Zot 5 both lungs had tele traps


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Post Wednesday, 20th July 2016, 17:19

Zot 5 both lungs had tele traps

My zot 5 recently had both lungs blocked by teleport traps. This actually made clearing the lungs considerably easier, it seemed, because I really couldn't get overwhelmed. I just sat back and yelled and sniped things until they walked into the tele trap, after a few of those I'd walk around the rest of the map, kill any teleported monsters, and repeat. By the time I was in the lungs they were almost empty.

A zot 5 with one tele trap and one zot trap at least allows monsters to come out of one lung and get the player in the center area. With 2 tele traps I was very safe in the center area, which seems wrong. It was annoying to clear, but very very easy. Ideally I'd think there shouldn't be a scenario where both are blocked by tele or zot traps (if nothing else, walking over a zot trap is an interface hassle, as I have to type "yes", and a new player might be legitimately stumped as to what they are supposed to do there). But I really wanted to call attention to the fact that a double tele trap zot 5 is actually extra easy.
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Blades Runner

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Post Wednesday, 20th July 2016, 17:40

Re: Zot 5 both lungs had tele traps

It's a gift to get even one though. You can empty the lung easily with the trap and meet them one at a time as they come back through the opening to the vault.

dowan wrote:(. . . and a new player might be legitimately stumped as to what they are supposed to do there).


If you meet such a new player, I hope you'll do the responsible thing and tell them the game is unwinnable.
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Post Wednesday, 20th July 2016, 17:53

Re: Zot 5 both lungs had tele traps

Well if there's only one there's a chance that you attract something from the other lung if you are luring enemies into the tele trap. Especially if you're doing what I was, and yelling over and over to get everything from the lung to come into LOS so I could shoot them.

But you may be right, tele traps in front of either lung might just be a big gift to the player, which I don't think is their intent.
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Post Wednesday, 20th July 2016, 18:05

Re: Zot 5 both lungs had tele traps

I don't think the noise from a shout will reach the other lung if you stand next to the trap. A lightning bolt might.

The advantage of double traps is that you know monsters you lure into the teleport trap won't come at you out of the other lung, so you have a better position.
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Post Wednesday, 20th July 2016, 18:23

Re: Zot 5 both lungs had tele traps

So tele traps actually help the player, alarm traps are easy to lure an enemy over(although that does make a noise), and the other mechanical traps are pretty much jokes at this stage of the game. Double zot traps is just cruel, especially given the rather random nature of zot traps, plus the interface hassle...

Maybe zot 5 should always just have alarm traps blocking both lungs. Do net traps still exist? I guess they stay relevant in Zot 5. Unless the idea is to make things easier for the player, but I sort of doubt that's the intent here.

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Post Wednesday, 20th July 2016, 19:40

Re: Zot 5 both lungs had tele traps

Or maybe, MAAaaaaybe, we could remove traps since they dont do anything other than kill "exploration vulnerable" early game characters.
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Post Wednesday, 20th July 2016, 20:00

Re: Zot 5 both lungs had tele traps

Yeah, and I'm totally with you there. But until that wonderful day, it'd be nice to address this specific scenario that makes zot 5 extra easy. If traps are removed entirely I will of course retract this request.

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Post Wednesday, 20th July 2016, 20:43

Re: Zot 5 both lungs had tele traps

Why is teleporting monsters behind you better than letting them follow you out of the vault in a controlled way? It's not.

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Post Wednesday, 20th July 2016, 21:02

Re: Zot 5 both lungs had tele traps

Because teleporting 3-5 very damaged monsters spread through zot 5 to be hunted down individually is easier than killing 3-5 monsters at the same time, while waking up more monsters to come to you.

