Devs: You guys broke the Lockdown raid

I suggest you see what DizzyKraken wrote who was actually the lead content designer for the very raid itself, clearly its obvious that everything spytle has ever said it completely factual. DizzyKraken was the actual developer for Paradox Wave where Spytle is just Creative Director he's not a developer technically.

so cheers my friend

We're offtopic, but exactly. I believe somewhere they actually stated by pillartanking the boss someone still would take the damage from the charge (the tank obviously).

Then ontopic. I never actually believed that the boss was teleporting to a player who 'tagged' him. It all seemed quite random to me, even though our troll did it. A lot of the times he would just teleport to someone random. As I always tanked or dpsed this raid I'm not sure if the troll actually tagged the boss by using a debuff on him for example, but I will soon, as I will get my troll gear! #YayMe

Well I like it how it is now. The boss has a pretty long tell where he first "throws" a small orb or dart towards the targeted player (recall stunning/grounding and damaging him/her) and then throws his arms back and teleports. Isn't even a one shot when you're able to block or pop up a shield.

Of course players should not be too close to each other (like with Kalibak) to not die in the damaging field after the teleport.

It's pretty nice that the mechanic isn't cancable anymore and everyone has to be aware of it. Way better than the furthest-away-player-mechanic-that-won't-work-when-player-is-out-of-range.

Our observation was, that before that change/bug he teleported to the person furthest away from him. So our strategy was to make sure, that it's either a second tank or the healer (who is usually the one with the second highest health in the group and can survive the attack) who had the largest distance to him, so he teleported there instead and not to a random teammember. Kind of like "ping-ponging" the boss between tank-tank or tank-healer.

This didn't work anymore on Tuesday.

Strange that your e-mail occurred before Spytle's conversation in the thread I quoted. Spytle should have known what was being referred to as "pillar tanking" then. I really wish the developers, directors, managers, etc. were more consistent with how they responded to players so we would have less of these disagreements on the forums.

At any rate: Thanks for the info. I will no longer consider certain tanking strategies as cheating.

I am curious about whether having controllers tagging is intended. I would really doubt it since it does take players completely out of danger from one of the boss mechanics (based on your quote).

I ran this last night with the league and had no problems with this at all, as a tank i was able to actually pin him on the artifact so he couldnt teleport

Should run in league's, we finish this raid in 20 min flat.

So there was a slight change to address an exploit. His basic teleport mechanic remains the same. If you stay within valid combat range but are still the farthest target from him he will choose you to teleport to. So if you can't attack him he won't teleport to you.

Not sure what the problem is. Just beat it this morning with a pug group in 40 mins, not really much different then before.

nice info! we will test this later today! thanks dizzy!

Standing on top of or behind something in a way that prevents the boss from hitting you is an exploit in our book. If you are kitting skillfully that is one thing, but avoidance due to system limitations of one kind or another is a different matter. For example, the boss can;t get to you for pathing or collision reasons and it makes him go brain dead for a time. But, as long as he can keep trying to pursue you and hit you, it is okay.

DizzyKraken and his team try to head off exploits like this by removing the objects in question, thereby not allowing you the opportunity to do it. But, that creates limitations on level design, so sometimes they try to place them back in and mitigate the exploitable behavior in another way. Unfortunately, we can't catch every possible outcome when we try to bend our own rules, and then we have to figure out a solution once it goes live.

Just something to keep in mind when you think of strategies. Does it feel like something is not right when you are doing it? If you are saying, "wow! The boss can't hit me here," then it is probably something we missed and you should stop exploiting the error and report it to be fixed. Stumbling into an exploit should be expected, they happen, but repeatedly taking advantage of one is where it crosses the line.

Okay, so the tank pinning a boss and taking the damage for the group is probably okay since the boss is still trying to reach the group and just directs that damage at the tank.

The tagging method used in Lockdown sounds similar to the method used in Paradox wave. A player tags (uses a power to debuff) the boss, and then quickly moves out of range of the boss. This is expected by players on Oppressor and Sentry in Paradox Wave since it prevents Oppressor from bubbling the furthest player and prevents Sentry from jumping to the furthest player and doing damage to the group. It sounds like that method is exploiting, which I always thought it was. It has become so common in Paradox Wave that people will often kick controllers who do not know that "strategy" on the bosses. That is one reason I almost always avoid running that raid.

Is the DCUO team aware of the tagging (debuff and run out of range to prevent certain attacks) in Paradox Wave, and is there anything being done to address it?

The old strat without exploiting relied on knowing who he was teleporting to and having them be a safe distance from the group and then relying on their skill to dodge his attacks. Asking the whole team to be ready for a teleport while doing their job is not realistic. Looking forward to trying it today with Dizzy's comments in mind. Thanks for taking a look at my thread.

He almost always only does his teleport after he does a jump. When he does do his teleport he will stop and look at the person he is going to teleport to and toss an object/device at them and then there is a pause before he teleports. As long as you are paying attention to this animation you have time to roll/move out of the way.

The problem still though is that if you are not paying attention and you do die within the AOE field the AOE field timer goes beyond the time it takes to revive/res someone (assuming you do not have a strong enough shield) and this should not be the case. The time the AOE field is down should be adjusted in my opinion to at least leave a second or two for a pickup.

NPCs for me on the PS3 villain side were invisible to everyone in the group this weekend except for the PS4 users. So no lead troll tanks healer and a dps we had to disband.

I appreciate your POV re this however I disagree that players should have known that this was an exploit. I can see where simply standing on top of a pillar out of the way should give someone a clue, but tagging and staying out range is another story.
I have no problems with the change that was made as I think it makes the raid more challenging and fun but I do take issue in saying that players should have known.

As noted in an earlier post, this type of strat has been used since Paradox and there has never been any indication that it was an exploit. Additionally, when Lockdown was on test an entire strat guide was posted in the testing feedback section that outlined this as a possible strat (similar to Paradox). These things have been in the open for a long time. Silence on the Devs parts and the fact that Dox has never been changed makes it a very reasonable basis for players to conclude that it is not an exploit but rather part of the raid design.

I wasn't referring to this issue specifically. I was jumping in on a part of the conversation where people were referring to past comments I made regarding Paradox Wave. I was not weighing in on this issue specifically. Hope that makes sense.

**edit - In all seriousness, it was a quote alert that took me right to that page. I didn't even read the OP or responses before the quote. hehe.

Figured this would get adjusted eventually. I am sure after some people got the gear and the gold necklaces they wanted they made sure to report it.

You speak as if LD rains down gear and OP necks to all who run it. This is hardly the case, and the potential exploit was pointed out quite a while ago. Kraze has undergone several changes in preparation for this fix.

Besides... it's not the Kraze fight that drops the OP neck. That's the other boss fight. You know... the one that doesn't have an exploit to take advantage of.

Did the raid tonight, positioned myself as the farthest back and while still being able to target and damage Gen. Kraze, he teleported to me 1/5 times. Watched him teleport to people about 5 meters away. Was able to beat him easy enough with a good group but I still don't think he's behaving properly.