Official: Spring Spectacular: Trap Disarming RT Changes

[Avaia]

Hi everybody,

I couldn't think of a catchy title for this change so you get that awkward one.

Trap detection and disarming, and lock measuring through Lock Mastery using calipers have had their roundtime costs significantly decreased - as long as you are in a reasonably civilized place.

In addition, the Water Lore benefit for spell 404 (Disarm Enhancement) has been changed - when you fail to disarm a trap, it will now provide phantom ranks (at a seed 1 rate) when determining if you failed badly enough to set off the trap.

Ixix

[Murrandii]

Finally a real reason to learn LM.

A sigh of relief for me that it won't affect picking wizard, I thought a nerf was coming!

[Astray]

Nobody enjoy this! They'll fuck it up somehow in the future!

[Tgo01]

This is actually awesome. 5 seconds for tracking for traps, 5 seconds to measure with calipers, and the one trap I found had a 3 second discovery and 3 second disarm roundtime.

[Gelston]

Eh, I still prefer the instant of the NPC.

[Maerit]

I still prefer rapid fire + 704/416 then 407 if safe, 125 if not - trash can if glyphed.

[gilchristr]

They really fucked us a few months ago on the rando change to prevent tonis from reducing trap loresing roundtime (because realistically moving faster wouldnt make you sing faster), so this was like a gentle hug afterwards.

[adred]

Where does this actually work? So far my rogue is far slower than before...

[Tgo01]

Where does this actually work? So far my rogue is far slower than before...

I tried at a table and it worked. I imagine it either works at nodes or in town.

[adred]

I tried at a table and it worked. I imagine it either works at nodes or in town.

I have tried at tables at 3 different inns, it is far slower... I get 12-18 seconds to detect no trap... and the actual traps are far slower than they used to be (76 ranks of water lore).... also Master of Lock Mastery... I generally use the full unlock gnomish bracer but someone told me it wasn't any good now because the RT to detect no trap is supposed to be like 3-8 seconds now

[mgoddess]

I have tried at tables at 3 different inns, it is far slower... I get 12-18 seconds to detect no trap... and the actual traps are far slower than they used to be (76 ranks of water lore).... also Master of Lock Mastery... I generally use the full unlock gnomish bracer but someone told me it wasn't any good now because the RT to detect no trap is supposed to be like 3-8 seconds now

Was getting 5-7 second no-trap-detection RT at a Thrak table, earlier... 6 ranks of water lore, 80-something ranks of Disarm Trap skill.

[adred]

Was getting 5-7 second no-trap-detection RT at a Thrak table, earlier... 6 ranks of water lore, 80-something ranks of Disarm Trap skill.

so as usual they can't implement anything right

[Donquix]

so as usual they can't implement anything right

Most of their day on discord was chasing down rooms that should reduce it but didn't.

What a waste of fucking time for no benefit. Just reduce the fucking RT and move on, jesus christ. Why must they make everything so fucking difficult.

Should we just disable disarm, likely the most hated mechanic in the entire game? Nah, lets implement a convoluted item recovery system that no one gives a fuck about and requires months of GM time.

Should we just blanket reduce disarm RT because no one can compete with Larton? Sure but like...i mean, what if someone picked an ogre box with OGRES IN THE VICINITY? Doesn't that seem broken? We better make sure we put some checks and balances on this empty handed 5+ seconds of RT action so it isn't ABUSED for all the clear zircons.

[Tgo01]

Most of their day on discord was chasing down rooms that should reduce it but didn't.

What a waste of fucking time for no benefit. Just reduce the fucking RT and move on, jesus christ. Why must they make everything so fucking difficult.

Should we just disable disarm, likely the most hated mechanic in the entire game? Nah, lets implement a convoluted item recovery system that no one gives a fuck about and requires months of GM time.

Should we just blanket reduce disarm RT because no one can compete with Larton? Sure but like...i mean, what if someone picked an ogre box with OGRES IN THE VICINITY? Doesn't that seem broken? We better make sure we put some checks and balances on this empty handed 5+ seconds of RT action so it isn't ABUSED for all the clear zircons.

I can see them wanting it to work on nodes to encourage people to hang around in nodes and shit, but silly me figured they had nodes marked much in the same way Lich does, so all the game has to do is check for a node tag and it works. But I guess that's too simple...or it's too complicated to code something like that in GSL.

