Feedback: Make Some Traps!

[Valindria]

My suggestion to improve the verisimilitude, efficacy, and endurance of the grenades produced by trapmaking.

1. Moderately increase the blast radius.
2. Create a second damage zone with the original radius that has greatly increased damage.
3. Change grenades from a weapon you equip to acting like a potion. A character who throws a grenade would be immediately back to his previous weapons.
4. Give grenades a lengthy cooldown, such as 15 seconds.
5. The character throwing the grenade is not immune to damage from it.

With these changes you'll get more total damage from a stack of grenades, but not be able to spam through the stack as quickly. The incongruous image of a rogue somehow hurling a stream of more grenades than he could possibly carry is avoided. Instead it works as something you do for an occasional burst of damage, but not a mode that takes you away from your regular combat role.

PS. The New York Times just reported that "verisimilitude" is on this year's top-50 list of words their readers didn't understand.

I really like some of that. I was thinking it would better if there was a throw skill/click or something so you didn't need to equip it instead of your normal weapon. Or a way to attach it to bolts to fire with your cross bow. I don't like #5, with the exception of greese+fire no other spells self damage and I don't think it would be needed if there was a cooldown on use.

Though I also like the idea of a turret/help (craft a stationary thing that throws grenades). Takes a grenade as a component, with a lengthy cooldown.

[Arovin]

Just checked now that the servers are back up, Trapmaking is still not selectable for Rogue Splashes.

[Aesop]

My suggestion to improve the verisimilitude, efficacy, and endurance of the grenades produced by trapmaking.

1. Moderately increase the blast radius.
2. Create a second damage zone with the original radius that has greatly increased damage.
3. Change grenades from a weapon you equip to acting like a potion. A character who throws a grenade would be immediately back to his previous weapons.
4. Give grenades a lengthy cooldown, such as 15 seconds.
5. The character throwing the grenade is not immune to damage from it.

With these changes you'll get more total damage from a stack of grenades, but not be able to spam through the stack as quickly. The incongruous image of a rogue somehow hurling a stream of more grenades than he could possibly carry is avoided. Instead it works as something you do for an occasional burst of damage, but not a mode that takes you away from your regular combat role.

PS. The New York Times just reported that "verisimilitude" is on this year's top-50 list of words their readers didn't understand.

hmmm... yeah I like them... those would be a good way to let Grenades be useful

Aesop

[Jay203]

* Were you able to understand how to make traps using the Trap Making feat?

again, the feat doesn't tell much, but it wasn't hard figuring out anyway


* Did you understand how to obtain a guide to trap making in-game?

what's there to understand? the tooltip said to go there and get it so i did o_O


* Was it easy to locate the device work station?

wasn't too hard


* Did you get a chance to try making some traps? If not, what difficulties did you have?

yeah, got around to trying the noisemaker trap to see how it worked


* If you did make some traps, tell us about your experiences trying make and utilize them!

yeah, made some noisemakers to test out how they worked, i must say i'm not impressed. the noise range wasn't particularly long nor did it last long enough to serve as a decent distraction. the enemies would just walk up and simply turn it off. either make it so it'll take them a couple seconds "searching" for the noisemaker or make the range longer for better pulling

updated ;p

[Raelys]

It's not that it would be overpowered: it's that it's pointless and uninteresting as a way to increase trap power. Most mobs will fail a DC 30 trap just as often as they fail DC 90.


Yes, it isn't very useful. Therefor it also isn't helpful to give Mechanic traps those kinds of DCs either.

I think you're missing my point. I certainly don't think that the DC is the only thing keeping traps from being useful, just that it wouldn't hurt to be able to raise them higher. Especially for spell traps, which have the same DC as a scroll cast right now. It makes them extremely useless.

