Remove shafts

[nicu]

Shafts just randomly kill your character in early game if you aren't strong enough (Be)or you didn't find some resources(potions,scrolls,wands).You can play flawlessly and get killed by a D:4-D:7 shaft.

I mean look a this shit http://crawl.xtahua.com/crawl/morgue/NicuTudor/morgue-NicuTudor-20171115-145930.txt.
And it's not an isolated example,I have a 12 wins streak who got ended by a shaft.
It's true sometimes you survive after a shaft http://crawl.xtahua.com/crawl/morgue/NicuTudor/morgue-NicuTudor-20171105-234919.txt,but you need luck for that(resources,not landing surounded by a horde of monster..)

A consequence of shafts is that people are pushed to speedruning or streaking lame MiBe tier combos.There is no point in trying to streak moderate-hard combos,not that many people can do that ,if the game just randomly kill you for no fault of your own.

Traps exist in other roguelikes but you also get means of protection/detection.There's no way to prepare,detect or protect(not even flying) from shafts,it's out of your control.Traps in DCSS are deadly early game and you dont even notice them late game.Or even worse are annoying,boring like the 2 tele traps blocking the lungs in Z:5.

Minimal solution:remove shafts from D:1-D:10.
UV4 solution:remove all traps.
Until this problem is solved I'll stop playing DCSS(no I won't play older versions or variants).

[nicu]

This is not a decision taken in the heat of the moment,being butthurt about loosing a game.I have 160 games played online and I have experienced shaft traps a few time.It's really a shity,luck based mechanic.Imagine a chess game with a hidden square who take your piece if you put it there and even that will not be that bad because you can use your pawns to discover it.You may aswell add a trap who do 1d500 damage..
You don't have reliable ways to detect or protect against traps in DCSS so having traps who kill you early game is dumb.
You move into a square and now you're dead.
The only correct move is not to move
Anyways when I wrote this thread I estimated my chances this way:70% - getting ignored,25% - getting atacked and 5% - devs agree with me and remove shaft traps.
I dont think they even browse this forum so it was kinda of pointless
If shaft traps are not removed I will never play this game.

[Shtopit]

Traps in general have the problem that they make the most tedious way of playing the most optimal. You can carpet-exclude the whole map, and then unexclude the single tiles on which you have stepped, as well as those on which monsters have stepped. This is not a funny way to play.

Traps should probably be turned into static, visible obstacles, but this would require a general rethinking of how they work. Zot traps do function this way, since they are activated against you even if a monster steps on a visible one.

[VeryAngryFelid]

5% - devs agree with me and remove shaft traps.

I believe it's 0% chance. I remember shafts were discussed before (I cannot find the thread now so probably it was several years ago) and devs explained that shafts are good design feature because their advantages (frequent interesting situations and decision-making) are more valuable than their disadvantages (rare unavoidable deaths).

I hate shafts too but I can see why many players like them and don't want them removed.

[mrob]

If shafts are removed, then D1 jackal packs should also be removed. They're even more dangerous to certain characters.

[njvack]

Crawl is a game where if you play well, there are very, very few actually dangerous situations for decently powerful character combos. Shafts give the game a chance to be difficult again.

I'm not a good player by any stretch, but some of my favorite times in Crawl have been where I got shafted and escaped by the skin of my teeth, and some of my other favorite times have been where I got shafted and despite pulling out all the stops, still got killed. I like them because falling down a shaft makes me stop and think about different ways to approach the situation, rather than just going otabtabtab.

So I'm at the opposite of VAF: I like shafts but I can see why many players don't.

Ultimately, shafts are one of those things that aren't "good" or "bad" design; they're something that defines what kind of game Crawl is. If a game occasionally screwing you really badly is something you hate, Crawl is probably not going to be your jam.

[BroOfZot]

It's already been agreed that occasional unfair deaths must be inevitable given the game's design philosophy, so you have to factor that in when deciding whether to care about winstreaks. I for one generally enjoy shafts.

[Siegurt]

Well, and for what it's worth, there are other ways that you can be unavoidably killed with no advance information in this game, they are all rare, and mostly take place in the early game when you have limited access to consumables, but if your complaint is that those things should *never* happen, then this is definitely the wrong game for you.

A d4->d7 shaft is probably the nastiest of all possible shaftings, however that by itself it wasn't the thing that killed you, it was the confluence of the shaft (being out of depth) *and* encountering a particularly nasty situation on your arrival on d6 that killed you, given a better rng with regard to monster positioning you might have been able to escape.

