Public Poll for paying customers for Champions

[Warrax23]

I'm requesting a poll be sent out for champions. Since these forums are so toxic and it's hard to have an Adult conversation without splinter groups who are either deemed Paladins or Trolls sidetracking the posts. I want it to be emailed to all accounts that have paid for at least something in this game so maybe you can get actual information instead of relying on bad metrics or this cesspool for information. I don't want to see or participate in any forums that just bash each other to the point of it really being personal attacks. Most of us are adults with full time jobs and families, we pay for this game to get away from all the BS of real life, and not have to deal with other peoples rage or immaturity.

Because of the poor implementation of Champions and the toxic forums, I canceled my Sub. This has become an awful place to play and it seems the voice of the people is being squashed by people who have nothing better to do then sit on the forums and bad mouth everyone. Good luck, and hope people grow up, life is hard enough without people going out of their way to ruin peoples enjoyments.

-Mark.

[Severlin]

I'm requesting a poll be sent out for champions. Since these forums are so toxic and it's hard to have an Adult conversation without splinter groups who are either deemed Paladins or Trolls sidetracking the posts. I want it to be emailed to all accounts that have paid for at least something in this game so maybe you can get actual information instead of relying on bad metrics or this cesspool for information. I don't want to see or participate in any forums that just bash each other to the point of it really being personal attacks. Most of us are adults with full time jobs and families, we pay for this game to get away from all the BS of real life, and not have to deal with other peoples rage or immaturity.

Because of the poor implementation of Champions and the toxic forums, I canceled my Sub. This has become an awful place to play and it seems the voice of the people is being squashed by people who have nothing better to do then sit on the forums and bad mouth everyone. Good luck, and hope people grow up, life is hard enough without people going out of their way to ruin peoples enjoyments.

-Mark.

We actually had a question about the difficulty of the game in the questionnaire for the player's council so we are keeping an eye out for this.

Sev~

[Rys]

We actually had a question about the difficulty of the game in the questionnaire for the player's council so we are keeping an eye out for this.

Sev~

No matter how hard you will try to pick the variety of players to the PC, it will never give you the general representation of ddo community.

[TitusOvid]

^this

get some manpower and analyse the forum posts since the champs are active. shouldn't be to hard just time consuming. I think it's the best way to gather opinions.

[bartharok]

No matter how hard you will try to pick the variety of players to the PC, it will never give you the general representation of ddo community.

What would?

[UurlockYgmeov]

We actually had a question about the difficulty of the game in the questionnaire for the player's council so we are keeping an eye out for this.

Sev~


I plan on renewing my sub for another year (or longer if that sweet deal comes back) - partly because of Champions. Many others will say the same.

[Monkey-Boy]

We actually had a question about the difficulty of the game in the questionnaire for the player's council so we are keeping an eye out for this.

Sev~

Yet you never ran champions by them before they went live.

[Severlin]

Agreed, though we have answers from everyone who applied, not just the people selected. So it's a bigger sample than the new council.

Sev~

[Warrax23]

I plan on renewing my sub for another year (or longer if that sweet deal comes back) - partly because of Champions. Many others will say the same.


And that's fantastic, I want you to enjoy something that you like. But that doesn't mean everyone does like it. I don't want to rain on your parade, I can only speak about how I feel about them.

[Chauncey1]

But I happen to like the champions.
Even before they were nerfed.

But if I didn't like them, I don't think it would cause me to cancel my sub.

[UurlockYgmeov]

And that's fantastic, I want you to enjoy something that you like. But that doesn't mean everyone does like it. I don't want to rain on your parade, I can only speak about how I feel about them.

same. if you don't like them - then play on casual and do the questing 4 levels below the quest. no champions still same challenge (if not more). :D

If you want boring - play DDO for Dummies. no randomness. all sameness.

Old proverb - "change is the only constant in the universe; stagnation only means decay and death."

[Monkey-Boy]

same. if you don't like them - then play on casual and do the questing 4 levels below the quest. no champions still same challenge (if not more). :D

If you want boring - play DDO for Dummies. no randomness. all sameness.

Old proverb - "change is the only constant in the universe; stagnation only means decay and death."

Or stop playing and stop paying. I haven't gotten there (yet) but I've dropped to about 1/10th what I used to play and I've stopped spending any money.

Champions aren't the dumbest thing in this game, but they are yet another straw on the camel of stupid that makes part of this game unfun.

[Paleus]

^this

get some manpower and analyse the forum posts since the champs are active. shouldn't be to hard just time consuming. I think it's the best way to gather opinions.

"Garbage in garbage out." That's not meant as an insult to the content or character of forum posts. Its a general saying in data analysis that if you put in incomplete, biased, or otherwise faulty inputs into an analysis, what comes out of any analysis is going to be pointless. The forums are a platform that people opt into, and then their posts are ones that they self-initiate. Those actions already differentiate them from the player base in ways that would be hard to adjust for.

A lot of people like to think that polls or surveys are magical creations that will tap into some underlying truth. They even like to think that this truth once known, while reveal that their own beliefs, opinions, behaviors, etc are actually in the majority that issomehow being missed by game-designers who will then act on that truth once known. But honestly, give game designers credit. They have other metrics, they are able to see the impact of design changes, and personally, whenever I think of game design left to the hands of a majority of players I think of Spore. Give players the ability to self-govern what content gets created and you can guarantee winding up landing on planet after planet of rudimentary phallus-shaped aliens.

[Kamode_Corebasher]

I also like champions...and liked them better pre-nerf.

[Cathimon]

Polls for premium accounts might be a good idea, that way we might avoid fake accounts. But it's true that people who already have left don't get to vote and the fanboys remains. It's kind of like FOX news' polls, everybody there is going to agree the republicans are better than the democrats. Or Télé-Québec channel, everybody will agree our province should become independant.

What I'm saying is that people who still play are quite likely to think all is well. And those who think otherwise are probably gone already and not going to vote. Am I making sense?

[Monkey-Boy]

Agreed, though we have answers from everyone who applied, not just the people selected. So it's a bigger sample than the new council.

Sev~

A sample of people trying to get on the players council and not make too many waves about a questionable system that should be painfully obvious has divided the community.

[Chauncey1]

Or stop playing and stop paying. I haven't gotten there (yet) but I've dropped to about 1/10th what I used to play and I've stopped spending any money.

Champions aren't the dumbest thing in this game, but they are yet another straw on the camel of stupid that makes part of this game unfun.


I don't spend as much on this game as I used to. But that's only because I've not had the disposable income to do so for a while.
But, we're busy at work again, so now I can go back to spending entirely too much money on this game.

I don't understand why so many people are so PO'ed about the champions.

I like 'em. They add an extra bit of challenge and loot.
What's not to love about moar loots?

[Chauncey1]

I also like champions...and liked them better pre-nerf.

I saw this and was like, "HEY! WHO EDITED MAH POST!?!?!!"

[Warrax23]

same. if you don't like them - then play on casual and do the questing 4 levels below the quest. no champions still same challenge (if not more). :D

If you want boring - play DDO for Dummies. no randomness. all sameness.

Old proverb - "change is the only constant in the universe; stagnation only means decay and death."

I don't want boringness, these things aren't mutually the same. Champions are not all enjoyment, the quests before champions weren't all boring.

And it's pretty cocky to assume I'm a bad player because I don't like an aspect of the game that was recently added. Maybe I just don't have infinite time to play like you and that since the group I play with likes to flower sniff means champions make the quest take much much longer.

[Monkey-Boy]

I don't understand why so many people are so PO'ed about the champions.


Do you not read peoples posts?

Now granted a lot of it was foaming out the mouth, but it should be painfully clear at this point what people don't like about them if you actually read the posts.

My personal issues is I cannot stand how a bunch of random junk can potentially break a carefully crafted quest that was never created with champions in mind. As funny as it can be watching the cannith crystal get one-shotted on korthos it's really friggin stupid.

One-shotting players is also really stupid, though it very rarely happens now (requires the insanely-stupid bypass all fortification buff, the "i hit harder" buff, a crit, and a bit of bad luck) the possibility of it happening at all shouldn't be in the game.

I also think trash mobs potentially hitting harder than raid bosses is very stupid.

Champions were a very quick and lazy way to add challenge to the game, yes the game was/is too easy and yes the difficulty should have been ratcheted up since the FoTM classes are so OP now. But the manner in while this was done is what I object to.

The game's just not as much fun as it used to be.

[Cathimon]

I don't want boringness, these things aren't mutually the same. Champions are not all enjoyment, the quests before champions weren't all boring.

And it's pretty cocky to assume I'm a bad player because I don't like an aspect of the game that was recently added. Maybe I just don't have infinite time to play like you and that since the group I play with likes to flower sniff means champions make the quest take much much longer.

''I don't have infinite time to play like you''

That's pretty funny... Good excuse though, we never heard it before!

Turn the difficulty down, let other people enjoy DDO. People who think differently and somehow, with limited time, can still krush the easy mode DDO we have these days.

Bring the polls!

[BillyBlaze]

I loved the champions on EE when they fist came out.

I'm sorry you don't like them. Maybe try an easier difficulty.

I'm still having a hard time understanding why people have trouble playing an easier difficulty.

I enjoyed Mario Cart on 50cc until it got to easy than moved up to 100cc than 150cc until that became to easy. Than I stopped playing.

The difference is I paid for the game beat it and moved on. If I was paying a sub for it I would expect the Dev's to make a 200cc, 250cc and so on to make the player base happy and keep paying the sub.

[Livmo]

I love the champs and wish they can be dialed back up a bit. Somewhere between launch and now.

[Knobull]

Because of the poor implementation of Champions and the toxic forums, I canceled my Sub.

That makes at least two of us:


But what about subscriptions? I bet I'm not the only one who cancelled VIP but still plays. (Though in my case I did not cancel because of the champions themselves, but because of how the forum community responded.)

Sure, there may have been no "dip in player concurrency", but I suspect there was a noticeable drop in subscriptions.

Anybody else decide to cancel because of the forum community behaviour after the champions introduction? I bet there's more...

Further, I would suggest that there is a direct correlation between knee-jerk forum infractions and subscription cancellations during this period.

[Knobull]

I love the champs and wish they can be dialed back up a bit. Somewhere between launch and now.


I loved the champions on EE when they fist came out.

I'm sorry you don't like them. Maybe try an easier difficulty.

I'm still having a hard time understanding why people have trouble playing an easier difficulty.



Have you tried playing higher level quests? (I have yet to see anyone to answer yes to this, which is most telling.)

[Thrudh]

Or stop playing and stop paying. I haven't gotten there (yet) but I've dropped to about 1/10th what I used to play and I've stopped spending any money.

Champions aren't the dumbest thing in this game, but they are yet another straw on the camel of stupid that makes part of this game unfun.

Do I need to dig up the quote again where you asked for the game to challenge you more? (and if they don't challenge you, than why do they bother you? I'm sure you blow right through them).

I, for one, am renewing my sub, and might buy 300 more subs for random strangers because I like champions so much.

[bartharok]

Did I need to dig up the quote again where you asked for the game to challenge you more? (and if they don't challenge you, than why do they bother you? I'm sure you blow right through them).

I, for one, am renewing my sub, and might buy 300 more subs for random strangers because I like champions so much.

Havent you noticed? The champions are boring, which is forumese for "i have to turn off autoattack"

[macadope]

I was unaware that there was a difference between a champ and a reg mob. I just thought that crown over their head meant I got another chest.

So I can't tell if u guys are serious or trolling or something.

I've played them at all levels. From heroic elite to epic elite. I haven't done a quest on the hard difficulty in several lives so I can't comment on that. But I don't really notice much of a difference in my questing.

Please explain what is so offensive about them? Seems that if the one with the crown over its head kills u, u were probably gonna die anyway. Seems like you'd be thankful for something to blaim it on. (Puggies love to blaim)

[Livmo]

Have you tried playing higher level quests?

Yes, just ask around in game and I'm notorious for cajoling and arm twisting folks into EE. Even after champs came out. And I play mostly 1st lifers. Most the epic quests that you see in my screenies are EE and sometimes 1st lifers.

You get named loot allot faster on EE and the EE loot sells really good on both the AH and Shard Exchange. Overall EE GH stuff seems to sell the best, esp. the helms from TOR.

Also, you won't get a Deconstructor or Golem Heart unless you run those quests on EE.

The champs make it spicy fun. I actually have to pay attention to what I'm doing. Sometimes you have to break stuff up into small chunks. Overall it makes some of the quests take longer, but you get more chests and challenge.

[Zavier]

The game's just not as much fun as it used to be.

It is true. This game is just not as much fun as it used to be.

The game has become painlessly easy.

*Neg levels melt away like butter - how long does it really take for five or ten neg levels to dissipate? 3 minutes? 5 minutes? What ever happened to neg levels being onerous? What ever happened to carry items or clickies to mitigate being neg leveled in the first place. They are spread throughout the game at various levels.
*Blindess is nothing but mild irritation. What ever happened to carry blindness items or potions to mitigate blindness?
*Turbine has actually spent time "fixing" the environment (ie. inserting extra boulders or "steps") so character that had low jump scores could jump or reach areas that more vertically enhanced characters could reach. This waste of time is just unfathomable. Is it too challenging to carry some jump potions?


There is no incentive for new players to actually learn to play the game. Learn the importance of favor for new players. Learn about free buffs earned through favor that don't require guild ships. Learn about the wide range of potions and how they work in the game.

I know it gets said over and over again but this game has just become one big easy button. Between the casualization of the game (see above for some simple examples) and the over the top power trot (it really hasn't been a creep for awhile now), one almost has to be actively trying not to finish quests or earn xp.

Has the implementation of the Champions been perfect? No. But, the introduction of the Champions brought me back to the game. I re-downloaded the game and I renewed my sub for 3 months. Some like the op may leave but some of us are also coming back.

[Knobull]

Have you tried playing higher level quests?
Yes, ...

Cool! :cool: The first yes to this question! How many levels above your character level is the base level of the quests you are running? I'm running quests with a base level 3-4 levels above my character level on average, it is fun! :)

[Thrudh]

I also think trash mobs potentially hitting harder than raid bosses is very stupid.

Why?

Adds some randomness to each quest...

[Knobull]

*Neg levels melt away like butter - how long does it really take for five or ten neg levels to dissipate? 3 minutes? 5 minutes?

10 negative levels takes 20 minutes to recover from (2 minutes per level). I usually go watch tv for a while or read a book, then come back to my quest when it is ready to play again.

[JamnJD]

I like the champs. I also understand that there are many players that don't like them.

Sev; Just put a checkbox on the quest opening/difficulty selection screen for champs so that it is an option. For those of us that like them, we turn them on. For those that don't, then they don't check the option. Party leaders can work out/poll the group to decide if the run will contain champs or not, or they can post in LFM whatever quest - all welcome - champs=on

Problem solved.

...J

[Livmo]

Cool! :cool: The first yes to this question! How many levels above your character level is the base level of the quests you are running? I'm running quests with a base level 3-4 levels above my character level on average, it is fun! :)

EE HH at L24 :D

Right now I'm doing L30s at L24 on my main Livmo on Sarlona, which is a 4th life arty and pure (no other heroic past lives). I have just the Divine Sphere under my belt for ERs. On G-Land I'm using a 1st life pure Morninglord at L28 with no past lives.

It should be noted my main Livmo is still wearing L14 white dragon scale armor : ) ) You think people would notice since I'm level 24 and wearing white scale since you wont get the epic scale till level 25!

[Qezuzu]

http://strawpoll.me/3633141

:cool:

[Chauncey1]

Do you not read peoples posts?

Now granted a lot of it was foaming out the mouth, but it should be painfully clear at this point what people don't like about them if you actually read the posts.

My personal issues is I cannot stand how a bunch of random junk can potentially break a carefully crafted quest that was never created with champions in mind. As funny as it can be watching the cannith crystal get one-shotted on korthos it's really friggin stupid.