As for actual trap making, my main feedback is that the balance between trap parts you find and trap parts you need are completely screwy. Mechanical trap parts are the least used of all the trap parts, yet going through trap filled quests normally, I got something like 10 times as many mechanical trap parts as elemental trap parts. After giving up and farming acid trap parts from the first trap in Hiding in Plain Sight, I was finally able to make 10 vials of deadly alchemist's acid (soulgem courtesy of my husband's wizard). They're 10d6 damage, min level 10. I tried them in Hiding in Plain Sight since that was where I farmed the trap parts. It was... lackluster at best. I threw nearly the full stack of them at the first group of enemies in Hiding in Plain Sight and barely dented them. I've yet to make a mine yet, so I don't know how they compare, but the grenades definately disappointed me.

Without going into major system changes like Angelus_dead is suggesting (I honestly like his ideas, but they look like they'd take a much larger rework of the system. I'm hoping there's enough hooks built in that we could see an improvement in the Update 5 timeframe.):

1) I'd like to see the yields increased or the requirements reduced. Taking all the trouble to gather 100 elemental trap parts, 250 siberys shards, and a soul gem to get grenades last less than half a fight in an appropriate level quest is very disappointing. Especially since you can miss.
1 alternate) If the damage of the grenades were increased such that you'd only thrown 1-2 a fight anyway, it also wouldn't be so bad.
2) Speaking of missing, it'd be nice for the grenade to still explode and do splash damage even if you missed the target, kind of like how fireball will explode when it hits something. (I don't actually think this is an easy tweak, just wishful thinking.)
3) If we're gonna get so many mechanical trap parts, I'd like to be able to make more than noisemarkers with them. Maybe some non-elemental grenades and mines?

[altagar]

Were you able to understand how to make traps using the Trap Making feat?
Yes

Did you understand how to obtain a guide to trap making in-game?
Yes

Was it easy to locate the device work station?
Yes

Did you get a chance to try making some traps? If not, what difficulties did you have?
Yes, but not with Poison ingredients


If you did make some traps, tell us about your experiences trying make and utilize them!

Its way too much work to gather the ingredients for what you get right now. Some control boxes don't seem to give ingredients at all, and 1 ingredient is way too frequent given how many it takes to be an effective trapper.

I'm quite amused by the weight properties of the components, grenades and mines.

10 vials (.01 each) +10 fragments (.01 each) + 25 components (.01 each) = 10 grenades (.5 each)
10 fragments (.01 each) +25 components (.01 each) + xx mech components (.01 each) = 5 mines (.01 each)

Grenades should be lighter, and mines should be heavier. For grenades, it works like arrows before quivers loading from inventory when you run out of what is in your hand. Perhaps a bag with a similar effect?

Similarly the "non-magical power" doesn't line up. Using the same active elemental ingredients, you can get 10 grenades at 4d6 each or 5 mines at 15d6. Why the delta? I can understand deltas as you go into magical components, but at this point it seems its all non-magical.

I found Poison Trap Ingredients, but the device will not accept them.

Back to experimenting...

[altagar]

While I'm glad Turbine is spending some time trying to introduce new elements to the game, this one falls far short of my expectations. This isn't just a matter of getting the damage levels, area effects and DC's at the right level for play balance, it includes making it fun and not a grind to play your toon from the beginning.

The things that work I think are:

1) The construction mechanic - I don't have an issue with using the altar approach with recipes that have to be learned.

2) The reality that traps crafted will not be the same as traps that we see in game.


What doesn't work:

1) Base component ingredients should be purchasable (and not just through the ah). Perhaps they are and I haven't found them.

2) If you can disarm a trap, why can't you pickup (or disarm) your own mine?

3) To the extent you want to make ingredient collection relevant, it should be dependent on your intelligence or disable skill or disable roll or levels of trapmaking (perhaps making it a free feat acquired multiple times like slow fall on monks). It is apparently a roll that occurs if a successful disarm occurs based on the individual trap box/type.

[Coldin]

Just made some Strong Fire Mines thanks to a friendly sorc gathering up some gems. They deal 25d6 fire damage, as expected.

I'll be making the final tier of fire traps soon, but I'll be very surprised if they aren't 30d6 damage.

Again, I have to restate, the cost is way too high for these higher damage traps when in most cases it will be better to just makes several of the cheaper ones.