[amaril]

The continued existence of traps is a testament to just how tough it is to create dangerous situations in a game with stairs.

[Draba]

Until this problem is solved I'll stop playing DCSS(no I won't play older versions or variants).

Oh, the humanity!

On the point, I like shafts since they can potentially get you into interesting situations.
I also don't mind unavoidable deaths, they are very rare and are almost exclusively at the start of the game(<30 minutes invested).
Streaking is a really, really bad consideration for trying to make the game fun.

[crawlnoob]

Im always surprised to see people so often get angry about shafts since they are rare and usually survivable, whereas getting blasted in the face by Ijyb with a wand of disintegrate, or walking around a corner and getting LOADED with poison by an adder on d3 without a cure potion in sight because the RNG just hates you are far more common and far more guaranteed to kill your character.

I for one like shafts. Crawl is too easy IMHO, shafts put you in a situation where it is important to play carefully, intelligently, and use your resources to advantage, knowing that if you do you will likely be able to escape. Hell, half the time I go up just one level and end up clearing that floor before anything else.

[svendre]

I like shafts, even though they can be dangerous - the unexpected danger and challenge can be fun.

[VeryAngryFelid]

Im always surprised to see people so often get angry about shafts since they are rare and usually survivable, whereas getting blasted in the face by Ijyb with a wand of disintegrate, or walking around a corner and getting LOADED with poison by an adder on d3 without a cure potion in sight because the RNG just hates you are far more common and far more guaranteed to kill your character.

I hate those too but I realize they are irrelevant (presence of bad features does not make other bad features any better) and should not be discussed. Actually it would be pretty annoying to see all suggestion threads spammed with "remove food first" posts

[VeryAngryFelid]

Crawl is too easy IMHO, shafts put you in a situation where it is important to play carefully, intelligently, and use your resources to advantage, knowing that if you do you will likely be able to escape.

I am really disappointed that devs tweak difficulty by random events with increased chance of unavoidable death instead of more consistent and newbie-friendly ways like changed xp or hp options at game start.

[crawlnoob]

Yeah, but the chance that shaft gives you an immediate unavoidable death is not that high. I mean granted, dropping into a swarm of killer bees at XL3 or something can happen, but it most often does not. I admit that tweaking the XP tables etc is a better all-around improvement (please make this game harder again), but that doesn't exactly get a player to sweat nervously, does it?

Maybe if shafts were coded to guarantee you a safe initial drop, it would be much better. Load the floor, pick (or force) an empty room and drop you there. Everything after that fact is up to the player and the choices they make.

[amaril]

There's a huge difference between being in favorable terrain with an available line of retreat and being surrounded by unexplored terrain, especially with monsters in los. The second type of situation is the most fun part of crawl, because unlike in most situations there is not an obviously correct course of action (if your goal is surviving). The game needs to make sure that these situations occur somehow, and traps accomplish that, however flawed they are.

[VeryAngryFelid]

There's a huge difference between being in favorable terrain with an available line of retreat and being surrounded by unexplored terrain, especially with monsters in los. The second type of situation is the most fun part of crawl, because unlike in most situations there is not an obviously correct course of action (if your goal is surviving). The game needs to make sure that these situations occur somehow, and traps accomplish that, however flawed they are.

I agree. You described yet another reason to remove upstairs. If shafts are so good, let's make them the only way to enter a new floor.

[Roderic]

Shafts are useful (if detected and avoided) to lure particular nuisances into them. They can save you from a deadly situacion as well they can set you in a deadlier situation. I think it's a balanced thing. Maybe I'm writing this because I'm recently biased to the first situation instead of the second.

[johlstei]

To quote an earlier post:

Shafts rule and my most memorable crawl characters are ones I survived very tense situations with. Exploring a new level with monsters that are often too strong to fight head-on, desperately searching and "diving" upward is something you don't get in any other part of the early game, and it's a blast. Keep them forever.

I guess I just don't really care if you sometimes lose your streak if it means I get the fun of just barely surviving, sometimes. Changing the manner by which you get shafted would be okay I think but don't remove the mechanic - it's great.

[VeryAngryFelid]

Would it be better if all characters got shafted from d:4 to d:6 after 100 turns on d:4? The same from d:8 to d:10 and from d:12 to d:14?

[Sprucery]

Would it be better if all characters got shafted from d:4 to d:6 after 100 turns on d:4? The same from d:8 to d:10 and from d:12 to d:14?

No, because randomness is what makes roguelikes fun.

