Ideas for Trigger/ Damage Floors [Death Trap]

[Kupotepo]

Floor Damage has been a part of the traditional RPG games. I do not mean like the floor in your residence due to water damage or wear out due to their wear and tear. I mean like in the RPG dungeons the lava floors. The ice tile is not damaged floor per se to create slipperily and the sinkhole where make you start the dungeon again, pokemon game. The popular one in RPG is the spike trap. The standard damage floor deals 10 damages for each time of stepping on that tile thank you @Yanfly for explaining.

1. Do you consider to have damage floor or effect floor in your game? [Why you did that or why do not think you want to do that?]
2. How do you execute the mechanics? please go like the steps by steps the moderators will kill me for putting in the wrong place.
3. Do you place the trigger floors in all the floor of the dungeon, half of the dungeon floor, or a little of the dungeon?

Just want to hear people in the forum, think about pros and cons in consideration before put thing there, and find inspiration for new ideas. Thank you and stay safe everyone.

@MushroomCake28, thank you for your though. Now, I am thinking about trap tiles in Indiana Jones Movie's rock trap and The Mummy [1999] cobra trap and scrub beetle trap.

 

[MushroomCake28]

I usually dislike damage floor since it presupposes that you have an active gameplay on the map (like something that depends on timing), whereas I much prefer more passive gameplay on the map (meaning that it doesn't depend on timing, for example puzzles without a timer). But for the sake of argument, let's say I'm implementing damage floor.

1. I don't use floor damage, see above.

2. Well there is two choices usually for floor damage: a permanent floor damage that can be deactivated somehow (switch, story progression, puzzle, etc.), or there could be a timed mechanic, like the spike come out once every 2 seconds, so the player has to run through an area before the spikes come back up.

3. If there are damage floors in my dungeons, they will usually be in only a small area of the dungeon, probably somewhere related to an in-dungeon puzzle.

 

[ShadowDragon]

I use floor damage (spike and fire floor (can be lowered in dmg or even resist it)
but using SRD plugin for doing that (easier to control and mechanic it)
also using flash, etc,

lava/fire floor dmging the player is more dynamic, but you can instantly die from lavefloor
and gain less 1/8 dmg from fire floor, might lessen that.

there are more kind of floors to deal dmg or even heal you on specific floors.
holy floors (not using it) can reduce dmg giving by 1/2 for example, other floors can
even increase dmg when you on it.

 

[duty]

I like the damage floor effect old school with a brief flash and maybe a damage sound effect.

Mechanically, I don't see a lot of opportunities to use a damage floor. The established trope is that it turns the player away from an area until they find prevent the damage by equipping the right shoes, or a float spell, etc.

Alternatively, it's another way to soften the party up in the dungeon. Every dungeon is essentially the same resource management puzzle: does my party have enough HP to get to the end goal?

You could hypothetically put a treasure chest behind a bunch of damage floor tiles, and get the player to think about whether it's worth the lost HP for the loot. But I'm not seeing a lot of other possible uses.

 

[Kupotepo]

@MushroomCake28, thank you for your thought.
@ShadowDragon, thank you for your thought.
My thought always evolving when we are intelligence discussing.

Now, I am thinking about the trickery death maze rooms where you the room look the same and player to find the exist.

From the Seven Deathly Sins: [lol, I cannot show more graphic picture. Just for giggle and laugh]




For the story aspect, I found the dead trap use to create a conflict like for an example, the Super Mario, a princess get captured by the boss and now the Mario needs to save her. Now, the boss has to construction all of the evil trap and hideout lol. This is just easy way to create a plot I guess.

 

[KakonComp]

I'd personally never use them as they're usually used. That is used alongside battles to chip away at a player's health while traversing a dungeon.

However, thinking of using them in more creative ways can be fun, like having a damage floor take HP or MP from the player, and needing it to equal an equation. Or, a tile causing your character to take slip burn damage for a few moments, while using that burn to melt through stuff in an ice dungeon.

Probably wouldn't use them anyway, or if I did the second thing, make it to where the player only takes damage in battle if at all.