Though, actually gathering up the parts seems to be a much easier task. I just had to do a few runs through Church and Cult on elite to gather up the 75 parts to make these strong traps.

[Aesop]

What I'm concerned about are the following

Grenade utility
DC viability


A_D has a good notion about he Grenades particularly points 3 and 4

Make Grenades clickable effects that are not equipped but can be used like potions but launch from inventory. Otherwise they will actually reduce the characters DPS by making them have to switch weapons frequently and thus severely limits the usefulness of the feature, beyond the range of something that will actually be used.

Make the use of a grenade have a lengthy cooldown somewhere naround 15 to 20 seconds.


THe current DC Formula concerns me. 1/3 Disable Device Total for non mechanics and a potential 3/4 Disable Device Total for full mechanics seems unreasonable. Simply take a low end DD total at end game like 60 to see the problem there. 1/3 of 60 is 20 while for 1 tier of Mechaic the amount raises to 30 followed by 40 for the second tier of Mechanic. That's a full D20 worth thus making the utility of the low end either useless or the total of the high end superfulous.

I maintain that the calculation for Trap DCs should be based on the following

Disable Device Ranks + Intelligence Modifier + Trap Strength + 2x Mechanic Ranks

Obviously the maximum Disable Device Ranks at level 20 is 23
Intelligence Modifier will vary from rogue to rogue and I imagine that Repeater Rogues will have a decent one come U5

Trap Strength much like spell level should play a roll in the DC. The least of the traps would only add +1 while the rest would increase accordingly

Mechanic Ranks would add +2 to the DC per tier. So a Mechanic III would add +6 to the DC of any trap s/he made

Mechanics being the experts of the trap world should have another benefit though. Increase the Damage of traps they use/lay by 10-15% per tier.


I don't think making the Grenades affect the user would go over too well though...

Aesop

[Coldin]

A clicky wouldn't be bad with grenades, at least in terms of game balance. Then the damage could be upped considerably because it would be controlled via a cooldown.

But...I would miss the current perk of being able to carry around flasks and have a cool little trail of fire/acid/sonic/electricity/etc.

I am wondering if any changes will get made to trap making before Update 5 launches. Scaling the damage or quantity of traps made shouldn't be much of an issue. But making changes to the area of effect could be a more difficult change.

I do hope traps see some improvements before Update 5 goes live though. *goes into wishful thinking mode*

[moorewr]

PS. The New York Times just reported that "verisimilitude" is on this year's top-50 list of words their readers didn't understand.

Awesome.

[Coldin]

Well, just made some Deadly Alchemist Fires. Minimum Rogue Level 10. 10d6 damage.

I've gotten say, for something describe as deadly, they're not so deadly.

I'm actually a little confused by these minimum levels. I mean, if you're going to have them, why are they so low? I actually thought these min rogue levels would go up to say 15 or even 20.

But that's really besides the point. In their current implementation, 10d6 damage is just not enough to make these grenades worth the effort. I could just get a fireball wand and use that.

Well, at least this helps confirm that they are just a linear increase in power, and not an exponential one. I was kind of hoping it would be on a curve, and not a line...

[altagar]

I could see cold being worth it for fire elementals and such to double the damage, and fire for mummies etc. But again, a lot of effort for something that is very situational.

[Coldin]

So many posts now, so I really can't remember if it's been mentioned.

But this is one of the major reasons these traps are so lackluster in damage compared to a wizards fireball.

A wizard can get +50% from a potency item, +40% from enhancements, and gets the ability to have those spells do critical damage for a multiplier to the damage.

A rogue however gets none of these things to increase the damage of their traps. All they have is the mechanic line to help increase the DC.

Also consider that a wizards spell is weighted towards the higher side of the dice. It's unclear if a rogue's trap will do the same

So, while these deadly fire mines might be 30d6 damage compared to the 10d6 of a fireball, the wizard still deals more damage on average because of all the other enhancements they can add.

[Aesop]

So many posts now, so I really can't remember if it's been mentioned.

But this is one of the major reasons these traps are so lackluster in damage compared to a wizards fireball.

