Would a limit to the number of traps a trapper can have active at once be remiss? Like, a given Tracker can have no more than one trap of each type in a given area, plus one extra if he's attuned to it per environment? (One extra trap, not one extra of each type.) That also neatly sidesteps springchains that lead from Mos Eisley to the Sarlacc pit...
The springtrap chain is already dealt with by the fact that they put summon resistance into it (it used to not be checked, so springs were irresistable).
The negative I can see with a trap limit is that if you're limited, you need to keep space to actually use in fights, meaning that you can't defend your own territory-- and, without having your traps in, the other side can just drop traps down very quickly. At this point it's important to defend your area ahead of time with your own traps because even if you are not there, it actually slows the enemy trapper down significantly and they can't just turn the entire area into the Pit of Doom in a few seconds.
Free traps aren't the problem. Most areas you just replace other people's traps for no cost anyway, and the types of players who will pit the whole game aren't starving for resources anyway. I think even with commodities and gold becoming more scarce, that will still be the case. Not sure what the best solution is. I like the idea of a trap limit in general, but it does have some drawbacks as Xenthos mentioned.
It's been a while since I've been part of the PvP scene, but why is this any different than mages/druids needing to set up a demesne? Both still heavily favour the attacker since they can still pick a point to plop down with their posse before they actually poke anything, only instead of turning the entire area into a minefield the attacker needs to carefully decide where they want the traps to go. It takes less time to set up, but do raiders often get deterred by needing to tear out and set up their own traps before kicking the Lady/Imp/Cherub they came to kick?
EDIT: The only situation I guess I can see this being an issue are the Faethorn back and forth raids, where they start in one place and sway into and out of each org's territory half a hundred times before everyone gets bored.
Free traps are the only reason all those areas even have traps. I should know, I'm the one who put almost all of them there, and I'm a hoarder (I tend not to spend resources without good reason).
You could also remove "stealing" traps-- you have to disarm and replace with your own (if it's not already the case, make disarming an insta-success on a fired trap, for some reason I think it can be failed on traps that aren't your own unless that has been fixed).
As-is though, stealing is more time-consuming than just plopping a trap down in an untrapped room (which was the stated problem in the previous report, and one which I think is actually a good thing because of how powerful traps are-- I don't want to see them easily flipping when a raider pops in).
It's been a while since I've been part of the PvP scene, but why is this any different than mages/druids needing to set up a demesne? Both still heavily favour the attacker since they can still pick a point to plop down with their posse before they actually poke anything, only instead of turning the entire area into a minefield the attacker needs to carefully decide where they want the traps to go. It takes less time to set up, but do raiders often get deterred by needing to tear out and set up their own traps before kicking the Lady/Imp/Cherub they came to kick?
EDIT: The only situation I guess I can see this being an issue are the Faethorn back and forth raids, where they start in one place and sway into and out of each org's territory half a hundred times before everyone gets bored.
If you're online you are informed (via masochism, same as if someone starts breaking your demesne) when someone starts poking at your traps, so there is actually a difference there. Disarming the trap is actually poking something.
I discuss this with people quite often and like pratfall, the fact that there are so many ways to nerf pits without making them completely useless just speaks volumes about how strong they are right now.
I send tells to common fighters asking if they're down to fight. If they say no there are no defenders, go away, I go away.
I try to start a wargames when the north is overwhelming and beating down the south so that we can even up team numbers and have good fights.
I sit out when numbers are unfair, and I make sure to let people have 1v1's and don't mob in on them.
Still, people cry.
I'm constantly trying to engage southern fighters in a dialogue and find a fair place to fight. I go 1v5 yesterday and in the end @Kraw says I wouldn't have done it against top-tier fighters, as if that's some indictment. Of course I wouldn't go 1v5 against the top 5 south fighters! Is that what the measurement of not being a griefer is?
When are you people going to realize that I'm not griefing you? You are just frustrated! I can only imagine how much of a jerk I could be to your org if I wanted to be, but I never am.
I would love to call in my character witness @Veyils, who is always around defending when I'm online. Not Celina who's retired and doesn't have a clue what she's talking about. Not Synkarin who works whenever I'm online. What about the actual people that I fight against?
edit: I dunno why I'm playing such the victim. @Xenthos , and @Cyndarin , you'll never be happy with me because I'm not on your team. At least Sidd is relatively chill when he steps away from the game.
Best to let it lie.
I don't have a bad thing to say about you really, not sure where this post is coming from but like if your tagging me in on it?
You step out of fights when the numbers are crazy stacked in your favor in raids, you've not jumped any lowbies that I was aware of and the only time you've tried to gank me with greater numbers while I was hunting was because of Anelissa and you even said sorry it was a lame reason after.
