Request: Trap training quest

[technosatyr]

I would like for there to be a quest that will allow players to practice dealing with the various traps in the game. It wouldn't give any XP or rewards (except maybe a token for the first completion to encourage people to be aware of it) but it would provide a scaleable area where players can learn how to deal with traps. It should contain examples of common implementations of traps (blades, anklebiters, spinny death blades, flamethrowers, etc) and allow the user to specify both a difficulty and a base level (so a character could say "show me what traps generally look like for a level 5 Elite quest).

The DCs do not need to be exactly the same as traps in the field, but should be in the same general range. This would let trappers gauge whether they're ready for certain content.

The main goal of this quest would be to provide a setting where all players can practice avoiding traps. Many traps in the game can be avoided partially or completely with careful timing and control. However, currently the only way to practice the skill of trap avoidance is to spend time going into a quest with the trap in question and practicing there. This often means that a character has no practical method of practice, because a single mistake would lead to death.

More experienced players know the little quirks and tricks to avoid traps, and have had years of running and rerunning quests to learn the skills. However, newer players don't have that experience, and are generally expected to already know how to handle traps. A training quest would give newer players an option for testing different techniques and ease the learning curve for the game.

[kierg10]

/signed

[FrozenNova]

Seems a bit superfluous. Devs might as well just provide a table of levels against difficulties for various DCs to much the same effect.

In terms of practicing avoiding a trap, there are very few unique traps in DDO. You have your spikes, your elemental blasts, a few kinds of blades, and that's it. They're all very similar. Nonetheless, you can always just enter on casual and dodge the trap while it's doing barely any damage.

That said, it has the potential to be pretty interesting. Especially if you set it out as a gauntlet for trap disablers. Perhaps have it use the Challenge system, for any level, with seperate paths inside for difficulty. It could be a lot of fun, certainly, if perhaps not hugely useful.

[My2Cents]

Guild Ship Trapping Dummy?

[Aedra1]

I would like for there to be a quest that will allow players to practice dealing with the various traps in the game. It wouldn't give any XP or rewards (except maybe a token for the first completion to encourage people to be aware of it) but it would provide a scaleable area where players can learn how to deal with traps. It should contain examples of common implementations of traps (blades, anklebiters, spinny death blades, flamethrowers, etc) and allow the user to specify both a difficulty and a base level (so a character could say "show me what traps generally look like for a level 5 Elite quest).

The DCs do not need to be exactly the same as traps in the field, but should be in the same general range. This would let trappers gauge whether they're ready for certain content.

The main goal of this quest would be to provide a setting where all players can practice avoiding traps. Many traps in the game can be avoided partially or completely with careful timing and control. However, currently the only way to practice the skill of trap avoidance is to spend time going into a quest with the trap in question and practicing there. This often means that a character has no practical method of practice, because a single mistake would lead to death.

More experienced players know the little quirks and tricks to avoid traps, and have had years of running and rerunning quests to learn the skills. However, newer players don't have that experience, and are generally expected to already know how to handle traps. A training quest would give newer players an option for testing different techniques and ease the learning curve for the game.

There are, actually, several XP giving "training" type quests... Redfang the Unruled (lvl 3), The Bookbinder Rescue (lvl 4), The Snitch (lvl 5), and Prove Your Worth in Three Barrel Cove (lvl 5). While these quests are low level, you can do them from casual to elite (pick your difficulty) but there are traps throughout each of these quests. If you can find, disable, and/or avoid these traps at low level you will gradually learn the skills necessary for the upper level quests that have traps but are not laden with traps throughout the quests.

[HunterjWizzard]

/signed

It'd also be nice if there was some kind of message saying "this trap cannot be disarmed"(much like there is with locks that can't be picked). I know there exist traps that can't be disarmed, but in my quest to become a decent trapper I am often stuck unable to tell if I just failed the Search Check or if the trap actually can't be disarmed.

There's basically too many variables and for me it heavily discourages playing on anything over normal even with an artificer with high search and disable device.

[technosatyr]

Seems a bit superfluous. Devs might as well just provide a table of levels against difficulties for various DCs to much the same effect.

This was something I specifically wanted to avoid. The training traps shouldn't have the exact same DCs as the ones in dungeons of that level, but they should be in the same ballpark.

This training ground would give people a better idea of what they're likely to have to deal with in terms of raw DCs to help a player see "gee, with one or two more points I could get that trap with a minimal chance of failure" vs "wow, I'm missing that by like 10 points, I really need to rethink something on my build." Most importantly it would let them do this at their own pace without negatively impacting a group.

