Cloud traps

[bobross419]

I'm sorry but this is just overkill for a D:10 trap. I had enough trouble with a miasma or something trap (conf and poison) on D:2 or so on another character.

Screenshot-Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup 0.10-a0-943-geb58c10.png (286.81 KiB) Viewed 10299 times

[dpeg]

The new trap types are in trunk to test them. As the implementable mentioned, they should be item destruction (check) and not damage (no check). 27 damage is too much.

[bobross419]

Cool, thanks for the infos, just read the implementables.

[absolutego]

a quick remark about the new traps: the squares affected are marked with travel exceptions automatically, and they remain once the trap is gone. sometimes you have to remove up to 9 exceptions if they block your path and you want to autoexplore. i assume they could be handled the same way as clouds coming from spells, which are temporary.

[dpeg]

absolutego: Yes, known mis-feature with clouds.

[dpeg]

minmay: I have no idea where you got that from. A trap on its own cannot be of tactical relevance (although there is the idea of sumon traps, which will come). The idea of the cloud traps is to (a) reward T&D by offering more than a little HP cut you shrug/heal off; (b) get rid of the annoying trap deaths; (c) offer a one-time use of detected traps.

[mumra]

Regarding some issues with the clouds, I think there's an autoexclude-and-lua-related bug where you effectively spend an extra turn in the cloud than you should do (dpeg: I think the same thing is happening in the Fedhas vault). So neither the damage nor item destruction should be as bad as it currently is.

[absolutego]

i lost three scrolls in a turn to a flame trap before. i found it too steep, but i think fire crabs aren't much better.

also, a freezing cloud trap (and its fire equivalent) in a corridor is very, very rough. there's a reason there aren't many monsters with damaging cloud spells (and fire crabs are very bad news). i had four steps to safety, at the very least.

[absolutego]

i was just replying to mumra's last message, in that i also thought it was weird that i took that much damage and lost so many scrolls. i was comparing that instance to fire crabs and self-inflicted freezing clouds, which are bad but, if i recall correctly, not that bad. (again, it's one instance and i'm not that experienced.)

i'm dead set against item destruction (i find it the most infuriating feature now that victory dancing's gone), so i can't be objective here. mephitic and (i haven't seen those yet, but i guess they exist) poisonous traps are manageable, but fire or freezing clouds can destroy half your inventory before you get out (conservation is a lottery) and if you lack the appropriate resistance, kill you (before a teleport kicks in, even). of course, it's much worse for melee characters without means of blinking. i guess they'll be toned down before release, at least in corridors.

[galehar]

With the trap, either the game decides you find it or the game decides you don't.

You either have invested into T&D or not and it has an important effect on this outcome. This is a strategical decision, and item destruction is a strategical effect.

i guess they'll be toned down before release, at least in corridors.

Sure, numbers can be adjusted. I'm not sure about nerfing them in corridors though. Any feature that encourages players to get out of those damn corridors is a plus

[absolutego]

when you're fighting, sure, i welcome that. retreating to corridors is boring. but this does not apply to traps. if cloud traps elongate in tight quarters they can kill you, period (i bet this can happen, in trunk). what i meant was that they could behave like mephitic cloud or firestorm (where the cloud does not elongate). a "circle" of radius two could work. i.e., this is pretty bad:

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.......
.00000.
.00000.
.00@00.
.00000.
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and so is this:

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#######
.00@00.
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.......

but something like this is terrible:

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.00000@00000.
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[galehar]

but something like this is terrible:

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#############
.00000@00000.
#############


How about zapping that wand of digging which is taking dust in your inventory?

[mumra]

i lost three scrolls in a turn to a flame trap before. i found it too steep, but i think fire crabs aren't much better.

The question is, how many scrolls were you carrying? The more scrolls you have, the more get destroyed on average. So if you were only carrying 10, that's a bit rough ... on the other hand if you had 50 then I'd say there was no problem there!