Soo like if it helps @Ciaran you have no complaints from my side of the table.
Why does anyone ever raid in Faethorn then, when you can go harvest Cherubs and Imps till you're blue or red in the face, inside your own demesne where the home team gets incinerated/disintegrated when they come to call?
I mean, I guess you're more likely to be found while setting up, since some sap with scent will smell you sooner than later, but the counter to that is to bring someone to stinkbutt the room with skunk.
I guess there are things that are reasonably able to be killed with our reduced population that actually somewhat matter in EthSeren/EthGlom, but actual raiders on all sides seem to be in agreement that "things that actually somewhat matter" aren't really high on the priority list and that most raids are more "Hello, hello, hello, is there anybody in there?" these days.
I don't have coal and I'm willing to spend to pit areas (and have, where there's been gaps). And if it's needed, I imagine most orgs would finance trackers to do it, as they did for war shrines (and I remember Hallifax financing Sentinels in the past, too). The benefits are good enough for it. So ultimately I think the cost is a red herring.
EthGlom / EthSeren / Faethorn are way easier to get into and out of (Faethorn doesn't have discretionaries at all, and the others you can just hop through an archway-- no chance of getting caught in distort).
Sure, there are ships, but it's just not the same thing as knowing there is always an exit.
If you're online you are informed (via masochism, same as if someone starts breaking your demesne) when someone starts poking at your traps, so there is actually a difference there. Disarming the trap is actually poking something.
Didn't know mages still got a warning when someone tampered with their demesne off-plane. I might start leaving one around Air. Not that I'm a combatant, but it seems if I have the ability to help, I have the responsibility to. Not dissimilar to the multi-hour vigils on Celestia I used to hold, I guess.
I don't have coal and I'm willing to spend to pit areas (and have, where there's been gaps). And if it's needed, I imagine most orgs would finance trackers to do it, as they did for war shrines (and I remember Hallifax financing Sentinels in the past, too). The benefits are good enough for it. So ultimately I think the cost is a red herring.
My entire issue with traps is that you can spam them in a fight, like I fall in a pit, by the time I've climbed out of it oh you've set and armed it again and I fall in again when I leave. Almost all forms of movement are caught by traps the only way past them is to fly or climb the trees which isn't doable in some areas or can be stopped via tower and such.
So like my issue is a good trapper makes it near impossible for some classes to get out of a trapped room if they are on the ball.
Put an immunity on traps for like 15 -20 seconds where after I get hit by one I wont get hit by another for that time and traps will still be amazing and useful for combat but it'll fix my major issue with them.
For clarification: After someone has fallen into a pit, it is "inactive" for a time. Even after it's been armed again, it shows on TRAPS as "AI". The "I" means it won't trigger again until that wears off. It lasts a bit after someone climbs out (but if you are delayed in climbing out at all, it will be fully active once you're free again).
No. As I stated earlier, it's not really a solution I'm interested in; it doesn't really address the problem (I can retrap an entire empty area with almost no time spent). The only benefit it would really provide is when traps decay in an area you want to raid, letting you easily drop your own down without any real headwinds.
In response to Luce: I have only maybe twice every had all my traps in Ethereal Glomdoring removed. Most of the time the raiders just do the four rooms at the north, maybe one/two down south near the Ravenwood, and that's about it (the rooms they are fighting in and the ones next to them). It takes them more time to dig up and replace those few rooms than it would take to do pretty much the entire area if there were no pits in place. Having the traps there is definitely a net benefit for the defender.
And how many traps would you say you have in total?
Everiine said: The reason population is low isn't because there are too many orgs. It's because so many facets of the game are outright broken and protected by those who benefit from it being that way. An overabundance of gimmicks (including game-breaking ones), artifacts that destroy any concept of balance, blatant pay-to-win features, and an obsession with convenience that makes few things actually worthwhile all contribute to the game's sad decline.
I still don't follow this train of logic. It's "We must allow permatraps, because otherwise raiders could set traps too quickly. The only thing that stops them from immediately pitting up an area is the existing pits in that area." right?
And how many traps would you say you have in total?
If I do TRAPS LIST, I get, at pagelength 60, 2.5% per page. So ~2400 traps at the moment. I've only focused on areas that are combat relevant (villages, astral, bubbles, halli territories).
Aetolia had a similar problem several years ago. The solution was to increase comms cost + make traps only last one ig month. However traps are consumed when they hit someone there. I think it's pretty wild that they just go inactive here. I've used traps in several other games and those were all consumed on use, so as a tracker, I like that they stay, but I can see why there are issues.