So anytime they want something to only work on nodes they have to track down each and every single room with a node and fiddle with something to make the new feature work on nodes? No wonder shit doesn't get done in this game.

[audioserf]

Most of their day on discord was chasing down rooms that should reduce it but didn't.

What a waste of fucking time for no benefit. Just reduce the fucking RT and move on, jesus christ. Why must they make everything so fucking difficult.

Should we just disable disarm, likely the most hated mechanic in the entire game? Nah, lets implement a convoluted item recovery system that no one gives a fuck about and requires months of GM time.

Should we just blanket reduce disarm RT because no one can compete with Larton? Sure but like...i mean, what if someone picked an ogre box with OGRES IN THE VICINITY? Doesn't that seem broken? We better make sure we put some checks and balances on this empty handed 5+ seconds of RT action so it isn't ABUSED for all the clear zircons.

I’m getting a huge kick out of how fuckin mad you are but you’re also entirely right

Lmao at how consistently they trip over their own dicks en route to what should be simple improvements

[Taernath]

Most of their day on discord was chasing down rooms that should reduce it but didn't.

What a waste of fucking time for no benefit. Just reduce the fucking RT and move on, jesus christ. Why must they make everything so fucking difficult.

Should we just disable disarm, likely the most hated mechanic in the entire game? Nah, lets implement a convoluted item recovery system that no one gives a fuck about and requires months of GM time.

Should we just blanket reduce disarm RT because no one can compete with Larton? Sure but like...i mean, what if someone picked an ogre box with OGRES IN THE VICINITY? Doesn't that seem broken? We better make sure we put some checks and balances on this empty handed 5+ seconds of RT action so it isn't ABUSED for all the clear zircons.

^

[adred]

Trap detection and disarming, and lock measuring through Lock Mastery using calipers have had their roundtime costs significantly decreased - as long as you are in a reasonably civilized place.

Why not just make it global?

[Donquix]

I’m getting a huge kick out of how fuckin mad you are but you’re also entirely right

Lmao at how consistently they trip over their own dicks en route to what should be simple improvements

It's more flabergasted than angry. I'm just continually amazed they keep doing it. Like fuck guys, you could literally do less work for a better result. Do you know how rare that is in game / software development? You should cherish these moments. But no, let's overengineer this for no reason at all. LET"S DO THIS. LEEEEEEEEERY JENKINS.

edit:
The disarm RT thing is just especially confusing when you actually look at the problem they're trying to solve. It's one of those things that sounds somewhat reasonable, but really makes no difference if you think it through. Like oh shit people could pick boxes in the field uh....ok? With very few exceptions nearly every hunting area in the game before level 80+ you can ;go2 town and be there in 5 seconds. If you need to pick shit you should be doing that anyways so you can at least be on a node while you're opening all those boxes. And that's not even accounting for TP system improvements so you can ring to your node and right back to the room you left, including many of the areas with entrance barriers.

If the goal was to prevent people from opening boxes in "hard to get to" areas ( like maaghara, sanctum, the rift, etc. ) invert the logic and only keep the old RT in those areas. Or you know, just fucking don't. No one cares, it makes no difference, and now you have to go and make a hand-crafted artisanal list of "civilized" rooms so your dumbfuck system is doing the dumbfuck thing you thought it should do, but actually accomplishes nothing.

[Tgo01]

It's more flabergasted than angry. I'm just continually amazed they keep doing it. Like fuck guys, you could literally do less work for a better result. Do you know how rare that is in game / software development? You should cherish these moments. But no, let's overengineer this for no reason at all. LET"S DO THIS. LEEEEEEEEERY JENKINS.

edit:
The disarm RT thing is just especially confusing when you actually look at the problem they're trying to solve. It's one of those things that sounds somewhat reasonable, but really makes no difference if you think it through. Like oh shit people could pick boxes in the field uh....ok? With very few exceptions nearly every hunting area in the game before level 80+ you can ;go2 town and be there in 5 seconds. If you need to pick shit you should be doing that anyways so you can at least be on a node while you're opening all those boxes. And that's not even accounting for TP system improvements so you can ring to your node and right back to the room you left, including many of the areas with entrance barriers.

