Trapdoor is getting harder.

I got lucky on seven different characters? Irony aside, that's not luck. That was how the mission worked for me 7 times. Perhaps the spawn rate is tied to difficulty or something. When something happens consistently 7 times in a row, I do NOT consider luck to be a factor in it's occurrence.

Fun is subjective. For me, fun is being able to beat an encounter through either power or use of tactics as necessary. For example, the ITF we ran yesterday. We pulled Requiem and Rommy on the second last mission, because there were only six of us and, while we werent speed running, we didn't fancy slogging through the whole top platform. So we pulled, and dealt with the encounter the way we chose to, not the way we were forced to.

Thats the very important difference. Having a choice. Sure, you can beat an AV by doing it the "Right Way". Or you can get creative and find ways to do things differently. Sometimes they'll take a lot longer but be safer. Sometimes they'll be very quick, but also risk 'Win or Teamwipe. The important part is having a choice.
Not having a choise simply blows. Pure and simple.

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

Yea, I thought so myself.

Just like you I'm just stating my pov, while providing some counterbalance to all the "WAAAH! THIS IS TO HARD" crowd. I'm not saying one less way to defeat him is good. I'm saying that fixing exploits that break encounters is good.

I was perfectly fine with everyone pulling him outside the room, I even suggested it to some people who were having problems. But now that the devs have fixed it, I'm not shedding any tears about it either.

Personally? I wouldn't mind a bit (you mean temp pets right? Not powerset pets.) Notice the difference between "I wouldn't mind" and "Yea, the devs should totally do this!" The latter is not what I'm saying.

For the life of me, I can't understand why you people are having so much trouble with this encounter. No I really don't.

Wow, I think you actually meant that. Even without enhancements a Mastermind/Anything is better than 90% of the other ATs. Even my weakest MMs are like private armies curb-stomping 12-year-olds waving squirt guns.

You've never played Mercs OR Poison, have you?

Because, get this; Not everyone plays the same way you do. Not everyone will find the things you and others find easy to be so easy. Stuff you find hard they may find easy.
People and their opinions and experiences differ. Fact of life.

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

I know, right? But apparently we've reached the point where even friendly advice is a reason to get insulted, so I'm out. Enjoy.

Dude, please, I'm the king of alts. If your friend has trouble with him, then -- to sum up your attitude towards the rest of us -- he needs to LRN2P. Masterminds of any stripe are like Easy Mode for Idiots. That's why I love them so.

Hell, I made a Demon/Storm MM just because, which means I have a grand total of ONE ranged attack besides my pets. Because he's mostly un-Enhanced and so has Endurance issues, I almost never use Steamy Mist or Hurricane. A Mercs/Poison MM is like cruise control by comparison.

That's my problem with this. We have to do it as 'intended'. We're being FORCED to do the encounter differently.

This is tho, it could be considered an exploit since the bifurcations are totally negated that way.

So...

1) Kill them, negating them and Beat Trapdoor = Ok
2) Manage to pull Trapdoor out, negating them and Beat Trapdoor = OMFG hAx epxloiters!!

See where I'm coming from?
Personally, I just pointed at him and my bots made him very, very laserfied But thats not the point. I have the slotting and playstyle to pull that off. Others with otehr ATs may not. So, why penalise them?

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

Yes, because in case 1 you are killing them to negate them. In case 2 you are doing something intentionally to bypass a game mechanic.

Don't really care about it myself, he is easy enough without pulling into the hallway. Just saying that it could be considered an exploit and thats probably why they fixing it.

I guess that would make my confusing his clones an exploit, too.



Edit: And I've never pulled him from the room on any of my fights.

Angel Red
"We're heroes. Fighting injustice is the thing we do." ~Rebel Scum

I understand, but pulling Trapdoor out of the room also makes the fight far too much of an AI circumvent. Think about it. If Trapdoor were a real person, he would not run from the source of his healing.

I don't see any AT as being penalized. This encounter isn't particularly difficult. You might need to prepare if you don't have very high DPS. But I've managed it with squishies with no problem. So have others. I have not teamed to do any of this arc for any of my characters. People need to step it up a notch because Apex and Tin Mage and whatever else Positron has planned for us is coming right behind it so you might as well get ready.