I think people are being overly reactionary about [url]consumable[/url] destruction. You can expect to lose a certain amount of scrolls/potions/food to fire/ice/harpies in any given game, these traps will just update that by a small handful of incidents throughout the course of a whole game. Anything valuable enough you should stash or use straight away as a matter of course.

Anyway, there are some easy ways to mitigate this:

a) Fix the Lua/exclusions bug I mentioned, from my current understanding there shouldn't be any item destruction on the first turn when the cloud appears, so you will actually always have the option to escape. It's just that when the exclusion is created it appears to trip something which skips a turn
b) Could have a delay of 1 or 2 turns from when the "a vial falls" message appears to when the cloud actually appears
c) Cloud could spread
d) Cloud could grow
e) Fire and ice traps could be adjusted to have a smaller number of clouds than meph / poison, since the challenge level is clearly orders of magnitude higher

[absolutego]

How about zapping that wand of digging which is taking dust in your inventory?

it may be hard to believe, but it happened in d:26 or 27 and i had yet to find digging. and rC+ or rF+ for that matter (armour-less green draconian). i blinked instead.

what i was trying to say is that such a trap, in maybe somewhat extraordinary but still feasible circumstances, could kill you from full health with nothing for you to do. it could even happen with high T&D.

The question is, how many scrolls were you carrying? The more scrolls you have, the more get destroyed on average. So if you were only carrying 10, that's a bit rough ... on the other hand if you had 50 then I'd say there was no problem there!

15 at the most? i usually dump everything i don't need on the floor as soon as i pick it up. if it's valuable i sometimes run one floor upwards and dump it there, in case there are jellies around. if it's *really* valuable (say, cure mutation) i do hike to the stash.

it was feedback, mind you, not a complaint.

[dpeg]

I wonder why I have to write everything twice. The damage is too high, yes.

[mumra]

For one, I used the "fire" cloud type instead of "flame". The "fire" cloud is used for forest fires and addtionally has a LOS-blocking effect, as well as spreading a bit. Changing this to just "flame" will be a big improvement.

[minstrel]

Just had a win with a purple drac monk using the new trunk changes. I didn't miss the body slot at all and having the foot slot back was a nice bonus. I ran with boots of levitation the whole game and it was fun playing kenku-style (would have switched to running, but I never found one, nor incidentally an amulet of resist mutation, in the whole 15 rune game).

The natural +13 AC mutation ended me with I think 26 AC, which was more than enough along with decent dodging to tank random &s and *s, though I skipped fighting most of the fixed pan/hell lords.

I stopped using my breath weapon somewhere around the late mid game. It was seldom useful to try to blast one or, with luck, a handful of enemies when the same full turn could be spent whacking them around with fists/weapon twice or more (with I think better accuracy, though I don't know for sure). IMO this could still use some buffing or tweaking (for purple dracs anyway), as it would be nice for a race-defining feature like a breath weapon to be useful the entire game.

[smock]

Why do exclusions appear at all? After once a cloud is gone it won't come back. So I don't see a need to set travel exclusions at all. I've just been removing them manually to auto-travel doesn't avoid the now-harmless corridor that had a trap.

[dpeg]

minmay: I know that you're not saying this to apply pressure (players sometimes think that "with feature/nerf Foo, the game is unplayable for me" has an effect on development) but consider this. What is better: to occasionally lose a character to a weapon trap, or to more regularly lose items to a trap? You should also know that the traps of trunk are experimental. Their generation rate is increased, the traps themselves are not finished (too much damage, plus potentially another bug as mumra keeps pointing out) and there will be other trap types that are not in yet (magic trap to reduce wand chargers, summon trap). By the way, I was able to detect them. To the poster who claimed that T&D does not help against pressure plates.

Item destruction is generally very unpopular with players but it actually has a gameplay meaning. One can, and should, argue whether stashing or dropping/picking up all the time is too annoying for it to work but that does not detract from the original meaning. (The hells are great at this, since there's no stashing in that place.)