If the goal was to prevent people from opening boxes in "hard to get to" areas ( like maaghara, sanctum, the rift, etc. ) invert the logic and only keep the old RT in those areas. Or you know, just fucking don't. No one cares, it makes no difference, and now you have to go and make a hand-crafted artisanal list of "civilized" rooms so your dumbfuck system is doing the dumbfuck thing you thought it should do, but actually accomplishes nothing.

Seems like the simpler solution is to give someone -1000 DS and -1000 TD while in RT from box picking related actions. Sure some people might just risk it, but that's pretty much a guaranteed death in just about any hunting area, thus discouraging it.

[Alastir]

You carefully begin to examine a dented iron strongbox for traps...

Peering closely into the lock, you spy a tiny vial placed just past the tumblers of the lock mechanism. It would appear that any tampering with the lock mechanism would cause the tumblers to crush the vial and release whatever substance is inside.


It looks like an incredibly hard trap (about -399).

You still have a good enough picture of the trap in your mind, that you could try to disarm it.
Roundtime: 3 sec.
>
[tpick: Trap difficulty is: 399]
[tpick: Your disarm skill is: 428]
[tpick: Your total disarm skill with lore is: 542]
[tpick: Highest trap you are willing to try is: 532]
[tpick: Found a acid vial trap.]
[tpick: Attempting to disarm trap.]
[tpick]>disarm #305147662
Having discovered a trap on the strongbox you begin to carefully attempt to disarm it...

You feel like you've made an adequate attempt.

You carefully push a small ball of cotton into the lock mechanism, surrounding and protecting the small vial from anything that may shatter it.

(You have 90 balls of cotton remaining.)
Roundtime: 3 sec.
>
[tpick: Acid vial trap has been disarmed.]
[tpick: Measuring lock.]
[tpick]>get my calipers
You remove a set of professional calipers from in your white leather pants.
>
[tpick]>lmaster measure #305147662
Using your professional calipers, you carefully begin to measure the lock...
Roundtime: 4 sec.


It's considerably faster than before.

[Maerit]

They're still on old-style development. They aren't releasing the "minimum viable" product, which modern software development companies aim for, but instead go for the an over-engineered solution to problems.

[Murrandii]

They're still on old-style development. They aren't releasing the "minimum viable" product, which modern software development companies aim for, but instead go for the an over-engineered solution to problems.

They ain't very agile huh?:P

Very waterfall

[gilchristr]

Wow, some really good points here. It does seem like their posts explaining changes have been way too long, often failing to articulate what they intended to articulate and having to be supplemented by a bunch of Q&A. If the change can't be explained in three lines, its probably over engineered.

[Menos]

Most of their day on discord was chasing down rooms that should reduce it but didn't.

What a waste of fucking time for no benefit. Just reduce the fucking RT and move on, jesus christ. Why must they make everything so fucking difficult.

Should we just disable disarm, likely the most hated mechanic in the entire game? Nah, lets implement a convoluted item recovery system that no one gives a fuck about and requires months of GM time.

Should we just blanket reduce disarm RT because no one can compete with Larton? Sure but like...i mean, what if someone picked an ogre box with OGRES IN THE VICINITY? Doesn't that seem broken? We better make sure we put some checks and balances on this empty handed 5+ seconds of RT action so it isn't ABUSED for all the clear zircons.

+1, that is all.

[audioserf]

I really am so spectacularly ready for the Disarm recovery system to suck. If I didn't play a class with access to Spirit Servant, their announced decision to implement recovery rather than just remove the possibility for a weapon to leave your hand would 100% convert me to shield/brawl/UAC builds only. The number of people who still want disarm/item loss to exist is so small that it may as well be zero, and they could have just made it Sunder Weapon and been done with it a decade ago. Nope, Simu gonna Simu and they are unbelievably stubborn.

[Murrandii]

I really am so spectacularly ready for the Disarm recovery system to suck. If I didn't play a class with access to Spirit Servant, their announced decision to implement recovery rather than just remove the possibility for a weapon to leave your hand would 100% convert me to shield/brawl/UAC builds only. The number of people who still want disarm/item loss to exist is so small that it may as well be zero, and they could have just made it Sunder Weapon and been done with it a decade ago. Nope, Simu gonna Simu and they are unbelievably stubborn.


Alexandre Dumas was paid by the words, so when he threw description in The Comte of Monte Cristo or Les Trois Mousquetaires, it has VERY LONG description and explanations.