There are, actually, several XP giving "training" type quests... Redfang the Unruled (lvl 3), The Bookbinder Rescue (lvl 4), The Snitch (lvl 5), and Prove Your Worth in Three Barrel Cove (lvl 5). While these quests are low level, you can do them from casual to elite (pick your difficulty) but there are traps throughout each of these quests. If you can find, disable, and/or avoid these traps at low level you will gradually learn the skills necessary for the upper level quests that have traps but are not laden with traps throughout the quests.

This idea is specifically for people who are new to the game. They won't know where they can go to practice traps; the huge number of different quests available is overwhelming at times, and it's tricky to know where to go and what to do. Even if someone tells them where they can go there's no place they can go to try out all the common types in one place. And even then new players will often lack the skills needed to get to the traps on their own. On top of that for the first part of the game the model is "find the trap and disable it before you trigger it". Later in the game it switches to "find the trap and run through it cause the control panel is on the far side."

We give people training dummies to allow them to practice damage rotations, different builds and different gear setups in a controlled environment. Why not do the same for traps?

[Gauthaag]

/signed

i really like the idea of scalable trap arena, either for training rogue skills and checking trap finding/disabling abilities or for trap avoidance training.

maybe it could be free agents favor reward of a kind

[UltraMonk2]

I am not for this, it is way more fun watching the party rogue getting blended by a trap.

It is even more fun letting the barbarian find the traps and being roasted, blended, maimed, diced, sliced, pureed, frozen, compacted, holed, etc.

A Rogue's training is with real live traps in real live quests, if they can't successfully deal with the many and varied traps then I quite assure you the rest of the party is more than capable in dealing with the rogue.

Real Rogue's Train with Real Traps.

[Nestroy]

Remember Heytons Rest in Korthos? Here you go with your training trap. Further traps on Korthos: Abandoned Canith Manufactory, Canith Aquedukt.

So there is plenty to learn for new beginners in Korthos, and to my mind, this is enough for the start.

[danielhrobbins]

/not signed

A rogue training ground should be a room full of mobs you have to kill ... then maybe 1 trap for the 1% of the time you are not killing said mobs.

/signed

i really like the idea of scalable trap arena, either for training rogue skills and checking trap finding/disabling abilities or for trap avoidance training.

maybe it could be free agents favor reward of a kind

[bigolbear]

thats korthos and most of the harbour and market. They will teach you the basic skills you need to time traps, where to look for boxes, how to avoid certain effects.

I remeber back in t' day...

we used to have training quests - i remember big iron golem traingin dummies. I never was sure why they got rid of them, devs im sure the code is still around somewhere. stick a training hall in korthos.

[technosatyr]

thats korthos and most of the harbour and market. They will teach you the basic skills you need to time traps, where to look for boxes, how to avoid certain effects.

I don't agree with this point. What you say is true, and players *can* use those places for training, but they're not a good situation for training, just like a person *can* practice DPS on mobs in random dungeons without using a training dummy. Just because the option technically exists doesn't mean that there isn't a need for improvement.

More importantly, having a trap training quest introduces new players to the concept that some traps *can* be avoided. It was months before I realized that it's possible to get through some traps without disarming them. I figured the animation was just eye-candy, and setting foot in the area always triggered the trap damage.

Again it boils down to being a service for the newer players. Let's take Chamber of Rayium as an example. I run it for the first time and die to one of the acid spurt traps. I was timing my move as best as I could, but just didn't make it. Experienced players might know of the perfect low-level dungeon with a similar trap setup where they could practice dealing with the lag in avoiding the trap, but a newbie wouldn't know where to go. Might not even occur to the newbie that he or she *should* learn how to avoid the trap. Even if the newbie did know that he or she should learn this skill AND knew a good place to practice, there's still a lot of time wasted just getting to the trap. Each failed attempt would likely cause damage, which limits the amount of practicing one could do in a single setting. Once you're out of healing it's time to recall and go fight through the dungeon again.

Side note: I would not want this quest to have *every* possible trap that a player could encounter, just the ones that appear a lot, or some sort of basic version of more complex traps. Waterworks has the big long tunnel of acid; the training ground wouldn't need to duplicate the whole tunnel, but should at least have one of the spray traps to teach people that you need to start running while the trap is about to stop firing, not right when it's complete.

A single quest housing commonly-encountered traps would let newbies know that they should have the skill to avoid traps and give them a place to hone that skill.

[Aedra1]

We give people training dummies to allow them to practice damage rotations, different builds and different gear setups in a controlled environment. Why not do the same for traps?