One-shotting players is also really stupid, though it very rarely happens now (requires the insanely-stupid bypass all fortification buff, the "i hit harder" buff, a crit, and a bit of bad luck) the possibility of it happening at all shouldn't be in the game.

I also think trash mobs potentially hitting harder than raid bosses is very stupid.

Champions were a very quick and lazy way to add challenge to the game, yes the game was/is too easy and yes the difficulty should have been ratcheted up since the FoTM classes are so OP now. But the manner in while this was done is what I object to.

The game's just not as much fun as it used to be.

From the ones I have read, I cannot understand how or why people think it's so darn horrible. It's not, IMHO. I mean these people give their reasons for not liking champs, but it doesn't make sense to me. In-game, I've only heard ONE person complain about champions. But he complains about everything anyway.

And why is a player getting one-shotted also really stupid? We can one-shot mobs occasionally. Why wouldn't a champion be able to to do the same to a player? I think it adds an element of "danger" to the game. And that's a good thing IMHO.

If the game isn't fun for you anymore, that is unfortunate. My guildies and friends all still have a blast playing it. In fact, tonight is Drunken Devil Assault Friday, so I better get my beer on ice. :D

[Warrax23]

Do I need to dig up the quote again where you asked for the game to challenge you more? (and if they don't challenge you, than why do they bother you? I'm sure you blow right through them).

I, for one, am renewing my sub, and might buy 300 more subs for random strangers because I like champions so much.

That's awesome, please do that. I want this game to do well. That doesn't mean that I have to like everything either, so I can do what I need to. I don't pay for things I don't like, and I'm sure others are like that. I'm not saying I can't do EE's and that champions are unbeatable. I'm saying they are not fun for me, they take away from my user experience. I do not believe that I am right and you are wrong or vice versa. I think you are entitled to your opinion. If you like them that's awesome, glad for you that you like it. Maybe I've just been here too long, and that I just can't stand more time sinks. I'm from the ole W/P regime, I want my trash dead asap, and I want to get onto the cool boss fights.

[Warrax23]

And why is a player getting one-shotted also really stupid? We can one-shot mobs? Why wouldn't a champion be able to to do the same to a player? I think it adds an element of "danger" to the game. And that's a good thing IMHO.

If the game isn't fun for you anymore, that is unfortunate. My guildies and friends all still have a blast playing it. In fact, tonight is Drunken Devil Assault Friday, so I better get my beer on ice. :D

Why isn't it fun, umm because dying isn't amusing? I can't speak for anyone but myself but because these mobs didn't earn their powerlevel. They didn't spend 8 years making a toon, and adapt and scrape and grind for the best gear just to walk into a fight and get punched in the head and turned into a stone. To me that's not amusing or fun. We are basically LEGENDS, they are trash mobs... see the difference?

[bartharok]

Why isn't it fun, umm because dying isn't amusing? I can't speak for anyone but myself but because these mobs didn't earn their powerlevel. They didn't spend 8 years making a toon, and adapt and scrape and grind for the best gear just to walk into a fight and get punched in the head and turned into a stone. To me that's not amusing or fun. We are basically LEGENDS, they are trash mobs... see the difference?

Even legends must die at times. And most real legends have been killed by the very same things they have deemed insignificant.

[Blackheartox]

I'm requesting a poll be sent out for champions. Since these forums are so toxic and it's hard to have an Adult conversation without splinter groups who are either deemed Paladins or Trolls sidetracking the posts. I want it to be emailed to all accounts that have paid for at least something in this game so maybe you can get actual information instead of relying on bad metrics or this cesspool for information. I don't want to see or participate in any forums that just bash each other to the point of it really being personal attacks. Most of us are adults with full time jobs and families, we pay for this game to get away from all the BS of real life, and not have to deal with other peoples rage or immaturity.

Because of the poor implementation of Champions and the toxic forums, I canceled my Sub. This has become an awful place to play and it seems the voice of the people is being squashed by people who have nothing better to do then sit on the forums and bad mouth everyone. Good luck, and hope people grow up, life is hard enough without people going out of their way to ruin peoples enjoyments.

-Mark.

Mature people quit the game and move on without making drama tho which you didnt do.
(i am not mature myself tho since i will rage and be toxic for things i believe should be done in ddo, but i will agree with people who present good ideas, why? Because i love ddo and if i want to escape from reality they for the heck of it i want it to be a quality escape)

[Warrax23]

Even legends must die at times. And most real legends have been killed by the very same things they have deemed insignificant.

I'm not saying they don't die, but to be one/two shotted is an awful feeling. I do die and most of those times it's my fault, I didn't pay attention to my life bar, or fat fingered the heal potion/heal spell/etc or simply get in over my head. But I'll be damned if I'm going to keep grinding out prr and other stuff if mobs can just wipe me out without breaking a sweat. So if I'm not going to grind out those extra lives, why play? What's the point of making good toon and getting the best gear if it doesn't matter? I mean I feel like a first time wizard that dump stated con when that happens. Because a mob has a cheater buff that none of us can have.. screw that.

[bartharok]

I'm not saying they don't die, but to be one/two shotted is an awful feeling. I do die and most of those times it's my fault, I didn't pay attention to my life bar, or fat fingered the heal potion/heal spell/etc or simply get in over my head. But I'll be damned if I'm going to keep grinding out prr and other stuff if mobs can just wipe me out without breaking a sweat. So if I'm not going to grind out those extra lives, why play? What's the point of making good toon and getting the best gear if it doesn't matter? I mean I feel like a first time wizard that dump stated con when that happens. Because a mob has a cheater buff that none of us can have.. screw that.

First of all: We have cheater buffs mobs dont have.

second: The grind is a choice made, and is not all that necessary, just something you did/do for reasons of your own.

Third: Death IS random. And can take anyone at any time.

[Gothdom]

I like the champs. I also understand that there are many players that don't like them.

Sev; Just put a checkbox on the quest opening/difficulty selection screen for champs so that it is an option. For those of us that like them, we turn them on. For those that don't, then they don't check the option. Party leaders can work out/poll the group to decide if the run will contain champs or not, or they can post in LFM whatever quest - all welcome - champs=on

Problem solved.

...J

With all I've read on champs so far, that's the only great idea.

I don't like how random they are. I would like the extra loot if they all dropped chests... but maybe I just played too much Diablo. Maybe they should drop new named items that only champs would drop. But before that, it should be a bit less random. I don't know, I'm not a designer, but I do vote on a on/off button

[Warrax23]

Mature people quit the game and move on without making drama tho which you didnt do.
(i am not mature myself tho since i will rage and be toxic for things i believe should be done in ddo, but i will agree with people who present good ideas, why? Because i love ddo and if i want to escape from reality they for the heck of it i want it to be a quality escape)

No mature people try to help and when they can't they move on. I am not raging nor am I upset. And I do love ddo and I can be very passionate about it. And this from me isn't drama, I've seen real drama this is making a point. I believe that management is misinformed because of the toxic forums and that the information is being lost in all the hate. I've seen great ideas in some of these posts, but because it's buried by the
" I hate this and you and your are a gimp" nonsense it might never actually be seen. I don't mess around with bs in real life I sure am not going to do it in my free time.

[BillyBlaze]

Have you tried playing higher level quests? (I have yet to see anyone to answer yes to this, which is most telling.)

Yes

All I play is EE and lately have been running saga's on EE I barely even notice the champions.

Routinely solo EE WGU, HH, etc.

I also pug a lot for fun and there are a lot of really good players out there.

[Chauncey1]

Why isn't it fun, umm because dying isn't amusing? I can't speak for anyone but myself but because these mobs didn't earn their powerlevel. They didn't spend 8 years making a toon, and adapt and scrape and grind for the best gear just to walk into a fight and get punched in the head and turned into a stone. To me that's not amusing or fun. We are basically LEGENDS, they are trash mobs... see the difference?

But how do you KNOW these champs didn't earn their power levels? Maybe they trained at a prestigious trash mob academy while you weren't watching. And you dashed their dreams of becoming a boss when you struck them down.
Seriously though, I can kinda see where you're coming from. But try to keep in mind, that it's just a game, and that you might be taking it a bit too seriously if you are so upset about this that you cancelled your sub.
Our guilds motto is, "If the game is no longer fun, take a break." Or something like that.
If we actually had a motto...

[Warrax23]

First of all: We have cheater buffs mobs dont have.

second: The grind is a choice made, and is not all that necessary, just something you did/do for reasons of your own.

Third: Death IS random. And can take anyone at any time.

You mean the buffs we earn from being in Epic destinies. When I see mobs out there grinding them they can have them too.

The grind is a choice that made sense before champions, I no longer care to do it if I can get one killed because fort doesn't matter or half the mobs can see through your blur/displacement effect.

Death is random, but guess what if I don't play my toon won't die will it? Not so random then. Also I'm all for beefing up named mobs, they aren't trash. Trash mobs are trash for a reason.

[Andoris]

Yet you never ran champions by them before they went live.

Actually, they did.


While I completely agree that champions one-shoting toons (400 point hits in waterworks.. I am looking at you) is very silly and will drive people away from the game. Champions themselves is not the issue (one-shotting and the burger kind hats are).


IMO, a little bit of randomness and extra challenge is good. For instance, just last night I ran a EE Vol (way under-level) and was cutting through the quest like a hot knife through butter.. until I ran into a room with half a dozen champions.. I had to quickly change tactics and use some of the skills I learned when this game still had a challenge to deal with it.


Lack of situational awareness or the ability to use the active combat system (which is one of the best parts of DDO btw) and I would have been a greasy spot on the pavement. That encounter was fun.. and forced me to put down my cocktail for a minute and actually pay attention -- that is a good thing.


tldr;


A bit of a random element and challenge = good || One-shot, One-kill from mobs = bad

[bartharok]

You mean the buffs we earn from being in Epic destinies. When I see mobs out there grinding them they can have them too.

The grind is a choice that made sense before champions, I no longer care to do it if I can get one killed because fort doesn't matter or half the mobs can see through your blur/displacement effect.

Death is random, but guess what if I don't play my toon won't die will it? Not so random then. Also I'm all for beefing up named mobs, they aren't trash. Trash mobs are trash for a reason.

The mobs have been grinding for as long as people have been playing the game.

Dotn argue with that. As i said, it was a choice.

They are no longer trash, are they? And retirement ends with the final death, so no escape for your toons, im afraid.

[Warrax23]

The mobs have been grinding for as long as people have been playing the game.

Dotn argue with that. As i said, it was a choice.

They are no longer trash, are they? And retirement ends with the final death, so no escape for your toons, im afraid.


The mobs don't grind, I don't see them out trying to get new gear int he raids.. though I've had some pugs that would have been better had they just been mobs.

...

No in DDO unless they have a name, they are trash imo. You've never heard anything about bob the orc, because he hasn't done anything in life to become more then that. You don't think that we'd have heard of Champion Foamy the Squirrel that all of the sudden got superpowers... they would be all anyone would be talking about and peeing their pants about.

[Andoris]

The game's just not as much fun as it used to be.

Agreed.

Imo "Armor Up" and coupled with simultaneous Pally dps buffs is what removed a great deal of challenge (and fun) from the game in general -- and for that I share some of the blame.. as I didn't fully understand how silly those two changes together would be when they were proposed (p.s. Sev, the Players Council could really use a test server to try this stuff out on).

While "Armor Up" is not completely to blame -- it did have a significant part to play (heck my DC casting wizard is now wearing heavy armor)

[bartharok]

The mobs don't grind, I don't see them out trying to get new gear int he raids.. though I've had some pugs that would have been better had they just been mobs.

...

No in DDO unless they have a name, they are trash imo. You've never heard anything about bob the orc, because he hasn't done anything in life to become more then that. You don't think that we'd have heard of Champion Foamy the Squirrel that all of the sudden got superpowers... they would be all anyone would be talking about and peeing their pants about.

You claim that there are no mobs in raids?

And Bob the orc made champion because he WANTS to be remembered: One day the softskins will ALL shiver when they hear the name Bob!!!

[Warrax23]

You claim that there are no mobs in raids?

And Bob the orc made champion because he WANTS to be remembered: One day the softskins will ALL shiver when they hear the name Bob!!!

Sorry let me rephrase, no mobs in our quest parties. When I put up lfms no mobs join...

[Starla70]

I like the champions personally. Now that there are not generally 8 out of 10 of the mobs that are, it is easier. I like the idea of the mysterious remants and that you can choose what you want or save up to get a better thing. Okay the fire helm was not so good, but the idea of a cosmetic there is. For those of us who do run the sagas often the champions add that little extra to keep it from becoming so much of a rut. I think they were play tested on Lamania server. Most things are run by there for a week or so and they take feedback. Some things change others go live then change. It seems to work on most things. We just renewed for another year and I don't see that changing over a small change.

[Chauncey1]

Sorry let me rephrase, no mobs in our quest parties. When I put up lfms no mobs join...

I just...
Seriously?

I can't...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjnZO5ZgWE8

[Knobull]

Right now I'm doing L30s at L24 on my main Livmo

Nice. Man after my own heart. I find the game much more fun this way. :)




Have you tried playing higher level quests? (I have yet to see anyone to answer yes to this, which is most telling.)
Yes

Cool! Another one! :cool: Now, same question as for Livmo:

How many levels above your character level is the base level of the quests you are running?

[Warrax23]

I just...
Seriously?

I can't...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjnZO5ZgWE8

LOL, just pointing out mobs don't grind.. ie they don't group and go adventuring. :)

[Warrax23]

Nice. Man after my own heart. I find the game much more fun this way. :)



Cool! Another one! :cool: Now, same question as for Livmo:

How many levels above your character level is the base level of the quests you are running?


I've been running at level for the quests, EE's some quests seem out of balance IE house P.. but then add champions and it can become a nightmare really quickly and god forbid anyone be running out of primary destiny... took like 45 minutes in brawn pits quest... ugg...

[bartharok]

LOL, just pointing out mobs don't grind.. ie they don't group and go adventuring. :)

They loot the corpses of wiped parties, and gain power. Champions are still few, because most parties succeed, and manage to kill off most foes.

[Chauncey1]

LOL, just pointing out mobs don't grind.. ie they don't group and go adventuring. :)

Try to think of it like this. Perhaps, they have their own server, and they do all their grinding, grouping and leveling up there.And when they go on their own adventures, that is when they meet us!
This is really not something to get bent out of shape about. Really.
You seem like a reasonable person and I think it's a shame that you cancelled your sub over this.

[PermaBanned]

Do you not read peoples posts?

Now granted a lot of it was foaming out the mouth, but it should be painfully clear at this point what people don't like about them if you actually read the posts. Reading does not guarantee understanding, especially as "understanding" can be meant (at least) two different ways; there's a fair bit of difference between intellectually comprehending what someone is saying and being able to personally identify with the sentiment expressed (<- often referred to as "getting it"). ie When I say I don't understand why some people like to eat fish eggs (caviare) - it's not an intellectual failing of comprehension, I just don't like it so I don't "get it" or understand why they do.


My personal issues is I cannot stand how a bunch of random junk can potentially break a carefully crafted quest that was never created with champions in mind. As funny as it can be watching the cannith crystal get one-shotted on korthos it's really friggin stupid.It seems the Devs agreed with you on this point, and took steps to ensure no more Champs on Korthos.


One-shotting players is also really stupid, though it very rarely happens now (requires the insanely-stupid bypass all fortification buff, the "i hit harder" buff, a crit, and a bit of bad luck) the possibility of it happening at all shouldn't be in the game.The possibility of getting one-shot pre-dates Champions. Forgetting (or not yet knowing about) Deathblock/Deathward could result in getting Fingered, Destructed, Disintegrated... Forgetting or having insufficient (or not yet knowing about) Fortification could result in getting one-shot by Crits - especially for those nasty triple hits the Trolls & Ogres do.


I also think trash mobs potentially hitting harder than raid bosses is very stupid.