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Post Wednesday, 20th July 2016, 21:43

Re: Zot 5 both lungs had tele traps

I think i only did that once, and the monsters (mostly OoFs) found their way back into the lung before i could find them outside, so i had to fight them together anyways, though you could blame that on stealth. That strategy seems like a nice way to block your way back upstairs in case you have to retreat.
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Post Wednesday, 20th July 2016, 22:40

Re: Zot 5 both lungs had tele traps

Traps, as they are currently formulated, are a mistake. I used to say that their impact is relatively small but I've been getting increasingly salty over them after falling through a shaft trap when autoexploring through a previously explored room a few times, because if I had some way to mark safe squares I could have avoided it. Traps also stop having any effect after the early game because of the XL-based detection system, and no, the argument of "But, you have to keep enemies from walking over the traps in combat!" does not count as a satisfactory justification for their continued existence imo. If you want to have random bad things happen to the player just put everyone under a weak form of Xom wrath at all times, it will accomplish the same thing.
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Post Thursday, 21st July 2016, 12:48

Re: Zot 5 both lungs had tele traps

dynast wrote:I think i only did that once, and the monsters (mostly OoFs) found their way back into the lung before i could find them outside, so i had to fight them together anyways, though you could blame that on stealth. That strategy seems like a nice way to block your way back upstairs in case you have to retreat.

That's a fair point, the character I did this on had pretty decent stealth, meaning I probably drew less enemies at once, and when then teleported they generally forgot about me. I can confidently say it was one of the easiest zot 5 experiences I've ever had.
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Post Thursday, 21st July 2016, 13:29

Re: Zot 5 both lungs had tele traps

ha, yeah, stealth affecting monster memory/determination is documented but weird nonetheless
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Post Thursday, 21st July 2016, 16:32

Re: Zot 5 both lungs had tele traps

No, it would not be actual Xom wrath obviously. But having "things" randomly happen to players as they travel through the dungeon would basically be equivalent to current traps without making you mad when you walk into a shaft trap in a previously explored area.
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Post Thursday, 21st July 2016, 22:21

Re: Zot 5 both lungs had tele traps

Right — There's a set of branches that already have bad stuff happen to you randomly (Hell), and a god that can provide a similar experience for most of the game. What traps do is link the "bad stuff happens" to exploration, which doesn't interact well with autoexplore and does technically advantage tedious meta-game practices.

Perhaps specific wizlabs or ossuaries could be designed to work around those issues, and a trap-themed dungeon sprint would be fine too. But for the main game, traps should either be removed, or made always visible.

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Post Friday, 22nd July 2016, 12:57

Re: Zot 5 both lungs had tele traps

So I just got ANOTHER double tele trap zot 5. This time it was a MiBe (I wanted an online streak damn it! And I got it!). I had no stealth whatsoever, but I had a longbow so I could attack the enemies over the tele traps.

It played out pretty much the same as the character in the OP. Walk up to tele trap, shoot enemies, wander around map and kill injured enemies 1 by 1, walk back to tele trap, yell, yell, shoot, shoot, wander, wander, kill, kill, etc.

At one point 2 oofs and an alich showed up! Without a tele trap between us, that might have been scary. Instead I just backed up around the corner, let them teleport, and killed them one at a time, resting to full health in between each one.

So while I appreciate the easy mode zot 5 in support of my streaking attempt, I really thing this needs to be looked at.

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Post Saturday, 23rd July 2016, 05:12

Re: Zot 5 both lungs had tele traps

dowan wrote:Because teleporting 3-5 very damaged monsters spread through zot 5 to be hunted down individually is easier than killing 3-5 monsters at the same time, while waking up more monsters to come to you.

You're not forced to do the "fighting 3-5 monsters at the same time and waking up others" part.
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Blades Runner

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Post Saturday, 23rd July 2016, 05:24

Re: Zot 5 both lungs had tele traps

Guys, I have an idea. What if instead of removing traps or not generating teleport traps on zot 5, they just give zot 5 monsters stasis?
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Post Saturday, 23rd July 2016, 08:04

Re: Zot 5 both lungs had tele traps

Well, that certainly would make zot 5 easier.

