New traps in old areas?
GrandeC
Member Posts: 26
My self-control is poor and I'm halfway through a playthrough of vanilla BG1, I'm very excited for BG:EE. During this playthrough I realized that the traps posed no danger at all, because I remember the locations of all of them. In fact I usually install mods that disable traps entirely.
My feature request is the addition of new traps to old areas of the game. Even more awesome would be randomized trap locations, or something simpler like sets of pre-determined trap layouts that are loaded randomly upon first entering an area. I.E. sometimes the bridge across the chasm in the Nashkel Mines has the full complement of traps, but another game the bridge is untrapped and more traps are scattered elsewhere in the mine. Of course, it makes sense for some objects to be trapped every time, chests specifically.
I realize of course that this idea is not for everyone, some folks have the enviable ability to roleplay very well and treat the traps as a new and legitimate threat every time. Just as I know there are players who are playing for the story and characters, they would rather not have to worry overly about traps.
It is likely however that this falls under the contract restriction preventing Overhaul from adding new content to old areas, which is unfortunate. I hold BG in as high regard as anyone else, and I understand the masterpiece argument. Trap placement should not be protected by the masterpiece argument, as it is now it's neither compelling nor engaging. Is DLC also beholden to this contract agreement? Maybe the mod community could tackle this, IMO, promising idea.
My feature request is the addition of new traps to old areas of the game. Even more awesome would be randomized trap locations, or something simpler like sets of pre-determined trap layouts that are loaded randomly upon first entering an area. I.E. sometimes the bridge across the chasm in the Nashkel Mines has the full complement of traps, but another game the bridge is untrapped and more traps are scattered elsewhere in the mine. Of course, it makes sense for some objects to be trapped every time, chests specifically.
I realize of course that this idea is not for everyone, some folks have the enviable ability to roleplay very well and treat the traps as a new and legitimate threat every time. Just as I know there are players who are playing for the story and characters, they would rather not have to worry overly about traps.
It is likely however that this falls under the contract restriction preventing Overhaul from adding new content to old areas, which is unfortunate. I hold BG in as high regard as anyone else, and I understand the masterpiece argument. Trap placement should not be protected by the masterpiece argument, as it is now it's neither compelling nor engaging. Is DLC also beholden to this contract agreement? Maybe the mod community could tackle this, IMO, promising idea.
20
Comments
The only time I've had a problem with a trap in recent history was in Durlag's Tower when a trap sent infinite darts at Viconia and wouldn't stop no matter how far away she got, even traveling through multiple walls in order to hit her. Since that trap wasn't in a tunnel I had to walk through to get to the next level I just loaded the game and skipped it and was sure to avoid it in subsequent playthroughs. I agree though that randomizing the location of traps would make the game more interesting. I wouldn't be able to avoid that trap, for instance.
If there is any more specific clause in the license agreement, it probably deals specifically with letting the new characters interact with the original characters.
http://www.gibberlings3.net/item_rand/
I just couldn't find a link for a trap randomizer, although I remember seeing it. Maybe as a component of some othe mod. I'll go on looking for it.
Lightning bolt traps in dungeons = major suckage
The idea of a trap randomizer would be good to keep me on my toes, and of course like you said, some essential areas would need to be the same always.
Thing is though, I'm sure this wouldn't appeal to everybody, so It's probably something a mod would have to take care of.
In modern games, thieves have a much more interesting complement of meaningful abilities they can use, but the locks and traps meme remains. For all practical purposes, you are required to bring a thief along to deal with them -- unless you want to take a lot more damage and get a lot less treasure -- but the actual function of detecting and disarming locks and traps is mechanical and repetitive and more or less just serves to slow the pace of the game down and to not only make having a thief almost mandatory, but to divert a lot of skill points away from the more interesting thief skills and into the uninteresting but functionally essential lock picking and trap detection abilities.
I think we're past the point where any of this is interesting or necessary. Games should use locks and traps sparingly, and make them a genuine test of the player's ingenuity and problem-solving ability; not just a routine skill check.
Probably another thing you will have to depend on the modding community to accomplish.
Let trap ranges as they are, you're not planting bombs in the dungeon, after all
Randomizing traps may be something I'll look into later. Randomizing trap locations, hmm. On one hand it's nice, on the other - I'm unsure how it could be implemented without much effort and bugs.
..oh yes and pitfall spike traps too!
a brand new game... should have... brand new traps
Enemies only do damage so that Clerics can heal them.
