The Impossible Mr. Trapdoor and Issue 19's New Theme

Doing things correctly is no impediment to a determined dev team!

FWIW, players can teleport while immobilized too. But if a player doesn't know that, they certainly might complain.

To add to the Trapdoor anecdotes, last night I ran Ramiel's arc on my Blaster. Trapdoor was, again, ridiculously simple, just as on my Brute. Attack attack attack, bifurcate, fly around tab-targeting, there he is, blow him up, go back to attacking Trapdoor, repeat once before he drops.

I don't know, I guess he could be tough on a Controller? Maybe? Possibly a Defender without good debuffs? Someone mentioned Stone Tanks: you DO realize they have, like, 8 other powers in their powerset, right? That Granite Armor's slowness is supposed to be a tradeoff? That it's not necessarily supposed to be on ALL the time?

Which is why you lure the EBs out one at a time. See, they're not linked to each other nor are they linked to any of the Rikti. Pack a ranged attack of some kind, be it primary, secondary, pool, or temp, and pull one EB. At most only a few Rikti will come with. My Blaster sniped each EB from max distance and they came running to me on their own, where they met a faceful of Trip Mines and fire. Yes, if you don't have a defense set you'll probably want to load up on purples and oranges, but that's what they're there for.

That all said, I completely agree that Holtz and Honoree are by far the more difficult fight. Even so, I'm pretty confident the entire story arc can be soloed by someone with a good understanding of their abilities and how to best use them in an unusual situation.

Yep. I haven't fought both EBs together on anyone, even though I have a couple of characters who could probably handle it. I've always taken out the closest two portals (one at a time) then pulled Holtz, then pulled the Honoree.

I think I died a one or two of times fighting the EBs across six characters. One was a Defender being defeated by the Honoree because I tried to outlast his stuns without using a BF. (It didn't work.) and one was a Corruptor who was hit by Holtz's Plasma Grenade. I think that was the name. It's a huge pink explosion that does somewhere north of 600 points of damage and stuns you, accompanied by a very impressive sounding thundering explosion noise.

Note that I'm aware my own characters are not representative of those of the playerbase at large, as evidenced that I always ran the arc at +2.

Yup, that's what I ended up doing on my pair of squishies. Died 4 times trying on the dom before I got it down pat, but only one of those was my fault (jumped in all overconfident). The other 3 were just 'the RNG hates you today' deaths - that little cheatyface honoree 2 shot me *three times* through my purples by rolling two consecutive 5% chances to hit. On the other hand, the defender just pulled from the start and didn't die, although he got unlucky enough to get both EBs and did go through some hairy moments.

It is still definitely soloable, although given what the devs did to prevent trapdoor from being pulled, I wonder if they'll do the same for the honoree/holtz at some point. *That* would be annoying, but as it stands I don't think there's really any overall problem with the difficulty level.

I doubt they will, the devs in general don't seem to mind pulling as a tactic, the only time when they act to stop it is when it serves to nullify an enemies "powers" (such as Trapdoor and the Khan TF).

I believe you're seeing the advantage of a diminishing returns system (although I don't like the name) over just leveraging the purple patch. The observation you're making is precisely one of those I made with regard to using the purple patch to make the LRSF difficult when it was first introduced. At +5 tier one pets would have been in the ultra-deep end of the purple patch pool at -7.

Of course, this is not the fault of level shift. Its the fault of using level 55s to simulate diminishing returns because the playerbase would go ape-**** if the devs added DR to PvE. Or to be more specific, a segment of the forum population would. This lends itself to an obvious observation I won't bother expressing.

Its also theoretically fixable, or at least addressable in some fashion. I have no specific information on this matter, but in theory the devs could add a mastermind fix to all Alphas with level shift by playing games with Bodyguard. It would probably require some tech to do it, though.

Typically, people do that, or sometimes honestly they just PM me.


I cannot speak to specific details that are not generally known, and some of the mechanics of level shift aren't finalized yet, but to the general points:

1. Sidekicking code temporarily adjusts actual levels. The SKed player is temporarily actually level 49 and using level 49 tables (otherwise a level 1 SKed to level 49 would still have only 100 points of health). The critters also have an intrinsic level, they are level 50 and 51. So they are even and +1 to the 50, and +1 and +2 to the SKed 49. If the level 50 possessed level shift, the critters would be -1 and even to him. They would still be +1 and +2 to the Sked 49, because the SKed player would still be 49, because the level 50 would still be level 50, at least that is the scenario if the devs do not deliberately change that situation.