The training dummies give a buff and they are immune to many types of damage. Melees test themselves by fighting and taking damage, casters practice by casting spells and taking damage, healers test themselves by healing and taking damage, why should rogues be any different?

[technosatyr]

The training dummies give a buff and they are immune to many types of damage. Melees test themselves by fighting and taking damage, casters practice by casting spells and taking damage, healers test themselves by healing and taking damage, why should rogues be any different?

Because traps aren't the same as fighting or casting spells. If you're a melee character *every* quest you do you'll be practicing your melee skills. If you're a caster you'll be casting your spells in every dungeon; *you* have control over when and how you use your abilities. But not every quest will have traps, and a player who wants more trap practice cannot simply choose to practice their trap skills whenever they want.

If you're a trapper you may or may not have a trap to deal with in a quest. There's very few quests until the higher levels where you *have* to get through a trap to disarm it; for the most part trappers learn that if they have high enough skill checks they never actually have to try to bypass a trap. By the time they start hitting quests where they need to bypass the trap before they can disarm it they've got maybe 15 levels of practice *not* getting past traps.

And again, this isn't a suggestion just for rogues. This is a suggestion that would benefit new players of all classes. As I mentioned before there's not much need for trappers to learn to bypass traps until very high levels. This quest would give the non-trapper classes a place to learn the skills that they'll need to get through dungeons on their own.

[eden2760]

Tomb of the shadow knight.

That is all.

Edit - I posted this in half-jest, but there are quite a few various types of traps in here, and enough variety in how you have to get to the trap boxes, be careful where you step, etc. that this is a good quest for an aspiring trap-monkey to train in.

[RumbIe]

/not signed for the reason, but might drop a /signed as a new quest for fun. I like the arena idea or perhaps a crucible style maze with traps throughout and mobs running around.

I don't understand the requirement for training. If when you went to disarm a trap a box popped up and you had to click certain gears and things to make the panel disarm like a puzzle and there was actually SKILL required then I would say it is required.

There is none though. It basically goes like this if you are a trap monkey.

1) Sense a trap - Either throw points into Spot or run the quest enough times to know where the traps are. Run it a lot of times if trap placement is random as there are still only a few spots traps could potentially be. Either approach here requires no skill or practice. You either have run the quest before and have a good memory or you put points in spot and have the right gear. End of story.

2) Find the trap - Again no skill here. You need points in search so put them there, have the right gear and bring along heroism pots or a GH clickie. Look around the trap for the panel. If you can't find it then either a) you don't have a high enough search or b) its on the other side of the trap. As with point #1 above having run the quest before and having a good memory is all the "practice" you need to know if you are on the right track.

3) Get to the panel - If on the other side of the trap better have good reflex saves with evasion and/or timing - This is really the only thing I think practice would help with, but every trap and pattern is different. Some spray acid every 2 seconds. Some are continuous. Some have spikes that pop up in one pattern and some in another. So really "practice" doesn't help much. Evasion and good reflex saves do.

4) Disarm - Again no skill required. Just points in the right categories and the right gear (pots and clickies) and skill boosts.


In short I can see zero advantage of having a trap quest for learning traps (though having a single box in the korthos walkthrough might help show what needs to be done in general like the "search tutorial"). When a rogue disables a particularly high level trap in a nasty spot I give them a "good job", but it has nothing to do with any particular skill. It's a good job for creating a good build that can handle the traps and often times it's a good job for knowing the spots to stand, but that comes form memorizing a particular quest, not some general trap sense.

You can get all of your knowledge from a quick read on what is needed. Spot, Search, and disable device. What gear boosts them and what items, spells, effects boost them.

As mentioned though a trap-centric dungeon might be fun for other reasons. Just fun in general.

[Nestroy]

Last but not least: Isn´t all stuff doing below epic levels just "training" ultimately?

[Dendrix]

Rakham's Trial - in 3 Barrel Cove....

[technosatyr]

3) Get to the panel - If on the other side of the trap better have good reflex saves with evasion and/or timing - This is really the only thing I think practice would help with, but every trap and pattern is different. Some spray acid every 2 seconds. Some are continuous. Some have spikes that pop up in one pattern and some in another. So really "practice" doesn't help much. Evasion and good reflex saves do.

This is what I'm talking about. There's a possibility for player skill to shine when it comes to bypassing traps if they can get the timing and control right. However, the server lag can make that really difficult to learn, so people just rush through traps that could be avoided with skill, and rely on their saves to get them through. If they had a chance to practice the timing in a safer environment then Turbine could introduce more places where the challenge is in player skill, not the numbers on your sheet.