Champions were a very quick and lazy way to add challenge to the game, yes the game was/is too easy and yes the difficulty should have been ratcheted up since the FoTM classes are so OP now. But the manner in while this was done is what I object to.One man's "lazy" is another's "best that could be done under the time and budget allowed". As you (and I and every other forumite) have no knowledge of what the latter was, labeling it as "lazy" or any other such is baseless mud-slinging.


The game's just not as much fun as it used to be.See, while agree with that sentence I actually consider Champions a step in the right direction to rectifying the problem.

[FestusHood]

I loved the champions on EE when they fist came out.

I'm sorry you don't like them. Maybe try an easier difficulty.

I'm still having a hard time understanding why people have trouble playing an easier difficulty.

I enjoyed Mario Cart on 50cc until it got to easy than moved up to 100cc than 150cc until that became to easy. Than I stopped playing.

The difference is I paid for the game beat it and moved on. If I was paying a sub for it I would expect the Dev's to make a 200cc, 250cc and so on to make the player base happy and keep paying the sub.

Making new, higher difficulties is different than changing existing difficulties

[BillyBlaze]

Making new, higher difficulties is different than changing existing difficulties

I agree that is why I am all for a new Legendary difficulty or if that is not economically feasible than make EE harder.

[PermaBanned]

Have you tried playing higher level quests? (I have yet to see anyone to answer yes to this, which is most telling.)

Since the introduction of Champions, I've played nearly every quest in the game (including Korthos before the Champs got voted off the island) at level in Heroic Elites, and at or below level in Epic Elites (except the latest epic Madness quests - that's the only content I don't own). I have enjoyed all of them (with some exceptions unrelated to Champions) a little bit more more since the introduction of Champions than I did before them. Many other people have also commented positively about high/top level Heroic & Epic Elites with Champs in the forums. Just because you haven't seen the posts doesn't mean they aren't there.

[FestusHood]

You claim that there are no mobs in raids?

And Bob the orc made champion because he WANTS to be remembered: One day the softskins will ALL shiver when they hear the name Bob!!!

The mobs almost never complete the quests/raids, so they don't gain much xp.

[bartharok]

The mobs almost never complete the quests/raids, so they don't gain much xp.

They get XP from optionals. Like hires.

[FestusHood]

I agree that is why I am all for a new Legendary difficulty or if that is not economically feasible than make EE harder.

I'm fine with making an insanely difficult new setting, i would have no expectation toward it. More importantly, it wouldn't remove the current epic elite difficulty which many people do find an appropriate challenge.

If you are talking about jacking up EE to the point where Cetus has a 50% completion rate, i would disagree. That would push the vast majority of current epic elte players down to epic hard, leaving them with no appropriate difficulty level. That would negatively impact a lot of players, including myself.

[kauetomaz]

even though there is no actual poll i'd like to wage in:
vip + own all packs and expansions individually + constantly spend money on tp for other trivial stuff = hate champs with a passion

[Chauncey1]

I'm fine with making an insanely difficult new setting, i would have no expectation toward it. More importantly, it wouldn't remove the current epic elite difficulty which many people do find an appropriate challenge.

If you are talking about jacking up EE to the point where Cetus has a 50% completion rate, i would disagree. That would push the vast majority of current epic elte players down to epic hard, leaving them with no appropriate difficulty level. That would negatively impact a lot of players, including myself.

Agreed.

EE is difficult enough already.

[PermaBanned]

Why isn't it fun, umm because dying isn't amusing? I can't speak for anyone but myself but because these mobs didn't earn their powerlevel. They didn't spend 8 years making a toon, and adapt and scrape and grind for the best gear just to walk into a fight and get punched in the head and turned into a stone. To me that's not amusing or fun. We are basically LEGENDS, they are trash mobs... see the difference?

I look at my well developed characters like pro boxers: they practice, train and work their way up to where they are. Which do you think a pro boxer enjoys more: a short fight vs Glass Joe or a real knock-down, drag out brawl vs a comparable opponent? As a player speaking on my character's behalf, they much more prefer the comparable opponent - and the more the marrier.

[Qhualor]

I'm requesting a poll be sent out for champions. Since these forums are so toxic and it's hard to have an Adult conversation without splinter groups who are either deemed Paladins or Trolls sidetracking the posts. I want it to be emailed to all accounts that have paid for at least something in this game so maybe you can get actual information instead of relying on bad metrics or this cesspool for information. I don't want to see or participate in any forums that just bash each other to the point of it really being personal attacks. Most of us are adults with full time jobs and families, we pay for this game to get away from all the BS of real life, and not have to deal with other peoples rage or immaturity.

Because of the poor implementation of Champions and the toxic forums, I canceled my Sub. This has become an awful place to play and it seems the voice of the people is being squashed by people who have nothing better to do then sit on the forums and bad mouth everyone. Good luck, and hope people grow up, life is hard enough without people going out of their way to ruin peoples enjoyments.

-Mark.

im not worried about Champions because i find them to be too easy and the hundreds of pug groups and hundreds of solo questing side with me on that. what im more concerned about is that the hardest difficulty in the game is defeated with nearly no fail chance by most players. that's not my idea of fun and seriously questioning why im investing time to build powerful characters when i don't need to.

[flaggson]

eh I don't post much... but I have to say.. I like champions

[jalont]

I'm requesting a poll be sent out for champions. Since these forums are so toxic and it's hard to have an Adult conversation without splinter groups who are either deemed Paladins or Trolls sidetracking the posts. I want it to be emailed to all accounts that have paid for at least something in this game so maybe you can get actual information instead of relying on bad metrics or this cesspool for information. I don't want to see or participate in any forums that just bash each other to the point of it really being personal attacks. Most of us are adults with full time jobs and families, we pay for this game to get away from all the BS of real life, and not have to deal with other peoples rage or immaturity.

Because of the poor implementation of Champions and the toxic forums, I canceled my Sub. This has become an awful place to play and it seems the voice of the people is being squashed by people who have nothing better to do then sit on the forums and bad mouth everyone. Good luck, and hope people grow up, life is hard enough without people going out of their way to ruin peoples enjoyments.

-Mark.

I never noticed you here complaining when all the buffs were given to player power over the last few years. Champions are the obvious effect. I'm not sure it's fair to come here and complain about effects when you were silent about the causes. Even with prenerfed champions, the game was easier than before armor changes and incredibly easier than before enhancement revamp.

[Warrax23]

Try to think of it like this. Perhaps, they have their own server, and they do all their grinding, grouping and leveling up there.And when they go on their own adventures, that is when they meet us!
This is really not something to get bent out of shape about. Really.
You seem like a reasonable person and I think it's a shame that you cancelled your sub over this.

It's not just this bud, it just was one of the many things that weigh me down about this game, and the potential I see. And it was a catalyst.

[Warrax23]

I never noticed you here complaining when all the buffs were given to player power over the last few years. Champions are the obvious effect. I'm not sure it's fair to come here and complain about effects when you were silent about the causes. Even with prenerfed champions, the game was easier than before armor changes and incredibly easier than before enhancement revamp.

Your right, I didn't complain about it. Maybe at first it felt crappy but it took a few months of dealing with the same thing over and over that finally got me irritated enough to speak up. I don't usually complain on a whim. I am also not a fan of the Prr and Mrr.

[Azarddoze]

Try to think of it like this. Perhaps, they have their own server, and they do all their grinding, grouping and leveling up there.And when they go on their own adventures, that is when they meet us!
This is really not something to get bent out of shape about. Really.
You seem like a reasonable person and I think it's a shame that you cancelled your sub over this.

Everytime someone didn't earn conquest or left a mob in a quest, it grew with an idea of vengence.

That kobold shaman in WW has been grinding for about nine years now. And it doesn't sleep. Those kobold PLs really add up.

[Severlin]

Sure, there may have been no "dip in player concurrency", but I suspect there was a noticeable drop in subscriptions.


End of year subs were higher than pre-Champion. But that doesn't matter. Feedback from the survey indicates that pretty much everyone who applied to the player's council thinks the difficulty of the game is fine. But that doesn't matter.

What bothers the hell out of me - and also bothers our team - is that there are players that are not having fun playing DDO. I want to find out specifics why so we can fix that. I want to fix that dissatisfaction without dismantling the Champions system because a lot of people like it and we have a lot of good feedback from players enjoying the system.

The goal is that everyone can find a difficulty where they enjoy the game. Some people like an easier game, some like it more difficult. I have heard several pieces of feedback and I understand where players are coming from: Some people who PUG feel obligated to run on Elite and reducing difficulty is therefore not an option. Some people feel Elite is now too hard yet Hard is still too easy. Some people just don't like the tuning of specific champion buffs; particularly Fortification bypass. We want to solve it. But understand that we see as many if not more people who wish we didn't pull back on the original difficulty.

We want to find solutions where everyone can find fun. We only ask that the players work with us, and maybe have patience. We are all in this together and we are working as fast as we can.

That said, I suspect that one factor is that the needs of heroic level characters who have fewer tools to deal with things are different then players running on Epic. It might be that we need to have a different set of Champion buffs for heroic lives that are more subdued. As an example, we could just remove fortification bypass from heroic and dial back the hit point buff a bit for heroic.

Obviously we want to keep tuning the system beyond that, but these are the types of discussions and idea we want to foster.

Sev~

[bartharok]

End of year subs were higher than pre-Champion. But that doesn't matter. Feedback from the survey indicates that pretty much everyone who applied to the player's council thinks the difficulty of the game is fine. But that doesn't matter.

What bothers the hell out of me - and also bothers our team - is that there are players that are not having fun playing DDO. I want to find out specifics why so we can fix that. I want to fix that dissatisfaction without dismantling the Champions system because a lot of people like it and we have a lot of good feedback from players enjoying the system.

The goal is that everyone can find a difficulty where they enjoy the game. Some people like an easier game, some like it more difficult. I have heard several pieces of feedback and I understand where players are coming from: Some people who PUG feel obligated to run on Elite and reducing difficulty is therefore not an option. Some people feel Elite is now too hard yet Hard is still too easy. Some people just don't like the tuning of specific champion buffs; particularly Fortification bypass. We want to solve it. But understand that we see as many if not more people who wish we didn't pull back on the original difficulty.

We want to find solutions where everyone can find fun. We only ask that the players work with us, and maybe have patience. We are all in this together and we are working as fast as we can.

That said, I suspect that one factor is that the needs of heroic level characters who have fewer tools to deal with things are different then players running on Epic. It might be that we need to have a different set of Champion buffs for heroic lives that are more subdued. As an example, we could just remove fortification bypass from heroic and dial back the hit point buff a bit for heroic.

Obviously we want to keep tuning the system beyond that, but these are the types of discussions and idea we want to foster.

Sev~

If you are trying to make a game that everybody will have fun playing, im afraid thats never going to happen. People will like different things, and hate different things. Just try to make most happy enough, and youll not get too many grey hairs.

[Monkey-Boy]

Some people just don't like the tuning of specific champion buffs; particularly Fortification bypass. We want to solve it. But understand that we see as many if not more people who wish we didn't pull back on the original difficulty.

We want to find solutions where everyone can find fun. We only ask that the players work with us, and maybe have patience. We are all in this together and we are working as fast as we can.

That said, I suspect that one factor is that the needs of heroic level characters who have fewer tools to deal with things are different then players running on Epic. It might be that we need to have a different set of Champion buffs for heroic lives that are more subdued. As an example, we could just remove fortification bypass from heroic and dial back the hit point buff a bit for heroic.

Obviously we want to keep tuning the system beyond that, but these are the types of discussions and idea we want to foster.

Sev~

Just get rid of the stupid fort bypass and the complaints will dissipate to almost nothing. it's the one-shotting that infuriates people.

Regarding "fun" this game desperately needs something to do that doesn't involve the acquisition of XP, but that's an entirely different topic.

[Azarddoze]

If you are trying to make a game that everybody will have fun playing, im afraid thats never going to happen. People will like different things, and hate different things. Just try to make most happy enough, and youll not get too many grey hairs.

But what if people would use the difficulty that they enjoy the most to play in without prioritizing rewards. Just what if?

This game has the BEST possible difficulty mechanism to please as much people as possible that I have never seen in any other MMO. Most MMOs will have "skill walls" which will make CONTENT (fun) restricted to a certain % of the playerbase. DDO will never have that.

Only time consumed and rewards are issues. Both are not, unless you chose to make them be, tied to having fun.

[caberonia]

That said, I suspect that one factor is that the needs of heroic level characters who have fewer tools to deal with things are different then players running on Epic. It might be that we need to have a different set of Champion buffs for heroic lives that are more subdued. As an example, we could just remove fortification bypass from heroic and dial back the hit point buff a bit for heroic.
Sev~

I'm glad at least one dev figured out that heroic and epic are completely different games.. and it only took a few months or so...

[Psiandron]

If you are trying to make a game that everybody will have fun playing, im afraid thats never going to happen. People will like different things, and hate different things. Just try to make most happy enough, and youll not get too many grey hairs.

Exactly this^^

If you really try to make a game that appeals to everyone, you are just going to make everyone miserable.

You need to identify the parameters of what you want your target audience to be (and be realistic) and then focus on making that group happy.

[Qhualor]

End of year subs were higher than pre-Champion. But that doesn't matter. Feedback from the survey indicates that pretty much everyone who applied to the player's council thinks the difficulty of the game is fine. But that doesn't matter.

What bothers the hell out of me - and also bothers our team - is that there are players that are not having fun playing DDO. I want to find out specifics why so we can fix that. I want to fix that dissatisfaction without dismantling the Champions system because a lot of people like it and we have a lot of good feedback from players enjoying the system.

The goal is that everyone can find a difficulty where they enjoy the game. Some people like an easier game, some like it more difficult. I have heard several pieces of feedback and I understand where players are coming from: Some people who PUG feel obligated to run on Elite and reducing difficulty is therefore not an option. Some people feel Elite is now too hard yet Hard is still too easy. Some people just don't like the tuning of specific champion buffs; particularly Fortification bypass. We want to solve it. But understand that we see as many if not more people who wish we didn't pull back on the original difficulty.

We want to find solutions where everyone can find fun. We only ask that the players work with us, and maybe have patience. We are all in this together and we are working as fast as we can.

That said, I suspect that one factor is that the needs of heroic level characters who have fewer tools to deal with things are different then players running on Epic. It might be that we need to have a different set of Champion buffs for heroic lives that are more subdued. As an example, we could just remove fortification bypass from heroic and dial back the hit point buff a bit for heroic.

Obviously we want to keep tuning the system beyond that, but these are the types of discussions and idea we want to foster.

Sev~

i guess it depends on the changes for heroic Champions, but it sounds like another nerf is coming. i know you are listening and trying to make Champions work. it was a great idea, but honestly, if they go through another nerf especially on elite, you might as well just remove them from the game. i really do feel like you are trying to improve the game and make it better, but this is just causing more headache than what its worth. it was close when they were first introduced getting back that old feeling of being challenged and seeing for a moment players actually pausing and using more tactics and teamwork. it was a nice adrenaline rush for a few days. maybe there is something else you can try so i can get back that feeling again?

[PermaBanned]

If you really try to make a game that appeals to everyone, you are just going to make everyone miserable.

You need to identify the parameters of what you want your target audience to be (and be realistic) and then focus on making that group happy.What happens if the group they focus on isn't the group that you identify with?

[Vargouille]

Just get rid of the stupid fort bypass and the complaints will dissipate to almost nothing. it's the one-shotting that infuriates people.

These are not the same thing, by the way. If the GOAL is "eliminate one-shotting", there is evidence that "remove fort bypass" doesn't do that, which makes it a more complicated discussion. Second Wind is another culprit of one-shotting (and possibly causes more death than fort bypass), but we like the gameplay it adds. It probably needs better visual feedback and interaction, which is also possibly true in some other aspects of Monster Champions.

We're trying not to confuse goals (both the players and ours) with change proposals, but in this discussion that has sometimes been difficult to separate.