Completely tangential, but one game I played let you use special quest rewards for uber traps and that was really fun to work at and set up a special ambush. Traps against NPCs is another fun use I've seen, pinning down fleeing mobs, collecting items when they patrol by, or augmenting bashing if you kite them through them. I've also seen traps which nicely augment different combat tactics, but are fairly useless unless properly activated through conditions on your foe. Traps seem a bit bland here, tending more towards quantity over conditional potent uses.
And so, at 30 minutes past midnight GMT, Midkemia Online closed forever. Maybe some of their admin can come be admin in Lusternia.
Everiine said: The reason population is low isn't because there are too many orgs. It's because so many facets of the game are outright broken and protected by those who benefit from it being that way. An overabundance of gimmicks (including game-breaking ones), artifacts that destroy any concept of balance, blatant pay-to-win features, and an obsession with convenience that makes few things actually worthwhile all contribute to the game's sad decline.
Finally there's an aether flare when I'm around. And it's a competitive one too! We have a crew enough to give our enemies hell, I'm chill on empathing... and boom, my computer freezes. Repeatedly. For upwards of 5 minutes at a time. Then lags. Then freezes more. Then d/cs me. And I log back in dead, of course. Doesn't that just beat all.
The purpose of writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure pure reasoning, and inhibit clarity. With a little practice, writing can be an intimidating and impenetrable fog!
Ya we seemed to have a few issues early on which ment we couldn't take it quick enough then well the superior numbers showed up and thats the end of that story.
I may have made a fool out of myself by blowing up two ships in the most pathetic way possible, but I survived my first aetherflare! That was fun, let's do it again!
Comments
The negative I can see with a trap limit is that if you're limited, you need to keep space to actually use in fights, meaning that you can't defend your own territory-- and, without having your traps in, the other side can just drop traps down very quickly. At this point it's important to defend your area ahead of time with your own traps because even if you are not there, it actually slows the enemy trapper down significantly and they can't just turn the entire area into the Pit of Doom in a few seconds.
EDIT: The only situation I guess I can see this being an issue are the Faethorn back and forth raids, where they start in one place and sway into and out of each org's territory half a hundred times before everyone gets bored.
You could also remove "stealing" traps-- you have to disarm and replace with your own (if it's not already the case, make disarming an insta-success on a fired trap, for some reason I think it can be failed on traps that aren't your own unless that has been fixed).
As-is though, stealing is more time-consuming than just plopping a trap down in an untrapped room (which was the stated problem in the previous report, and one which I think is actually a good thing because of how powerful traps are-- I don't want to see them easily flipping when a raider pops in).
I don't have a bad thing to say about you really, not sure where this post is coming from but like if your tagging me in on it?
You step out of fights when the numbers are crazy stacked in your favor in raids, you've not jumped any lowbies that I was aware of and the only time you've tried to gank me with greater numbers while I was hunting was because of Anelissa and you even said sorry it was a lame reason after.
Soo like if it helps @Ciaran you have no complaints from my side of the table.
EDIT: just edited to fix a typo
I mean, I guess you're more likely to be found while setting up, since some sap with scent will smell you sooner than later, but the counter to that is to bring someone to stinkbutt the room with skunk.
I guess there are things that are reasonably able to be killed with our reduced population that actually somewhat matter in EthSeren/EthGlom, but actual raiders on all sides seem to be in agreement that "things that actually somewhat matter" aren't really high on the priority list and that most raids are more "Hello, hello, hello, is there anybody in there?" these days.
Sure, there are ships, but it's just not the same thing as knowing there is always an exit.
So like my issue is a good trapper makes it near impossible for some classes to get out of a trapped room if they are on the ball.
Put an immunity on traps for like 15 -20 seconds where after I get hit by one I wont get hit by another for that time and traps will still be amazing and useful for combat but it'll fix my major issue with them.
In response to Luce: I have only maybe twice every had all my traps in Ethereal Glomdoring removed. Most of the time the raiders just do the four rooms at the north, maybe one/two down south near the Ravenwood, and that's about it (the rooms they are fighting in and the ones next to them). It takes them more time to dig up and replace those few rooms than it would take to do pretty much the entire area if there were no pits in place. Having the traps there is definitely a net benefit for the defender.
Completely tangential, but one game I played let you use special quest rewards for uber traps and that was really fun to work at and set up a special ambush. Traps against NPCs is another fun use I've seen, pinning down fleeing mobs, collecting items when they patrol by, or augmenting bashing if you kite them through them. I've also seen traps which nicely augment different combat tactics, but are fairly useless unless properly activated through conditions on your foe. Traps seem a bit bland here, tending more towards quantity over conditional potent uses.
Its like soo short it may as well not even be there in most cases.
What a way to go. But yes, it was a fun fight, glad that an actual fight could happen for once. I got to redeem my piloting skills.