I'm suspecting Simu "pays" their coders by the complexity of their codes and their length. The more lines, the more they get "paid"

[Donquix]

I really am so spectacularly ready for the Disarm recovery system to suck. If I didn't play a class with access to Spirit Servant, their announced decision to implement recovery rather than just remove the possibility for a weapon to leave your hand would 100% convert me to shield/brawl/UAC builds only. The number of people who still want disarm/item loss to exist is so small that it may as well be zero, and they could have just made it Sunder Weapon and been done with it a decade ago. Nope, Simu gonna Simu and they are unbelievably stubborn.

They keep saying that just disabling it isn't as easy as we think and i just can't figure how that is remotely possible, even for the bullshit spaghetti code gemstone has. One of the GMs, i think Naos, on discord mentioned that it's not even consistent as in some things that "disarm" aren't casting "disarm", but some ridiculous one off thing made to look exactly like disarm. Which makes no fucking sense whatsoever, but hey....volunteer workforce doing shit in their spare time, etc. etc. But even if that's the case, i can think of every single creature that has a disarm or disarm like ability and it's not a lot, even if you had to go manually change every one of them individually I can't figure out how it could take as long as making an entirely new thing. Which will accomplish the same result but more annoying (albeit more "immersive", said unironically) I don't think the recovery mechanic is even that bad of an idea, overall, it just seems like knocking out a temp fix could have been done like, within a month of finally caving and deciding to get rid of disarm.

In the incredibly unlikely event that simu ever hires someone to fulltime work on gemstone shit, as much as it sounds nice to be like oh they could code savants in a month, i'd rather they do cleanup on all the bullshit like that. Make weird ass creatures and rooms and such consistent, make or improve tooling to generate creatures / items / rooms. Work on paying back those 30 years of tech debt so every little thing isn't like moving heaven and earth as it seems now.

[audioserf]

It's the stubbornness.

They could remove Disarm or make Disarm into a Sunder Weapon-type ability.

They won't do it. They are ADAMANT about having your item leave your possession, for some reason. I'm sure the Doug and Krakii types are stoked. And thus they spend untold hours over multiple volunteer GMs coding this recovery thing when they have a few free minutes instead.

[Maerit]

Wyrom specifically said on Discord that they could disable the disarm weapon combat maneuver on creatures that use that specific maneuver relatively easily. That is not the hard part, but rather the other various systems that exist which cause items to drop or be lost. Things like itchy curse, bite maneuver, hrisskra weapon disarming (which is basically 1214), and the Ithzir thieving are all very specific and tricky issues.

The tactic they have taken is to promise a solution, thus dangling a hook, but never actually providing a timeline. They risk disenchantment with their playerbase if they continue to say "disarm improvements are coming", and fail to deliver on that promise. Instead, they should roll out fixes one at a time.

Step 1 - Change the disarm weapon maneuver to sunder weapon instead. If the function or whatever the hell it is in their spaghetti code is called, for the combat maneuver is modified, then one would assume any creature using that combat maneuver would be changed. Of course, that's an assumption that standard "good" coding practices are being used, and it's probably more likely that every single creature that uses disarm weapon has some copied script attached to the creature attributes, and every one of them has to be modified and updated differently because of reasons.

Step 2 - Ithzir should no longer steal objects that are registered, but instead cast a mirage on the item that has to be dispelled before you can use it again.

Step 3 - Something with Itchy Curse to make it so you don't drop the item, but stow or sheath it constantly. No stow or sheath container set? You drop it for being dumb.

Step 4 - The rest of the crap that is so easily avoided, that it's the lowest priority to fix. Most things that itchy curse, have bite attacks, or random other disarming abilities are easily avoided. They can and should be changed, but they're rarely risking high-end equipment.

[Neveragain]

when you actually look at the problem they're trying to solve.

This is what happens when you write code without first creating a flow chart.

:: puts a 100 lb chest in his gem pouch ::

Of course I understand that we must keep things as real as possible.

[Methais]

Most of their day on discord was chasing down rooms that should reduce it but didn't.

What a waste of fucking time for no benefit. Just reduce the fucking RT and move on, jesus christ. Why must they make everything so fucking difficult.

