Remove Shafts

[ebering]

In my opinion you should be up to date on patchnotes before whingeing about game mechanics.

Since 0.16 shafts suck flying players down them, they aren't a gear/race check.

[Laraso]

In my opinion you should be up to date on patchnotes before whingeing about game mechanics.

Since 0.16 shafts suck flying players down them, they aren't a gear/race check.

In a separate but recent thread, there were several players including a developer who were under the assumption that might gave slaying bonuses. It turns out that it doesn't. You can't expect everyone to stay on top of every single change that goes into this game.

In either case, whether you can or can't fall through them while flying has no effect on my main argument against shafts.

[dpeg]

Many traps suffer from the problem that they're literally off the mark: if you get hurt by a trap, and there's no monster around, you just heal it up. If you happened to die, then it was a very dissatisfying death. (Crawl development is all about making deaths satisfying.) Same with teleports. So these sorts of traps are really much better when linked to monsters -- now monsters are moving damage dealers, so we don't need damage traps anymore (they are mostly gone). Teleport not induced by yourself is only interesting when you end up in a dangerous situation, hence the change to teleportitis.

But shafts and e.g. early banishment are different: they generally put you in a difficult situation, and that's good -- a potential source for a satisfying death!

Shafting would still be cool if dealt by a monster (possibly at range). But that does not mean stationary shafts are bad. Indeed, they work well. If players start back/monster tracking, we will react.

[archaeo]

It's interesting to compare early banishment with early shafting, because players react to both events as unfair, but not for the same reasons. Laraso has pretty much covered the shaft trap problem; it "feels unfair" if you're just hitting o and tab and, oops, you fall down a shaft three levels, do not pass Go, do not collect 200 dollars. Meanwhile, I don't think people think early banishment in and of itself is "unfair," they just regard banishment as inherently unfair given that it's a slow-acting death sentence in the early game and an annoying irl inconvenience later on.

It seems like both of these things provide the answer to the other. Shaft traps would "feel" better if the player could say, "oops, I see how I could've moved differently to avoid that" in response to Gravity brand weapons (resisted by flight, +% dmg, 5% shaft on hit) or a shaft spell or whatever. And banishment would "feel" better if the danger scaled better in the early game and the late game alike (I like my last proposal on this).

[Baldu3]

Do you remember the time when flight would make you immune to shafting so it was *optimal play* to always keep flight active?

[lazorexplosion]

I think I've had one unavoidable shafting death ever, and it was so early game so I wasn't even mad. On the other hand, being shafted has frequently caused exciting and interesting situations. Crawl would be more boring and predictable with no shaft traps.

[bcadren]

@Duvessa: in the !lg files there's a death to Grinder on D:3 on turn 7. So, shaft on D:1 causing unavoidable death. YES.

I like using shafts tactically (identified ones) for things like making a single death yak separate from the rest or making a hydra get off me. Same thing with teleport traps; though I do think running into one when you can't see it is a little...very bad from a design standpoint.

[ololoev]

"You get shafted for 3 floors" is the best message you can get in any hell branch!

[Sprucery]

"You get shafted for 3 floors" is the best message you can get in any hell branch!

I like "You kill Ereshkigal!" more, for example.

[ololoev]

"You get shafted for 3 floors" is the best message you can get in any hell branch!

I like "You kill Ereshkigal!" more, for example.

Another evil player who kills innocent mobs just to get THEIR posessions.