A wizard can get +50% from a potency item, +40% from enhancements, and gets the ability to have those spells do critical damage for a multiplier to the damage.

A rogue however gets none of these things to increase the damage of their traps. All they have is the mechanic line to help increase the DC.

Also consider that a wizards spell is weighted towards the higher side of the dice. It's unclear if a rogue's trap will do the same

So, while these deadly fire mines might be 30d6 damage compared to the 10d6 of a fireball, the wizard still deals more damage on average because of all the other enhancements they can add.

that's one of the reasons I wanted Mechanic to add +x% to Trap Damage instead of the huge boost to DC

[Coldin]

that's one of the reasons I wanted Mechanic to add +x% to Trap Damage instead of the huge boost to DC

I could go for that. Let DC be based solely on DD skill, with damage increases for each level of mechanic. If you go that route though, then the mechanic line really needs to give an adequate increase to damage to make it comparable to the assassin.

I really want to see traps become a valid tactic, rather than just a novelty.

Magic traps need to have scaling DCs. Grenades and mines need to deal more damage and have larger range.

[altagar]

Can I get a count how many people are actively working this? I'm going to use my last port to Lamannia to bring over a soul bag with some goodies. Feel free to message me if you'd prefer.

[Coldin]

Can I get a count how many people are actively working this? I'm going to use my last port to Lamannia to bring over a soul bag with some goodies. Feel free to message me if you'd prefer.

I'm pretty much done making and testing traps at this point, but maybe there's some others that would like to get their hands on some soul gems.

[Marupal]

Really excited about having traps and grenades for rogues. Woot! This definitely takes the sting out of the impending TWF nerf.

@Coldin, You've done a bang-up job testing things and trying out other peoples ideas. +1 rep

The new feat pointed the right direction to where to get the instructions to make traps. RP-wise it was appropriate and gave a decent enough starting point. The altar I spotted on accident. Probably would have gone to the marketplace and tried (failed) to make traps there. Haven't been able to make any traps yet, though.

I have 18 in disable device (yeah it's low, I know) on a 5wiz/4rog. Ran a couple of quests and haven't found anything yet for parts. Disabled all but 1 trap in Gwylan's (13 traps if I remember right.) Ingredient bag is empty. How much do you have to have in DD to start getting parts? It sounds like the tier 1 and 2 items are meant for lower level characters, but can't acquire the resources. Intended?

Agree with Coldin: the damage should be scaled up, maybe exponentially and not linearly. Some of the traps you encounter are instakill on a tank. We should be able to deliver that same punch, or as someone else mentioned instakill potential on a critically failed save. I don't think it's fair though to measure the damage against a wizard casting a fireball. Apples and oranges. Want the strengths of a wiz then roll one but you're also stuck with the weaknesses. Same with a wand of fireball. Mines are meant for a different purpose than the wands are (or were you speaking exclusively about grenades?)

Haven't been able to make a grenade yet but am concerned about how disgruntled other players are with the range of effect. Looking forward to testing this.

I'm hoping that there will be a place to buy the parts to build at least the first tier of traps and grenades (not the AH).

Idea for another trap: one that doesn't do anything more than trip and knock them prone. This one should require almost nothing for resources since it doesn't take much to lay down a tripwire. Maybe tripwire should be a component of the crafting.

Maybe you could also consider giving the rogue the full kit if when disabling a trap their DD roll is sufficiently above the trap DC. Either that or a random chance of pulling the trap apart enough to pull a full kit.

Resource consumption seems a bit high for these traps, at least at lower levels, but maybe I've just had really bad luck getting parts.

Are there going to be additional feats or enhancements for the trapmaker?

Looking forward to playing with this more.

There were a couple of mentions from players having trouble acquiring the trapmaking feat. My characters received it automatically when copying over to Lamannia, are you sure it's not in your feat list?

[SteeleTrueheart]

PS. The New York Times just reported that "verisimilitude" is on this year's top-50 list of words their readers didn't understand.

Make sure Bor knows. As Bor has a particular fetish for that word.