Should we just disable disarm, likely the most hated mechanic in the entire game? Nah, lets implement a convoluted item recovery system that no one gives a fuck about and requires months of GM time.

Should we just blanket reduce disarm RT because no one can compete with Larton? Sure but like...i mean, what if someone picked an ogre box with OGRES IN THE VICINITY? Doesn't that seem broken? We better make sure we put some checks and balances on this empty handed 5+ seconds of RT action so it isn't ABUSED for all the clear zircons.

This is correct.

[Neveragain]

Wyrom specifically said on Discord that they could disable the disarm weapon combat maneuver on creatures that use that specific maneuver relatively easily. That is not the hard part, but rather the other various systems that exist which cause items to drop or be lost. Things like itchy curse, bite maneuver, hrisskra weapon disarming (which is basically 1214), and the Ithzir thieving are all very specific and tricky issues.

The tactic they have taken is to promise a solution, thus dangling a hook, but never actually providing a timeline. They risk disenchantment with their playerbase if they continue to say "disarm improvements are coming", and fail to deliver on that promise. Instead, they should roll out fixes one at a time.

Step 1 - Change the disarm weapon maneuver to sunder weapon instead. If the function or whatever the hell it is in their spaghetti code is called, for the combat maneuver is modified, then one would assume any creature using that combat maneuver would be changed. Of course, that's an assumption that standard "good" coding practices are being used, and it's probably more likely that every single creature that uses disarm weapon has some copied script attached to the creature attributes, and every one of them has to be modified and updated differently because of reasons.

Step 2 - Ithzir should no longer steal objects that are registered, but instead cast a mirage on the item that has to be dispelled before you can use it again.

Step 3 - Something with Itchy Curse to make it so you don't drop the item, but stow or sheath it constantly. No stow or sheath container set? You drop it for being dumb.

Step 4 - The rest of the crap that is so easily avoided, that it's the lowest priority to fix. Most things that itchy curse, have bite attacks, or random other disarming abilities are easily avoided. They can and should be changed, but they're rarely risking high-end equipment.

One would think that there is only a couple subroutines that are accessed when a disarm occurs. It can't be that difficult to either edit those routines or create a new routine that's universal for all disarm mechanics. If you're a really lazy coder you wouldn't even have to delete the old routines, they would just sit there and never be used.

[Methais]

It's more flabergasted than angry. I'm just continually amazed they keep doing it. Like fuck guys, you could literally do less work for a better result. Do you know how rare that is in game / software development? You should cherish these moments. But no, let's overengineer this for no reason at all. LET"S DO THIS. LEEEEEEEEERY JENKINS.

edit:
The disarm RT thing is just especially confusing when you actually look at the problem they're trying to solve. It's one of those things that sounds somewhat reasonable, but really makes no difference if you think it through. Like oh shit people could pick boxes in the field uh....ok? With very few exceptions nearly every hunting area in the game before level 80+ you can ;go2 town and be there in 5 seconds. If you need to pick shit you should be doing that anyways so you can at least be on a node while you're opening all those boxes. And that's not even accounting for TP system improvements so you can ring to your node and right back to the room you left, including many of the areas with entrance barriers.

If the goal was to prevent people from opening boxes in "hard to get to" areas ( like maaghara, sanctum, the rift, etc. ) invert the logic and only keep the old RT in those areas. Or you know, just fucking don't. No one cares, it makes no difference, and now you have to go and make a hand-crafted artisanal list of "civilized" rooms so your dumbfuck system is doing the dumbfuck thing you thought it should do, but actually accomplishes nothing.

https://i.imgur.com/ujcGzuL.png

[gilchristr]

its like they fucked up the easiest thing. It was a whole day for their spring spectactual marketing event, and all they had to do was just cut round time on everything. Real easy to not screw up. But no somebody got high and had the half baked idea that longer round times in unsafe areas would be more "realistic," and the rest was history (seems like the same cheeky bastard who got high and thought of tonis making chipmunk voices for loresinging).

[Taernath]

They probably don't have a unified standard for coding. Each time a 'new' mechanic, ability, or creature is introduced, whoever codes it basically reinvents the wheel.

[Neveragain]

its like they fucked up the easiest thing. It was a whole day for their spring spectactual marketing event, and all they had to do was just cut round time on everything. Real easy to not screw up. But no somebody got high and had the half baked idea that longer round times in unsafe areas would be more "realistic," and the rest was history (seems like the same cheeky bastard who got high and thought of tonis making chipmunk voices for loresinging).

