Feedback - Challenge - Dr. Rushmore's Mansion: Behind the Door

[KookieKobold]

Dr. Rushmore and his band of wanted criminals have suddenly appeared with their Mansion!

Can you find them in time?


Feel free to leave feedback and discuss the Challenge Dr. Rushmore's Mansion: Behind the Door in this thread.

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[Grosbeak07]

I ran this with a level 4 Barbarian Half-Orc + a level 4 hireling.

I never saw one of the bosses and as such did not complete. I found the objectives a little vague at first, but got the idea quickly after playing a bit.

I found this quest rather empty to an extent, it seemed I spent most of my time running down near empty hallways, smashing a few boxes and killing a few mobs (which look great).

Enjoyed the "power ups" and it seems like it would be a great quest to run with a few friends where you could spread out and zerg, zerg, zerg.

However, unless the xp is significantly raised, I really don't see people running this other than for novelty.

[brian14]

I ran this with a level 4 Barbarian Half-Orc + a level 4 hireling.
<skip>
I found this quest rather empty to an extent, it seemed I spent most of my time running down near empty hallways, smashing a few boxes and killing a few mobs (which look great).

What else could horc barbarian possibly want?

[Symar-FangofLloth]

Ran it on a level 4 freshly brewed artificer, at level 4, solo.
Horribly died at the 4th gate, the force and blade traps in front of it.
16 gates, really? Wow... although I'd imagine a party could zerg through a lot of it, and split up to grab the crests. Also, no idea where any of the other objectives were, I'm assuming they're deeper in.

[SirShen]

Did this as a level 4 Arty fresh from the ship. Just way to hard to solo and the xp for 15mins is rubbish.

Was very lucky on my 3rd run and got the right crests got to kill a boss but then died right after by earth ele earth grab. They monsters cast alot of nasty spells for level 4. Hold, ray. Im sure as a TR id have no problems but fresh off the boat its nasty for a level 4 to run it at level.

[sirgog]

Took a totally ungeared level 20 (GM powerlevelled, no items other than classic Sword of Shadow and some +4-+6 stat items, no Fortification) in there with a level 20 Bard hireling. The character was probably about as effective as a level 15 character in sensible gear. Entered on level 15.

Mobs seemed appropriate. But finding crests and navigating the vast space was just too much for the time limit. Most of my time wasn't spent in combat, it was spent covering ground.

I also timed out without seeing a boss, although I can see that being less of an issue in a full group.

[PNellesen]

But finding crests and navigating the vast space was just too much for the time limit. Most of my time wasn't spent in combat, it was spent covering ground.

Same here, but on my 19C/1F that I was able to get copied over (so pretty much fully geared except he couldn't equip any of his guild stuff). I went in at level 20, and I did manage to find a boss, but ran out of time before I could take him down, and he seemed to have really good self-healing (it was some kind of Kobold thing, I didn't look at his name closely though). I had stacked DP on him for a couple minutes and had a Blade Barrier going as well but barely put a dent in his HP.

Edit - ran it a 2nd time, and found the Succubus Boss near the Bathrooms with about 8 minutes on the clock (ran around collecting crests and opening doors to boost the time limit). Didn't have much trouble taking her down with stacked DP and constant Blade Barriers. Torc and Conc. Opp kept my SP almost full. That fight was kind of like the new Weapons Shipment - archers everywhere, but at level 20 wasn't too difficult.

[Xionanx]

I also attempted this at Level 4 Solo with a "Fresh off the boat" artificer, it took roughly 3 minutes to "get the idea" of whats going on in the quest, and afterwards it was a simple matter of "Backspacing" around to find the crests and bee lining to them.

I like the idea of the quest however I see some "issues"

A) It GREATLY favors "Haste" and movement speed increases, which at level 4 aren't exactly available in abundance
B) Jump is REQUIRED to succeed as there are some crests that are impossible to get if you dont have jump.
C) Having ROGUE skills is also required to succeed.

So far it seems the best strategy from my 1 attempt would be to split up and zerg with at least 1 Rogue Skill user hitting all the trapped and locked areas, which is "Probably" the intent of the quest hence is name "Dr. Rush More" which IMO is a great play on words for the quest.

This is going to be a MAJOR "Self Sufficient" ZERG quest, and with the limited number of attempts allowed per day I cant see people being willing to "Suffer" having clueless noobs running it with them who might cause a failure.

My advice is to, at least at lower levels, increase the bonus time added for opening doors since the lack of haste and other movement speed enhancers might be an issue. However I'll need further testing in a group before I can make any solid recommendations.

[Produktion_Malphunktion]

I also attempted this at Level 4 Solo with a "Fresh off the boat" artificer, it took roughly 3 minutes to "get the idea" of whats going on in the quest, and afterwards it was a simple matter of "Backspacing" around to find the crests and bee lining to them.

I like the idea of the quest however I see some "issues"

A) It GREATLY favors "Haste" and movement speed increases, which at level 4 aren't exactly available in abundance
B) Jump is REQUIRED to succeed as there are some crests that are impossible to get if you dont have jump.
C) Having ROGUE skills is also required to succeed.

So far it seems the best strategy from my 1 attempt would be to split up and zerg with at least 1 Rogue Skill user hitting all the trapped and locked areas, which is "Probably" the intent of the quest hence is name "Dr. Rush More" which IMO is a great play on words for the quest.

This is going to be a MAJOR "Self Sufficient" ZERG quest, and with the limited number of attempts allowed per day I cant see people being willing to "Suffer" having clueless noobs running it with them who might cause a failure.

My advice is to, at least at lower levels, increase the bonus time added for opening doors since the lack of haste and other movement speed enhancers might be an issue. However I'll need further testing in a group before I can make any solid recommendations.