[count_spicoli]

That said, I suspect that one factor is that the needs of heroic level characters who have fewer tools to deal with things are different then players running on Epic. It might be that we need to have a different set of Champion buffs for heroic lives that are more subdued. As an example, we could just remove fortification bypass from heroic and dial back the hit point buff a bit for heroic.

Obviously we want to keep tuning the system beyond that, but these are the types of discussions and idea we want to foster.

Sev~

Yikes. You already removed champs from first five levels. Now the rest of heroics? It's slowly creeping towards epic levels. The casuals are winning like they always do.

I feel for ya devs. You got a really tough job but I see no need to change anything. I just did 2 heroic lives after spending a few months just hanging in ee. I died 4 times in 2 lives and only to traps. Mobs need no adjusting. People have 3 other settings than elite. No need to downgrade elite.

[Monkey-Boy]

These are not the same thing, by the way. If the GOAL is "eliminate one-shotting", there is evidence that "remove fort bypass" doesn't do that, which makes it a more complicated discussion. Second Wind is another culprit of one-shotting (and possibly causes more death than fort bypass), but we like the gameplay it adds. It probably needs better visual feedback and interaction, which is also possibly true in some other aspects of Monster Champions.

We're trying not to confuse goals (both the players and ours) with change proposals, but in this discussion that has sometimes been difficult to separate.

Well, some of us hate it so we're at an impasse. So is our only solution to stop playing your game?

Point-blank question: do you wish to eliminate the one-shotting?

[Chaios]

...It's kind of like FOX news' polls, everybody there is going to agree the republicans are better than the democrats. Or Télé-Québec channel, everybody will agree our province should become independant.

What I'm saying is that people who still play are quite likely to think all is well. And those who think otherwise are probably gone already and not going to vote. Am I making sense?

Seems reasonable on the surface but, having read a little forum here and there, it looks like as many posters continue to play DDO so they'll have a constant source of disappointment as for any other reason...

but on the other hand, here I am, and I enjoyed the new sense of unpredictability and danger that I feel the champions added. Didn't like getting instakilled, but I thought the heightened sense focus it brought to my playing was worth the chance of that happening.

next week I'll post a list of all the ways this game still disappoints me, if you like : )

[Azarddoze]

Point-blank question: do you wish to eliminate the one-shotting?

Getting one shotted is so subjective. What if I run naked and without EDs in a EE quest?

Thing is, as much as skills are, the defensive capabilities of classes, builds, PLs, buffs, gear and EDs can make such a big difference that it's hard to say if someone got one shotted when he shouldn't have been. Like beholders and the Ice whatever (polar ray meanies) can one shot you if you have low saves or HP.

Hope that makes sense.

And that is, of course, my opinion. But I agree that getting one shotted is frustrating in any case. Not that it should never happen though.

[Monkey-Boy]

Getting one shotted is so subjective. What if I run naked and without EDs in a EE quest?



That is an insanely stupid concern.

[Vargouille]

Point-blank question: do you wish to eliminate the one-shotting?
As I said earlier today, yes.

[Oxarhamar]

What would?

Only one thing.

In game survey.

[Monkey-Boy]

What bothers the hell out of me - and also bothers our team - is that there are players that are not having fun playing DDO.

Sev~

There are less than 500 people on the who list on my server 10 PM Eastern Friday night - on a 25% bonus XP weekend. About a year ago this would have been closer 900, I guess the other 400 are finding fun elsewhere?

[UurlockYgmeov]

There are less than 500 people on the who list on my server 10 PM Eastern Friday night - on a 25% bonus XP weekend. About a year ago this would have been closer 900, I guess the other 400 are finding fun elsewhere?

quite probably - for two reasons:

1) They have girlfriends.boyfriends.husbands.spouses and tomorrow is 14th February.
2) about 1/3 population of United States is hunkering down preparing for a blizzard. This weather doesn't phase Canadians or Wisconsinites.


As I said earlier today, yes.
Unfortunately you will never be able to. Here is why: there will always be a underprepared underequiped character who bites off more than they should. No matter what you do - they will always have one-shotting.

Now with that said - eliminating most of the one-shotting is good.

[Zasral]

As I said earlier today, yes.

I'm glad to see you guys are responding to the discussion. If you will answer one thing please? What is the problem with putting in a selector, to turn champions off for those that don't want them?

[Andoris]

2) about 1/3 population of United States is hunkering down preparing for a blizzard. This weather doesn't phase Canadians or Wisconsinites.



Hey, I resemble that remark :)

[Monkey-Boy]

quite probably - for two reasons:

1) They have girlfriends.boyfriends.husbands.spouses and tomorrow is 14th February.
2) about 1/3 population of United States is hunkering down preparing for a blizzard. This weather doesn't phase Canadians or Wisconsinites.


Nobody goes out on Feb 13! Unless you're the type of person who's so cheap you buy your candy on Feb 15. :)

"Hunkering" down for a blizzard, once you've stocked up on bread and milk video games are the ideal thing to do while snowed in.

[Robai]

What bothers the hell out of me - and also bothers our team - is that there are players that are not having fun playing DDO. I want to find out specifics why so we can fix that. ...

OMG, you asked that question!
Direct answer: too limited BtC bank space

[PermaBanned]

That is an insanely stupid concern.

Funny, I have that exact same opinion regarding many of the things I've read about Champions.

[PermaBanned]

Yikes. You already removed champs from first five levels. Now the rest of heroics?Erm... That's not what he said?

[Gothdom]

End of year subs were higher than pre-Champion. But that doesn't matter. Feedback from the survey indicates that pretty much everyone who applied to the player's council thinks the difficulty of the game is fine. But that doesn't matter.

What bothers the hell out of me - and also bothers our team - is that there are players that are not having fun playing DDO. I want to find out specifics why so we can fix that. I want to fix that dissatisfaction without dismantling the Champions system because a lot of people like it and we have a lot of good feedback from players enjoying the system.

The goal is that everyone can find a difficulty where they enjoy the game. Some people like an easier game, some like it more difficult. I have heard several pieces of feedback and I understand where players are coming from: Some people who PUG feel obligated to run on Elite and reducing difficulty is therefore not an option. Some people feel Elite is now too hard yet Hard is still too easy. Some people just don't like the tuning of specific champion buffs; particularly Fortification bypass. We want to solve it. But understand that we see as many if not more people who wish we didn't pull back on the original difficulty.

We want to find solutions where everyone can find fun. We only ask that the players work with us, and maybe have patience. We are all in this together and we are working as fast as we can.

That said, I suspect that one factor is that the needs of heroic level characters who have fewer tools to deal with things are different then players running on Epic. It might be that we need to have a different set of Champion buffs for heroic lives that are more subdued. As an example, we could just remove fortification bypass from heroic and dial back the hit point buff a bit for heroic.

Obviously we want to keep tuning the system beyond that, but these are the types of discussions and idea we want to foster.

Sev~

I'm level 21, first life with only one epic destiny at level 5. Gonna be stuck like this for a while since I play with a group of IRL friends. What I hate about champions on harder levels is that I am playing to get gear to beat them, but if they kill me when I solo (my group only plays once a week), so I can't get the gear. So I move to another quest instead to a point where I'm starting to get bored doing the same runs over and over. I did try to find parties to play with, but it's not as easy as one would think. On Thelanis, when I put a LFM, I can play hours before I even get a join message.

The idea of a on/off option is the best for now. If I want to make my runs harder, I'll put it on, if I'm looking for gear, I'd take it off. They'd be fun if they'd drop something special, remnants doesn't cut it for me. Why should I farm them? For potion I can buy for plats? For cosmetic gear? I'm not powerful enough yet, I want gear that matters.

I personally don't hate champions themselves, but they are in my way in getting better at this game. I understand why 5th lifers with super gear like them, and I think I would too at that point, but in my situation, they are really annoying and frustrating.

[slarden]

End of year subs were higher than pre-Champion. But that doesn't matter. Feedback from the survey indicates that pretty much everyone who applied to the player's council thinks the difficulty of the game is fine. But that doesn't matter.

What bothers the hell out of me - and also bothers our team - is that there are players that are not having fun playing DDO. I want to find out specifics why so we can fix that. I want to fix that dissatisfaction without dismantling the Champions system because a lot of people like it and we have a lot of good feedback from players enjoying the system.

The goal is that everyone can find a difficulty where they enjoy the game. Some people like an easier game, some like it more difficult. I have heard several pieces of feedback and I understand where players are coming from: Some people who PUG feel obligated to run on Elite and reducing difficulty is therefore not an option. Some people feel Elite is now too hard yet Hard is still too easy. Some people just don't like the tuning of specific champion buffs; particularly Fortification bypass. We want to solve it. But understand that we see as many if not more people who wish we didn't pull back on the original difficulty.

We want to find solutions where everyone can find fun. We only ask that the players work with us, and maybe have patience. We are all in this together and we are working as fast as we can.

That said, I suspect that one factor is that the needs of heroic level characters who have fewer tools to deal with things are different then players running on Epic. It might be that we need to have a different set of Champion buffs for heroic lives that are more subdued. As an example, we could just remove fortification bypass from heroic and dial back the hit point buff a bit for heroic.

Obviously we want to keep tuning the system beyond that, but these are the types of discussions and idea we want to foster.

Sev~

The empathy means alot and is appreciated. There are many complaints on the forums, but in game people seem to be enjoying the game and having fun. I don't think the negative vibes on the forum is a fair representation of how much the players enjoy the game.

[Azarddoze]

The idea of a on/off option is the best for now. If I want to make my runs harder, I'll put it on, if I'm looking for gear, I'd take it off. They'd be fun if they'd drop something special, remnants doesn't cut it for me. Why should I farm them? For potion I can buy for plats? For cosmetic gear? I'm not powerful enough yet, I want gear that matters.

Before I go on and focus on this small part, I want to say that I do believe a post like yours must represent a strong enought % of the playerbase to it should be heard more often on this forum and should be taken in consideration.

That being said, what I quoted here contains a strong contradiction (taking the overall post into account). If the rewards was better for fighting champions but that there would be no options to opt-out and that you would still struggle and die, would that really be allright for you? That just doesn't make sense because the result is the same, you not having a good time by logging out without any progression.

"They'd be fun if they'd drop something special"

So, how would you feel if there was another difficulty, that does offer both that challenge that you cannot take on yet and better loot. After all, they're just fun heh? Everything else would remain unchanged and perhaps now you'd be running "Hard" instead (I'm considering hypothetical options here). Hard for loot that is already satisfying as you can get now - Elite for challenge and MORE loot.

What I want as someone representing another % of the playerbase (looking for more challenge on elite) with probably more time spent in the game and overall on our characters, is that we could draw the line as to where should it be you or us that has the bigger role in deciding how should the toughest difficulty feel like. According to the power that we can produce instead of according to "tone it down because the loot is not worth the risk".

The difference is that I will take all the risks in the world and do whatever it takes to obtain that loot. That's my definition of fun. Without this element, there is no more fun as the game becomes an auto-pilot experience... and I won't do that anymore if it's an endless loop. If you ever get there, you'll know what I mean. (*Edit* Actually I will do whatever it takes to beat the challenge... we'll see the drop rates for the loot hehe)


Take note that not everything is directed at you but just looking for a general idea on the matter from a player like you. I have a really hard time understanding how is it possible that with 4 difficulties available, there is not at least one that is challenging for someone better than "your average casual Paladin with capped ED". And i'll be blunt for a sec : **** yeah with better loot please.

If changes were to happen through a difficulty revamp, there has to be one way that will create much positivity while minimizing negative impact. We saw what happened when champions were released on every difficulties. If there was one challenge-focused difficulty, I'm guessing they wouldn't have to come up with things that would affect everyone accross all difficulties. They could just tweak one of them perhaps.

Not that they had precisely that goal in mind with champions though.

*Tried to fix and make this as understandable as possible.

AND - Disregard this and see it as something general not aimed at you if you weren't even talking about elite.

[LeoLionxxx]

Only one thing.

In game survey.

Here's an idea: have an in game survey be put up, so that all players can do it, and have the incentive for completion be an Astral shard - this would help players get into that economy, as well as provide feedback from non-forumites.

[DANTEIL]

I realize I am one small data point, but I dropped my VIP subscription with the advent of Champions, and I haven't resumed it. I already found the game challenging enough and, unlike many of the snide comments here about casual players who felt 'entitled' to Elite completion, I always tried to be very prudent about not biting off more than I can chew. I'm not an XP-grinder and bravery bonuses are meaningless to me. I liked Elite for the favor and the one-and-done status, if anything. However, I only have 1st life characters, and I almost never used do Elite (Heroic or otherwise) on level -- it was always over-leveled and usually for quests that I felt I could handle (e.g., I would never attempt Enter the Kobold on Elite because that end fight chews me up).

Quite simply, a lot of how I used to play went out the window with Champions. I have been trying to adjust my characters since then, with some improvements, but for the most part I have only found consistent success on Normal and maybe Hard-level quests. Thus, my decision to forego the VIP subscription because it doesn't feel like I need it any more. It is incredibly demoralizing and truly non-fun to make my way through the majority of quest -- usually one that is out in the middle of a slayer zone -- only to die due to a random champion, then having to recall with little hope of making it back into the quest to finish in time.

For the most part, I have been trying to avoid the Champion-wars here on the forums, but now it sounds like Champions are here to stay. I really do hope that the devs can find a way to balance their desire to increase the challenge in the game for those expert players who feel like they need it (which is something I fully understand) without leaving many other players behind.

[Thar]

I'm requesting a poll be sent out for champions. Since these forums are so toxic and it's hard to have an Adult conversation without splinter groups who are either deemed Paladins or Trolls sidetracking the posts. I want it to be emailed to all accounts that have paid for at least something in this game so maybe you can get actual information instead of relying on bad metrics or this cesspool for information. I don't want to see or participate in any forums that just bash each other to the point of it really being personal attacks. Most of us are adults with full time jobs and families, we pay for this game to get away from all the BS of real life, and not have to deal with other peoples rage or immaturity.

Because of the poor implementation of Champions and the toxic forums, I canceled my Sub. This has become an awful place to play and it seems the voice of the people is being squashed by people who have nothing better to do then sit on the forums and bad mouth everyone. Good luck, and hope people grow up, life is hard enough without people going out of their way to ruin peoples enjoyments.

-Mark.

Statistically they need to survey a random base of players, if not all paying people, then a subset of this, not people who play a lot and want to be on pc. not forum posters. a random sampling of everyone, english, non english, us, non us, casual, non causal. Any other sampling that is not random is not statistically valid.

That being said, champions stink. it's just a road bump for those good players like dungeon alert, dungeon scaling, etc was supposed to be, it's a trainwreck for those new or lesser geared/tr'd players. new rewards are nice. not all fitting in a bag are not nice. 10,000 to get something decent... not nice.

[HAL]

I dislike Champions because:

1. They do not belong in D&D

2. They distract from the story of the quests.

3. They add no more to quests than Dungeon Alert adds.

4. They can cause quest failure that has nothing to do with actual quest mechanics and despite attempts to mitigate.

5. They don't add difficulty to quests in an "even" manner: within the same level and difficulty, easier quests are only made slightly harder while challenging quests can be made utterly frustrating.

[Gabrael]

Just wanted to say I'm extremely pleased with the champions. This changed the random boring grind for xp for having to actually keep an eye out for champion, rather than getting aggro of the whole map I need to reconsider my tactic every time a champion pop up.

Especially considering I rarely know in what way the champion is buffed up.
I very often got close to dying cuz of a champion, and that was on a strong toon. and I LOVE that.