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Post Saturday, 23rd July 2016, 19:49

Re: Zot 5 both lungs had tele traps

...how? You can't teleport them away, you can't slow them with hexes or wands. Seems to be a slight buff to Z:5.
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Post Saturday, 23rd July 2016, 21:01

Re: Zot 5 both lungs had tele traps

moths of wrath

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Post Saturday, 23rd July 2016, 22:03

Re: Zot 5 both lungs had tele traps

stasis prevents berserk? that makes no sense
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Post Saturday, 23rd July 2016, 22:03

Re: Zot 5 both lungs had tele traps

jwoodward48ss wrote:stasis prevents berserk? that makes no sense


It speeds you up so why wouldn't it?

e: if it didn't block berserk, then it'd block the post-berserk slow, which would be pretty fucking powerful.
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Post Monday, 25th July 2016, 13:17

Re: Zot 5 both lungs had tele traps

Wahaha wrote:
dowan wrote:Because teleporting 3-5 very damaged monsters spread through zot 5 to be hunted down individually is easier than killing 3-5 monsters at the same time, while waking up more monsters to come to you.

You're not forced to do the "fighting 3-5 monsters at the same time and waking up others" part.


What, do you just make sure to train stealth to max, and then crash the server every time you wake up a monster in one of the lungs? Please tell me how you make the monsters in the zot 5 lungs, which are typically pretty densely packed, come at you one at a time.

In my actual experience, you pull a monster in one lung with a thrown rock or soemthing, it shouts, comes to fight you, which you do at the chokepoint usually, unless it's blocked by a tele trap of course. While fighting this monster usually other monsters that heard it shout also come over, and sometimes the noise from the fighting might attract a couple more. Sooner or later you kill these monsters, go a little further into the lung, and repeat. From my observation an estimate of getting usually 3-5 monsters at a time is close enough to average.

Now, you do have the option of not fighting anything, and just blinking through the area, or hasting up and running even, but that's a lot less safe than just killing them individually after they go through a teleport trap.

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Post Tuesday, 26th July 2016, 10:29

Re: Zot 5 both lungs had tele traps

You can make the monster follow you further out of the vault if you don't want to fight multiple at the same time. Same tactics as in the rest of the game for fighting one monster at a time. I'm not saying teleporting monsters on Zot 5 is a lot worse than not teleporting them. But I think it's at least slightly worse. When monsters are not teleported, you generally know when to expect new monsters to enter LOS (when you advance through the vault). When monsters are teleported, they can enter LOS unexpectedly in any place on the level. Maybe while you're luring/fighting/retreating from another monster. That's dangerous.
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Post Tuesday, 26th July 2016, 10:42

Re: Zot 5 both lungs had tele traps

Monsters will come back to where they last saw you if the teleport nearby. If they forget about you, you'll probably never see them again, unless you're one of these zot clearing people. At worst, you take one more pass at your path to the stairs and you're quite safe. The point is that in the double teleport trap case, you know exactly where they'll be coming from unless they teleport into your line of sight, which is improbable enough that it rarely happens twice in close succession. The result is nicely separated, predictable encounters without absurd HOP luring tactics.
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Post Tuesday, 26th July 2016, 12:56

Re: Zot 5 both lungs had tele traps

Exactly. If you make a monster follow you out of the vault, all monsters with it also come out, so it's unlikely you'll just get 1 at a time. However, if you then have that pack go through a teleport trap, now they're randomly placed throughout the level. Either they are in a zot lung, same as before, or they're in the main body of zot 5, which I've already cleared. So after each pack is teleported, I walk to each staircase, kill each monster individually, then repeat it.

All I'm saying is killing 1 monster 3-5 times is easier than killing 3-5 monsters at once.
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Post Tuesday, 26th July 2016, 14:39

Re: Zot 5 both lungs had tele traps

I often memorize Passage of Golubria with this specific case in mind, plus the case of zot traps blocking both lungs.

TS's analysis of traps is mostly on point but I think tele traps have a meaningful tactical role on early levels as they can provide a means of escaping from dangerous speed 10 monsters when you don't have any blink or tele. Also, purposely entering tele traps to escape makes me feel like a ninja.
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Post Tuesday, 26th July 2016, 16:39

Re: Zot 5 both lungs had tele traps

I think tele traps are usually more beneficial than harmful for the player. Permanent ones are even better, because you only have to discover it once.

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