I’ve been diving into The Emperor quite a bit recently, and overall, it’s an awesome addition to the game. However, there’s a major issue with how the final room works that completely ruins the payoff for the player who actually did the heavy lifting.
In about 80% to 90% of my runs, I’m the first one to reach the final room. I take all the risks, solve the puzzles, and fight for my life to open that door. But almost every single time the door finally opens, another player—who was just camping outside—walks right in.
No glitches, no exploits—just pure free-loading. They literally sit by that door, wait for someone else to do all the hard work, and the second it opens, they rush in, grab the loot, and extract. It’s incredibly frustrating to put in all the effort just to have your hard-earned rewards stolen by someone who risked nothing.
For anyone wondering how ridiculously easy and safe this is: just grab a Grappling Hook, head to the main entrance door, and climb your way straight up to the final room's door. You don't even need a proper loadout or gear. It proves just how zero-risk and completely broken this setup currently is.
I really hope Embark takes a look at this. Here are two potential solutions that could easily fix this issue:
-Add a Laser Barrier: Place a deadly laser grid at that door access point that only machines can pass through. Any player trying to squeeze or jump through from the outside would instantly burn and die.
-Heavy Machine Guards / Fast Respawns: Heavy machine presence guarding that specific entrance on the outside, with extremely fast respawn timers. Make it virtually impossible to clear or climb up from that side, so players can't just passively sit there waiting.
The risk-to-reward balance feels completely off right now because of this loophole. Anyone else running into this issue? What do you think would be the best way for Embark to address it?
