Traps doing ridiculous amount of damage?

[nem0]

I am doing my second playthrough and though I usually disarm traps the pathing sometimes causes me to run over one beforehand.  I have noticed traps I activate do significantly more, like 180 damage from a sunlance trap that read ~50 damage(combat log doesn't even say it crits). When I have tried to use traps the generally hit for their described amount.

 

Is this some mechanic I am not aware of to make them more threatening to the PC or is there some reason I am getting destroyed by them?

[Sking]

Hey nem0,

 

Player traps are set to do a significant amount less than traps placed in the world. The logic behind this is that traps only (mostly) hit you outside of combat. With our Endurance/Health system a trap hitting a player for 50 damage is nothing outside of combat. So to make traps a threat they have to do seemingly massive amounts of damage to chunk at characters Health values or apply knock out injuries.

 

Also, the mechanics skill contributes to trap accuracy which may be the cause of your low damage traps.

 

I got your back

-Sking 

[nem0]

Ok, thanks for letting me know.

[Stoner]

Do anyone use traps in combat? I'm more concerned about them being close to useless for player. Why not make them do similar damage as world ones, as we still capped at one per set IIRC? 

[kvaak]

Do anyone use traps in combat? I'm more concerned about them being close to useless for player. Why not make them do similar damage as world ones, as we still capped at one per set IIRC? 

 

I never bother, their damage/CC is pathetic compared to priest traps which share the same limit. Also you only get a visual indicator of their trigger radius, not the effect radius so you might end up hitting yourself.

Edited March 4, 2016 by kvaak

[Sking]

 

Do anyone use traps in combat? I'm more concerned about them being close to useless for player. Why not make them do similar damage as world ones, as we still capped at one per set IIRC? 

 

I never bother, their damage/CC is pathetic compared to priest traps which share the same limit. Also you only get a visual indicator of their trigger radius, not the effect radius so you might end up hitting yourself.

 

Traps are very 'worth it'. Not mentioning that not every party has a Priest, traps give very different bonuses. Traps can very easily turn a 'hard' encounter into an 'easy' one. A well placed Tanglefoot trap gives a ranged party (that is minus CC) enough time to get 2 or 3 more shots off before engagement. Gaze of the Adragon Trap is simple incredible. A long story short is traps serve a similar purpose as scrolls/potions/spellbind weapons do. They give characters that normally don't have access to certain things that others do.

 

Jack your Tank Fighters Mechanics and fill him up with Fireball traps. Now you have a Tank Fighter that starts the combat with a +30 accuracy Fireball every fight.  

[Stoner]

Yes, with the difference that scrolls/potions can be spammed or used multiple times during combat, when traps only can be set basically in stealth before encounter and being evaded by sly AI (which happened to me several times lol)... I would seriously raise cap to set at least up 3 traps or buff them a little. Spamming paralysis scrolls vs. traps. 

[hilfazer]

Do anyone use traps in combat? I'm more concerned about them being close to useless for player. Why not make them do similar damage as world ones, as we still capped at one per set IIRC? 

 

6 Killing Bolt traps were pretty useful to me in Alpine Dragon fight

You can buy them in Stalwart, as well as Chaotic Orb (or what it's name) trap which is good vs groups.

 

However, most damage traps are pretty weak.

[Ymarsakar]

Traps can be useful, but I would prefer that the resource be more easily usable, not in its own separate item inventory setup. Perhaps 1 single trap item, that has different effects depending on which ability you select. Or perhaps more traps and more per day, at certain levels of the mechanics skill, sort of like the new survival skill gives different bonuses.

 

Do a gameflow comparison of what steps the player uses to get 3-6 traps per encounter, vs what the survival rest bonus requires the player to do to get benefits from.

 

Big difference. It's a gameflow problem, a micro problem, an inventory management problem, and maybe a UI problem as well.

Edited March 5, 2016 by Ymarsakar

[Stoner]

The only real problem that we find way more traps than we can actually use without turning game into tedium. This goes without saying that we still can buy more traps... Raising cap to 3 will not solve everything, but it will improve the state for sure. Now, there's another thing, I'm not personally big fan of it, but sometimes you wanna roleplay trapper-ranger-rogue character, with current game mechanics that's some real pain. There are two ways I see:

1. Make traps rare, expensive and powerfull, so it will not make up for your screwed up party composition but instead give you advantage in combat when you need it most.

2. Leave traps as they are, but raise cap to be able to set at least 3 in a row, letting us put bad guys is some real amusing circumstances.

 

In my book fun and variety > balance. And considering balance is obviously not Pillars' strong point, I don't see anything wrong with reworking trap mechanics a bit.

Edited March 5, 2016 by Stoner

[asnjas]

traps could have been a ranger rogue skill. rangers could have got some nature theme traps and rogue got the mexhanic traps. ranger has wooden spikes and poison leafs and root traps. rogue get the metal hooks, darts and fire bombs.

 

maybe 2-3 different traps for each class that they can use as a skill. some combination of cc, debuff and damage traps.

 

x amount of trap uses per rest. maybe 2-3.

[Caribou]

I am very embarrassed to say how long it took me to figure out to use my tank spec fighter to intentionally trigger traps that couldn't be disarmed, rather than letting my rogue do it. 

[Ichthyic]

 

 

Do anyone use traps in combat? I'm more concerned about them being close to useless for player. Why not make them do similar damage as world ones, as we still capped at one per set IIRC? 

 

I never bother, their damage/CC is pathetic compared to priest traps which share the same limit. Also you only get a visual indicator of their trigger radius, not the effect radius so you might end up hitting yourself.