2. In scenario 2, the critters would be level 53, three levels higher than the players. If the players had four levels of level shift, those critters would be -1 to them in effective combat level. They would still be +3 to the level 50 that did not have level shift. This requires interpreting what you mean by "set to be +3 to them." In the past, there was only one way to do that: set the critters to spawn three levels higher than the players, in this case 53. In the end game, the devs have a second possible technique: they can give the critters level shifts of their own. Under those circumstances, things get more interesting, and more complex.

Also, its worth noting that at the moment, the only known sources of level shift are the Alpha slot rare and very rare powers, some temp powers that were leaked, and some special items such as a level shift inspiration that we may or may not ever get our hands on (it might have been just for testing purposes). Leaked information about the next few Incarnate slots did not show level shifts in them. There are people assuming that eventually we will have ten incarnate slots and ten levels of level shift. That's extremely unlikely. Such players would be +10 to the standard level 50 content, which incarnate powers work on, which would be ludicrous.

I guarantee you, 100%, with absolute certainty, will put money on the line, that Holtz and Honoree are meant to be pulled.

See, Trapdoor is standing in the middle of a giant unique room. It's clearly a set piece meant for a moving battle where you have to run around playing hide and seek with bifurcations. He's meant to be fought there.

But Holtz and Honoree? They're standing in this teeny room surrounded by an unfair number of Rikti. This teeny room is just beyond a very large, nearly empty room that seems to have no purpose except to house a few meager ambushes.

These aren't random maps; they were designed this way. There is an implication that is very nearly shouted at you in the H/H map that You Are To Use The Big Room. Add to this the fact that it's totally possible to pull one of the EBs without alerting any other enemy in the room. The only sane conclusion I can draw is that you're expected to pull H and H out away from the portals where you can properly fight them without being swarmed.

Because clearly more DR would be a good idea.

They're fun - and the Apex TF needs a slightly different playstyle than a lot of people are used to.

I'm not sure why anyone would even want this, unless it was able to be turned off. Everything would con grey, meaning no inf and no drops.

Actually they wouldn't. When the game calculates combat formulae, it would use 60 in your spot instead of 50, but YOU would still be level 50. Level 50 minions would still be white, 54 would still be purple. You'd just be able to trash them like you were 60.

This is the crux of the new system - if you propose to make players more powerful, you need to provide them with content that suits their expected power levels. Clearly level 50 content ain't it, even without ten level shifts. Clearly, new, special Incarnate content would be required, which is why the developers have been against raising the level cap in the past. It only delays the content gap.

Here's the thing - they're trying to sell this as not really a level cap increase and really as something that's just more stuff to do at level 50. It ain't. It's a cheeky venture, but they cannot get away with adding new levels post 50 without adding new content for those levels and NOT for level 50. This is where the Incarnate system will sink or swim.

Much as I hat to be the one to say "focus on end game," there really is no future for the Incarnate system if it doesn't come with a MASSIVE content boost at some point, because I doubt many people are going to want to wait two years for the content gap to get filled in. And if you think people are just going to regrind the same TFs over and over again, they won't. Not after the craze is over. Not with such frequency and ferocity.

Constant repetition of end game raids only works if your game starts at the end game and you funnel all players to that point to spin their wheels there, and I just don't feel City of Heroes is the right game for that. They NEED content. A lot of it. At this point I'm willing to accept just a whole huge pool of generic Incarnate-only missions, if that's what it takes to provide content that counts.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't the AVs in Ramiel's first mission con yellow when they should con purple?
edit: I checked and they do con yellow even though they are level 50 AVs, which would seem to lend credence to the only 2 level shifts theory.

I will, quite honestly, be very surprised if any degree of level shift actually works like this. I expect it to affect reward. If they could, the devs would probably make IOs and the like affect reward. "Effective" level difference calculations are a lot more accessible to them for this purpose.

Only if you face them as level 50 AVs. (They con red at level 52.)

Would seem to indicate we should be level shifted to 54, If I'm reading the wiki right, by the end of the Incarnate levels.

Trapdoor is standing on the final map of the Hess Task Force with the room's centerpiece removed.

Didn't know that, never ran it. Point stands, though.