The Impossible Mr. Trapdoor and Issue 19's New Theme
By
Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2010-12-21 17:42 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
I didn't think Trapdoor or Tin Mage were particularly tough AT ALL...unless going for Master of Tin Mage (the Dodge badge is pretty darn tough!).
Apex's Battle Maiden battle is hard, yes, but amazingly fun. Its my favorite TF for that mission alone.
50s: Silent Spy - MA/Regen Scrapper | Tinkerhell - SS/Inv Brute | Extrasensory - Psi/Men Blaster | Ana Cruz - DP/PD Corruptor | Sara Thunderbird - Elec/Elec Scrapper | Pinstrike - Spines/SR Scrapper | Cold Feet - Cold/Cold Blaster
@Silent Spy, Champion Server
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Here's the thing though, if you dislike Trapdoor, Apex and Tin Mage, it's a good bet you won't like whatever content is in I20 anyway. The devs intent with Incarnate content seems to be making content that provides some challenge not though making the numbers larger (as the attempted to do with Reichsman) but by introducing special mechanics that require something other than tank and spank. I really doubt that the I20 Incarnate content will suddenly go back to being Tank and Spank (although the non-incarnate content probably will).
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Originally Posted by Heraclea
I've tried them all several times, never succeeded, and am not really eager to experience them again. At this stage my chief concern is that i20 will be adding content that is gated through this particular content. Rather than more of this, maybe three more PvP zones?
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Trapdoor|
Originally Posted by SilentSpy
I didn't think Trapdoor or Tin Mage were particularly tough AT ALL...unless going for Master of Tin Mage (the Dodge badge is pretty darn tough!).
Apex's Battle Maiden battle is hard, yes, but amazingly fun. Its my favorite TF for that mission alone. |
Tin-Mage
Apex
One of these is not like the others.
"Samual_Tow - Be disappointed all you want, people. You just don't appreciate the miracles that are taking place here."
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Originally Posted by Razoras
Formed a team with 3 tanks, 2 controllers, 1 defender, a scrapper, and a brute.
Beat the Apex TF in less than an hour. It went pretty good considering the general lack of melee! There were some frequent deaths but no real unrecoverable setbacks. Even the guy who could never get out of the blue fire did pretty good. I was expecting a disaster but it was quite neat. Honestly, trapdoor could very well be un-soloable but a single teammate should completely change the balance. Even people that complain about not getting teams should be able to manage a single teammate. |
THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX.
Then things become easy. Seriously people, theres a few new tricks they added, and if you insist on going against them because 'oh my god, its different' then you deserve any debt badges you get.
Multiple people in this thread have not just pointed out how to turn trap door into a snooze fest, or written guides on how to solo him, or pointed out how to do battle maiden with and without melee characters, or mentioned that pets are the way to beat director 11.
Just because you (the people complaining) can't figure it out, and get upset about it, doesn't mean its 'impossible' and 'unfair'. Its about as unfair as someone taking a purples out warshade on a apex, and then using dwarf to taunt the battle maiden around. Or using nova form to slow battle maiden to the point where shes crawling, and then the blue patches of death becoming nothing more then a timed rotation. You get a sparkling blue field under you, YOU MOVE. Or you die. pretty much thats it. If you refuse to move, be glad they give debt badges. If battle maiden is on top of a blue field of death, swap to ranged attacks, there are plenty of temp powers available to use during the 20 seconds you have to wait for her field to pass.
Its not that hard.
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The playstyle that has always brought me back to this game is in the process of being removed or made unplayable in the Incarnate content. The characters that I've spent six years developing here are being frozen out of that same content. I am supposed to be pleased at these developments. Gotcha. |
Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood
Here's the thing though, if you dislike Trapdoor, Apex and Tin Mage, it's a good bet you won't like whatever content is in I20 anyway. The devs intent with Incarnate content seems to be making content that provides some challenge not though making the numbers larger (as the attempted to do with Reichsman) but by introducing special mechanics that require something other than tank and spank. I really doubt that the I20 Incarnate content will suddenly go back to being Tank and Spank (although the non-incarnate content probably will).
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As I said before, the absolute last thing this game needs is progression raiding. It's poison to the player base. Eventually you'll face some kind of boss with such elaborate choreography that it will take weeks or months for players to work it out. There will be crowing about the first time the boss was downed, the first time a group downed it on a server; people will then claim to have mastered it so well they have that boss "on farm". This sort of content engenders a poisonous elitism.