 

Traps are very 'worth it'. Not mentioning that not every party has a Priest, traps give very different bonuses. Traps can very easily turn a 'hard' encounter into an 'easy' one. A well placed Tanglefoot trap gives a ranged party (that is minus CC) enough time to get 2 or 3 more shots off before engagement. Gaze of the Adragon Trap is simple incredible. A long story short is traps serve a similar purpose as scrolls/potions/spellbind weapons do. They give characters that normally don't have access to certain things that others do.

 

Jack your Tank Fighters Mechanics and fill him up with Fireball traps. Now you have a Tank Fighter that starts the combat with a +30 accuracy Fireball every fight.  

 

you must be playing a different version of the game than the rest of us.

 

traps have a TINY (meaning: enemy must actually step directly on the very pixel the trap is on... the radius shown is meaningless for triggering) radius for triggering, so good luck getting even one of those onrushing enemies to step on it, plus.... activation radius is also small (one meter), so exactly how many enemies you expect to hobble?

 

Adragon traps, even with good int and good mechanics skill, now only petrify for about 4 seconds, max.  not impressive.

 

to get a +30 accuracy fireball trap, you would have to jack your tank's mechanics sill to over 10.  meanwhile, you could instead jack his survival skill to get huge flank or accuracy bonuses, among other things.

 

plus, that fireball trap effectively only does about 20 damage, max, to again a tiny area.

 

you trying to sell the value of traps belies the reality of their use.

 

let me guess.... you're the one that created the trap designs to begin with?

 

lol

 

yeah, having used them... they don't at ALL work like you suggest.

 

 

[Ichthyic]

 

Do anyone use traps in combat? I'm more concerned about them being close to useless for player. Why not make them do similar damage as world ones, as we still capped at one per set IIRC? 

 

6 Killing Bolt traps were pretty useful to me in Alpine Dragon fight

You can buy them in Stalwart, as well as Chaotic Orb (or what it's name) trap which is good vs groups.

 

However, most damage traps are pretty weak.

 

laying down 6 killing bolt traps, that will actually hit (meaning every one of your six characters has to have high mechanics skill), and you have to space them so they are no closer than 3m from each other...

 

yeah, not really buying this as a good strategy.

 

not denying that since it is the ONLY trap that does good damage (100) it is one of the few worth using... the amount of micromanagement and sucking of skills from other useful skill types means this is one off with huge costs associated with it.

 

don't confuse people.... you can only lay ONE trap per character, and traps have built in negative to hit modifiers, so you have to have a good trap skill level for each character you want to lay a trap.

 

I suppose if you want to spec every character into traps, then respec them after this one combat, that would work, but as a general strategy... it's bloody terrible.

 

 

 

 

[Ichthyic]

...I was the first to suggest this, well over a year ago, and I think the suggestions sill stand, even after 3.0:

-the number of traps you can lay should depend on your mechanics skill. 1 trap per 4 levels of mechanics would be good.
-distance required between traps should be lowered by 1m, flat.
-triggering radius on traps should actually *be* what is shown when you lay them down.  even grazing the edge of the circle should trigger it.  even increasing the current radius by 50% would be good.

the damage nerfs are fine as they are, provided you could actually lay a field of traps, instead of just ONE, or else at least dramatically increase the radius of triggering.  Hell, a priest's seal has a HUGE radius of triggering compared to a trap.



 

Edited March 28, 2016 by Ichthyic

[Guest]

Hey nem0,

 

Player traps are set to do a significant amount less than traps placed in the world. The logic behind this is that traps only (mostly) hit you outside of combat. With our Endurance/Health system a trap hitting a player for 50 damage is nothing outside of combat. So to make traps a threat they have to do seemingly massive amounts of damage to chunk at characters Health values or apply knock out injuries.

 

Also, the mechanics skill contributes to trap accuracy which may be the cause of your low damage traps.

 

I got your back

-Sking 

Hey,

 

Aarik and I went round and round about this once in the Support forum. There is one particular trap in WM1 for which this simply isn't true. To the extent that not meta-gaming the hell out of that encounter could lead to party wipe (and even with meta-gaming, you run a good risk of losing one party member).

 

I'm referring to the second trap outside the room where you recover the adra disc required to restart the White Forge. One of the baddies in that encounter has a bad habit of Abducting a party member pretty much within a hair of that trap. If that party member tries to do anything after coming out of Daze...dead (unless you anticipate it and micro the hell out of them). 

 

Anyway, it would mean a lot to me if you guys would consider maybe either removing that trap or stop assuming that it will be dealt with outside of combat.

[ojaiike]

Do anyone use traps in combat? I'm more concerned about them being close to useless for player. Why not make them do similar damage as world ones, as we still capped at one per set IIRC?

Gaze of the Adragan ones are good for important boss fights, mostly the dragons since you can set up for them, except alpine because he is immune to literally everything. Otherwise they are just really really ****ty scrolls. Edited March 29, 2016 by ojaiike

[Elric Galad]

Alpine isn't immune to everything. Yesterday, my wizard used gaze of the adragan against him, he got petrified, then Pallegina used Wrath of the five sun and he took about 250 damages (the dragon crappy fire DR helped).

 

Petrify is Alpine's Kryptonite.

[Guest]

Not in a position to test this, but I'm thinking with a little practice and a but of luck, Hiravias could solo the alpine dragon (while the rest of the party mops up the mobs, of course).

[Ichthyic]

sorry, but no.  gaze of the adragon traps, at level 10 mechanics, last only around 4 seconds max, and you don't have enough room in the cave to lay more than a couple, even assuming you have more than one character with high level traps skill.   it doesn't work like the mage spell does any more.

there are sooooo many ways to better deal with that fight that trying to screw around with traps that do next to nothing.

 

[Guest]

You do know that traps aren't the only way to apply Petrify, right?