Plate armour only exists so that Warriors have something to wear. Wands only exist so that mages have something to point at people and make encounters trivial...
Where does it end?
Instead I propose that locked doors exist because people lock their doors, and traps exist because traps have always been an iconic part of D&D, and neither are the only things that Thieves can handle in this game. Try Deus Ex Human Revolution, not only are "locks" and "traps" (typically turrets, alarm traps, proximity mines...) et al very much a part of the game, they still require a thiefy-approach to handle (by designing your character to be able to handle those specific skills). The fact you do not necessarily enjoy those things does not make them any less valid as challenges the game provides for you to overcome.
As for not supplying a challenge in the way you like, traps exist to cause the player to expend resources, this is the exact same reason that all encounters exist in a D&D framework.
If they are not doing so, then the traps need to be improved, and unlike @cloakanddagger suggests, making them more numerous yet harder to disarm would not achieve this; it would make the game harder for low level thieves, but once you know where a trap is, it doesn't matter how much damage the trap does when it triggers, since unless you *must* go there, you can simply avoid it.
Rather than simply damage dealing traps:
Petrification traps etc - traps with a swift, lethal and instant effect, rather than just damage.
Pit traps (the suffering character finds themselves at a lower level in the complex than anyone else, and must be rescued, either by travelling down a level to get them, or by finding an appropriate rope).
Non-magical effects - There are many, many poisons and alchemical formulae in the world of Faerun, having one that emulates a level drain, or one that drains stat points, or poisons everyone with an expanding gas cloud... Even dropping molten lead onto the party is a lethal non-magical trap that can safely be expected to deal huge amounts of damage.
Deny rewards - Rather than simply try and damage the party, triggering a trap deadbolts doors, makes certain enemies hide, allows enemies the chance to prepare, or trigger ambushes, or even leave the area entirely. Summon monster traps the monsters are dangerous, but as summons leave no loot, and offer little XP.
Drop persistent battlefield effects onto a wide area - trigger a trap? Now there's a cloudkill spell dropped on the area, and two walls of iron have just been summoned at either end of the corridor. Enjoy racing your own burning lungs as you desperately try to break one of the walls to safety!
All on top of the existing, rather more simple darts, fireballs, hold, etc, and many of them allocated in areas quasi randomly (major traps could or could not be placed in their locations, rather than *being* randomly placed across a map, whilst random traps could more easily be randomly situated, that could lead to some rather much soppiness).
I would suggest all of these would make traps far more relevant and interesting.
Look at the way lockpicking is handled in Skyrim: it is a minigame in its own right. You can't just pick lock X by having a lockpick skill of Y or more; rather, you have to rotate the cylinder to within a certain point and then turn the tumbler. On the PS3, if you use a light enough touch, the game controller will give you feedback at a certain point if you aren't close enough, which allows you to try to back off without breaking the pick. Your character's lockpick skill affects how close you have to be to the optimal point, so higher character skill compensates for lower player skill. How much actual fun the lockpick mechanism is in Skyrim is debatable, but it is more fun than clicking on the lock and the game saying "yes you succeed" or "no you fail" based on comparing two numbers and no amount of cleverness, strategy or finesse on your part will alter that: the only thing that will let you pick a lock is to raise your lockpick number high enough, and then the only thing that will stop you from picking that lock is if you decline to try. Likewise, in Skyrim, traps were actual things in the game world that could be spotted if you the player kept a sharp eye out and could be avoided or disarmed by interacting (or not interacting) with them. There was no "trap finding" skill. As with locks, the traps in the game got a bit repetitive, owing to the nature of the game, but they still involved actual player interaction and ability, rather than just a pass/fail stat system.
Combat, in both Baldur's Gate and Skyrim, follows the Skyrim lockpicking model: it is based on a combination of character ability and player ability. They are implemented in different ways, but the basic concept is that character stats + player ingenuity combine to determine the probability of success. In Baldur's Gate, a skilled player with a low-level party can defeat enemies targeted towards much higher levels by using clever tactics. A poor player using poor tactics may fail against a low-level encounter even if using a high level party kitted with top-end items. But no player, no matter how good skilled or clever, is going to pick a lock that requires 90% lock picking ability using a thief with an 85% lock picking ability, and the same goes for finding a trap. Likewise, the only way to not find a 75% trap or pick a 75% lock with an 85% thief is to either not try or not walk slowly enough. Neither of these things add appreciably to game play.