Eventually, play here will be subject to various timers and alarms. Team organizers will resort to voice chat programs to herd the players. You won't be paying as much attention to what's on your screen; you'll be waiting for voice instruction as to where you go next. Odds are the place you are supposed to be standing isn't going to be within melee range of the boss, either. If you stand in the wrong place, do the wrong thing at the wrong time, expect to be one-starred and probably kicked. Somebody out there obviously enjoys playing games under these constraints and conditions. I do not.
I've gotten six years of enjoyment out of this game. I suppose it doesn't owe me anything at this point. Just don't expect me to celebrate this game's losing the distinctiveness that's been its chief attraction for me.
<《 New Colchis / Guides / Mission Architect 》>
"At what point do we say, 'You're mucking with our myths'?" - Harlan Ellison
This is a long thread with a low signal:noise ratio, and I'm unwilling to trudge through it. What's the argument against getting a temp power or two/popping a bunch of insps/asking one single person to come help with killing clones while you beat on Trapdoor? I get that it's tougher on some ATs/powersets than others, but it also seems to be tougher on some players than others. There's no shame in getting help or adjusting your playstyle. The things that work on ol' Hopkins in the Manticore task force might not work so well against a guy who can split himself into multiples, let alone a hopped-up Bobcat or a Battle Maiden who can summon freaking swords from space or whatever.
edit: Heraclea, I don't see any of that in any of the new content. I don't know where you are seeing it either. It sounds like you are making something up to rail against.
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This rates a 10 on the Drama meter, and about a 4 on the "living in reality" meter. It won't kill you to ask for help on ONE arc. But go ahead and delete characters that you've spent years working on because of one mission that's giving you trouble. They're just worthless for everything in the game now. That'll show em. Don't bother trying to figure out another way or anything.
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Originally Posted by Heraclea
Yeah, a mechanic that generated that particular picture couldn't possibly be broken, right?
Three clones. Three. After the third one falls you are done chasing them. I suppose what I hate the most about the mission as it now stands is that it's forcing me to realize that I have level 50 characters who are not mains, will not be mains, and that I'm now being made to abandon. Most of these characters are tankers. I played them because I like tankers, and wanted to play every tanker primary and secondary at high levels. I moved a number of them off my main server (Victory) when server transfers were free. These characters are not tricked out with many IO set bonuses like my mains are. My mains mostly did this during the first week the new arc went live, and as such had no issues. Now that this undroppable mission has been flagged NOT FOR TANKERS, if I wanted to run the arc on those characters it would mean standing around on an infrequently visited server begging for a controller to come in and solo the mission for me. Being reluctant to do that, I have to face that these characters are not going to unlock the alpha slot. They have no future in the game, and may as well be deleted. The thing that's held my interest about this game has ever been that it allows you to have fifteen or fifty characters you break out from time to time instead of concentrating on a limited number of mains. This is what gated endgames do; and when you must face the prospect of getting all the keys open on a freshly made high level character, it's daunting enough to be discouraging. Good going. |
Loose --> not tight.
Lose --> Did not win, misplace, cannot find, subtract.
One extra 'o' makes a big difference.
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Why do you think they are being frozen out of anything? I see you with choices which I consider completely viable. |
Originally Posted by Heraclea
The playstyle that has always brought me back to this game is in the process of being removed or made unplayable in the Incarnate content. The characters that I've spent six years developing here are being frozen out of that same content. I am supposed to be pleased at these developments. Gotcha.
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For characters that have been intentionally built to be low damage output (because of concept, you wanted to play powersets with low DPS, whatever), it's completely reasonable that you should expect these characters to sometimes need help. It would be unreasonable for you to expect they would never need help. Why would you build a low DPS Tanker on some server where you don't know anyone? What was the thought process here?
That leaves characters who have low DPS unintentionally. That means they could have better DPS, and you'd be willing to do the things that would let them. For characters who intrinsically either have the DPS needed naturally, or who can get it through build choices that wouldn't ruin your concept, why can't you adjust their build or your playstyle? And yes, Tankers can have the DPS to do this, and Scrappers are one of the most likely ATs to be able to deal with Trapdoor outside of debuff-wielding ATs.
I don't see this content gated the way you're saying. I see you excluding yourself from this content because you are both unwilling to seek assistance and unwilling to explore how to improve your existing characters. The inference I take from your taking the time to mention that you might as well delete these characters is that you think that's a crappy choice, but if you really think that it absolutely beggars my imagination that you'd fail to explore options for how to avoid it.
