ November 05, 2007: Message edited by: Aquillion ]</STRONG>
I have to disagree. The last version was strategically playable to some extent. This version is -- understandably -- is more an alpha version. It isn't ready for prime time, and isn't strategically playable in the way the old game was yet. I think, before you start worrying about armies, you have to get the game back to the same level of playability first as the old game was. As for the traps thing, setting up that they are active from the start, and linkable to a lever to turn off, is doable. The code is practically already there! This version introduced the marking of forbidden areas. Traps are already active by default. There already is a way to link things to levers. It is more a minor change in code to have on/off traps, and to have traps go off if you walk on them. It isn't the same thing as writing the AI for Armies. :P Why would you put something that is relatively easy to do, after something complex, especially if the game needs polishing and bug fixing at this stage.
I think it makes more sense to do a major change -- like the z-axis -- that greatly effect game play and unbalance the game, turning it alpha, and then afterwards work on re-balancing the game before the next major change. If traps make the game too easy now, then make them harder. Don't implement 10 major changes, and then try to re-balance the game. In fact, often times, you don't know what needs to be balanced, until a version like this.
quote:
Originally posted by Capntastic:
<STRONG>Aquillion is correct.But as it is, if traps end up killing your own guys and are rendered useless, it makes mechanics pointless and makes getting an early game defense impossible.</STRONG>
They only would kill your guys, if you don't know what you are doing. It's like building a good moat in the old version. It required proper planning. If all your dwarves were inside when you flooded it, then you had no way of building the bridge. Likewise, if you don't set that small half of the 3 square wide hallway as forbidden as you build your traps, whose fault is it? After you complete the traps, then you go to the switch, link and turn off, before unmarking the forbiden area and working on the next section. I mean, you're supposed to come up with strategy like that! That is something the old game had, and this version currently lacks. What's wrong with suggesting something that adds a little strategy back into the game? ;)
quote:
Originally posted by Aquillion:
<STRONG>No. I disagree. We have no way of knowing whether these are actually problematic points until we can see the completed armies and opponents our traps and other features are meant to be tested against. It is a total waste of time to bother Toady about balance (or even to waste our time trying to judge balance) when there are still so many core features that need to be added.[ November 05, 2007: Message edited by: Aquillion ]</STRONG>
I disagree. I'm not saying that my view is necessarily correct, but I'm looking at it from the perspective of how I would do things as a game developer. If someone, doesn't re-balances things after such a major change, and instead does 10 changes as big as the z-axis addition, then the game can quickly become unplayable. Things like minor tweaks to the traps are really simple to do. We are not talking about breath taking programming here. Besides, you also get a better understanding of the final picture, if you have a properly working game, at some point. If need be, you just tweak the traps again once you add the Armies. Also, you don't know how all major changes will effect each other, without proper playtesting. Playtesting can become meaningless if you applied 10 ground breaking changes in a row without re-balancing if your playtester are playtesting a version that isn't playable and has no strategy to it.
That is my opinion at least; someone else may develop differently from how I would.
If Toady implements 10 major updates like the last version, assuming they take the same amount of time, it'll be close to 2015 before any of the immediate show-stoppers get fixed. Now I like to think DF has a very devoted and loyal core community, but that'd be pushing it.
Example: Recently I've been peeved about mud spreading and destroying tiles. (And actually a bug where my traps won't work!) I understand that there may be other things prioritized on Toady's to-do list. If we enter a different decade and I'm still bitching about the same problems, I'll be disheartened.
Example 2: If tonight the (US) government said that they would only begin to work on education reform (a re-balancing of sorts) after the space-missile-defense-death-star-thingamajig (the big project), then tomorrow I'd firebomb\vandalize some representative structure and plead for political asylum elsewhere.
Furthermore: I think Toady mentioned that he intends to make updates a more frequent occurrence after this large one. To me this implies smaller amount of changes per update, also implies a balance as you go work ethic.
quote:Armies aren't even in yet. And if you're saying that players should be forced to rely primarily on dwarven soldiers and not clever design for their defense, I strongly disagree with the premise. The game is a fortress-management game, not an RTS; while your fortresses' ability to field and manage armies will be important when the army arc comes around, the majority of your defense does and should always come from the way you build your fortress itself, not from a zergling swarm or a few uber units.
Originally posted by Tormy:
<STRONG>Well yeah, basically Ive made this topic, because traps are literally killing everything hostile very easily. Invaders? Dragon? Everything goes down fast.
What Im doing now is the following: Im trying to minimalize the number of traps, and instead making a bigger "army". This is much more challenging. ;)</STRONG>
Players should be able to field bigger "armies" for defense if they want, sure, but they should absolutely not be forced to, and I don't think running a big RTS-style swarm should ever be the main focus of the gameplay... the focus is on the fortress itself.
Some melee units are plainly required, and you need dwarves to run around patching things up, but (at least until the army arc is in) this is fundimentally a defensive game, focused on traps and fortifications rather than huge armies.
[ November 05, 2007: Message edited by: Aquillion ]
quote:
Originally posted by Aquillion:
<STRONG>Armies aren't even in yet. And if you're saying that players should be forced to rely primarily on dwarven soldiers and not clever design for their defense, I strongly disagree with the premise. The game is a fortress-management game, not an RTS; while your fortresses' ability to field and manage armies will be important when the army arc comes around, the majority of your defense does and should always come from the way you build your fortress itself, not from a zergling swarm or a few uber units.Players should be able to field bigger "armies" for defense if they want, sure, but they should absolutely not be forced to, and I don't think running a big RTS-style swarm should ever be the main focus of the gameplay... the focus is on the fortress itself.
Some melee units are plainly required, and you need dwarves to run around patching things up, but (at least until the army arc is in) this is fundimentally a defensive game, focused on traps and fortifications rather than huge armies.
[ November 05, 2007: Message edited by: Aquillion ]</STRONG>
Well, it is a fortress management game now, but in time it will be much more strategical, especially when the military system will kick in. Btw I agree with Gangsta.
(http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2049/1890803100_21cd352682_o.gif)
quote:
Originally posted by Quintin Stone:
<STRONG>This is the result of 1 single stonefall trap on a dragon::)
This dragon pictured above was dispatched easily by a couple of axedwarves who charged while it was unconscious.
quote:
Originally posted by axus:
<STRONG>Requiring stonefall traps to have a ceiling above them would be a good start. Other kinds of traps are harder to setup.</STRONG>
Wouldnt be a huge problem.... you just place traps inside the fortress if that would be the req.
Monsters will walk in eventually.
[ November 06, 2007: Message edited by: Tormy ]