Elite Traps: Great Idea, Poorly Implemented

[Vormaerin]

The Crucible Horn of Agility. Cannot be disabled.
The Pit force traps. Cannot be disabled.

If you know of a way to run either of those without getting hit...please feel free to share.

Not sure about the crucible, but the pit force traps can be timed generally and don't do that much damage anyway.

[lostinjapan]

Not sure about the crucible, but the pit force traps can be timed generally and don't do that much damage anyway.

Have you run the pit on elite since the DC changes?

[Vormaerin]

Hmm, actually, I'm not sure The last run might have been right before mod 6 now that you mention it.. Anyway, I rarely get hit by those things unless I just chose to ignore them. What are the damage values on elite these days?

[Stormanne]

Kind of a toss up for me. I've got a fairly gimped mid/high level rogue, yet I seem to make my saves 99% of the time. Yet my newer specialized rogue is getting torn apart from the new trap DC's. Maybe one just has a better lucky streak with the dice...

[Mad_Bombardier]

The Crucible Horn of Agility. Cannot be disabled.
The Pit force traps. Cannot be disabled.

If you know of a way to run either of those without getting hit...please feel free to share.

The Pit force blast traps are easily timed and walked through. Alternatively, you can Haste and run past them before they start firing (they stop when no one is around).

[Praut_Ektor]

Two cents, though a dollar short:

I have never been on a run, in the Pit, on any diff, where not once has anyone been hit by the force trap. The quest already takes 3+ hours for inexperienced players to run it, now amplify that by at least 2 waiting for them to try and figure out the traps and how to get back and forth without dying in them.

Rail against me for that, but let's not even look at this for the uber-twinked character. Let's just look at it for the normal, casual gamer who should be the one that DDO is prepared for, not for your level 16 uber rogue with a +95 reflex save (sarcasm and exaggeration, of course).

If we're still looking for traps that you have to run through to get to, STK, again, the big fire room. If you're quick enough you can generally get through it fine, now I'm curious how even my level 12 rogue would do in there on elite. IMO elite has a level req for a reason. It should stick to that. That was part of the problem I've had with the Proof is in the Poison. When level capped characters have issues running a level 6 quest there should be some thought there. As far as I know, you can't disable the acid in Proof is in the Poison. Maybe resists and protections help, but there is only the one shrine, so be prepared to wait 30 mins or more for it to reset. Yay.

Also, ran one of the House K quests last night for favor and there are boxes on both sides of a sonic trap there (I believe it was lair of summoning, but don't remember). It occurred to me then that it wasn't very nice for a level appropriate rogue to have to deal with it, but we had a 16 with us, so go us.

I don't think this debate should even be whether your level 16 uber rogue can do it. I'm thinking about the level appropriatness of it. I am fine with traps outright killing non-rogues on elite. Seriously, they're there to kill, not to wound, but that doesn't take a DC 5600 reflex save or die trap to accomplish it. Rogues shouldn't have to pay with their lives everytime a trap is attempted. I shudder to think of the hallways in Von 5 now. I had a high enough reflex to run up and down that before, and jumping over the lightning is good for a rogue, but not for the rest of the squishies. Even a 30 pt resist isn't super helpful there now...

[Seneca_Windforge]

Two cents, though a dollar short:

I have never been on a run, in the Pit, on any diff, where not once has anyone been hit by the force trap. The quest already takes 3+ hours for inexperienced players to run it, now amplify that by at least 2 waiting for them to try and figure out the traps and how to get back and forth without dying in them.

Rail against me for that, but let's not even look at this for the uber-twinked character. Let's just look at it for the normal, casual gamer who should be the one that DDO is prepared for, not for your level 16 uber rogue with a +95 reflex save (sarcasm and exaggeration, of course).

If we're still looking for traps that you have to run through to get to, STK, again, the big fire room. If you're quick enough you can generally get through it fine, now I'm curious how even my level 12 rogue would do in there on elite. IMO elite has a level req for a reason. It should stick to that. That was part of the problem I've had with the Proof is in the Poison. When level capped characters have issues running a level 6 quest there should be some thought there. As far as I know, you can't disable the acid in Proof is in the Poison. Maybe resists and protections help, but there is only the one shrine, so be prepared to wait 30 mins or more for it to reset. Yay.

Also, ran one of the House K quests last night for favor and there are boxes on both sides of a sonic trap there (I believe it was lair of summoning, but don't remember). It occurred to me then that it wasn't very nice for a level appropriate rogue to have to deal with it, but we had a 16 with us, so go us.

I don't think this debate should even be whether your level 16 uber rogue can do it. I'm thinking about the level appropriatness of it. I am fine with traps outright killing non-rogues on elite. Seriously, they're there to kill, not to wound, but that doesn't take a DC 5600 reflex save or die trap to accomplish it. Rogues shouldn't have to pay with their lives everytime a trap is attempted. I shudder to think of the hallways in Von 5 now. I had a high enough reflex to run up and down that before, and jumping over the lightning is good for a rogue, but not for the rest of the squishies. Even a 30 pt resist isn't super helpful there now...