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| As I said before, the absolute last thing this game needs is progression raiding. It's poison to the player base. Eventually you'll face some kind of boss with such elaborate choreography that it will take weeks or months for players to work it out. There will be crowing about the first time the boss was downed, the first time a group downed it on a server; people will then claim to have mastered it so well they have that boss "on farm". This sort of content engenders a poisonous elitism. |
I think you're afraid of shadows.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
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It is inevitable that gimmick fights disfavor melee:|
Originally Posted by UberGuy
Why do you think they are being frozen out of anything? I see you with choices which I consider completely viable.
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- The boss is made invincible by an ally he summons. You must break off to fight something else.
- You aren't allowed to stand within melee range of the boss; you must run away.
- The boss is using an AOE nuke; you must run away.
- You can't stand next to the boss, the boss will be healed by your presence.
<《 New Colchis / Guides / Mission Architect 》>
"At what point do we say, 'You're mucking with our myths'?" - Harlan Ellison
I guess it's impossible to run all melee teams through the new content.
Oh wait...
[U][URL="http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=251594"][/URL][/U]
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I'm trying to think of a single encounter in the game which turns *any* well built and played character into a liability. And failing. Sure, you won't always be able to work to your full capability, but if you think that means you're a liability, well, then, all I can say is you need to learn the meaning of the word.
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Originally Posted by Heraclea
It is inevitable that gimmick fights disfavor melee:
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My brute is anything but useless. Not perfoming at her top of her capabilities, sure, but still putting out decent damage. I remember one team I took through the Apex without any problems; it consisted of the following: 2 Brutes, 2 Warshades, 1 Scrapper, 1 Tanker, 1 Blaster, 1 Dark Corruptor. We finished the Apex without any unreasonable difficulties in about 65 or so minutes. So I really do fail to see where this "melee are liabilities" concept came from, certainly not from the Apex TF. I've harped on and on about another team that had 3 Tankers and still successfully completed the Task Force, but since that doesn't mesh with certain people's idea of doable, that's conveniently ignored.|
Originally Posted by Heraclea
And so forth. These mechanics turn the characters I like best into liabilities. They do no favor to scrappers or tankers, and make brutes utterly useless. Again, if this is supposed to be a new creative direction in the game, we need a creative U-turn.
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Not everything in this game will favor every character. I feel far less helpful in taking down Green and Blue mitos during LGTF and the Honoree during his 100% resistance to my damage type than in the Apex TF. At least in the Apex TF, whenever I finish off the Attack Vitals combo (which happens often), it'll do damage. And I find that unlike the blaster or corruptor, I can afford to ignore the Animated Swords and Champions due to my secondary.
Inevitable that gimmick fights disfavor melee?
Here's a gimmick fight: The boss drops instakill patches that must be dodged everywhere in a ring within 15-120 feet of itself. Within that center 15' radius, eye of the storm such as it were, the boss regularly does an AOE attack that characters with defense sets can survive well enough but others will die pretty quickly.
End result, melee can stand there wailing away on the boss while the ranged either have to dodge, close in where they're in danger of taking lethal damage no matter what, or else build specifically for range to let them get outside of the circle of death, provided their attacks have a base range of 80'.
There. A gimmick fight that favors melee over ranged.
De minimis non curat Lex Luthor.
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Not only did we win but we beat it under an hour. And that was even with one of the teammates standing in fire constantly and another refusing to not slow Battlemaiden so that we had a hard time dragging her out of the doom zones.
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Originally Posted by Flarstux
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My Going Rogue Trailer
Virtue (blue) - Wes The Mess
Virtue (red) - Jess The Best
@Razoras
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Yeah, look at all those AV encounters and how they make Dominators a liability. It's a real shame how it stopped people from playing them, isn't it?|
Originally Posted by Heraclea
And so forth. These mechanics turn the characters I like best into liabilities. They do no favor to scrappers or tankers, and make brutes utterly useless. Again, if this is supposed to be a new creative direction in the game, we need a creative U-turn.
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It's fine to be worried about the slippery slope and giving feedback. You've gone well past that. You're into "this is what's happening, and everything is ruined because of it." You've moved past feedback into doomcrying, and frankly I think it's sad.
