Disclaimer: if the existence of such a trap(s) in such a level bracket is an oversight , a bug, and just "not by design", please ignore the debate and let's move that to bug reports.
Disclaimer 2: I might seem butthurt or annoyed, and if I do, please add a lot of emoticons like "
" every sentences. I'm quite cool with what happened and not calling names on anyone. Just want to share on the issue + player perspective. So be cool too! :p -----------------------------------------------
ANECDOTAL CONTEXT
Here's a little story!
Two characters do a dungeon.
One has a bit of investment in search but isn't the best relative to the level.
They are level 12-13, in a dungeon 10-16.
They reach the end boss with difficulty, luckily, it has no guards, the end is in sight if we can defeat the boss (which will be hard! but completely possible).
Boss-situation has those atomic parameters:
- Well, obviously, boss stats whatever they are
- Narrow corridor/stairs to reach it
- (At least) One epic trap next to it on the ground (either random or sonic, don't know yet)
We approach the boss carefully, and jump him.
The battle begins. Three rounds of swinging, it's gonna be tough but we can clearly make it if we dont eat too many crits.
Then, with a battle auto-move, my character sidesteps on the unseen epic trap.
The whole cluttered party/summons take 110 damages of sonic, with a 30+ will DC.
I'm sent straight to the fugue in a blink of an eye. (I had 75%+ life left before the trigger)
My ally has 3 hps left and is stunned, dies the next turn to the boss. (she was almost full life before the trigger)
We stare confusedly at the screen, i watch the combat log in frustration and with a distinct feeling of unfairness/design flaw.
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DEBATE
My thoughts:
In a 10-16 dungeon, you shouldn't never ever meet epic traps (that's why they are "epic", so level 21+!!!) UNLESS it's clearly foreshadowed with a difficulty curve or clear level art warnings: you most likely can't see them (or not in time if it's next to a boss), you most likely can't disarm them, you most likely can't reach the DC, and even more with a sonic trap, you just take the damage straight to the face. For the record we're talking about the same kind of trap there's before the end boss of the halfbreed fortress in sibayad, and all that dropped in a mid-teen dungeon, where the boss fight will happen, in a location made super-narrow where most people will trigger it the first time they come there simply because there's no other path to battle the boss.
I would like to add that Arelith has kind of an history with the subject of traps being misplaced by the script or by hand (=not level appropriate). It has been mostly fixed (#Cordor sewers), or nerfed (#Cordor crypts?), but we're not quite there yet (#sea bandits). But given the area i'm talking about is a rather new one, I just don't know if that's a fluke or a design choice. Traps are cool/fair when level appropriate, but are just buzzkiller/broken when used where they shouldn't.
To conclude, I advise that there should be some kind of "guide" about traps for Arelith's designers, a documentation as simple as a google sheet, that states the level appropriate use for each tiers of traps. Authorized breaching of that guide (using an higher tiers than level appropriate) would then be conditioned by a requirement to carefully foreshadow the "trap-difficulty spike" (by level arts, readable props, or a trap difficulty curve for that dungeon). Maybe traps should also be differentiated by nastyness, I can see a sonic epic traps obliterating a party in one or two triggers (and that's not talking about the stun, which is another save or die), whereas a negative energy one will just put one member half-life with a debuff.
Cheers!