Even this sounds really simple to do. Just a simple condition check and some cheeky description echo. If they really wanted to do it this way, all they would need to do is check for a node. If not a node just run the same old routine, if it is a node just run a copy paste of the old routine with edited round times.

This really should have been done a long time ago considering how easy it would be to do.

[Donquix]

Even this sounds really simple to do. Just a simple condition check and some cheeky description echo. If they really wanted to do it this way, all they would need to do is check for a node. If not a node just run the same old routine, if it is a node just run a copy paste of the old routine with edited round times.

This really should have been done a long time ago considering how easy it would be to do.

i don't think they want it to even be nodes, because WHAT IF you picked it at the node in bonespear. with boxes you JUST FOUND in bonespear?

My god, all of gemstone would be ruined. RUINED.

[Methais]

its like they fucked up the easiest thing. It was a whole day for their spring spectactual marketing event, and all they had to do was just cut round time on everything. Real easy to not screw up. But no somebody got high and had the half baked idea that longer round times in unsafe areas would be more "realistic," and the rest was history (seems like the same cheeky bastard who got high and thought of tonis making chipmunk voices for loresinging).

Almost everything Estild does is retarded and for retarded reasons. If he woke up tomorrow and quit GS, GS would be better.

[Neveragain]

i don't think they want it to even be nodes, because WHAT IF you picked it at the node in bonespear. with boxes you JUST FOUND in bonespear?

My god, all of gemstone would be ruined. RUINED.

I can only think of 2 possible complaints about it just being nodes. People resting not wanting boxes opened in the room and that the east tower is not a node.

But this being the case as it is. It would be easier to just flag the rooms you do get a bonus to smithing round times instead of areas you don't. Either way, as a coder getting paid in pizza and beer money, I would be losing interest in the project at this point.

[Stumplicker]

They left it vague in the initial description of "reasonably civilized" locations. Maybe they tried to code it so it worked wherever critters couldn't spawn/enter (as opposed to just where law applied in towns or whatever), and failed to note some sort of invasion code or something that allowed critters to spawn in places, screwing up a bunch of intended areas.

Either way, as a QoL change, it's far overdue, and yeah the implementation is probably way more complex than it needed to be, but I'm not going to complain about day one bugs*. The whole gaming industry runs on day one bugs after 3 years "early access" which used to be called alpha.

* unless they never get fixed.

[Taernath]

* unless they never get fixed.

It took about 20 years for someone to realize that smite/bane damage reduction was dumb.

GS development is a class unto itself.

[Stumplicker]

It took about 20 years for someone to realize that smite/bane damage reduction was dumb.

GS development is a class unto itself.

Haha, yeah. That's why I added in that asterisk with an edit. I remembered waiting 10 years for ranged and thrown weapons to be implemented, not to mention all the other things that they started and never finished. The monk spell circle comes to mind, which would you know..not necessarily be the monk spell circle solely, had they ever implemented the other profession that was supposed to have it.

[Donquix]

Minor Mental is both NOT the monk circle, and full of spells that would have been in the monk circle if monks had a monk circle, as per devs. Meaning that sick decision fucked up TWO classes in the increasingly unlikely event of Savants.

Good times.

I mean there are missing spell slots in classes that have been around since gemstone ][ , there is no higher bar for "wtf?" in game dev than simu.

[Gelston]

Minor Mental is both NOT the monk circle, and full of spells that would have been in the monk circle if monks had a monk circle, as per devs. Meaning that sick decision fucked up TWO classes in the increasingly unlikely event of Savants.

Good times.

I mean there are missing spell slots in classes that have been around since gemstone ][ , there is no higher bar for "wtf?" in game dev than simu.

What has been missing since GS2 though?

[Methais]

What has been missing since GS2 though?

Horses.

[Gelston]

Horses.

No, there just isn't any ever around when you type mount.

[Methais]

No, there just isn't any ever around when you type mount.

>mount

But there are no whores here to mount.

[Stumplicker]

No, there just isn't any ever around when you type mount.

That's why Linux never caught on. Never trust an operating system that does something when you type man mount. Unless you're a heterosexual female or a gay man I guess. But even those it can be kinda sketchy!!