I've done this content where my melees are a liability. I've been fine. I've been invited to teams. I've gotten heaps of badges and rewards. I've been as kick-*** as usual where there wasn't a reason I couldn't be, and only select little components have meant I couldn't be. It's not what you claim it is. Go delete your characters if you think that's the thing to do, but if you delete them when you'd rather play them, I think you're being dumb for not doing the things that would adapt them to "harder" content.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
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That would be most Tankers. Now, I'm sure someone will come along any minute now and tell us all about how THEIR tanker out-damages every other AT in the game with nothing but a few out-dated TOs and can solo Nosferatu using Brawl. (If anybody could do that it would be Ironblade.)|
Originally Posted by UberGuy
That leaves characters who have low DPS unintentionally.
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I've played enough Tankers to know better. I always take most of the attacks available to my Tankers, and I always slot for damage. I know some Tankers can do pretty well, all things considered, but it still takes them a lot more attacks to kill things like EBs than the more damage-oriented ATs.
My electric/ice guy stomped Trapdoor through the floor before that patch and ignored the bifurcations. How would he fare now? Probably not very well. My ice/mace guy - screenshots linked elsewhere in this thread - had a hell of a time with Trapdoor. He'd get in an attack or two, then he'd have to stop to go find and defeat a clone, then run back to Trapdoor, get in an attack or two, then go find and defeat a clone, and he had to do this over and over and over and over and over and over and over.
Peanut gallery: "Get help!"
Sigh. If my Tanker has to go running for help... I might as well play a Defender.
You want to know why I like playing Tankers? Because - and as much as I do agree with Johnny Butane on a lot of things concerning Tankers - until recently *we didn't freakin' need any help*. 'Cept maybe with Nosferatu.
I don't mind a tough fight. I don't mind a challenge. I'll say it again: I do not find this new stuff to be challenging or tough - and it's not that I *can't* do it, it's that, after having done it a few times on various characters, I'd just as soon beat my head against a concrete wall as do it again - because I find it to be obnoxious, annoying, and tedious to the extreme. All those stupid shafts to jump into...
And if this - along with the new TFs - is indeed indicative of what's to come in I20 and beyond...
Well, it certainly won't make me smile and be happy. So there.
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I really don't know what to say to that. Do you not understand that, in this game's AT implementation Tankers are a support AT? They're able to defeat a lot of stuff through sheer ability to slug it out and survive, but they are not the game's best damage dealers by a long shot. The idea that you would speak of playing a Defender in a way that suggests you look down your nose at it while playing a Tanker tells me that you don't have a realistic grasp of how the AT roles are laid out.|
Originally Posted by Flarstux
That would be most Tankers. Now, I'm sure someone will come along any minute now and tell us all about how THEIR tanker out-damages every other AT in the game with nothing but a few out-dated TOs and can solo Nosferatu using Brawl. (If anybody could do that it would be Ironblade.)
I've played enough Tankers to know better. I always take most of the attacks available to my Tankers, and I always slot for damage. I know some Tankers can do pretty well, all things considered, but it still takes them a lot more attacks to kill things like EBs than the more damage-oriented ATs. ... Sigh. If my Tanker has to go running for help... I might as well play a Defender. |
There's a lot more to DPS than slotting for damage. That's what I'm talking to Heraclea about. There are people in the Scrapper forum thread about soloing Rikti Pylons (the ones in the War Zone) with Tankers. They're not in the top ranks of people doing it, but they're generally laying out DPS that would let them solo an Archvillain without any outside help. You can build a Tanker than can do that.
The feel I get about the Incarnate content is that it's going to be the sort of thing that prompts you to look at your character and ask "is this working as well as it could?" If the answer is no and you want to solo, you're going to want to look into that. If the answer is no and you don't want to look into that, you might want a team. If the answer is no and you don't want to either look into it or team, you may be out of luck.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
Quote:
I give up. |
Originally Posted by UberGuy
I really don't know what to say to that. Do you not understand that, in this game's AT implementation Tankers are a support AT? They're able to defeat a lot of stuff through sheer ability to slug it out and survive, but they are not the game's best damage dealers by a long shot. The idea that you would speak of playing a Defender in a way that suggests you look down your nose at it while playing a Tanker tells me that you don't have a realistic grasp of how the AT roles are laid out.
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We understand what you're saying. You don't like the idea that there could be a need to get help on your tank or that there might be content other ATs can do but yours can't. Fine.