I feel I am actually being somewhat randomly challenged.
To anyone saying how they are having a hard time being a sort of favor completionist or xp grinder or item farmer cuz of that well... no pain no gain.

so yeah, keep up the good work team

[Qhualor]

i liked the old Champions because

1. the idea came from D&D

2. they used to make the quests more challenging and fun

3. they encouraged strategy, teamwork, tactics and a good reason to group

4. there was an actual risk of failure

5. the unknown and random buffed up Champions even made some elite players play a little smarter

[bls904c2]

Have you tried playing higher level quests? (I have yet to see anyone to answer yes to this, which is most telling.)

i use to play 2(4) levels above me lvl 1 i would play lvl 3 quests on elite making them 4 levels above me. today on my lvl 17 i played power play, schemes of the enemy, and blown to bits, all on elite. took me going to repair after each quest because i died 4-8 times each quest, hire just raised me and i continued. just me and hire. had to redo ship buffs so about 5- 6 hours to compleate. not even the fastest but hey i do it. can't wait to lvl 19 for my guardians ring. PRR/MRR is just what is ordered for my monk.

the last 2 lvls i have no choice but to play at lvl

[janave]

1, I dont really like the game on top tier difficulty to be a faceroll zergfest, champions can occasionally interrupt - good.
2, From an another view, this is kinda unfair for those on the goal of completionist, as champs are going to slow them down.

Most veterans run optimized characters where champions are almost no threat, few exceptions, but generally high prr/mrr is plenty to survive with ample self healing.

I think the fragment turnins should have some perma xp boost, to compensate those who enjoyed the failess zerg mode.

3, Some of the End bosses should receive a boost in hitpower, it does feel weird when a raid boss hits for less at-level than a "lucky" champion with proper damage buffs.

4, Add effects to champions that are not overpowering pplayers, but instead make solo not so optimal, maybe on elite only, like piercing damage absorb 80% vs archers, magic damage absorbtion, etcetc...not just to a single element, its still too easy on a mage to just use something else. Just adding flat hps is unexciting but steep resistances make party players able to contribute other then who gets the first 5 swings at soemthing.

[Natashaelle]

Perhaps keep the occasional one-shotting, but add some gloating dialogue that would display whenever a Champion slays a Player Character ?

** "At last !! Revenge !!"

** "That'll teach you to invade my home and kill all my friends !!"

** "The bigger they come, the harder they fall ..."

[bls904c2]

These are not the same thing, by the way. If the GOAL is "eliminate one-shotting", there is evidence that "remove fort bypass" doesn't do that, which makes it a more complicated discussion. Second Wind is another culprit of one-shotting (and possibly causes more death than fort bypass), but we like the gameplay it adds. It probably needs better visual feedback and interaction, which is also possibly true in some other aspects of Monster Champions.

We're trying not to confuse goals (both the players and ours) with change proposals, but in this discussion that has sometimes been difficult to separate.

is second wind something new to the game or has been on other enemies

[IronClan]

Love champions, liked them better pre nerf when they were nearly scary and could make you pull up short and "group up" with the others in your party.

What I see is that people who like champs post once and done, they rarely stick around but people who hate them post literally 20-50 times per thread each and create a half dozen of their own rage threads repeating the same complaints. Very few people who like Champs post more than once, and next to none of us have created ANY new threads let alone multiple threads. Except a couple of us, but as much as I like a good argument even I don't keep posting 20-50 times per thread. This reminds me of Dungeon Alert hate in so many ways.

Honestly I can not fathom why anyone would have such a DRAMATIC problem with Champs (whats all the fuss?), the DRAMA by itself sends up red flags in my view. They just are not that difficult 99% of them feel like slightly longer lasting trash mobs.

What I see is that the complaints are clearly cop outs, are presented in childish terms, or make little to no sense examples:


Champs are stupid (this is an arbitrary and child like non-reason)
Champs are tougher than bosses (implying that they should be removed; besides being mostly untrue or hyperbole, this is just a good reason to give bosses a couple random abilities, which we all know is NOT what Champ haters actually want to accomplish with this line of reasoning).
Champs aren't hard, they are just annoying (in other words they ARE hard, or they are interfering with your perfect speed run memorization of Wizking/Von3/Spies for max XP; which is actually the same thing as hard).
Champs are wrong because of D&D! Really? A game that came with Random encounter Tables full of randomly rolled Mobs in 1974, and had "captains" and "leaders" as early as 1st Edition AD&D? In other words INVENTED THE CONCEPT OF BOSSES AND CHAMPIONS Oh and BTW these leaders? They had randomly rolled attributes (all D&D monsters do, that's where the concept of hit dice came from). PS: they also often had powerful magic items that they used against the PC's... Yep... So Sad but Champs are as D&D as a 20 sided die... moreso in fact, D&D had champ like mobs when we were using paper chits.


Just ask any group who's DM rolled a 1 or a 20 twice in a row on a Random Encounter Table about how not D&D Champs are.

[Dragavon]

^this

get some manpower and analyse the forum posts since the champs are active. shouldn't be to hard just time consuming. I think it's the best way to gather opinions.

No. The vast majority of players in online games never even read the forums. Forums are useless if you want to know what a majority of players thinks/wants.

[MeliCat]

^this

get some manpower and analyse the forum posts since the champs are active. shouldn't be to hard just time consuming. I think it's the best way to gather opinions.

A lot of people don't post on the forums so that is not fair.

[IronClan]

I dislike Champions because:

1. They do not belong in D&D

I'll say it again Just ask any group who's DM rolled a 1 or a 20 twice in a row on a Random Encounter Table about how not D&D Champs are. Rolling a very low or very high result on a random encounter table often created a new roll on a HARDER random encounter table... later on these were done with D% (2d20) and any 00 or or even a 90 to 100% roll was likely to get you something TRUELY NASTY... like Bloody knuckles running through Korthos nasty (LOL at my own visual)


2. They distract from the story of the quests.

I don't see how... Leader and Captain mobs make sense from the standpoint of verisimilitude and they appeared in the earliest versions of D&D's 1st edition rules... I believe they were first officially introduced in AD&D 1ED.


3. They add no more to quests than Dungeon Alert adds.

Ah another much hand wrung mechanic that is dramatically complained about by a tiny fraction of vocal players. Dungeon Alert doesn't add, it keeps extremely bad, high server resource using behavour (like activating entire dungeons without killing anything) from causing massive lag spikes. At the same time it kept newbie crushing behaviors like Zerg-trivializing content down to a dull roar, at least until the later years when TR's outnumbered new players in low level content... nothing but a new newbie starter area could keep new players from having their "Dungeon Crawling" bubble burst now with so many new player hostile TR's leading the 99.9% E for BB LFM's.


4. They can cause quest failure that has nothing to do with actual quest mechanics and despite attempts to mitigate.

How so? Are you implying that getting killed by Mobs is not an integral part of questing?


5. They don't add difficulty to quests in an "even" manner: within the same level and difficulty, easier quests are only made slightly harder while challenging quests can be made utterly frustrating.

IMO any quest you fail is going to be immediately chalked up to this "uneven" balance, so in other words: even = the illusion of a chance of failure without any REAL actual chance of failure.

The real problem is the difference between someone who wants to have fun on any given night and doesn't mind failing occasionally because failure gets your blood flowing and reminds you that success isn't guaranteed. And the player who wants DDO to be Farmville... no failure conditions what so ever... just pleasant repetition of WizKing, Von3, Spies and Von5 until you nod off to sleep in a fluffy smooth Elite for BB pillow and your face lands on W and you wake up holding 2 levels.

[Seikojin]

I like champions period. I think they add a new level of difficulty to the game. hard is harder, elite is elite.

There have been few and far between situations where champions have dominated me or groups I am in.

I usually play at level. Whether hard or elite. I aim for Elite just for the added rewards. The challenge is there, regardless.

As it is, I think Champions should be in raids. I don't care about the challenge they would impose. It is just another hurdle that we players will overcome.

Even here no one gets owned by 100% of every champion. It is just that rare one that has the counter-you abilities that stomps you that makes you rage.

[Rykka]

We actually had a question about the difficulty of the game in the questionnaire for the player's council so we are keeping an eye out for this.

Sev~

I'll impart this. Everyone I've chatted with IN GAME has been positive towards champions when they were hard (day 1) and lost interest in them when they became a token icon. I'm not sure what difficulty they represent currently, except that they seem to annoy low prr melees (bananas in pajamas) because they frequently ignore fortification.

[CeltEireson]

For the most part, I have been trying to avoid the Champion-wars here on the forums, but now it sounds like Champions are here to stay. I really do hope that the devs can find a way to balance their desire to increase the challenge in the game for those expert players who feel like they need it (which is something I fully understand) without leaving many other players behind.

Its not just about challenging expert players though - over the past while particularly with recent changes re PRR and MRR, and also enhancement changes, player characters have been gaining additional power and defences whilst the majority of quests/mobs have stayed unchanged. So for ALL players, not just the elite ones, the effective difficulty of many of the quests has actually been going down substantially. The devs can't go back at this stage and retune all the quests and mobs to take this into account - it would simply take too much time and resources to do - so the champions are, for want of a better word, easier way for the devs to try increase the difficulty of quests back to what was originally intended. Are the best way, probably not, but better ways would probably mean less work in other areas - and they have the advantage that they can be fairly easily tweaked.

And that's why they're not offering a choice to people such as a toggle - it kind of defeats the whole purpose of the champion which is to try to reset the quest difficulty to what it was prior to some of the power creep in player abilities.

[slarden]

These are not the same thing, by the way. If the GOAL is "eliminate one-shotting", there is evidence that "remove fort bypass" doesn't do that, which makes it a more complicated discussion. .

I haven't been one-shotted since the first champion adjustment, but when I was that first weekend it seemed to be the combination of the complete fort bypass + damage boost + the resulting crit with the weapon crit multiplier. At the time my PRR was around 60 on my PM with a fortification of over 200. Since then I started wearing armor with a significantly higher PRR I haven't been one-shotted since.

Some weapons have x3 and x4 multipliers and the complete fort bypass is resulting in crits when players normally never getted critted. I didn't check the monster buffs, but every time I was one-shot I checked the combat and the damage was over 1200 each time and each time it was listed as a crit. I don't actively check my combat log but I am assuming with a fortification of 250 I would otherwise never get hit with a crit by a non-boss.

You should think about adjusting your buffs and having PRR/MRR debuffs instead of just fortification debuffs. I am fine with heavy armor being the easy button that it is - but you should make champions a threat to players other than just those with low PRR.

My preference would be to bring monster damage back to the level of the original first weekend, but eliminate the one-shotting. Unfortunately it sounds like it is more complicated than just getting rid of the one buff I thought was the cause. I still believe you may be underestimating the impact of complete fortification bypass - since every time I was one-shot that first weekend it was the result of a crit and my fortification was over 200.

[Knobull]

Myself, I suspect the one-shotting is not related to fort bypass, but rather it is related to (multiplicative)? stacking of the same buff more than once (such as "I do more damage" +(x) "I do more damage", which I was seeing before I cancelled VIP) and since these buffs are random, some players may never see this, and thus disbelieve the one-shotting is occurring. I think the problem is with how the buffs are applied.

[Hendrik]

Myself, I suspect the one-shotting is not related to fort bypass, but rather it is related to (multiplicative)? stacking of the same buff more than once (such as "I do more damage" +(x) "I do more damage", which I was seeing before I cancelled VIP) and since these buffs are random, some players may never see this, and thus disbelieve the one-shotting is occurring. I think the problem is with how the buffs are applied.

The problem is that for players to see what Champ Buffs they face they must read.

Reading takes to much time and lowers the xp/min ratio.

[Qhualor]

i forgot to switch back to the PDK fort helm last night and wore my Royal Guard Mask the whole time doing the Tor flaggers. i never went below 3/4 hp the entire time and i was all up in Champions faces. when am i going to get one shotted?

[jalont]

Well, some of us hate it so we're at an impasse. So is our only solution to stop playing your game?

Point-blank question: do you wish to eliminate the one-shotting?

One-shotting should not be happening anymore. If you're claiming you're still getting one-shotted, you're either making it up or you've gimped yourself.

[Deadlock]

Yet you never ran champions by them before they went live.

Not exactly true. The concept was ran by us and I can't remember anyone thinking it was a bad idea. We did give some feedback on buffs and abilities that they could have (like FOM to prevent being held that would need dispelled) - can't think if any of our suggestions made it onto the final list.

We didn't get any specifics of the implementation - like they should not exist in Korthos - but it's not true that it wasn't discussed.

[Knobull]

End of year subs were higher than pre-Champion.

Glad to hear it! This is a good thing! :) I was worried a bit.



What bothers the hell out of me - and also bothers our team - is that there are players that are not having fun playing DDO. I want to find out specifics why so we can fix that. I want to fix that dissatisfaction without dismantling the Champions system because a lot of people like it and we have a lot of good feedback from players enjoying the system.


I am still having fun playing the game. (Though I am playing Diablo 1 this weekend just for S&G - that breakables thread gave me an itch I had to scratch.) I may have cancelled my subscription but it was mainly because of the forum community, not the game itself. It seems things have improved on the forums since the initial blowup, and I think your involvement has helped. I think recognising when the community rules are being gamed to further a player agenda is an important part of making sure people have fun. What happens on the forums does affect the game.

Aside: re-playing Diablo 1 is showing me some key elements of game design. It was so successful for many reasons, it really should be part of a course on modern game design (perhaps it is somewhere?). The similarities and differences between it and DDO is making a very interesting study. Anyone involved in DDO, players or developers should have played Diablo 1 through, and more recently too, I see it in a new light now. This will be the third time I have installed and played it through, seems I do so about every 10 years (three times now).

Smashin meh barrelz! (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/455785-Ransacking-ransack-do-we-really-need-breakable-bonus?p=5538594&viewfull=1#post5538594)



We want to find solutions where everyone can find fun. We only ask that the players work with us, and maybe have patience. We are all in this together and we are working as fast as we can.
Sev~

I am sympathetic to the pressures and the effect on the product quality of an "agile" development environment. At this point I am being patient about it, and will probably re-subscribe in the future or perhaps just finish buying all the packs and races and character slots I want instead.

But it is the "fast as we can" part that worries me. I say take it slow and think it through, in a most non-"agile" way.

[Knobull]

The problem is that for players to see what Champ Buffs they face they must read.

Reading takes to much time and lowers the xp/min ratio.

Yes, but from my perspective it is not a question of xp/min... there are times as a flower sniffer myself, that one is faced with champions and there just is not time to target and examine and read... you'll be dead as the champ hammers on you while you try to examine and read the buffs present... (Eyes of Stone end fight is a good example of such a situation IIRC)

What might be handy is a way to hotkey the examine function (is there a way to do so already?).

edit: oh I do see a "EXAMINE_ITEM_KEY" in the ddo.keymap file so it looks like it is there (I never actually looked for it in the options, but here is a really good use case for it - I'm not in-game now but will check for it later)

[Wulverine]

Feedback from the survey indicates that pretty much everyone who applied to the player's council thinks the difficulty of the game is fine.

How anycone can claim this is not a casual game at this point, is beyond me.

/postforselfreference

[Qhualor]

End of year subs were higher than pre-Champion. But that doesn't matter. Feedback from the survey indicates that pretty much everyone who applied to the player's council thinks the difficulty of the game is fine. But that doesn't matter.

Sev~

you don't have a diverse Player Council than.

[Standal]

As I said earlier today, yes.

Please keep in mind that an unprepared player getting oneshotted is fine. My opinion is that my build, gear, and saves should matter and I should be able to avoid getting oneshotted by using the proper setup. For example, one of the first times I ran "Relic of a Sovereign Past", everything was going fine then BAM, I'm dead! I didn't even know what hit me and my combat log had rolled over so that I couldn't tell. By asking around I eventually found out that I had been FOD'd by a death cleric and failed a save. I got a deathblock item, and that didn't happen any more.

My concern is that challenge now seems to be viewed as something that can only be overcome by player skill. DDO is not a FPS. Build and gear should be the tools a player uses to overcome the challenges of the game, not twitching or Mario skills. A good player with a well built character may tremendously outperform my pitiful efforts, but I should be able to run all the content at the highest level if I put in the necessary time to acquire the best gear and build.

[count_spicoli]

Erm... That's not what he said?