[betamin]

I think the biggest problem about traps is that the optimal way of playing with item destruction is to drop/stash important things constantly (like if you found a scroll of silence you would go to your stash and drop it there until Elf), there is already a risk of item destruction but with traps the risk is upped, the other way of dealing with the traps is training the trap skill, but it becomes almost a no brainer decision since you have to choose between going back and forth to a stash or just keep the skill on (a mind numbing grind or an xp loss).

Players like me don't care too much and will probably either keep the skill on or take the losses, but if you want to play optimally it's a bore, so I believe that item destruction via traps is something that does not add fun, tactics/strategic variations or anything positive, it just adds randomness and a lame choice between xp or grindan adventure. I don't want to find a wand(if there is a drain wand trap)/potion/scroll, identify it, drop it, keep playing, find an unique, escape, go up alll the way to where the wand/whatever is, pick it up, go back down and kill the unique.


On a more positive note, I LOVE what you did with the thematic dungeon floors

[thenewflesh]

What's the original meaning of item destruction anyway? It only adds tedium making travels to stash every few levels obligatory (not to mention dropping/picking up stuff all the time). That's why it's unpopular. It doesn't add anything fun to the game, unlike, for example, mesmerizing, Zot traps and so on.

Except harpies, because there's not a lot of them to become "oh not that crap again" and their gimmick is unique.

[dpeg]

What's the original meaning of item destruction anyway? It only adds tedium making travels to stash every few levels obligatory (not to mention dropping/picking up stuff all the time). That's why it's unpopular. It doesn't add anything fun to the game, unlike, for example, mesmerizing, Zot traps and so on.

It means that you cannot bring your full survival kit into battles. At least if you expect to keep some tools for the next battle. This adds a decision, e.g. of how many scrolls of blinking to carry. And it means that in some places, you go without scrolls.

Not every gameplay effect has to be "fun". I have lobbied for slimy walls in Slime which, while hugely unpopular and surely declared as "unfun" by the larger part of the player base, make sure that corners and tunnels are not attractive in that branch, an interesting change in tactics, in my opinion.

[thenewflesh]

What's the original meaning of item destruction anyway? It only adds tedium making travels to stash every few levels obligatory (not to mention dropping/picking up stuff all the time). That's why it's unpopular. It doesn't add anything fun to the game, unlike, for example, mesmerizing, Zot traps and so on.

It means that you cannot bring your full survival kit into battles. At least if you expect to keep some tools for the next battle. This adds a decision, e.g. of how many scrolls of blinking to carry. And it means that in some places, you go without scrolls.

Not every gameplay effect has to be "fun". I have lobbied for slimy walls in Slime which, while hugely unpopular and surely declared as "unfun" by the larger part of the player base, make sure that corners and tunnels are not attractive in that branch, an interesting change in tactics, in my opinion.

I'm a bad player, I've only visited Slime two or three times, but I found slimy walls to be thematic and interesting, it's a unique challenge, in other words, fun. I guess those who clear Slime on regular basis may hold a different opinion on the subject.

Thematic dungeon levels are awesome by the way.

And I wish more areas had special fun stuff like slime does.

Can't agree more.

[snow]

I like item destruction and slime walls... I find it fun.

It's somewhat boring to be 100% invincible if you can't be killed in one hit and have a blinking scroll. And I wish more areas had special fun stuff like slime does.

[dpeg]

I think Slime is Crawl's best branch in a certain sense (unique monster set, not quite unique layout but unique terrain, and really cool branch end, including god). Shoals is close, though, in my opinion. The hells have a crude but effective specialty. There are specific ideas for Vaults (https://crawl.develz.org/wiki/doku.php?id=dcss:brainstorm:dungeon:branch:vaults#vaults_branch) but not much else, I am afraid.