My Going Rogue Trailer
Virtue (blue) - Wes The Mess
Virtue (red) - Jess The Best
@Razoras
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Obviously you need help, or else you wouldn't be having issues with trapdoor. Hell, you don't even need to get a friend. Just craft of the Ba-gillion envemoned daggers you get as a drop, and peg trapdoor with it while your going clone hunting. |
Originally Posted by Flarstux
That would be most Tankers. Now, I'm sure someone will come along any minute now and tell us all about how THEIR tanker out-damages every other AT in the game with nothing but a few out-dated TOs and can solo Nosferatu using Brawl. (If anybody could do that it would be Ironblade.)
I've played enough Tankers to know better. I always take most of the attacks available to my Tankers, and I always slot for damage. I know some Tankers can do pretty well, all things considered, but it still takes them a lot more attacks to kill things like EBs than the more damage-oriented ATs. My electric/ice guy stomped Trapdoor through the floor before that patch and ignored the bifurcations. How would he fare now? Probably not very well. My ice/mace guy - screenshots linked elsewhere in this thread - had a hell of a time with Trapdoor. He'd get in an attack or two, then he'd have to stop to go find and defeat a clone, then run back to Trapdoor, get in an attack or two, then go find and defeat a clone, and he had to do this over and over and over and over and over and over and over. Peanut gallery: "Get help!" Sigh. If my Tanker has to go running for help... I might as well play a Defender. You want to know why I like playing Tankers? Because - and as much as I do agree with Johnny Butane on a lot of things concerning Tankers - until recently *we didn't freakin' need any help*. 'Cept maybe with Nosferatu. I don't mind a tough fight. I don't mind a challenge. I'll say it again: I do not find this new stuff to be challenging or tough - and it's not that I *can't* do it, it's that, after having done it a few times on various characters, I'd just as soon beat my head against a concrete wall as do it again - because I find it to be obnoxious, annoying, and tedious to the extreme. All those stupid shafts to jump into... And if this - along with the new TFs - is indeed indicative of what's to come in I20 and beyond... Well, it certainly won't make me smile and be happy. So there. |
You literally have 30 seconds between clones. Assuming your doing base damage, on your tanker attacks, and your NOT using bruising at ALL, it still shouldn't take you more then 8 seconds to kill a minion (4 attacks, give or take). So, assuming travel time, you have about 10 seconds of clone hunting, and 20 seconds of trapdoor pounding. Lucky for you, envemoned daggers -regen is PERMA right out of the box. So, when trap door throws a clone out, you throw a dagger in his face, and either kill the clone (as they add +res to him) or just beat him down as the +regen is negated due to the dagger. Its entirely your choice.
Your making this encounter MUCH harder then it needs to be. You only have to do 3/4 of trap doors health before he concedes, which for a level 50 EB, it just over 4,000 hit points. Hell, if a defender using nothing but archery attacks can solo trap door, then a tanker should be able to easily, as the tanker has a higher damage mod then the defender. (defender's range damage mod is .65, tankers melee mod is .80)
I don't understand why some people want all content to be where you stand in one place and hit 1,2,3,4 over and over until the target is dead.
[U][URL="http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=251594"][/URL][/U]
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Because that is how all of the original ATs and most of the power sets were designed to be used and they've spent six years conditioning us to play that way by punishing us for doing otherwise.|
Originally Posted by Fiery-Enforcer
I don't understand why some people want all content to be where you stand in one place and hit 1,2,3,4 over and over until the target is dead.
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If the devs don't want us playing like that any more or want to 'evolve' the game into an "action MMO", they need to get off their butts, remove all movement suppression and animation rooting, fix all the powers that rely on the old dynamic like Stone Armor, Invincibility and Rise to the Challenge, give better ranged attacks to the melee ATs and fix the ATs that were designed for and are only good for tank and spank, ie Tankers.
Because as a Tanker, a session of spamming Taunt at Battle Maiden and getting in pathetic damage that's made even more pathetic by not even being allowed to stand there and deliver it because the blue patches make my Primary Power set irrelevant, in addition to most of my Secondary, is a [censored] joke and isn't worth my time.
Go to Hell, Apex and Tin Mage.
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Formed a team with 3 tanks, 2 controllers, 1 defender, a scrapper, and a brute.
Beat the Apex TF in less than an hour. It went pretty good considering the general lack of melee! There were some frequent deaths but no real unrecoverable setbacks. Even the guy who could never get out of the blue fire did pretty good. I was expecting a disaster but it was quite neat.
Honestly, trapdoor could very well be un-soloable but a single teammate should completely change the balance. Even people that complain about not getting teams should be able to manage a single teammate.
My Going Rogue Trailer
Virtue (blue) - Wes The Mess
Virtue (red) - Jess The Best
@Razoras