Ahh but that is what he said. By removing buffs and mechanics that make these champions difficult you are essentially removing champions. It is going in the wrong direction from there original run where they were actually fun. Right now they provide no challenge for most of the people I run with and seems they are only going to get easier. I have yet to see one comment from a developer saying we are going to ramp champions back up even tho many people are calling for that. I only see we are going to nerf them.

[Thar]

End of year subs were higher than pre-Champion. But that doesn't matter. Feedback from the survey indicates that pretty much everyone who applied to the player's council thinks the difficulty of the game is fine. But that doesn't matter.

What bothers the hell out of me - and also bothers our team - is that there are players that are not having fun playing DDO. I want to find out specifics why so we can fix that. I want to fix that dissatisfaction without dismantling the Champions system because a lot of people like it and we have a lot of good feedback from players enjoying the system.

The goal is that everyone can find a difficulty where they enjoy the game. Some people like an easier game, some like it more difficult. I have heard several pieces of feedback and I understand where players are coming from: Some people who PUG feel obligated to run on Elite and reducing difficulty is therefore not an option. Some people feel Elite is now too hard yet Hard is still too easy. Some people just don't like the tuning of specific champion buffs; particularly Fortification bypass. We want to solve it. But understand that we see as many if not more people who wish we didn't pull back on the original difficulty.

We want to find solutions where everyone can find fun. We only ask that the players work with us, and maybe have patience. We are all in this together and we are working as fast as we can.

That said, I suspect that one factor is that the needs of heroic level characters who have fewer tools to deal with things are different then players running on Epic. It might be that we need to have a different set of Champion buffs for heroic lives that are more subdued. As an example, we could just remove fortification bypass from heroic and dial back the hit point buff a bit for heroic.

Obviously we want to keep tuning the system beyond that, but these are the types of discussions and idea we want to foster.

Sev~

So add a toggle for champions in the options menu. those who want the challenge and reward will do it. those who don't won't. seems simple.

[macadope]

Perhaps keep the occasional one-shotting, but add some gloating dialogue that would display whenever a Champion slays a Player Character ?

** "At last !! Revenge !!"

** "That'll teach you to invade my home and kill all my friends !!"

** "The bigger they come, the harder they fall ..."


I also think that if you are one shotted by a champion you should be kicked from the game world for like 30min or so. During that time you should not be able to post on the forums at all. This would encourage puggies to come up with a strategy. After the penalty period is over they can retry the quest to see if there strategy worked.

And the deceased character should receive derogatory messages on logon, and perhaps an email too.

[slarden]

i forgot to switch back to the PDK fort helm last night and wore my Royal Guard Mask the whole time doing the Tor flaggers. i never went below 3/4 hp the entire time and i was all up in Champions faces. when am i going to get one shotted?

because you are running extremely easy content. Most people are.

[slarden]

The problem is that for players to see what Champ Buffs they face they must read.

Reading takes to much time and lowers the xp/min ratio.

Realistically I am not going to read champion buffs - it's more fun to not know what the buff is and just be prepared for anything. I don't die often so I always check the combat log when I do. Sometimes it is of no help and says I killed myself like in MOD EE last night. With champs it was always criticals (only happened before first adjustment) - so I am assuming fort was bypassed since my fort is over 200.

I feel this is an easily recreatable scenario - just go to marut optional in Vol EE.

[Qhualor]

because you are running extremely easy content. Most people are.

i was doing it on elite at level with a full group and it was fast paced. i do find most of heroic content easy, but there are have been reports of one shotting in heroics. all 4 quests with just 25% fortification and never dropped below 3/4 hp and i was unintentionally easy prey for Champions, regular mobs and bosses. i didn't even notice a difference.

[Nascoe]

These are not the same thing, by the way. If the GOAL is "eliminate one-shotting", there is evidence that "remove fort bypass" doesn't do that, which makes it a more complicated discussion. Second Wind is another culprit of one-shotting (and possibly causes more death than fort bypass), but we like the gameplay it adds. It probably needs better visual feedback and interaction, which is also possibly true in some other aspects of Monster Champions.

We're trying not to confuse goals (both the players and ours) with change proposals, but in this discussion that has sometimes been difficult to separate.

Interesting to see how hard it is to nail down what is the "issue" here!

As a player who regularly plays lower difficulties, I just want to chime in and say that I think they are perfectly fine overall in Heroics, could even be tad tougher at Elite IMO (I have been playing heroics because my friends also do heroics).

I completely agree though that the visuals still need improving (I hardly ever manage to have a look at what buffs they have/use before I kill them).

[slarden]

i was doing it on elite at level with a full group and it was fast paced. i do find most of heroic content easy, but there are have been reports of one shotting in heroics. all 4 quests with just 25% fortification and never dropped below 3/4 hp and i was unintentionally easy prey for Champions, regular mobs and bosses. i didn't even notice a difference.

It is still very easy including the dragons. I never died to champs in anything below level 26 EE before the first adjustment with 60 PRR. Fort doesn't matter since the champs bypass it regardless of whether it is 25 or 250. They are effectively the same and that seems to be the only serious threat they pose.

[Qhualor]

It is still very easy including the dragons. I never died to champs in anything below level 26 EE before the first adjustment with 60 PRR. Fort doesn't matter since the champs bypass it regardless of whether it is 25 or 250. They are effectively the same and that seems to be the only serious threat they pose.

they still have to confirm a critical hit to "one shot" you. just because they can bypass fortification doesn't mean every hit is a critical.

[Nascoe]

Yikes. You already removed champs from first five levels. Now the rest of heroics? It's slowly creeping towards epic levels. The casuals are winning like they always do.

I feel for ya devs. You got a really tough job but I see no need to change anything. I just did 2 heroic lives after spending a few months just hanging in ee. I died 4 times in 2 lives and only to traps. Mobs need no adjusting. People have 3 other settings than elite. No need to downgrade elite.

Its not the casuals who complain that champions run their 2-3 day 1-20, its the more lazy grinders who complain from what I have seen so far @count_spicoli because champions apparently make it harder, less predictable to complete the quests without having interesting and fun moments.

Sounds rough? Well, the "arguments" brought forward all by the prolific posters complaining all more or less come down to this (come on, you won't be able to run a quest on elite with base MORE than 3-4 lvls above yours? As if that isn't a great argument to make quests harder).

But let me say it again. Please Sev, do NOT nerf the champions in heroics (nor in epics), it would really mean the whole idea gets stupid if they don't post a challenge (already they post only a challenge occasionally when one is not paying attention) to players.

Instead, yes it would be nice if there was any good reason to run heroic content on lower than Elite because there the champions aren't (normal) or are really only a very minor challenge if at all (hard), so it should be where players choose to run to avoid champion issues but they don't (or please tell me if they do from your data).

Thanks

[jalont]

Its not the casuals who complain that champions run their 2-3 day 1-20, its the more lazy grinders who complain from what I have seen so far @count_spicoli because champions apparently make it harder, less predictable to complete the quests without having interesting and fun moments.


Yep, there's some champ hate in this thread from surprising people. When faced with a new challenge, even people that say they want challenge will come up with a million rationalizations of why any implemented challenge just isn't the right answer.

[HAL]

I dislike Champions because:

1. They do not belong in D&D

I'll say it again Just ask any group who's DM rolled a 1 or a 20 twice in a row on a Random Encounter Table about how not D&D Champs are. Rolling a very low or very high result on a random encounter table often created a new roll on a HARDER random encounter table... later on these were done with D% (2d20) and any 00 or or even a 90 to 100% roll was likely to get you something TRUELY NASTY... like Bloody knuckles running through Korthos nasty (LOL at my own visual)

DMs of games I was in gave us consequences that had something to do with the quest we were doing. IMO the "Random Encounter Table" was for DMs who couldn't think of anything better. Like these "Champions".


2. They distract from the story of the quests.
[quote]I don't see how... Leader and Captain mobs make sense from the standpoint of verisimilitude and they appeared in the earliest versions of D&D's 1st edition rules... I believe they were first officially introduced in AD&D 1ED.

Really, Leaders and Captains that show up at random, and have random abilities is verisimilitude to you? My issue is that since we don't know what any particular champion can do - like one shot me (unlike other members of a mob race), we spend too much time focusing on champions and ignoring the rest of the story. Even the Boss mob(s) take a back seat to concern about champions.


3. They add no more to quests than Dungeon Alert adds.

Ah another much hand wrung mechanic that is dramatically complained about by a tiny fraction of vocal players. Dungeon Alert doesn't add, it keeps extremely bad, high server resource using behavour (like activating entire dungeons without killing anything) from causing massive lag spikes. At the same time it kept newbie crushing behaviors like Zerg-trivializing content down to a dull roar, at least until the later years when TR's outnumbered new players in low level content... nothing but a new newbie starter area could keep new players from having their "Dungeon Crawling" bubble burst now with so many new player hostile TR's leading the 99.9% E for BB LFM's.

My point is not to complain about Dungeon Alert which I view as "meh", but to say that Champions are an imprecise, heavy-handed tool for introducing challenge - as DA is for zerging.


4. They can cause quest failure that has nothing to do with actual quest mechanics and despite attempts to mitigate.

How so? Are you implying that getting killed by Mobs is not an integral part of questing?

No, I'm saying that champions can remove strategy from questing by introducing issues that you can do nothing about. One or two shotting, large numbers of champions taking longer to kill making quests with "waves of mobs" impossible rather than the challenge it already was, champions killing NPCs, etc.


5. They don't add difficulty to quests in an "even" manner: within the same level and difficulty, easier quests are only made slightly harder while challenging quests can be made utterly frustrating.

IMO any quest you fail is going to be immediately chalked up to this "uneven" balance, so in other words: even = the illusion of a chance of failure without any REAL actual chance of failure.

I'm not certain why you would introduce opinion into what is a factual statement. A quest that is already challenging which receives a bunch of champions with certain buffs will be made much more challenging as opposed to an easy quest which given the same champions will not be as much of an issue because it started out easy. And I have only failed one quest even with champions so failure is not the issue.


The real problem is...<snip>
I'm not sure why you are adding your opinion of "the real problem" to my post, we don't play together so you have no idea. Please do no project your opinion on me. If you want to offer your opinion regarding champions instead of simply responding, it would make more sense to create a separate post in this thread.

[LordTigerDawn]

Please do not eliminate the one shot.

The 60 hp lvl 16 drow wizard deserves to die until he learns con is not a dump stat. Especially on crits.

[jalont]

Please do not eliminate the one shot.

The 60 hp lvl 16 drow wizard deserves to die until he learns con is not a dump stat. Especially on crits.

Mmmm, Con kind of is a dump stat these days.

[Warrax23]

Please do not eliminate the one shot.

The 60 hp lvl 16 drow wizard deserves to die until he learns con is not a dump stat. Especially on crits.

You don't need a champion to take care of that problem.

[slarden]

i was doing it on elite at level with a full group and it was fast paced. i do find most of heroic content easy, but there are have been reports of one shotting in heroics. all 4 quests with just 25% fortification and never dropped below 3/4 hp and i was unintentionally easy prey for Champions, regular mobs and bosses. i didn't even notice a difference.

It is still very easy including the dragons. I never died to champs in anything below level 26 EE before the first adjustment with 60 PRR. Fort doesn't matter since the champs bypass it regardless of whether it is 25 or 250. They are effectively the same and that seems to be the only serious threat they pose.

[TempestAlphaOmega]

Perhaps keep the occasional one-shotting, but add some gloating dialogue that would display whenever a Champion slays a Player Character ?

** "At last !! Revenge !!"

** "That'll teach you to invade my home and kill all my friends !!"

** "The bigger they come, the harder they fall ..."

Oh I like this idea.

Put it in place and expand on it so that regular mobs who take a player down shout "me get promotion now" and immediately become a champion.

[slarden]

they still have to confirm a critical hit to "one shot" you. just because they can bypass fortification doesn't mean every hit is a critical.

Of course not but over time it's going to happen with 0 fortification and result in one-shotting which the devs said they don't want. It happened to me a few times the first weekend.

[Kawai]

http://i.imgur.com/rRLZ1Ec.jpg

Obtained & used by permission from: http://tinyurl.com/http-www-secretunderworldsoc

[Kaytis]

There are less than 500 people on the who list on my server 10 PM Eastern Friday night - on a 25% bonus XP weekend. About a year ago this would have been closer 900, I guess the other 400 are finding fun elsewhere?

500? Luxury! My server is down to around 300 at peak. It was over 2000 when I started playing. My guild is gone, and my running partner logged out a month ago. This only makes Champions worse for me. I wanted to start doing some heroic past lives now that I have a ton of epic past lives. But I won't be able to get the weaker classes through heroic elite. If there were no bravery bonus I would be happy to run hard or normal. But BB makes such a profound difference I just don't even want to think about doing it any other way.

My problem is that in order to get the xp I want efficiently, I have to get BB on every run. Because my friends list is now empty, and the server is at an extremely low population level, and because waiting around is also an XP sink, I will be soloing. If I run into a champ, and he one shots, or multi-shots me more than 10 seconds from a shrine, I just lost all that time. The only logical choice I have is to not TR. The outcome of that, is when I finish my ERs I will be done.

Ironically, at the heart of the problem is not champs per se. It's BB. I am "forced" to run HE to get through 10s of lives, but that source of XP has been cut off.

That is why I am so adamantly in support of a separate level of difficulty. Make a new level, make them all champs, give them all second wind and buff the bosses too. That way the face rollers will have something fun to do, and the rest of us will have our XP grind back.

And the argument that people will complain and want champion difficulty nerfed is a fallacy. People complained about the old epic level as well. But to my knowledge it was never significantly nerfed, in fact it was made harder as time went on, and the devs never had to apologize for that.

I hope you have time to really read and understand what I am saying here. This is a fundamental problem for myself and potentially many other soloers. Something will have to give. Whether it's more XP for lower difficulties, res shrines every 10 seconds, no champs when soloing, server merges, dramatically less XP for third life, remove champs from heroics, let the soloers leave, or give champs their own difficulty level. Personally, I think the latter is pure win. It is the least disruptive choice you have from an otherwise terrible set of choices.

[mons]

Cant we just make champions an option like in Haunted Halls extended version? Dont know how hard that would be or if its even viable but would be a solution for everyone.

[Sehenry03]

Of course not but over time it's going to happen with 0 fortification and result in one-shotting which the devs said they don't want. It happened to me a few times the first weekend.

Of course it happened the first weekend and they changed it because so many people whined about it.

Anyone being 1 shotted now should take another look at their toon.

I REALLY wish I would get 1 shotted just to see it happen but like you it only happened in that opening weekend...which is what was so GREAT about it.

How many times have you been 1 shotted in the last week? How many quests do you run before you get 1 shotted? 1 person complained because he was 1 shotted ONE time while zerging 8 hours of quests. Really? 8 hours of zerging and he wants to complain he got one shotted...ONCE? DDO is chaning to Hello Kitty right before our eyes when people complain about something like this.

[jalont]

500? Luxury! My server is down to around 300 at peak. It was over 2000 when I started playing. My guild is gone, and my running partner logged out a month ago. This only makes Champions worse for me. I wanted to start doing some heroic past lives now that I have a ton of epic past lives. But I won't be able to get the weaker classes through heroic elite. If there were no bravery bonus I would be happy to run hard or normal. But BB makes such a profound difference I just don't even want to think about doing it any other way.

My problem is that in order to get the xp I want efficiently, I have to get BB on every run. Because my friends list is now empty, and the server is at an extremely low population level, and because waiting around is also an XP sink, I will be soloing. If I run into a champ, and he one shots, or multi-shots me more than 10 seconds from a shrine, I just lost all that time. The only logical choice I have is to not TR. The outcome of that, is when I finish my ERs I will be done.

Ironically, at the heart of the problem is not champs per se. It's BB. I am "forced" to run HE to get through 10s of lives, but that source of XP has been cut off.