[Sjohara]

What's the original meaning of item destruction anyway? It only adds tedium making travels to stash every few levels obligatory (not to mention dropping/picking up stuff all the time). That's why it's unpopular. It doesn't add anything fun to the game, unlike, for example, mesmerizing, Zot traps and so on.

It means that you cannot bring your full survival kit into battles. At least if you expect to keep some tools for the next battle. This adds a decision, e.g. of how many scrolls of blinking to carry. And it means that in some places, you go without scrolls.

I don't feel that this actually happens at all. I'm too afraid to carry just one scroll of blinking, because if a puff of flame destroys it entirely at random (which can always happen), then I would have no scrolls and would risk death if something bad happened. So I need to carry, I don't know, 3 or 4 of my 5 or 6 scrolls of blinking to make sure that doesn't happen. And carrying more scrolls means that at least one of them is that much more likely to be burned, so I'm constantly bouncing between a stock of 2 to 4 scrolls as they're burned and I find more and those are burned without ever actually using any, because to do the alternative (carry very few) is to risk losing my very last one not being able to blink at all when I really need to (thus defeating the entire purpose of carrying emergency items: keeping them available to deal with the unexpected).

It causes "number of scolls of blinking I have access to" to be an essentially meaningless statistic. Long-term planning based on resource management is impossible because unless I'm fortunate enough to have a source of conservation, I know that I will be called upon to sacrifice scrolls to the fire god at random intervals no matter what I do. Either I have at least one scroll of blinking on hand or I don't; that's as far ahead as the game allows me to think. I don't carry 4 scrolls of blinking because I'm worried that I will need to blink 4 times and am forced to deal with item destruction as a consequence. I carry such a large number (relative to what I actually plan to use) specifically BECAUSE of the item destruction mechanic; it's the only way I can feel secure in the knowledge that I will always be able to blink at least once. Three of those four items are only there to serve as a buffer to protect the one on the bottom of the stack from destruction. If, hypothetically speaking, the pressure to travel as light as possible took some other, less arbitrary form (like if for example only stacks with 2 or more items were targeted for destruction), I'd be perfectly happy to carry only one...maybe two if I was going someplace particularly scary.

[dpeg]

I believe that you folks are putting too much negativity into this and too little fantasy. Here are some ideas off the top of my hat:
* earlier traps are easier to detect
* a free turn before item destruction sets in (only useful if out works out so that the blink spell does not solve the matter every time) -- this could depend on Dex
* change how trap item destruction works (it could be proactive instead of retroactively affecting your inventory)

Once more, here is the reasoning behind the trap changes: Mechanical traps are almost never interesting. Sometimes they kill you outright, which is never an exciting death. Most often, you heal the damage and nothing has happened apart from annoyance. Only if there are monsters around, they might be interesting. (Some vaults play on that.)
Except for removing traps in general (which was decided against in the distant past, perhaps a bad decision), the plan is to replace mechanical traps (outside of some vaults) by traps which are interesting on their own. One such type is item destruction. Another (yet to be seen much, although a first version exists) is a trap that summons monsters.

[thenewflesh]

Item destruction traps remind me of adding bog mummies in swamp in a way. It almost feels like you're trolling your playerbase

There are many ideas for traps that can be dangerous. In my opinion they shouldn't cause permanent damage (such as item destruction). Zot traps are exception to the rule, of course.

For example, silence traps, traps that slow you, traps that drain stats, traps that summon monsters, and so on and so forth, they all can be interesting and dangerous to the player without adding yet another source of item destruction.

Worse this actually promotes boring gameplay. Go back to the stash with any scroll better than remove curse, drop it off. Same with potions. I mean the numbers could be tweaked but the idea that I won't even want to risk finishing a level i find a cure mut or acquirement on is less than thrilling.

Completely agree here.

[Eji1700]

The nice thing about auto explore is that the game stops me before I lose anything serious. Yes i might step on a zot or weapon trap and lose a ton of health or have other bad things happen, but that can eventually be undone.