[VeryAngryFelid]

No, because randomness is what makes roguelikes fun.

Ok, let's make it D6->D8 OR D7->D9 OR D8->D10. I mean we still have a single Sigmund or single Erolcha even if we don't know where exactly it is. Several shafts in a row are never fun IMHO. Also it will be similar to Lair entrance, you know you will be shafted soon but you don't know at which floor exactly.

[crawlnoob]

Would it be better if all characters got shafted from d:4 to d:6 after 100 turns on d:4? The same from d:8 to d:10 and from d:12 to d:14?

No because the player simply waits for the shaft in a safe place. If you randomize what level you do this on, you encourage camping on each of the possible levels. Now we are having fun!

[Sprucery]

No, because randomness is what makes roguelikes fun.

Ok, let's make it D6->D8 OR D7->D9 OR D8->D10. I mean we still have a single Sigmund or single Erolcha even if we don't know where exactly it is. Several shafts in a row are never fun IMHO. Also it will be similar to Lair entrance, you know you will be shafted soon but you don't know at which floor exactly.

No, it's better that you are not guaranteed to be shafted. Sigmund and Erolcha are not guaranteed to appear. (I'm also against Ilsuiw always appearing in Shoals).

I also think that Traps skill should be reintroduced.

[VeryAngryFelid]

No, it's better that you are not guaranteed to be shafted.

Why? If it's such a good feature, it should happen in every game. Would you like a game where zero uniques spawn? Or a game where zero portals appear? Or a game where you find zero books or weapons?

Edit. For similar reasons I dislike that troves and wizlabs are not guaranteed, they are great too.

[Sprucery]

Why? If it's such a good feature, it should happen in every game.

No, I already said that randomness is what makes roguelikes fun. Scrolls of acquirement are a good feature too but I don't think they should be guaranteed either.

Would you like a game where zero uniques spawn? Or a game where zero portals appear? Or a game where you find zero books or weapons?

Sure, if Crawl was designed so that uniques, portals, books and weapons were generated only occasionally, I wouldn't be demanding that they be made guaranteed. As it is, uniques (except rune guardians) and portals could be turned into non-guaranteed features without affecting the game too much imo. In fact, I didn't even know that portals are guaranteed to appear (are they?). Besides, I wouldn't like it if for example Volcano was guaranteed in every game. Books and weapons, however, are so crucial that Crawl should be changed quite a lot to make games without them viable for non-challenge play.

Edit: We clearly have a different taste in this matter. I would not like it at all if Troves or Wizlabs were guaranteed.

[Roderic]

I also think that Traps skill should be reintroduced.

Give the Stealth skill the benefits of the Traps skill too. Something like Stealth&Awareness.

[crawlnoob]

Why? If it's such a good feature, it should happen in every game.

But shafts do exist in every game. Your argument is tantamount to saying that nothing in Crawl should be random. Got a sword? It should always hit when you swing it. Hitting is a good feature, right?

Come on, man.

[VeryAngryFelid]

Thank you for explanations, now I better see how other people think.

[njvack]

... are portals and uniques guaranteed? I always thought there was just a high enough probability that they'd show up that they usually do, in practice.

I definitely like that there are levels where there are no uniques and then levels with a veritable unique party.

Regardless, I think this is just a place where players will disagree about what they like and that's okay

[Siegurt]

Thank you for explanations, now I better see how other people think.

Moreover, the reason these things are fun *generally* is that they a break from the usual, if you make them "the new usual" then you reduce the amusement factor they provide by a large degree.

One of the thing that makes games like this engaging is to set up usual expectations and then to defy them in interesting ways.

Humans usually pattern match and then blur together similar experiences refining the pattern as we learn, exceptional memories are generated by the non matching experiences. If a game doesn't have enough common experiences to be pattern matched then we don't feel like we learned anything and there is no sense of accomplishment, on the opposite side if *everything* about a game can be elided so that no new experiences are formed, then we get bored.

Unusual occurences form the basis for surprise and new challenges, as well as long tails for learning, (if something only happens one out of 100 times, it will take you 100 times as long to learn about it. ) Preserving game interest for longer.

[VeryAngryFelid]

I am not sure. Crazy games make other games unfun for me.

[Stonar]

I would argue that a feature that unavoidably makes an already difficult game harder for the sole purpose of entertaining experts is a bad feature to require. In roguelikes, I'm a big fan of optional difficulty. If "streaking" is too easy, try streaking as a TrEn where you can't use unarmed combat. Or whatever. I'm not convinced that "it breaks up the monotony for experts" is a good reason to have a (mostly) unavoidable mechanic that given a bad roll can just kill you.