That is why I am so adamantly in support of a separate level of difficulty. Make a new level, make them all champs, give them all second wind and buff the bosses too. That way the face rollers will have something fun to do, and the rest of us will have our XP grind back.

And the argument that people will complain and want champion difficulty nerfed is a fallacy. People complained about the old epic level as well. But to my knowledge it was never significantly nerfed, in fact it was made harder as time went on, and the devs never had to apologize for that.

I hope you have time to really read and understand what I am saying here. This is a fundamental problem for myself and potentially many other soloers. Something will have to give. Whether it's more XP for lower difficulties, res shrines every 10 seconds, no champs when soloing, server merges, dramatically less XP for third life, remove champs from heroics, let the soloers leave, or give champs their own difficulty level. Personally, I think the later is pure win. It is the least disruptive choice you have from an otherwise terrible set of choices.

If you're having so much trouble running Elite BB, then it clearly isn't the most efficient for you. Drop down to hard.

[Kaytis]

If you're having so much trouble running Elite BB, then it clearly isn't the most efficient for you. Drop down to hard.

Read it again.

[Sehenry03]

Cant we just make champions an option like in Haunted Halls extended version? Dont know how hard that would be or if its even viable but would be a solution for everyone.

Well let me bring up 2 reasons why I think they should NOT be an option...

1) I personally think champs were an idea because Turbine saw WAY to many people completing elite quests the first time fast and easy. WAY to much favor WAY to fast for everyone and their dog in this game. People are getting fast and easy TP's (granted not a lot really but 500-700? per life never really added it up.). I think Turbine sees that as a loss in revenue if TP's are so easy to get at no charge. Turbine added the champs knowing SOME players (myself included to a degree) were asking for harder elite questing. Champs would make it harder for people to zerg and get those easy fast TP's. I personally think it was Turbines attempt at slowing this down. I personally have no issues with this as it is THEIR game and they have every right to do it.

2) If you make it a checkbox that's fine...but why? N/H/E IS a checkbox and elite is basically the checkbox asking for champs. People are upset because they can't get easy max favor/xp with champs now and they argue under the guise that Hard is to easy and Elite was about right. All they really want is the max favor/xp each run without actually having to earn it like others like myself are asking for. Ask yourself this...When 60%+ of the playerbase can solo elite doesn't that mean it isn't elite anymore? Elite is suppose to be for the top geared/skilled players not 60% of the population. IMHO Elite should be more for like 5% of the soloers and 25% of a FULL group of 6. When 60%+ can solo Elite it needs to be upped in difficulty. I bring this number up because that's what it seems like it has hit. That is WAY to high of a number for what is SUPPOSE to be the HARDEST difficulty in the game. Then people argue that it isn't fair only the best geared/skilled players can solo elite...and HOW is this wrong????? Elite is suppose to be for the ELITE player base. A new player on a first life was doing Elites after getting a few pieces of only decent gear...that is NOT how it should be. People just want to be able to faceroll elite for the max favor/xp and that needs to end. We should have to work toward this goal. If we want to raceroll stuff fine...do it on N/H. I say this knowing that MY toons SHOULD end up running Hard also and I have no issues with it. I run Elite because I can. When I hit Epics I run Epic Hard unless I get in a guild group because I know I can't handle EE solo.

[jalont]

Read it again.

If you're on life 2+ you aren't going to have a problem keeping EH BB up throughout the game. I'm sorry. I just can't buy that. This game has gotten so easy and players have been given so much extra power. Even with champs, the game is much easier than it has ever been in the past. I'm just not sure what to say at this point. If you're truly having a problem keeping EH streak, then you wouldn't even be able to solo normal or perhaps casual in years past, and I don't think it's fair to the rest of the playerbase to remove challenge so that you can.

[Sehenry03]

I wanted to start doing some heroic past lives now that I have a ton of epic past lives. But I won't be able to get the weaker classes through heroic elite. If there were no bravery bonus I would be happy to run hard or normal. But BB makes such a profound difference I just don't even want to think about doing it any other way.

Ok so read your own statement carefully.

I myself personally WANT a Ferrari but at least I understand I will have to earn it.

Yes you might have tons of epic PL's on your toon and you should have tons of great gear but this doesn't mean you should auto complete HE quests. You should still have to work at it. And what weaker classes are you referring to? I HATE wizards but I ran an EK wizzy through HE just fine soloing most stuff.

Just because you don't WANT to run hard how is it fair that other players who WANT elite to be elite should have to accept it as an easy to complete difficulty???

[MaeveTuohy]

I don't want boringness, these things aren't mutually the same. Champions are not all enjoyment, the quests before champions weren't all boring.

And it's pretty cocky to assume I'm a bad player because I don't like an aspect of the game that was recently added. Maybe I just don't have infinite time to play like you and that since the group I play with likes to flower sniff means champions make the quest take much much longer.

I hear you.

Dynamic quests and unexpected challenges are an improvement, but that doesn't mean it has to be champions. Champions are lazy, clumsy design options that take over the design space already occupied by orange- and red-named lieutenants.

For people to say that the game was boring before suggests that DDO has been a boring game since inception. One wonders, then, why so many people played it.

Give me unexpected challenges. Give me the option for greater levels of difficulty. Make it something other than champions.

[Qhualor]

Of course not but over time it's going to happen with 0 fortification and result in one-shotting which the devs said they don't want. It happened to me a few times the first weekend.

actually the players said they don't want to be one shotted. the devs are actually considering nerfing that chance.

[MaeveTuohy]

[QUOTE=HAL;5538943]I dislike Champions because:

1. They do not belong in D&D


DMs of games I was in gave us consequences that had something to do with the quest we were doing. IMO the "Random Encounter Table" was for DMs who couldn't think of anything better. Like these "Champions".



Really, Leaders and Captains that show up at random, and have random abilities is verisimilitude to you? My issue is that since we don't know what any particular champion can do - like one shot me (unlike other members of a mob race), we spend too much time focusing on champions and ignoring the rest of the story. Even the Boss mob(s) take a back seat to concern about champions.



My point is not to complain about Dungeon Alert which I view as "meh", but to say that Champions are an imprecise, heavy-handed tool for introducing challenge - as DA is for zerging.



No, I'm saying that champions can remove strategy from questing by introducing issues that you can do nothing about. One or two shotting, large numbers of champions taking longer to kill making quests with "waves of mobs" impossible rather than the challenge it already was, champions killing NPCs, etc.


+1

Nice to read more perspectives from players that who's concerns about champions revolve around more than just total power of the opposing mobs they face.

The players who think that champions have an actual link to D&D's PnP history because of "random monster tables" only reinforce the truth that champions are the digital version of lame DMing. I DMed for many, many years and would have been embarrassed to use a random chart. It means you have no creativity and that your story doesn't really matter.

[Warrax23]

End of year subs were higher than pre-Champion. But that doesn't matter. Feedback from the survey indicates that pretty much everyone who applied to the player's council thinks the difficulty of the game is fine. But that doesn't matter.

What bothers the hell out of me - and also bothers our team - is that there are players that are not having fun playing DDO. I want to find out specifics why so we can fix that. I want to fix that dissatisfaction without dismantling the Champions system because a lot of people like it and we have a lot of good feedback from players enjoying the system.

The goal is that everyone can find a difficulty where they enjoy the game. Some people like an easier game, some like it more difficult. I have heard several pieces of feedback and I understand where players are coming from: Some people who PUG feel obligated to run on Elite and reducing difficulty is therefore not an option. Some people feel Elite is now too hard yet Hard is still too easy. Some people just don't like the tuning of specific champion buffs; particularly Fortification bypass. We want to solve it. But understand that we see as many if not more people who wish we didn't pull back on the original difficulty.

We want to find solutions where everyone can find fun. We only ask that the players work with us, and maybe have patience. We are all in this together and we are working as fast as we can.

That said, I suspect that one factor is that the needs of heroic level characters who have fewer tools to deal with things are different then players running on Epic. It might be that we need to have a different set of Champion buffs for heroic lives that are more subdued. As an example, we could just remove fortification bypass from heroic and dial back the hit point buff a bit for heroic.

Obviously we want to keep tuning the system beyond that, but these are the types of discussions and idea we want to foster.

Sev~

I'm not calling for them to be gone. Someone worked hard to get it all together and put the code in place. However I would like them to get tweaked so they are bearable. Maybe move the Epic moment one shot to orange named also the higher fort bypass to them as well? Also I'd like to see it where in certain quests like friends in low places where you get a ton of mobs spawn if we can get it limited champion spawn per wave.

I personally do not like Champions, they do not fit in the DnD world that I've been playing for the last 26 years. (As they are in ddo atm) However with some tweaks and some system tweaks I would be able to accept them. Also maybe on Elite without those over powered buffs allowed to spawn on any the powerlevel can go back towards the original design (IF we take out the death penalty) The death penalty is probably what's causing a lot of strife within my circle, because people feel SO bad about it that they lost xp for the group they often want to just stop playing. That's a major sticking point for me. I don't want to see my friends quit, and that's been happening after champions came into being. They don't come to the forums to rant or complain, they just leave and that is bad. If other players can't see that as a bad thing then they may be in the dark about who's actually playing because all of my friends are vip like I am/was. I'm not mad, i'm frustrated. I am definitely willing help and compromise to get it to where most people can have fun.

SO,
Lose group death penalty, this would hopefully increase people willing to open up groups to others, and getting just mauled by champions wouldn't hurt as bad. Maybe add a champion bonus to the quest for xp scaling for difficulty?
Make the one/two shot buffs only on orange name?
Lose the lvl for payout on epics, or make it like 4 lvls rather then 2? Also can we get the chests to stop going into the ground?
Unnerf the damage for all champions (Or if someone from the pro champion can add what they really want within reason?)


And Sev/V thanks for coming and talking WITH us, and not AT us. It is appreciated and well received, I didn't come to the forums to rage or jsut complain, I have solutions or rather thoughts to potential solutions. I'm not just an unreasonable person who can't see others views and am not trying to just stir up trouble or drama. I want to play this game and have fun like everyone else. My fun is just different then others since we have such diversity in this game. So by you guys coming to talk with us it's helping even though some of the comments are just asinine and toxic for the sake of hurting other players feelings or people are just hell bent on their view being right that they will just dismantle and personally attack others (That's wrong and shouldn't happen here, we're mostly adults) If you disagree with me, I can accept that. State your views and maybe as a team we can all work together to make this better.

Also another Big paid expansion would/could be good (better then shadowfail please) perhaps a kickstarter would help that?

-Mark

[arkonas]

These are not the same thing, by the way. If the GOAL is "eliminate one-shotting", there is evidence that "remove fort bypass" doesn't do that, which makes it a more complicated discussion. Second Wind is another culprit of one-shotting (and possibly causes more death than fort bypass), but we like the gameplay it adds. It probably needs better visual feedback and interaction, which is also possibly true in some other aspects of Monster Champions.

We're trying not to confuse goals (both the players and ours) with change proposals, but in this discussion that has sometimes been difficult to separate.

you know this might sound dumb and you guys started to do it but why not have effects start to be turned on like the way you had that firebomb attack in fire on thunder peak. i know other games do this already. each effect or mass effect type people can see. if people don't move they got hit with major damage, death, special effects, or even teleported. we sort of have some effects like it when you see a spell like mass charm, crushing despair, etc. i wonder if you guys are able to implement this system you can give mobs better attacks which yet again does bring some challenge.

that is why i liked the fire dragon raid when those bombs could come from anywhere.

[Zasral]

Of course it happened the first weekend and they changed it because so many people whined about it.

Anyone being 1 shotted now should take another look at their toon.

I REALLY wish I would get 1 shotted just to see it happen but like you it only happened in that opening weekend...which is what was so GREAT about it.

How many times have you been 1 shotted in the last week? How many quests do you run before you get 1 shotted? 1 person complained because he was 1 shotted ONE time while zerging 8 hours of quests. Really? 8 hours of zerging and he wants to complain he got one shotted...ONCE? DDO is chaning to Hello Kitty right before our eyes when people complain about something like this.

That was me who posted about getting one shot, and I stand by it. Since I started this game I can only remember being one shot one time before champs. It was in FOT the first time I did it, and I didn't know about the lightning damage. So I went and farmed POP over and over again till I got ring of the djinn before I did the raid again. Btw the group I was in that day zerging the ee's was zerging ee's back when everyone was complaining ee's were too hard. Back then in this particular group anyone dieing was rare and kinda shocking. This is why I don't have a problem with them raising the difficalty of ee, or even adding a new difficalty. The how of a thing is often just as important, or more important, than the why.
On a side note last night at 9pm est there was less than 200 people on cannith and 2 lfm's. Right now at 1pm est today less than 400 people and only 9 lfm's. Several of the people on my friends list have told me there either taking a break, or going to another game because of champs. Some of my guildies have said the same thing. A lot more have told me there playing less, or are thinking about going to another game. I like this game, and I want it to continue. If I didn't I wouldn't bother posting on the forums, however I am worried.

[arkonas]

Before I go on and focus on this small part, I want to say that I do believe a post like yours must represent a strong enought % of the playerbase to it should be heard more often on this forum and should be taken in consideration.

That being said, what I quoted here contains a strong contradiction (taking the overall post into account). If the rewards was better for fighting champions but that there would be no options to opt-out and that you would still struggle and die, would that really be allright for you? That just doesn't make sense because the result is the same, you not having a good time by logging out without any progression.

"They'd be fun if they'd drop something special"

So, how would you feel if there was another difficulty, that does offer both that challenge that you cannot take on yet and better loot. After all, they're just fun heh? Everything else would remain unchanged and perhaps now you'd be running "Hard" instead (I'm considering hypothetical options here). Hard for loot that is already satisfying as you can get now - Elite for challenge and MORE loot.

What I want as someone representing another % of the playerbase (looking for more challenge on elite) with probably more time spent in the game and overall on our characters, is that we could draw the line as to where should it be you or us that has the bigger role in deciding how should the toughest difficulty feel like. According to the power that we can produce instead of according to "tone it down because the loot is not worth the risk".

The difference is that I will take all the risks in the world and do whatever it takes to obtain that loot. That's my definition of fun. Without this element, there is no more fun as the game becomes an auto-pilot experience... and I won't do that anymore if it's an endless loop. If you ever get there, you'll know what I mean. (*Edit* Actually I will do whatever it takes to beat the challenge... we'll see the drop rates for the loot hehe)


Take note that not everything is directed at you but just looking for a general idea on the matter from a player like you. I have a really hard time understanding how is it possible that with 4 difficulties available, there is not at least one that is challenging for someone better than "your average casual Paladin with capped ED". And i'll be blunt for a sec : **** yeah with better loot please.

If changes were to happen through a difficulty revamp, there has to be one way that will create much positivity while minimizing negative impact. We saw what happened when champions were released on every difficulties. If there was one challenge-focused difficulty, I'm guessing they wouldn't have to come up with things that would affect everyone accross all difficulties. They could just tweak one of them perhaps.

Not that they had precisely that goal in mind with champions though.

*Tried to fix and make this as understandable as possible.

AND - Disregard this and see it as something general not aimed at you if you weren't even talking about elite.


the only thing i could even think of that is remotely good for all is either a make a new difficulty with the champs being just all mobs increased or do another version of elite without champions. no matter which way they go. someone is going to complain. hard should stay the way it is. those champions are not going constantly wipe you. if they do learn from experience of why. i wish people would die more often not because im sadistic or anything like that. people might not like to die but yet again if no one ever dies then the game is too easy. isn't that the point of any game? the dms trying to kill you? as severlin said. they don't want to one shot you but they also don't want to just give it away either.

there should always be some risk when you play. honestly, i think champions are fine where they are. i like some chance i will die and i will tell you now before champions i rarely died. if i died it was either a my mistake, some lag, or just not paying attention (my mistake). i've noticed this happens a lot too. a lot get so wrapped into the combat or quest they forget to watch their life bar and do something stupid. Anyways since champions yes i have died a lot more and honestly it doesn't bother me. some of my deaths i laughed at. a few got frustrating because i got too cocky and took on a little more then i thought. that still doesn't mean they're too hard or anything like that.

people seriously need to stop asking for things to become easy on elite. it ****es me off so much when i see that. that is seriously the whole point about elite. its meant to be difficult as the difficulty says. there is the group who find it too easy. well congrats you have became better players then most of us. i consider myself moderate as a player for skill. if you can't solo it then its really not for you. it was never meant to be soloed. if you can congrats. no people should not be forced but solo players should not have it easy if they chose that route. just my opinion.