While I agree with you generally, classes with high reflex saves should be able to survive traps too.

Rangers and Monks have/will have Evasion for a reason. Maybe they'll be a couple points behind because of no Trap Sense, but it devalues their Evasion if they can't realistically save against traps in a level appropriate quest (elite is supposed to be +2 levels...that's what the game says!). Just because they aren't Rogues doesn't mean they aren't super quick, and doesn't mean that their high Reflex saves should Not Matter just because this is a trap and not a spell.

Other classes with good Reflex saves like Bards and Paladins should be able to survive (though maybe not dance through) traps in a level appropriate quests because they'll be taking half damage. If (assuming average hit points) half damage is killing these characters, then the trap is doing too much damage for its level.

[Jaywade]

I haven't seen the dev's comment on this yet, which is funny to me.....my thoughts (as a player I play a lot have 3 lvl 16, 4 lvl 15,1 lvl 14 , my lowbie is 11 I do play a multi rogue and 1 barb w/ evasion)


I think the Dev's broke the traps the other way....
what I mean is for the most part traps didn't matter at all and were a complete after thought (which I would say was [I]broken....[I]

now the damage is way over the top (damage is some places seem to be be 3 x as much)and the DC's checks for evasion are way out of wack, to the point where there are a lot of traps that just killers to all except those running around the highest possible relfex's and full evasion..... while the didable and spot and search DC's are all okay, if you have to cross the traps in many places you are done.... and anyone who had splashed rogue and had a mid 20 relfex now basicaly just wasted the 2 lvl and gimped thier toon (in terms of traps evasion is still handy for some spells effects)


Dev's you went a little to far, it seems like where the reflex save might of been 30 you took it to as high as 45-50 range...just this morning I was in HIPS and got hit w/ a spike trap on a roll of 18 +18 so a roll of 36 failed on a lvl 10 quest (playing my evasion barb)
that seems a bit broken... honestly some pure rogues don't have a high enough reflex now, hoenstly if I was going to roll up a trap monkey now I'd go 14/2 rogue/pally halfing casue the reflex's dc's are way too high ... I say scale it back to half the distance from where they were to where they are now was 30- now 50 make it 40.....just my thoughts

[kruggar]

my thoughts..

the ddo enhancement system increase the diference of the reflex of pure rogue and pure ranger when talking about evasion of traps.

the devs increased the dc too much to make the rogue a need in the quest and avoyd the multiclass rogues or rangers to bypass the traps unharmed.

i made a wizrd with 1 rogue lvl a long time ago.. planning to be an arcane trickster and its very good in that, with the new lvl increase i took my second rogue lvl to gain evasion and the insightfull reflex to use my 34 int in place of my 24 dex.. reached the 30s reflex save and for my surprise its the same as dont have evasion in elite high lvl traps. Died a few time in temple of vol relying in my new evasion. I agree that a pure rogue can have a high refelx save then a wizard with 2 rogue lvls, but it seems that the dificulty of the traps are way too high.

30s reflex save is high enought to dodge all AoE spells sent against me and i still not able to avoid a trap? theres something wrong in here.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

Yes, I agree entirely!

The old dungeons were not designed with these DCs in mind.

A quest should be completable without a certain build.

Even on elite.

Optionals are a different story.

IMO.

[Praut_Ektor]

One more thing ocurred to me from running those quests last night:

Level 15 cleric, 200 hit points, by no means a real tank or anything to look at, but we were in one of House K quests and I managed to do the good ol' barbarian move and run into an electric trap. I don't need no 95 spot to see traps, watch!

Yeah, dead. It was like a level 8 quest total. I checked the combat log and in 3 ticks I took 90 pts of dmg a tick. That was about 3 seconds worth. In all fairness, my reflex sucks and didn't have resist electricity on, but this for me has the same problem that I run into with the orc I had problems with yesterday.

When something is so far below your level, there should be no challenge, which is why we wait until higher levels to get favor.

Why should I have to worry about dieing in a quest that is 7-8 levels lower than I am? I didn't fall asleep, I just ran through a trap.

Why should a CR 2 orc with -18 to his will save be able to resist a 32 DC will save based spell?

These are the things that I want to know. Difference in styles I guess, and yeah, I know it's the rules, but I don't think that the DCs and damage needed to be boosted to the levels to make a level capped character affraid if it's still half his level.

If it's a level 6 quest on elite, it should kill or scare level 6 people, it should be a challenge for level 8 people and it should be laughed at if you're level 16.

[Vizzini]

/signed
/signed again
/signed one more time
/signed once again for good measure!

I call shennanigans. In the pit you cannot dodge the electricity trap when pulling the levers. It is completely based on luck as to whether or not the lightning strikes.

In STK where you have to climb up the ladder with the fire blowing you have to be extremely lucky not to (a) die from fire and (b) die from the hobgoblin casters.