That said, I'm a bit of a hypocrite, because I feel bad-ass that I just got shafted 5 floors and came out alive.

[despairbutalsodespair]

i dont think the game is being developed around idea of being possible to endlessly streak games

[Draba]

I would argue that a feature that unavoidably makes an already difficult game harder for the sole purpose of entertaining experts is a bad feature to require.

You don't have to be a crawl god to find shafts entertaining, I also like them a lot.
Not an expert by any means, know the very basics and got a few wins but nowhere near "optimal" play and I don't do streaks.

I think the point worth emphasizing is that after the first few floors you are very, very(very) unlikely to get killed by a shaft.
In my book early deaths do not matter too much since you have only invested 10-20 minutes into the character.

[johlstei]

I would argue that a feature that unavoidably makes an already difficult game harder for the sole purpose of entertaining experts is a bad feature to require. In roguelikes, I'm a big fan of optional difficulty. If "streaking" is too easy, try streaking as a TrEn where you can't use unarmed combat. Or whatever. I'm not convinced that "it breaks up the monotony for experts" is a good reason to have a (mostly) unavoidable mechanic that given a bad roll can just kill you.

That said, I'm a bit of a hypocrite, because I feel bad-ass that I just got shafted 5 floors and came out alive.

I don't really get this and I'm far from an expert(Admittedly I've played for a long time and know a lot of crawl's tricks but I'm not good at all in the sense of, well, actually winning.). Streaks are a very long time-horizon thing, I don't plan on winning every character and I want interesting things to switch it up within a given character's life. I think this one is really fun, and it's most fun on earlier floors because the power difference is most noticeable. If I die, oh well, I was probably gonna die anyway. If I don't, I feel awesome and know that the character has seen death and said "no thanks" and just overall feel awesome. I dunno, being shafted and living has very possibly produced my favorite crawl experiences, it's like surviving with 1 hp while training fighting and then winning, you know it's really because of the decisions you made that you succeeded.

Like, me having fun in crawl isn't contingent on seeing the "you win" screen, and perhaps it's even based on usually not seeing the "you win" screen, so I guess I just don't care that it makes the game harder because how hard it is and how much or little I progress isn't really what makes it fun to me.

[VeryAngryFelid]

i dont think the game is being developed around idea of being possible to endlessly streak games

I don't think the game is being developed around idea of intentional streak breaking either. Unavoidable deaths are just "collateral damage" of otherwise good features. Devs would be happy to remove unavoidable deaths but unfortunately it is extremely hard or plain impossible.

[crawlnoob]

I don't think the game is being developed around idea of intentional streak breaking either.

Shafts rarely result in directly unavoidable deaths.

Devs would be happy to remove unavoidable deaths .

You should at least read the Crawl Design Philosophy FAQ before talking about what the Devs would or would not do.

[VeryAngryFelid]

You should at least read the Crawl Design Philosophy FAQ before talking about what the Devs would or would not do.

I did many times. It talks about hard choice between unavoidable deaths and fun game and the latter wins of course.

Alternatively, they can be hard in the sense
that unavoidable deaths can occur. We feel that the latter choice provides
much more fun in the long run.

http://crawl.akrasiac.org/docs/crawl_manual.txt

[bhauth]

Maybe shafts could be replaced by crumbling stairs. For example:
- every level has 2 guaranteed stairs down, and 0-2 fake stairs
- each time they're used to go down, fake stairs have a 50% chance to crumble and send you 2 floors deeper instead of 1

[crawlnoob]

You should at least read the Crawl Design Philosophy FAQ before talking about what the Devs would or would not do.

I did many times. It talks about hard choice between unavoidable deaths and fun game and the latter wins of course.

Alternatively, they can be hard in the sense
that unavoidable deaths can occur. We feel that the latter choice provides
much more fun in the long run.

http://crawl.akrasiac.org/docs/crawl_manual.txt

My bad, I could have sworn they talked about unavoidable deaths being to some extent an actual design goal. Didnt mean to come off so rude.

[crawlnoob]

Maybe shafts could be replaced by crumbling stairs. For example:
- every level has 2 guaranteed stairs down, and 0-2 fake stairs
- each time they're used to go down, fake stairs have a 50% chance to crumble and send you 2 floors deeper instead of 1

This is a cool idea, for messing with stairs. I would still keep shafts, however.