There are a limited number of potions and scrolls in the game until you get to the point where you can just chill in the abyss or pan. Until then whenever you lose one that's a loss of options for later, and it's a very serious consequence to consider. if i'm running to my stash to drop of silence or acquirement or dear god a potion of cure mut, then i'll flee from even orc wizards because the consequences are too risky. But i got to make that choice. Just having the game take scrolls/pots from you will feel boring.

Worse this actually promotes boring gameplay. Go back to the stash with any scroll better than remove curse, drop it off. Same with potions. I mean the numbers could be tweaked but the idea that I won't even want to risk finishing a level i find a cure mut or acquirement on is less than thrilling.

Also the idea that this will somehow make combat happen less in corridors seems foolish. There's much better ways to accomplish this. Just like current traps it'll only do this in extremely rare circumstances, which won't even come close to outweighing the benefits of corridor diving in the first place.

[ebarrett]

Item destruction traps do not change my "travel kit" one bit, and my characters travel light. If an unfortunate scroll barbecue happens, 1. there's a bunch more of what I've lost in the stash anyway and 2. revert to extra cautious play until the next stash run (which 99% of the time is when I reach 52/52 barring completely running out of emergency items).

I'm too afraid to carry just one scroll of blinking, because if a puff of flame destroys it entirely at random (which can always happen), then I would have no scrolls and would risk death if something bad happened. So I need to carry, I don't know, 3 or 4 of my 5 or 6 scrolls of blinking to make sure that doesn't happen. And carrying more scrolls means that at least one of them is that much more likely to be burned, so I'm constantly bouncing between a stock of 2 to 4 scrolls as they're burned and I find more and those are burned without ever actually using any, because to do the alternative (carry very few) is to risk losing my very last one not being able to blink at all when I really need to (thus defeating the entire purpose of carrying emergency items: keeping them available to deal with the unexpected).

Holy paranoia spiral, Batman!

It causes "number of scolls of blinking I have access to" to be an essentially meaningless statistic. Long-term planning based on resource management is impossible because unless I'm fortunate enough to have a source of conservation, I know that I will be called upon to sacrifice scrolls to the fire god at random intervals no matter what I do. Either I have at least one scroll of blinking on hand or I don't; that's as far ahead as the game allows me to think. I don't carry 4 scrolls of blinking because I'm worried that I will need to blink 4 times and am forced to deal with item destruction as a consequence. I carry such a large number (relative to what I actually plan to use) specifically BECAUSE of the item destruction mechanic; it's the only way I can feel secure in the knowledge that I will always be able to blink at least once.

I'm sorry but that's just poor strategic/resource management. You're deliberately putting more resources at risk to pretend you're improving your short-term survival, while most likely reducing long-term emergency item disponibility.

[dpeg]

I won't repeat my reasoning but I'd like to point out that nothing is forcing you to take every freaking scroll to the Temple or wherever. You can drop it on the ground just fine.

[smock]

I believe that you folks are putting too much negativity into this and too little fantasy. Here are some ideas off the top of my hat:
* earlier traps are easier to detect
* a free turn before item destruction sets in (only useful if out works out so that the blink spell does not solve the matter every time) -- this could depend on Dex
* change how trap item destruction works (it could be proactive instead of retroactively affecting your inventory)

Once more, here is the reasoning behind the trap changes: Mechanical traps are almost never interesting. Sometimes they kill you outright, which is never an exciting death. Most often, you heal the damage and nothing has happened apart from annoyance. Only if there are monsters around, they might be interesting. (Some vaults play on that.)
Except for removing traps in general (which was decided against in the distant past, perhaps a bad decision), the plan is to replace mechanical traps (outside of some vaults) by traps which are interesting on their own. One such type is item destruction. Another (yet to be seen much, although a first version exists) is a trap that summons monsters.

Blinking is so strong! I like dex-dependent trap evasion.

While mechanical traps are largely useless, traps that destroy items are always going to be annoying to many players. This is because item destruction is annoying.

