First of all, let's make this educational. All flaming and off-topic posts will be reported for spam to ensure quality.
I would also like to point out that I spent 5 fg and searched through 500 posts of Njaguar to look for "Trap" related information.
The purpose of this thread is to determine what trapdoors actually do, how they work, and why people believe them to be nerfed, if they even actually were.
Any comments suggesting one way or the other presented with a evidence or links to quotes are much more reputable than needless ranting. Any information regarding experience changes are welcome too as I feel those are directly relevant.
Thanks

Some history.

http://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=24034801&f=272 ------2008 the original trapdoor
You may need to refresh your client. Falling through a trapdoor lands you on another level of the catacombs, that is slightly harder than your current level. Ie, you can fight higher level mobs, and find higher level loot.
-
-
http://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=52606913&f=272 ------2011
Trapdoors:
1) Increase the mob levels by a random amount. This will give you "more" experience depending on your level and theirs. If you're playing solo, the mobs are already at your level when you're exploring, so you won't notice much (if any) of a difference by hitting a trapdoor with regards to experience gain.
2) Resets objectives, including any/all progress towards ones you were attempting to complete on a previous floor.

Notice the bold.
-
-
Here is him stating again the random level drop and less prof because the range of higher level monsters 2011 also the question of +1 levels is addressed to random levels
http://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=55529703&f=272&p=370865013#p370865013
Oops, my bad, you do get less proficiency for combating higher level mobs. This is correct, I forgot. My testing didn't immediately show it because the proficiency at 0 (higher probability to gain points), and the TD didn't drop me down very far (random).

Anyway, yeah, this is correct, it's part of the "trap" of the door.
-
-
Then here is 2014 where Rick makes a statement - can't find anything to back this up though other than very old information that was addressed by Paul.
I know several people more than Rick that have told me it is +1 and Mdif but I can't find evidence of this.
https://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=70271009&f=74
-
-
Quote (Paparick @ Feb 25 2014 08:08am) Where did this information come from? and we have seen a rare well in maps every now and again.
Trap doors used to deliver +xp (at least +3 lvls) each time you took one, but this effect has been removed.

The current TD effect is tougher mobs, loss of xp gain, loss of prof gain, minimal upgrade(if any) to drops

The frequency of wells appearing has nothing to do with TD's as this is a random occurrence no matter where you are.

The only place wells are guaranteed NOT to appear (along with TD's and spins) is in a map-generated maze.

Comment from someone i was discussing it with
I agree with Rick's statement, it used be be alot more xp, it isnt anymore, tougher mobs yes (monster difficult)
= result in more drops (higher magical types)

Someone made that exact same comment and he addressed it, I will find it in a second. He states that Trapdoors have not changed at all, just that catacombs EXP was increased thus making TDs appear like they gave less, when in fact they gave the same.

"make TDS give more experience again" thread where someone states TD give less experience
http://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=48723616&f=272&p=325505418#p325505418

Explanation of why TDs have not changed and that the difference is just smaller. Level 10 player finds monsters 10-11 instead of 7-11 now
This has a very interesting point in it thought stating that Leveling up in a trapdoor will eventually cancel out the benefits in it, so you level up until you reach regular levels...
http://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=48891168&f=272&p=326471259#p326471259

Here is him making a joke about going back to the old system where cata got less exp
http://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=51323185&f=272&p=343133505#p343133505

Here is also a statement showing that all progress towards quests is reset when going down a TD, irr to what we are talking about though, but a good fact that still holds true from what I have found
http://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=52761660&f=272&p=354151727#p354151727


So what's the real deal with these TDs?

This post was edited by harmacintyre on Jun 5 2016 10:15am

tl;dr

The TD's are tl;dr

Everything is supposed to be still set to this.

http://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=48891168&f=272&p=326471259#p326471259

Thanks, yeah that is what I had thought it to be, just a summary of everything the posts comprise of.



1. Trapdoors reset objectives
2. Catacombs monsters of a level 10 solo character are level 10-11.
3. Trapdoor monsters spawn at +1 to +7 (I have to get these numbers double checked)
4. Higher level monsters = more prof/experience until a certain point and then it is less prof/experience.
5. Solo fights higher level monsters than group play?

Higher level monsters = same xp.

I really don't got the point why TD doesn't work on the following way:

• Harder mobs;
  
• Better drops;
  
• Better exp;
  
• Better prof.
  

...and ofcourse more TDss down they would be incrased.

(like: If you're lvl10: 1x TD = mob lvl10-11 / 2x TD = mob lvl12-13 and so on. And the effect of TDs shouldn't be removed till you recreate group)


It would makes lots of ppl to explore. More explore = better chance to good drops. Everybody would be happy.

It does work mostly like that but you can get monsters to high so less exp and less prof.

Rereading the thread and looking at how solo is always fighting max level mobs +0-+1, he stated that we already got the max exp bonus. Going off what Matt said, at level 10 fighting a level 12 or 13 monster will yield the same experience per say.
In my mind this makes going down a second trapdoor not worth anything. It would appear the only benefit would be for a group catacombs to go down a trapdoor so they could spawn max level mobs whereas solo already does.

Edit: A way to fix this is to add monster difficulty. This way we could still go down multiple trapdoors and get owned, but still have the benefit and difficulty of finding a first trapdoor that doesn't drop us down too many levels. If this makes farming an issue then another solution to increase drops, decrease prof and exp would be increase the minimum of the level increase to say +5 to +7. With added monster difficulty we could still find loot but it would be at a cost of having to fight hard monsters.

This post was edited by harmacintyre on Jun 7 2016 09:59am

It has been awhile since I calculated EACH hit/damage to a Trap door monster vs dropping into a second one within the next 3 steps.

Your only answer to your own question when solo'ing is to jot down each hit you deal, the experience points [exact number] and prof point % chance per 5 hits or more etc.

To gain 1 level, you have to reach 1million experience points, so when you kill a normal monster in a fresh Cata, you can identify the exact xp points [note this does alter based on how easy they are], and you can compare based on the normal monster dealt with in a catacomb... I do acknowledge that if you gain 230 xp points from a normal monster in your first level of a cata, an ep can double this amount [there is a range], so you can identify this in number in a trapdoor as well.

Goodluck... if the game did not get nerfed as often as it has, I most likely would have produced a better calculation based on those numbers.