[Plantissue]

I think the problem is that falling for 3 floors in the early dungeon is a bit extreme. Especially when you might have alread been shafted or skipped a level due to a dangerous unique or situation. It can feel very unfair. Perhaps limit shaft drops to 2 floors at least for the early dungeon.

[nicu]

This thread:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZ55PeKrxro

People are using a lot of buzzwords,let's deal with them:
"fun" - This is subjective
"exciting" - This word has no place to describe a roguelike.In roguelikes you anticipate and prepare for different situations;only a noob will get surprised.If you want exciting play a real time game like a FPS.
"easy" - You should try to get out of the MiBe zone sometimes;it's fun .Try something like this http://crawl.xtahua.com/crawl/morgue/NicuTudor/morgue-NicuTudor-20170404-174037.txt
"infinite streak" - I could streak 44(sic) easy combos while being drunk(>1.5 l wine >12%) with no problems.Be;Mi,DD,Ce,Mf,Tr,HO;Trog,Yred,Fedhas;I hope you guys understand that is easy to streak if you stay in the MiBe zone.A berserker will barelly register a 3 floors shaft trap in early game.
I don't think people posting in this thread understand who they are dealing with.I'm a genetic freak ;this video will explain things for you:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFoC3TR5rzI

Let's talk some game design(if you're an experienced player you can skip this).
DCSS has 2 parts:early game(pre L),rest of the game(post L).The breaking point may vary depending of the difficulty of the combo.
Early game is very hard and full of unfair deaths(gnoll in D:1,jackals packs in D:1 for spellcasters,shafts,etc).
Notice that if we remove the obvious unfair situations early game is still very hard.
A lot of people are splating in D:1-D:3 without making any mistake so there's no need for me to explain things indetails(combos,HP,monsters,etc)
Then you grow in power,gather resources and at some point(usually when you find L) the game become kinda of easy.
For me,if the game let me complete the first 6 levels without incidents,I have a pretty high chance of wining.
If you aren't doing some challenge game or speedrunning then after you reach XL:14(end of L?) it's very hard of dying.
Of course it depends of the combo you're playing:a MiBe(most of the Be's) will have a 99,99% chance of wining at the start,a DgGl can struggle up until he gets his first rune,a melee DE it's doomed.
So what are we dealing here is a very easy and boring late game in contrast with a very hard and unfair early game.
At this point I think we reached the obvious conclusion that DCSS is a broken game(I knew this for a few years but I hoped the devs are capable of fixing it).

My plan:
Stage 1.Make this thread to remove one the most annoying source of unfair deaths and establish comunication with devs(nope).
Stage 2.Make late game harder and remove others sources of cheating the player in early game.
Stage 3.Profit:)
My design philosophy:less unavoidable deaths early game,more avoidable splats late game.
If they decide to trust me DCSS will become a more honest game but harder on average.

Fixing shaft traps
D:1-D:6 - no shafts traps
D:7-D:8 - 1 floor shaft traps possible
D:9-D:10 - 1-2 floors shaft traps possible
>D:10,other branches - 1-3 floors shaft traps possible

When I made this thread I noticed this gammasomething dude snooping around.He's a dev,probably disagree with me and I think he forget to tell his collegues about my reasonable request.
Now let's be honest here I think some of the devs read this thread and decided to ignore me.
Maybe they're bussy with preparations for 0.21 tournament.
So this how we're gonna do this:after the 0.21 tournament ends you(devs) have 1(one) week to do what I wrote here.
If you fail I will never touch this game ever again.
Sorry guys but I'm not dumb enough to remain a prisoner of a broken hack&slash loot game and I think it's my dutty to try to fix it.

I'm a realist guy so I when I made this thread I knew how will it end.Let me spare you the suspense:the devs won't do what I told them (probably they will not even bother with an answer).
I thought when this moment will come I will be sad but I only feel relief.
I have escaped!