I call shennanigans again. VoN5 has traps that require you to stand in it. There are several other quests I have seen with a fire jet positioned to fire directly at the trap box while the rogue disarms it.



I call shennanigans again.

If a twinked out rogue of an appropriate level cannot live through the traps then something is wrong. Last time I did VoN5 (we did it on Hard) the rogue died so often while disabling the hallway he had to recall twice to fix his gear. Granted, he should have taken off his gear, but that's not the point. The point is he was twinked, he was experienced, and he died more then 20 times even though he was L12.

Also, your statement that an L16 average player should not be able to complete an L1 elite quest is false. The point of Elite is to ramp up the difficulty of the quest so that it is extremely difficult for a level appropriate group of players. Not impossible for level appropriate "skilled" players. Not impossible for L+5 characters of "average" skill.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

One more thing ocurred to me from running those quests last night:

Level 15 cleric, 200 hit points, by no means a real tank or anything to look at, but we were in one of House K quests and I managed to do the good ol' barbarian move and run into an electric trap. I don't need no 95 spot to see traps, watch!

Yeah, dead. It was like a level 8 quest total. I checked the combat log and in 3 ticks I took 90 pts of dmg a tick. That was about 3 seconds worth. In all fairness, my reflex sucks and didn't have resist electricity on, but this for me has the same problem that I run into with the orc I had problems with yesterday.

When something is so far below your level, there should be no challenge, which is why we wait until higher levels to get favor.

Why should I have to worry about dieing in a quest that is 7-8 levels lower than I am? I didn't fall asleep, I just ran through a trap.

Why should a CR 2 orc with -18 to his will save be able to resist a 32 DC will save based spell?

These are the things that I want to know. Difference in styles I guess, and yeah, I know it's the rules, but I don't think that the DCs and damage needed to be boosted to the levels to make a level capped character affraid if it's still half his level.

If it's a level 6 quest on elite, it should kill or scare level 6 people, it should be a challenge for level 8 people and it should be laughed at if you're level 16.

I've noticed this too.
For one thing, I've never understood how I can get hit by a trap three time in a split second.....faster than I can possibly react.

I would have less of a problem with high damage traps if they only hit you once and then gave you time to react, and possible get out of the trap......even worse when the trap is set off by opening a chest....and you cant move because the chest window is open.

And saves for baddies on elite................Harbor Kobolds save 25% of the time or more against spells from my 32Int Wiz.
Something wrong there I think.
Takes an average of three hits from my capped toons weapons to kill a Harbor Kobold on elite.....doesn't seem right either.

[MysticTheurge]

I've noticed this too.
For one thing, I've never understood how I can get hit by a trap three time in a split second.....faster than I can possibly react.

Generally that means there are actually three traps there.

For example, the other day I did Grey Moon again. The bridge with the force traps has a trap on each side pointing center, so if you get hit, you're actually getting hit by two force traps.

[Jaywade]

what I think is funny there has been a lot of input (not just in this thread) about the how the traps are now (broken I think) and not 1 dev response....but if I called MT a complete @#$@$% I would get points and a locked thread in a timely manner.....the traps DC for reflex save needs to be address ...haven't heard a dev said boo about it or seen anything in the WDa about it either

[Ranmaru2]

The Crucible Horn of Agility. Cannot be disabled.
The Pit force traps. Cannot be disabled.

If you know of a way to run either of those without getting hit...please feel free to share.

1) Get through fast enough so you don't get hit and learn to jump
2) Don't go running super fast to get to the next room AND you can JUMP the force blasts...

And as for the person earlier. There's a safe spot by every one of those pillars in The Pit in the electric room. As someone who has run the Muck Doom chest at least 200x, I definitely know what I'm talking about. No luck involved. Here I'll give you even more of a spoiler for it. You know those blue dots on the pillars? The lightning shoots straight across to those, and only an occasional place in there shoots to the switch directly (only about 4 places that do).

[MysticTheurge]

what I think is funny there has been a lot of input (not just in this thread) about the how the traps are now (broken I think) and not 1 dev response....but if I called MT a complete @#$@$% I would get points and a locked thread in a timely manner.....the traps DC for reflex save needs to be address ...haven't heard a dev said boo about it or seen anything in the WDa about it either

I'm no at-pound-dollar-at-dollar-percent!

[Ranmaru2]

I'm no at-pound-dollar-at-dollar-percent!

OH YES YOU ARE!

[Jaywade]

I'm no at-pound-dollar-at-dollar-percent!

okay a @#%$^&@# then

[GreyRogue]

what I think is funny there has been a lot of input (not just in this thread) about the how the traps are now (broken I think) and not 1 dev response....but if I called MT a complete @#$@$% I would get points and a locked thread in a timely manner.....the traps DC for reflex save needs to be address ...haven't heard a dev said boo about it or seen anything in the WDa about it either

True enough. Of course, Tolero doesn't need to talk to the developers to find out the status of a fix to keep you from violating the forum's rules or talk to the powers that be about what the company line is going to be about your attacks on MT (although I'm sure he deserves them ).