There are haste powerups in the level
the last two are not true at all.
Any breakable can drop a crest.

[Xionanx]

There are haste powerups in the level
the last two are not true at all.
Any breakable can drop a crest.

Yeah, after running it three more times it appears that:

Monsters drop crests on death.
Crates "rarely" drop crests (but I tend to not waste time breaking them on my arti since XBOW is a SLOW option to break with).
There are crests all over the freaking place, on ledges, in the water, etc.

So I had 2 successful runs out of 5, both of which were done solo. My first success I wasted a LOT of time disarming traps and screwing around and managed to get to "The Girlfriend" with 2 minutes left and killed her. My second successful attempt I was able to get to her with 9 minutes left (ignored traps entirely, just ran thru them). I then backtracked and ended up in a puzzle room, which even though I had enough crests to put fill the slots, niether door opened (even though one door appeared to be just another path back to the girlfriend). I then wasted roughly 6 minutes trying to do the puzzle thinking it would open the door, I managed to get all but 1 crest from the puzzle before time ran out.

From what I can see of this quest, getting ALL 16 doors is going to be a decent achievement. I'm liking what I'm seeing, even at level 4 with NO speed boosts at all it can be completed once you "know" what your doing and have a reasonable idea of the map layout.

EDIT: OK, made a few more attempts and I'm starting to like this quest less and less. There is a frequency of hitting "dead ends" too often, even though I make every effort to grab every crest I can find I often find myself hitting doors that need 4 wolf or 2-3 of something else. This is usually if you go towards the Banner Hall or the Armory first, I end up dead ending. So far the only path that I have any success with repeatedly is going for the Girlfriend Via the backdoor route.

[Ashbinder]

So far the only path that I have any success with repeatedly is going for the Girlfriend Via the backdoor route.

Giggity giggity!

[Xionanx]

Giggity giggity!

You know, I'm fairly certain they did that on purpose.

[Amber-Dawnn]

Giggity giggity!

I 2nd that!

[brian14]

Crates "rarely" drop crests (but I tend to not waste time breaking them on my arti since XBOW is a SLOW option to break with).

Why not bring a shortbow for that very purpose?

[bradleyforrest]

Yeah, I agree with the "too few" front. I've only ever found crests that were already on the ground and a single haste powerup. No crates or mobs dropped crests for me at all. I was able to open 2 doors but couldn't get anywhere else because I just wasn't finding crests.

[quijenoth]

zone is too big! - the whole scale of the dungeon just feels wrong. i feel like alice in wonderland after drinking the "DRINK ME" vial.

my suggestion would be to scale the map down and reduce the timer to fit.

The bathrooms where a nice touch but again those urinals looked like they where made for the stormreaver!

[Scraap]

Bad reward progression, and an excellent example of the shortcomings of the map UI.

Best way I can put it is it suffers from the Coyle Syndrome. It doesn't much matter if you've spent 14 minutes doing it, if they get away at minute 14.59. (Assuming they even move. Spent so long looking for crests from breakables and mobs to get through a door, that the only red named I did manage to stumble into was the Spider behind a hidden wall.)

Perhaps a very minor reward for how many crests you manage to collect would serve to give some sense of progression, rather than the seemingly pure pass/fail? (Disclaimer: I only spent an hour and a half beating my head against the wall of a 15 minute quest, so hey, maybe that's what you thought we wanted, or there's some special trick my tired brain just was not picking up on. Wouldn't be the first time.)

[oradafu]

I did this quest on a level 14 Fighter and just a healer hireling. I didn't much care for the quest (or the Moving variation). Only completed it once.

When I did the level 14 version (which I did about 4 or 5 times), the crests didn't seem to drop for me on kills and only a handful from crates. Additionally, I never had a Power-up drop in the level 14 version. I did it again on level 10 and 12 where I had no problems with the crests or power-up dropping (although it seems Scorpion seems to drop about 80% of the time).

From what I can gather, the three "hardest" things about the quest was the strict time limit (as intended), the lack of proper crests dropping and the Air Elementals. So I think this quest goes firmly into the same vein as the Crystal Cove, being able to beat the quest lays more on luck than anything else. Much like a good group could fail miserably when the layout in the Cove was bad (such as few purples popping up), this quest will cause many failures with groups when the proper crests don't drop.

On the positive side, I liked the way the quest looked. I like the high walls in the castle and lots of room to move around. I like the phantom mobs, simple but effective...and what I expected Invisible Stalkers to look like.

[brian14]

On the positive side, I liked the way the quest looked. I like the high walls in the castle and lots of room to move around. I like the phantom mobs, simple but effective...and what I expected Invisible Stalkers to look like.

I see a contradiction here...

[crazycaren]

I ran the challenge 3 times on my lvl 15 sorc (geared).

The first 2 times were at level 5 and I ran out of time because I didn't have the right crests. The third time at level 10 I completed by doing multiple D-doors to re-run the area and get more crests.

If you REALLY like the crest mechanic, I think the algorithm needs some improvements. The spawn rate of monsters at lower levels is just too low to get all the crests you need - especially if you need 2 or 3 of the same kind.

For the first room/door, the random algorithm would be better if it pulled from a normal/bell/gaussian distribution rather than uniform. My first fail was because it took almost the entire time to get a crest that fit in the first door. Even then it was a "wild card" not the octopus.

On the other doors, no two crest requirements should be the same. Or, put another way, unique set of crests per door. Having to find 2 scorpions when the spawn rate is super low at lvl 5 caused my second fail.

I guess you could just have much higher spawn rates and weaker monsters.

On another matter, the monsters take too long to be targetable once they spawn. It's annoying at best and in a time limited quest... inappropriate.

cheers