[Hellmonk]

This thread:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZ55PeKrxro

People are using a lot of buzzwords,let's deal with them:
"fun" - This is subjective
"exciting" - This word has no place to describe a roguelike.In roguelikes you anticipate and prepare for different situations;only a noob will get surprised.If you want exciting play a real time game like a FPS.
"easy" - You should try to get out of the MiBe zone sometimes;it's fun .Try something like this http://crawl.xtahua.com/crawl/morgue/NicuTudor/morgue-NicuTudor-20170404-174037.txt
"infinite streak" - I could streak 44(sic) easy combos while being drunk(>1.5 l wine >12%) with no problems.Be;Mi,DD,Ce,Mf,Tr,HO;Trog,Yred,Fedhas;I hope you guys understand that is easy to streak if you stay in the MiBe zone.A berserker will barelly register a 3 floors shaft trap in early game.
I don't think people posting in this thread understand who they are dealing with.I'm a genetic freak ;this video will explain things for you:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFoC3TR5rzI

Let's talk some game design(if you're an experienced player you can skip this).
DCSS has 2 parts:early game(pre L),rest of the game(post L).The breaking point may vary depending of the difficulty of the combo.
Early game is very hard and full of unfair deaths(gnoll in D:1,jackals packs in D:1 for spellcasters,shafts,etc).
Notice that if we remove the obvious unfair situations early game is still very hard.
A lot of people are splating in D:1-D:3 without making any mistake so there's no need for me to explain things indetails(combos,HP,monsters,etc)
Then you grow in power,gather resources and at some point(usually when you find L) the game become kinda of easy.
For me,if the game let me complete the first 6 levels without incidents,I have a pretty high chance of wining.
If you aren't doing some challenge game or speedrunning then after you reach XL:14(end of L?) it's very hard of dying.
Of course it depends of the combo you're playing:a MiBe(most of the Be's) will have a 99,99% chance of wining at the start,a DgGl can struggle up until he gets his first rune,a melee DE it's doomed.
So what are we dealing here is a very easy and boring late game in contrast with a very hard and unfair early game.
At this point I think we reached the obvious conclusion that DCSS is a broken game(I knew this for a few years but I hoped the devs are capable of fixing it).

My plan:
Stage 1.Make this thread to remove one the most annoying source of unfair deaths and establish comunication with devs(nope).
Stage 2.Make late game harder and remove others sources of cheating the player in early game.
Stage 3.Profit:)
My design philosophy:less unavoidable deaths early game,more avoidable splats late game.
If they decide to trust me DCSS will become a more honest game but harder on average.

Fixing shaft traps
D:1-D:6 - no shafts traps
D:7-D:8 - 1 floor shaft traps possible
D:9-D:10 - 1-2 floors shaft traps possible
>D:10,other branches - 1-3 floors shaft traps possible

When I made this thread I noticed this gammasomething dude snooping around.He's a dev,probably disagree with me and I think he forget to tell his collegues about my reasonable request.
Now let's be honest here I think some of the devs read this thread and decided to ignore me.
Maybe they're bussy with preparations for 0.21 tournament.
So this how we're gonna do this:after the 0.21 tournament ends you(devs) have 1(one) week to do what I wrote here.
If you fail I will never touch this game ever again.
Sorry guys but I'm not dumb enough to remain a prisoner of a broken hack&slash loot game and I think it's my dutty to try to fix it.

I'm a realist guy so I when I made this thread I knew how will it end.Let me spare you the suspense:the devs won't do what I told them (probably they will not even bother with an answer).
I thought when this moment will come I will be sad but I only feel relief.
I have escaped!

lol

[nicu]

I'm glad you liked it,Hellmonk.
If you want to contribute to the discussion,don't be shy.

[duvessa]

So, does someone have a single example of an unavoidable death resulting from a shaft trap?
Because, as stupid as floor traps are, it seems to me like it'd require an incredible level of coincidence for a shaft trap to be dangerous, let alone cause an unavoidable death. Squares that monsters have walked on are guaranteed to be safe from traps, so even falling down a shaft in optimal play is incredibly unlikely, let alone the shaft having to a dangerous result, let alone that result being unavoidably fatal. According to Sequell I've been shafted 474 times, and there was only a single one of those cases where the resulting situation was dangerous (as far as I can recall). Now consider how tiny that number would be if I had actually made an effort to avoid traps.

[Shtopit]

There are two cases I can think of: being dropped into a large room with a pack of bees and a centaur in view, without rPois or blink or teleport scrolls (in the Dungeon), and being dropped in a mixed pack of spiders, with tarantellas chain-confusing me (maybe I could have done something on the first turn).
About optimal play, having to mark trodden tiles seems to me the definition of "optimal=tedious".

[duvessa]

Yeah, I specifically said it was stupid. But that's not synonymous with causing unavoidable deaths. Shafts aren't some kind of deal breaker for streaking.

[PlatinumSpider]

Had a thought on this, link Int to chance to spot shafts. Higher Int get a bonus to spot them. Strong but dumb might get shafted more, weak but smart would get less or none.