Two thoughts:
First, might a trap that teleports you next to a monster be a good addition? (A non-random teleport trap.)
Second, could the new traps be paired with monsters in the dungeon in interesting ways? Like an ice cloud trap next to an ice beast. Or a poison vial next to an wight. Or a fire trap next to an electric eel (creating steam clouds). Or a "flooding" trap next to swimming monsters?

Re item destruction promoting boring play: I still support being able to port items back to your stash. It sounds hokey but done well it would lessen a lot of concerns about item destruction (or your person or in a temporary stash.) even if those worries are not well-founded.

[mumra]

Zot traps are exception to the rule, of course.

Yes i might step on a zot or weapon trap and lose a ton of health or have other bad things happen, but that can eventually be undone.

This is interesting; Zot traps can and will produce clouds and destroy your items. So why are they acceptable whereas cloud traps aren't? (Also note: Zot traps already exhibit the same auto-exclusion bug.)

The destructive cloud traps will only generate in later parts of D and specific branches (e.g. fire traps in Gehenna), where you're likely to start running into Zot traps also. The constraint can be adjusted to be even later.

For example, silence traps, traps that slow you, traps that drain stats, traps that summon monsters, and so on and so forth, they all can be interesting and dangerous to the player without adding yet another source of item destruction.

Add ideas to wiki if they're not already there: https://crawl.develz.org/wiki/doku.php?id=dcss:brainstorm:dungeon:traps Everything you listed can be done easily via vaults and Lua, except for stat drain (currently). The more types of trap there are, the more varied types of trap you'll encounter. Ideally, item destruction should account for a fairly low percentage of them!

You're deliberately putting more resources at risk to pretend you're improving your short-term survival, while most likely reducing long-term emergency item disponibility.

Thank you, I learnt a new word

[Galefury]

While mechanical traps are largely useless, traps that destroy items are always going to be annoying to many players. This is because item destruction is annoying.

No. This is because people find strategic damage annoying. Mutation, acid, item destruction, rot, wand charge draining, exp draining, these are all things that cant simply be rested off. And as a player I and probably everyone else hate when it happens to them.

But dpeg is correct in saying that trap damage you can simply rest off is rarely interesting (and feels much more unfair than the new traps when it is), while strategic damage is something you will always want to avoid. He is also correct in saying that investing in T&D (and to some extent the food cost of frequent stash runs) is a strategic investment, to counter the strategic damage.

The two options are removing traps or overhauling them to include effects that are relevant on their own. The second option was chosen, and any kind of strategic damage is relevant on its own. So bad news, the dungeon is about to become much more annoying. And there's really no point in complaining about this, it's simply the logical conclusion of the decision to keep traps. I'm sure I'll get used to it, and so will most people. Time to train T&D!

[nicolae]

* a free turn before item destruction sets in (only useful if out works out so that the blink spell does not solve the matter every time) -- this could depend on Dex

"The trap sprays you with liquid ice! A layer of frost forms on you! Your potions look like they're about to freeze..." and then you have a couple turns to burn yourself (walk into conjured flame, get zapped by a fire bolt, read a scroll of immolation) or else potions go blooey. The frost would just blink along with you, so that's out, but at least you have options instead of just walking down a hallway and going "WELP, there goes some potions".

[smock]

While mechanical traps are largely useless, traps that destroy items are always going to be annoying to many players. This is because item destruction is annoying.

No. This is because people find strategic damage annoying. Mutation, acid, item destruction, rot, wand charge draining, exp draining, these are all things that cant simply be rested off. And as a player I and probably everyone else hate when it happens to them.

We're in total agreement. I didn't mean to gripe about such traps. They're better than what's come before, for sure. That said, if traps forced you to use a potion of might or agility or whatnot, they'd be more fun than if they just broke the potion. Item destruction is fine I guess but making traps strategic (apart from training T&D) might mean pairing them with monsters, as is done to good effect in some vaults.

