Traps

[Potjeh]

With the way things are now, claims are pretty much pointless because penalty for trespassing is a joke. So I propose a way to make claims a bit scarier - introduce traps that are only placeable on claims.

Specifically, a bear trap that deals a significant amount of damage and keeps the trespasser immobilized for a while. It should also prevent logging out and respawning back at hearth, same how it works when you're in combat. I know that it's damn boring to wait for two hours for your character to free himself (timer going even when you're logged out), but damn it, we need some way to keep those damn kids off our lawns. Make the bear traps require a hefty amount of iron to make, and they won't be spammed left and right.

So, thieving will still be possible, but it will have a high risk to go along with it's high profits. This way people will steal only when they suspect there's something worth stealing, not raid every house they run across.

[shockedfrog]

I've been thinking about traps a bit. While I think it's a good idea to add them and adds much needed sensible security to peoples property, I don't think it's right to limit them to somebody's claim. There's no real reason why a trespasser/attacker shouldn't be able to place their own traps, and allowing them elsewhere opens up some possibilities as far as playing as a bandit goes. I do agree that they shouldn't be trivial to make, however, though I'd like to see it expanded to a wider range of traps than just bear traps. Dart traps, rope traps, and so on.

The two issues I see with traps - First, how to identify them? Perhaps a detect traps skill, linked with perception? The other issue is how serious their effects should be. I think traps could be designed to cause heavy HHP damage (similar to the current system, except it would now be up to the players to enforce instead of being a freebie that comes with land, but would have the bonus of being able to kill the trapped player), poison a player so they may eventually die, make them easier to track, cause stat reduction, or slow down movement speed for some time. I'm not completely against immobilizing a caught player, but the time should be much shorter. Perhaps a trap that the player can escape from at any time, but they sooner they choose to do so, the greater the long-term penalty will be? There could also be various tools and antidotes that enable a suitably skilled thief to avoid traps, or where impossible, to survive their effects. These things would not be too trivial to make either, and a thief would probably not be able to carry everything they might need and still have enough inventory space to make the whole thing worthwhile.

[Potjeh]

Yeah, you bring up some valid points. There needs to be a way to find and disarm traps, yet it must be done in a way that wouldn't make setting them pointless. I think the foremost approach to getting around traps should be, well, getting around them. They should block movement for the person that set them, so if you observed him walking around his place you could see where the traps are. To expand on this, some way to see what areas have been walked upon recently could be added, so you can follow the trap owner's footsteps even if he is offline at the moment. Add some cost to moving the traps (a chance for the owner to get hit by the trap while triggering it, perhaps) to make it more likely they stay in place.

As for my getting caught idea, yeah, hours is a bit much, but I think it's needed. An elegant solution here would be to link the timer to strength, so a high-strength character would be able to break out in minutes, while a weakling would take hours. This would make mains much better thieves than alts and thus encourage people to take a real risk while thieving. Combining it with your "trade time for hurt" idea would be even better, though.

Thieving tools are another fine suggestion. I don't have much to add here, except that I approve of the idea. Maybe with these tools taking space and traps being big items, trap theft could be lessened somewhat.

Anyway, I only suggested making traps claim-exclusive because I have a feeling that someone would make it his life goal to trap the ring of Brodgar, newbie's hearths and main roads, and it would be next to impossible to get a new character going. As far as roads are concerned, maybe it should be impossible to conceal traps on paved tiles, which would make some sense from the realism point of view.

[shockedfrog]

I do agree that newbies would need some kind of protection, the no traps on paved tiles idea sounds good.

I'm not sure about linking the timer to pure strength (if strength becomes of primary importance for theft, then it becomes easier to just murder instead). By balancing the load using various stats (strength to break free from some traps, agility to dodge some traps, perception to avoid some traps by seeing them before they trigger, intelligence to know how to disarm traps, constitution to survive the effects of traps. charisma, erm, helps you seem really awesome while doing everything else, haha. perhaps it could be used to convince animals to trigger traps for you?) then trappers would require to use a variety of traps depending on their intended targets.

[Vattic]

I was half hoping to find this was a suggestion about animal traps, snares, bear traps (although mentioned) and other similar things that could be added to the hunters arsenal but still trapping your fellow hearthling doesn't sound too bad either .

This is a topic that will require a lot of thought, we don't want to end up with a situation like in many post war countries where people are too often loosing parts to old landmines as this would destroy the spirit of exploration in the game. Limiting them to your own claims would fix this problem somewhat but its not ideal as frog pointed out and also we might want to place a bear trap in the woods and hope for some fire breathing beast to stumble into it. Traps having a natural degradation would be useful here, bear traps going off on their own accord, pit traps falling in on themselves.

When it comes to traps and their effect on their victims I like the idea of wounds, imagine if you step in a bear trap, your not going to be sprinting away at speed 4 right away, realistically it would take a long time to heal but in game it could be temporary but still a nuisance if it forced you to crawl for a while.

I also like the idea of poison that slowly kills you, if it killed quick enough it could force you to leave the land and seek certain plants to make a cure. Similar to poison would be a paralysing agent that stops you from moving then slowly allowed you to crawl then walk, then run and finally sprint as it wore off.

Traps causing bleeding that would allow the owner to follow the trail for some distance might be interesting.

I also think it would be nice if after standing on a trap it would lock you into the game for so long like during fights, you'd be able to logout but the game would keep you in the world. This would stop people just jumping back to their hearth fires when really the owner should get some chance at catching you.

[Onionfighter]

Here is my argument for implementing some kind of booby trap system:

it would be awesome
it would allow people to passively fight back against thieves
would make it harder for alts to do all the dirty work
detecting traps would give a use for perception
would allow people to defend against being force summoned

Things to watch out for:
traps left everywhere could be especially hard on new players

Ideas of traps:
traps that do damage
traps that immobilize a player for a certain amount of time
traps that (magically I guess) alert the maker of the trap

Set traps could have two qualities, damage, and how well hidden they are.

[NaoWhut]

Maybe only traps in villages or
on claims? that'd knock out the
goons running round trapping a
circle round RoB and every village
in the game

And would promote privacy =D
people'd be afraid to walk on claims

[CG62]

IT'S A TRAP!

Meme abuse aside, yes.

TRAPS
WOULD
BE
AWESOME.

But allow them to trap animals as well.

[XkrikX]

no more kiting to rivers for me, no sir

[Thijssnl]

When it comes to traps and their effect on their victims I like the idea of wounds, imagine if you step in a bear trap, your not going to be sprinting away at speed 4 right away, realistically it would take a long time to heal but in game it could be temporary but still a nuisance if it forced you to crawl for a while.

I also like the idea of poison that slowly kills you, if it killed quick enough it could force you to leave the land and seek certain plants to make a cure. Similar to poison would be a paralysing agent that stops you from moving then slowly allowed you to crawl then walk, then run and finally sprint as it wore off.

Traps causing bleeding that would allow the owner to follow the trail for some distance might be interesting.

I also think it would be nice if after standing on a trap it would lock you into the game for so long like during fights, you'd be able to logout but the game would keep you in the world. This would stop people just jumping back to their hearth fires when really the owner should get some chance at catching you.

So whats the use of tracking the player by bloodtrail if you can search for his hf and summon him.