 

[CraneSoft]

Damage floors are usually an unnecessary mechanic in RPGMaker as they only cause annoyance and do not matter much, 90% of the time I can walk on poison and spikes all day and just heal back the damage afterwards. You'll need to make them actually threatening hazards to the player for them to actually matter, after all, if your damage floors can't kill me, then I'm not going to bother dodging them.

Now if I can fall off cliffs and get killed by gravity, then that's considered a legitimate death trap.

 

[Frostorm]

While I haven't implemented damage floor tiles yet, I do plan on it. Since my battles take place on the same map you explore, having damage floor tiles, like spikes, fire or poison would carry over into combat. I would probably place enemies in a position to take advantage of this. Perhaps a big bad has a lair and his goons are hanging out in one of the lower levels/corridors. One of the goons flips a switch and a row of tiles between you and the goons are set ablaze. There are archers and casters on the enemy side as well to further take advantage of the situation. I think this type of stuff could be quite interesting and challenging.

Basically, whatever event tiles I put on the map can be utilized in combat as well.

 

[TheoAllen]

I like the map hazards. I like it so much that my players complained that it was too intense that I'm considering to trim it down. Although some of them didn't mind about the intensity.

Why map hazards?
It adds a condition where you will fight the enemy when you're not at full HP. It will not be lethal damage that will outright kill you but will be annoying enough that you probably plan to use the first turn of your battle to recover from the map damage because you were being ignorant and get struck with the hazards a few times. The real threat is the battle, not the map hazards.

However, what I did was not using a default standard floor damage. Granted, my random spike trap could be classified as floor damage but it is not dealing with fixed damage, instead of a percentage of your HP.

Here is the variant of map hazards I'm currently have

• Spike trap: For an interval, the spike will rise (danger) and sink (safe to walk).
• Slippery edge: At the edge of the cliff (ice-themed dungeon), the edge of the cliff is a slippery tile that if you take a step on it you will fall into the cliff. You won't die, but your position will be reset back.
• Collapsing bridge: A magical bridge connected two places, however, during a specific interval, it will vanish. If you are on the bridge while it vanishes, you take damage.
• Lightning strike: Periodically, a certain tile will be struck by lightning. It will be marked by an indicator for a few frames, allowing you to dodge. It has a few tiles range so be sure to stay away from it.
• Lava hazard: Similar to the lightning strike, with a little twist. If you're in a lava crater, periodically it will burst a fireball randomly hit a tile near the crater. If you stay too close, there is a chance that you will get damage.

 

[Frostorm]

@TheoAllen I thought you didn't like puzzle mechanics in RPGs? Do map hazards not count as part of puzzles for you?

Everyone keeps saying they don't like puzzles, but in my mind puzzles = map hazards and environment interaction. Like I guess my definition is skewed, so I have a hard time imagining what a puzzle would be w/o these elements...

 

[TheoAllen]

@Frostorm it is not "arrange the block in a certain sequence", yeah, not a puzzle.

 

[Frostorm]

@Frostorm it is not "arrange the block in a certain sequence", yeah, not a puzzle.

Ahh, damnit I just made a thread and this answered my question lol.

Edit: (didn't want to double post)
I also like floor tiles that "crack" when you step on them and then if you move away and step on them a 2nd time you fall through to the floor below. Not sure if this counts @Kupotepo or were you only asking about the kind that does damage?

Slippery edge: At the edge of the cliff (ice-themed dungeon), the edge of the cliff is a slippery tile that if you take a step on it you will fall into the cliff. You won't die, but your position will be reset back.

@TheoAllen Wouldn't this fall under the classic "slippery ice" dungeon puzzle mechanic? I love slippery ice tiles btw lol (probably cuz Ice is my favorite element in general)

 

[Kupotepo]

thank you @duty, @Frostorm, @KakonComp, @TheoAllen, and @CraneSoft for your thought on this topic.

 

[TheoAllen]

@TheoAllen Wouldn't this fall under the classic "slippery ice" dungeon puzzle mechanic? I love slippery ice tiles btw lol (probably cuz Ice is my favorite element in general)

No, far from it. You're thinking of sliding floor room puzzle. I'm saying if you get too close to the edge of the cliff, you will slip and fall (and get hp damage).