Well, to be fair, not everyone has the accolades.

Yet players still manage to pull off MoRSF runs without nukes or shivans, or any temp powers at all, by using tactics and skill...

This is what it comes down to in a nutshell. The fight against Trapdoor was designed around a specific mechanic: the presence of "bifurcation" clones who boost the real Trapdoor's regeneration when present and who spawn at specific locations on the map, regardless of the real trapdoor's location. Players who were pulling trapdoor outside of the range of his clones were breaking the encounter design. Plain and simple. And this is unfortunately not a pen-and-paper RPG with a GM who could adjust the encounter as needed on the fly to accommodate the players breaking the encounter as designed.

We're a bit spoiled in this game because the vast majority of major encounters in this game are NOT built around encounter-specific mechanics. Usually it's just "Throw Big Bad A and/or Big Bad B into room X, and let the players beat down on the big bag(s) of HP". When the Romulus Augustus final encounter came along, players figured out fairly quickly that they could still just stand there and beat him down in most cases, despite the developers having clearly tried to come up with an encounter which relied upon specific mechanics to avoid that very solution. The Reichsman encounter also relies on encounter-specific mechanics, although many would argue that in trying to keep players from reverting back to the old "stand and punch" tactic, they made the encounter exceedingly gimmicky.

The Trapdoor encounter is actually well-designed, except for the part where players could pull Trapdoor away from where his bifurcations spawned, thereby once again reducing the encounter to "Stand next to Big Bad A and punch him until he's defeated." So yes, the devs are trying to tell you how to play in this case, because they designed the encounter around a mechanic that players were capable of completely sidestepping, thereby taking away the one major challenge in the encounter (not including any general challenges faced by low damage or low defense players fighting an Elite Boss).

Should this have been fixed before I19 went live? Sure. It was known about during the beta. Unfortunately, things end up in the QA pipeline when they do, and it's not always possible to implement a fix for a bug that comes along as soon as that fix is made.

Not like it's unheard of for them to disallow it.

Just off the top of my head of something that was specifically changed: Lord Recluse in the STF. Yeah, you can still pull him...just not "away" from his Towers. And while it's not exactly pulling in the classically defined sense, the last patch dealt with making Director 11's mine pets less easily bypassed (not to mention the small room they make you fight him in, complete with ambushes).

Another interpretation? Battle Maiden can't be pulled "away" from her swords of doom; additionally, her painfully slow crossbow attack and extremely long range with it also strike me as being another form of anti-pulling. Also, you can consider the fight against Nictus Romulus in the ITF. Yeah, you can separate him from his pets but it does require coordination beyond "hide in the hallway" and isn't completely guaranteed as a tactic.

Get over your persecution complex. Yeah, I didn't need to say the argument was fighting shadows (which it clearly is, based on the way the thread has gone), but the portion regarding Inspirations is still valid and anyone that would refuse to use them should be disregarded.

Yes he would. Trapdoor is an arrogant S.O.B. and wrongly assumes that all heroes are insignificant pipsqueaks he can squash like a bug. So as a matter of pride he will deliberately walk away from his source of healing just to prove that he can turn you into a red smear without any assistance.

Neener neener neener.

I imagine he wouldn't stand waist-deep in hot lava, either.

I really don't see how this is any more expolit-y than the pulling that people do routinely in every other part of the game. Are they going to nerf separating Romulus from the healing Nictus in ITF too? Or pulling the individual Freedom Phalanxers in LRSF?

It's a bog-standard tactic in this game. You might as well outlaw rocket-jumping in Quake.

I honestly don't think this is a simple matter of "pulling is cheapo cheating and we're not allowing it".
I think it is more about the game mechanics not following the concept well enough.

StormSurvivor says it well:

I agree completely.

Having it so rigidly odd, in that his clones only spawn in the lava room and won't leave/follow him, makes no sense and just performed as a nonsensical, clunky video game snafu.

Instead of implementing ways for Trapdoor to get the regen out of line of sight and/or have the clones follow him...
They're cutting corners and preventing us from pulling him out of range of the clones and whathaveyou.

Personally, I am perfectly fine with this change.
I'm not really sure what is unclear about the reasons for this change.

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