Multiple lever locks

[johannhowitzer]

Lolth, Thids, Pyramid, Tia, Dis, Malad... is there a good reason these locks still exist? As far as I can tell, all they are at present is a "multiboxers only" sign. Haven't seen any in newer areas so far, so it seems like they're a bit of a relic, and HG's design has moved beyond the need for them.

[Deleted]

I would suggest it's more a party play mechanic. All you need is one other person

Or maybe it's just an anti soloer scheme! Even then... You can gate.

[johannhowitzer]

No, you can't gate anything but Lolth, in my experience. I tried. And it's not doing either of those jobs you describe, since all you have to do is bring two boxes to get around it. This creates a severe lack of parties for Pyramid, I regularly ask, and almost everyone who responds says "I can just solo and I don't feel like it right now."

[Deleted]

So Pyramid is the ultimate reason for this post. Perhaps refining of negotiation skills?
Or maybe people are just otherwise occupied when you ask.
Anyways, I don't mind doing a Pyramid with you sometime, but catching me is another issue

[johannhowitzer]

It's correct that Pyramid is the only place the outdated multi-lever lock mechanic is causing problems, the other runs have reasons the levers don't get in the way.

- Lolth is a gate to immortality so there's always a bus going through there, and everyone needs the tag.
- Thids is a gate to Hells, and everyone needs the tag, plus it has hellstone, beaker, and waystone and other goodies, and the XP is good which promotes the idea of taking a party there.
- Dis is often a follow up to Tia which has a steeper lever requirement, but the gear is so good and multiboxing hells is hard, so parties go there often.
- Malad is deep hells and one of the more enjoyable runs, so it always makes sense to bring a party. Two-lever lock also does not wall off grapes, I believe.

Pyramid is completely different from all of these. There's no use for the tag, the only useful drop is the artifact, so multiboxers have a very powerful incentive to only ever solo the run, to guarantee the artifact will be theirs. I don't buy "lack of negotiating skill" when people are telling me explicitly that they only want to solo it.

Anyway, none of this is an argument in favor of the levers - even if Pyramid is the only place they're causing a problem, they're not doing anything constructive anymore, on any of these runs, except maybe Tiamat where the idea might be to force the party to spread out for the boss fight.

I have run Pyramid here and there, just ran tonight with Storm and he said he'd be down to run more tomorrow, and I'd be willing to run with you too. It's not that I'm getting no Pyramid runs, it's that the way multiboxing has affected people's desire to run this one particular dungeon has served as the canary in the coal mine when it comes to multi-lever locks. This isn't a post based on some immediate frustration, it's something I've been thinking about for a while.

In the past, I have made deals with people to run Pyramid until both of us get one artifact; I've tried making this deal with several people since coming back, and no one's taken me up on it.

[johannhowitzer]

Hmm... I'd like to follow up in a positive way, and double posting because this is a separate but related idea.

Compare Pyramid to Pit of Moliation. I recently taught myself to solo POM on my druid, and I had a blast. POM is a very well-designed area, the crucible is a good reason to go there, other loot is available that's worthwhile, and it's not gated by a double lever. Soloing it takes skill and was very fun to learn, parties can make the run a lot smoother, people don't consider it miserable to run, the maps are short and varied, and the difficulty ramps up steadily in interesting ways. Thundering applause to the designers of this run.

I think POM could inform some kind of rethinking of Pyramid, it does many things very right. People seem to be annoyed by Pyramid. I think it's a cool run thematically, and while the design does have some interesting ideas, it has some problems as well. Other things have seen reworkings that turned out really well - Zerya, for example. It would be really cool to see Pyramid get such a redesign, so people wouldn't see it as such a chore. HG's design has only gotten better and better over the years, and I've been impressed when older areas have seen design improvements. If it didn't involve teaching myself to use the toolkit from scratch, in parallel with other big projects I'm working on, I'd definitely offer to revamp Pyramid myself.

[chainlink]

Aug 22, 2020 7:18:31 GMT johannhowitzer said:

No, you can't gate anything but Lolth, in my experience. I tried. And it's not doing either of those jobs you describe, since all you have to do is bring two boxes to get around it. This creates a severe lack of parties for Pyramid, I regularly ask, and almost everyone who responds says "I can just solo and I don't feel like it right now."

Are you sure you can't gate in the Pyramid I remember somebody doing the Nessus maze and using gate to pull stuff back?

[kingcamaro]

I think comparing Pyramid to Rona would be more appropriate. Both have tags that don't have a use for them and both have the same drop rate for artefacts. Rona doesn't have levers.

IMO, a team of 2 could do about 4-5 pyramid runs in the time it would take to do Rona.

I'd be more than happy to trade a wisdom artefact for a spell penetration artefact if the levers are too much of a problem (incentive for trading!).

[johannhowitzer]

Misunderstanding - of course you can use Gate to teleport just about anywhere, but it doesn't help you with the levers because of how fast they revert to the "off" position. It works in Lolth because the levers stay on for a while, but the ones at Thids blocking access to the beaker are too fast. While I haven't tried Gate at Pyramid personally, I've had people tell me they found it inconsistent to hit both levers while dualboxing, which can hit levers even faster than Gate can. Even so, I should probably head down there tomorrow and give it a whirl, just to put the question to rest.

Hmm, good idea, KC. POM soloing was fun to learn, I should go teach myself Rona soloing! I already know Rona a bit more than I knew POM, too. The biggest issue would be beating the boss in the no-magic zone, not sure how to get around that.

[Deleted]

I agree with this. The levers are an outdated and useless mechanic. I think they make sense in Hell. I think everywhere else they should be dropped. Convert the Thids levers to switches like in the other houses in the run. Tap and go.

A multi boxer can solo Tiamat. Just queue up enough clicks on each pedestal and you’re set. The hells require people, how that’s achieved is irrelevant. It make sense to have that barrier to entry. For LLs we should be encouraging anyone and everyone to do as much as they can regardless of party composition.

[woqued]

I don't really mind levers much. They're an annoyance sure, but the biggest issue is having key low-drop items drop behind them significantly reducing solo farmability (case in point: artifacts, thids goodies). Black Pyramid is a super annoying offender in this regard, and I don't really see a positive. Two people waste time fighting over a 25% drop when everything else there is a waste of time - exp, drops, everything.

Novelty is all good, but it only works on novelty runs. That thing is a mandatory grindwall.

[FunkySwerve]

Ok, a couple misconceptions. First, the levers have nothing to do with multiboxing - they by far predate the advent of multiboxing, even the most recent in your list (hells).

Second, they're hardly 'outdated' - they exist for the same reason they always have.

Third, if the Pyramid is a problem, I'll discuss it with the Team. I'm not keen on spending zots to convert a party server for single play, but they wouldn't be too hard to edit.

Funky

[FunkySwerve]

Discussed with Team. Levers on pyramids are being switched to a single lever, unless I find some need for multiples that none of us recalls, when making the edit.

Funky

[Deleted]

Thank you! Huge win! Any chance this can be done for Thids too? In thids some houses require two players, others require just the switch to be hit.