[dpeg]

...I'd like to point out that nothing is forcing you to take every freaking scroll to the Temple or wherever. You can drop it on the ground just fine.

Unless you think you might want to pick it up later. Monsters take, use, or outright destroy items outside of a few specific areas. And while nothing is forcing you to take every scroll to Temple, there's no cost to doing it aside from turncount and tedium (don't bring up food, you know that isn't a real cost), and there is a very clear cost to not doing it.

As cost, I bring up piety. The Hive removal for 0.10 may not be enough to warrant food as a cost, but perhaps the hopefully arising food reform will for some characters.
Also, which monster would destroy a scroll of acquirement? I've never gotten into the habit but I learned a lot from players who just dropped strategic items (not used by monsters) at the very place.

[dpeg]

So drop the scroll on the stairs. Incidents can happen, but the casual approach has advantages, too.

[jpeg]

A jelly would destroy a scroll of acquirement. Or anything. It's the entire reason people make stashes in safe places: other places aren't safe.

You do realize that this is not all that likely?

I'm not a good player, but I've stopped stashing for the sake of stashing. If I'm within 2 or 3 levels of the Temple and have a lot of stuff to drop off (especially clothes, I do prefer trying on new wardrobe in the Temple) I will put my stuff there. Otherwise I drop it, not exactly where I found it, but in a corner of some room. Monsters will only pick up things on a square they walk on, and they are highly unlikely to wander into corners. Another precaution I take is to separate ammo and launchers, and I prefer to put stuff on the upper levels of branching, so I don't have to travel so far later on.

Granted, I don't play as much as I used to, but I've never had one of my stashes outright destroyed, and the number of times a monster picked up a weapon I dropped and used it against me is really low, too. (Much, much lower in any case than the number of weapons that I just hadn't bothered to pick up in the first place.)

That said, I hate item destruction, too, even knowing I probably wouldn't even have remembered to use that item if the situation arose. There's a substantial difference between seeing a fire drake and deciding to drop your scrolls beforehand and them getting destroyed in a trap you failed to detect. Those fire cloud generators are awesome in comparison, especially in corridors, because you actually have to face a decision. (Once the trap is detected, I guess the same applies.) I love the idea of summon traps, though.

[roctavian]

Exactly. Fire crabs and mottled dragons punish you for bad tactics. Traps punish you for...bad luck.

I think this is essentially what feels wrong about this new trap situation. Certainly nobody is forcing players into certain decisions at gunpoint (or trap-point) but the apparent randomness of item-destroying traps will encourage a lot more stashing behavior. I am not arguing "fun" vs "not-fun," nor am I suggesting players need to be doing well to be having fun -- I just think that many crawl players will read "there are item destroying traps" as "get everything to the stash as quickly as possible." There's a sure streak of hoarding madness in any roguelike player's psyche.

As for myself, I think that I would be just fine with fire/ice traps like this. I'm adopting a style of play where I just leave auto-pickup off all the time, and grab stuff when I need it. I feel that this is definitely better play than stashing, as many more advanced players suggest, but I think it's a hard jump for players to make. So many changes to crawl recently have been met with opposition initially (e.g. changes to the experience system) and we can point to them and see the progress (no more victory dancing). I feel like this one can lead to better player behavior (less hoarding) but I'm not sure if it's ready just yet.

It seems like a good idea that these only show up in later branches so far. How early can they show up, anyways?

[ximxim]

There's a substantial difference between seeing a fire drake and deciding to drop your scrolls beforehand and them getting destroyed in a trap you failed to detect.

Exactly. Fire crabs and mottled dragons punish you for bad tactics. Traps punish you for...bad luck.

Players have access to ways of minimizing the chances of that happening though, by, for instance, adapting nethack-style exploration (keep in minds where traps are likely to spawn and generally spend a few times searching every few steps). Whether such behavior is something wanted in crawl is another question.