[Sehenry03]

That was me who posted about getting one shot, and I stand by it. Since I started this game I can only remember being one shot one time before champs. It was in FOT the first time I did it, and I didn't know about the lightning damage. So I went and farmed POP over and over again till I got ring of the djinn before I did the raid again. Btw the group I was in that day zerging the ee's was zerging ee's back when everyone was complaining ee's were too hard. Back then in this particular group anyone dieing was rare and kinda shocking. This is why I don't have a problem with them raising the difficalty of ee, or even adding a new difficalty. The how of a thing is often just as important, or more important, than the why.
On a side note last night at 9pm est there was less than 200 people on cannith and 2 lfm's. Right now at 1pm est today less than 400 people and only 9 lfm's. Several of the people on my friends list have told me there either taking a break, or going to another game because of champs. Some of my guildies have said the same thing. A lot more have told me there playing less, or are thinking about going to another game. I like this game, and I want it to continue. If I didn't I wouldn't bother posting on the forums, however I am worried.

Well I have seen several people mention being 1 shotted but it is usually a remote occurrence. Were you 1 shotted 1 time or does it happen to champs a lot?

Also pay some TP's and move to Sarlona. I know a few servers are getting low and maybe some server transfers will help a server merge. I would love to see servers cut in half. The 1 benefit I am after is just more people on fewer servers. We have a lot of groups going at various times and I am ALWAYS willing to group up. I have 4 toons I play all at different levels (minus my arty in his last sorc life waiting to loot the runearm from VoN6).

I know its something like 3k points but seriously...would you rather stay on a server with no grouping and no friends or move to a server with Livmo?!?! Its a win/win here =) Send a tell to any of my toons if ya do. Lots of active guilds here also.

[Oxarhamar]

Here's an idea: have an in game survey be put up, so that all players can do it, and have the incentive for completion be an Astral shard - this would help players get into that economy, as well as provide feedback from non-forumites.

That's exactly what I was thinking 1shard per account is not enough to abuse thru creating multiple accounts.

[Sehenry03]

I would love an in game survey but I think it should go specifically to VIP's.

Yes I know F2P and Premier will scream they put money in the game as well. I get that. But they should be encouraging people to be VIP and this is a perfect example of why I think it should be done. VIP in GENERAL put more money into the game then the other modes of playing so lets reward them for doing this.

A survey sent to every VIP on many major changes would be a great reward.

[Gabrael]

I hear you.

Dynamic quests and unexpected challenges are an improvement, but that doesn't mean it has to be champions. Champions are lazy, clumsy design options that take over the design space already occupied by orange- and red-named lieutenants.

For people to say that the game was boring before suggests that DDO has been a boring game since inception. One wonders, then, why so many people played it.

Give me unexpected challenges. Give me the option for greater levels of difficulty. Make it something other than champions.


I actually find champion to be quite a clever solution to the never ending whining fest of people complaining it it either too hard or not enough.

now instead of being either too easy, or too hard all the time, it'S curently a tad too easy until you run in a strong couter-your-stchick champion

it also fix the boringness of quests by including a randomness better than your orange/red rares, that you know where to find them. If you think champion serve the same purpose as red/orange then yuo truly are missing the point

[MacDubh]

Personally I think champions are a nice dose of randomness. Sure they can be frustrating at times, but you work through it.

All the moaning is far more frustrating. Can you imagine it if they reduce scaling, or remove it on elite? Quite a few seem to want this done, it would probably be good for the game, but there would be a deluge of hate.

[Warrax23]

Personally I think champions are a nice dose of randomness. Sure they can be frustrating at times, but you work through it.

All the moaning is far more frustrating. Can you imagine it if they reduce scaling, or remove it on elite? Quite a few seem to want this done, it would probably be good for the game, but there would be a deluge of hate.


I'm pretty sure there is an easy way to not hear the whining you find frustrating. Just like there is an easy way for me to not every have to deal with champions.

[PermaBanned]

I would love an in game survey but I think it should go specifically to VIP's.

Yes I know F2P and Premier will scream they put money in the game as well. I get that. But they should be encouraging people to be VIP and this is a perfect example of why I think it should be done. VIP in GENERAL put more money into the game then the other modes of playing so lets reward them for doing this.

A survey sent to every VIP on many major changes would be a great reward.

As a premium player I don't feel the need to scream about this idea, but I can deffinately tell you that the opportunity to fill out surveys will not inspire me to sub. While I (highly) doubt your claim that VIPs generally spend more than premiums, I don't intend to argue the point either. I will say that I think it would be a mistake for Turbine to effectively say they're only interested in certain paying customer's opinions and not all paying customer's opinions.

[UurlockYgmeov]

Please do not eliminate the one shot.

The 60 hp lvl 16 drow wizard deserves to die until he learns con is not a dump stat. Especially on crits.

This is one of the primary reasons why the dev's will not be able to eliminate the one shot - because of the characters that can be one shotted already by non-champions.

For those who say Con is a dump stat - hope you like cake.

[Monkey-Boy]

One-shotting should not be happening anymore. If you're claiming you're still getting one-shotted, you're either making it up or you've gimped yourself.

I've not been one-shotted but I've seen it happen to other people in parties. And I'm not talking about 400 HP 0 PRR level 25 toons either.

And you're really bad at trolling, especially since Vargouille admitted the one-shotting still happens in a previous post.

[Warrax23]

As a premium player I don't feel the need to scream about this idea, but I can deffinately tell you that the opportunity to fill out surveys will not inspire me to sub. While I (highly) doubt your claim that VIPs generally spend more than premiums, I don't intend to argue the point either. I will say that I think it would be a mistake for Turbine to effectively say they're only interested in certain paying customer's opinions and not all paying customer's opinions.

I would agree with you on that, I think anyone who's spent money say in the last year or two should be eligible for the survey. You're contributions are just as worthy as my VIP is in my opinion. Everyone should have (A) voice... and try to eliminate the folks who troll/paladin with multiple accounts.

[Monkey-Boy]

Please do not eliminate the one shot.

The 60 hp lvl 16 drow wizard deserves to die until he learns con is not a dump stat. Especially on crits.

That's a ridiculous poor excuse for a strawman, you can do better.

I don't think anyone is talking about toons that are that obviously horrible. I've seen 1000+ HP, 100+ PRR toons one-shotted in EE GH, that is what I consider to be a problem.

[Oxarhamar]

actually the players said they don't want to be one shotted. the devs are actually considering nerfing that chance.

This is a challenging concept with differences in HP & PRR

How much damage will a champion dealt to a 1500HP 200PRR player if they can't one shot a 700 HP 65 PRR player?


I think a good solution would be to give them a mortal fear chance that ignores PRR&DR.
Then they could be equally dangerous/challenge all builds.

[Erdrique]

I haven't even come close to reading all of the responses in this thread but I continue to be amazed at why the champions have caused so many people to be upset even now. As soon as they came out originally I took one of my characters into Whisperdoom's Spawn on elite and didn't really know what to expect. I began to get worried when the first enemy I ran across was a champion but then realized that I didn't have too much to worry about. Even though I ran across a lot of champions, I was able to get past them and mind you I was level 13 in a level 11 quest on elite (making it level 13).

I was still able to use my typical tactics against them: stunning blow, trip, etc. Don't get me wrong, the quest was harder but it didn't really change my questing behavior besides having to use more healing consumables.

I just think everybody should be patient and let the twinks to the system occur. They definitely add some unique flavor to the quests and I'm sure they will continue to be worked on. I'm encouraged about what Severlin said about the topic but I also feel that trying to make everybody happy just won't happen. The only thing you can do is try your best to make the majority of people happy. Needless to say, this will be a tough task.

I myself had no problems with questing before champions were implemented and I still don't have any issues with them in the game now. In fact, I like the ability to get even more loot and renown and the ability to get special awards from the remnant turn ins. I just hope a happy medium can be reached.

[Monkey-Boy]

This is a challenging concept with differences in HP & PRR

How much damage will a champion dealt to a 1500HP 200PRR player if they can't one shot a 700 HP 65 PRR player?


I think a good solution would be to give them a mortal fear chance that ignores PRR&DR.
Then they could be equally dangerous/challenge all builds.

Bypassing PRR would be far leas horrible than bypassing all fortification, both ideas are dumb but one is less dumb.

[PermaBanned]

I've seen 1000+ HP, 100+ PRR toons one-shotted in EE GH, that is what I consider to be a problem.And I've seen Barbarians crit for 20k+ dmg - neither of those are typical results, they're "stars aligned" scenarios. For every champ that's one-shotted a character, how many haven't? For every character that's been one-shotted by a Champ, how many Champs didn't one-shot them?

It's not like one-shotting is a normal, typical or frequent event - if it is, then someone is either extremely unlucky or their character is really extremely underpowered and/or under prepared for the quests & difficulties they're attempting. If the combat log wasn't such a pita to sift through for useful information, I suspect it would show that one-shotting is even more rare than people claim as hits from multiple sources landing in rapid/near simultaneous succession can appear to make your full red bar drop to dead from a single strike when that's not actually the case.

Almost all I do is pug, and almost all I run is Elite - usually at or (especially in Epics) below level. I've still only ever seen a one-shot happen as a combination of special circumstances; such as when I'm rendered "helpless" from a Stun (and thus taking an increased damage multiplier), or already neg-leveled, or in an otherwise weakened state and then hit by a champ with (likely) some stars aligned set of buffs.

I've never yet - ever - seen these Arnoldesque "Terminator" type champs who walk up all on their lonesome and wipe parties as I've seen reported in the forums. I've not yet seen a mixed group of mobs and champs wipe a party. I won't go as far as to say it's all made up, but it just can't be anything close to common. It just can't be, I'm neither that good nor that lucky, and again almost all I do is pug - it's not like I'm only running around in groups of ubers, I'm taking the first five to hit the LFM, and these horrific champion experiences are completely forign to every in-game experience I've had.

[Sehenry03]

As a premium player I don't feel the need to scream about this idea, but I can deffinately tell you that the opportunity to fill out surveys will not inspire me to sub. While I (highly) doubt your claim that VIPs generally spend more than premiums, I don't intend to argue the point either. I will say that I think it would be a mistake for Turbine to effectively say they're only interested in certain paying customer's opinions and not all paying customer's opinions.

I didn't say it would make people sub...I said it would be a nice perk knowing we were getting ideas listened to.


I've not been one-shotted but I've seen it happen to other people in parties. And I'm not talking about 400 HP 0 PRR level 25 toons either.

Well I keep asking how often and when it happened. A MAJORITY of the time it happened during the first week of champs. Other times the response has been that they were 1 shot like 1 time in 8 hours...either way to me eliminates any type of issue.


I would agree with you on that, I think anyone who's spent money say in the last year or two should be eligible for the survey. You're contributions are just as worthy as my VIP is in my opinion. Everyone should have (A) voice... and try to eliminate the folks who troll/paladin with multiple accounts.

The main issue is the people with multiple accounts and there is really no way to know. So you are favoring the people already exploiting things like extra cards amongst other things. Lets not encourage that. Giving VIP's the option is simply a nice perk and a nice way to say thank you. F@P and Premium always have the options of the forums.


That's a ridiculous poor excuse for a strawman, you can do better.

I don't think anyone is talking about toons that are that obviously horrible. I've seen 1000+ HP, 100+ PRR toons one-shotted in EE GH, that is what I consider to be a problem.

Again you saw this when? 2 Months ago? Yesterday? Was it 1 time the entire time of playing in GH? I saw someone 1 shotted 2 years ago but that doesn't mean anything in todays issues.


Bypassing PRR would be far leas horrible than bypassing all fortification, both ideas are dumb but one is less dumb.

Dumb idea to you. I like the idea. I WANT to be filled with dread when I see a champ...right now I am not. I play EXACTLY the same way I do now that I did before champs. For ONE week when champs were introduced it was AWESOME. I actually had to think. Now its back to the same old thing. I don't care if the group has 10 champs or 1 I do the same exact attack sequence. Every once in a great while a champ will hit me extra hard and I have to change it up a touch but that is like once every 10 quests or more. yeah this is a lot of fun...no challenge again in heroics and back to EH being exactly what it was before. EE is still played the same when I am with a guild group which is to say no one cares.

[Oxarhamar]

Bypassing PRR would be far leas horrible than bypassing all fortification, both ideas are dumb but one is less dumb.

Havering a mortal fear 1/2 of HP hit that ignored PRR would be about the most balanced challenge as it would not matter what you HP pool or what Armor & gear you had.

1/2 damage to any build.

Better than stopping one shots on builds with low HP & low PRR which would make builds with high HP high PRR even stronger. Que the games too easy outcry again.

The solution is to level the playing field make some Champs have a chance to prove a mortal fear effect like that.

[Sehenry03]

And I've seen Barbarians crit for 20k+ dmg - neither of those are typical results, they're "stars aligned" scenarios. For every champ that's one-shotted a character, how many haven't? For every character that's been one-shotted by a Champ, how many Champs didn't one-shot them? It's not like one-shotting is a normal, typical or frequent event - if it is, then someone is either extremely unlucky or their character is really extremely underpowered and/or under prepared for the quests & difficulties they're attempting. If the combat log wasn't such a pita to sift through for useful information, I suspect it would show that one-shotting is even more rare than people claim as hits from multiple sources landing in rapid/near simultaneous succession can appear to make your full red bar drop to dead from a single strike when that's not actually the case.

Almost all I do is pug, and almost all I run is Elite - usually at or (especially in Epics) below level. I've still only ever seen a one-shot happen as a combination of special circumstances; such as when I'm rendered "helpless" from a Stun (and thus taking an increased damage multiplier), or already neg-leveled, or in an otherwise weakened state and then hit by a champ with (likely) some stars aligned set of buffs.

I've never yet - ever - seen these Arnoldesque "Terminator" type champs who walk up all on their lonesome and wipe parties as I've seen reported in the forums. I've not yet seen a mixed group of mobs and champs wipe a party. I won't go as far as to say it's all made up, but it just can't be anything close to common. It just can't be, I'm neither that good nor that lucky, and again almost all I do is pug - it's not like I'm only running around in groups of ubers, I'm taking the first five to hit the LFM, and these horrific champion experiences are completely forign to every in-game experience I've had.

This is exactly my situation. After the first week of champions I have literally seen someone be 1 shotted like 3-4 times...almost always a newer player and I helped them get con up and PRR up and it didn't happen again while I was with them.

[wayreth602]

I would love an in game survey but I think it should go specifically to VIP's.

Yes I know F2P and Premier will scream they put money in the game as well. I get that. But they should be encouraging people to be VIP and this is a perfect example of why I think it should be done. VIP in GENERAL put more money into the game then the other modes of playing so lets reward them for doing this.

A survey sent to every VIP on many major changes would be a great reward.


I would agree with you on that, I think anyone who's spent money say in the last year or two should be eligible for the survey. You're contributions are just as worthy as my VIP is in my opinion. Everyone should have (A) voice... and try to eliminate the folks who troll/paladin with multiple accounts.


I didn't say it would make people sub...I said it would be a nice perk knowing we were getting ideas listened to.

The OP that you quoted dropped his sub. Your idea could leave him/her out of the poll.

[Standal]

This is a challenging concept with differences in HP & PRR

How much damage will a champion dealt to a 1500HP 200PRR player if they can't one shot a 700 HP 65 PRR player?


I think a good solution would be to give them a mortal fear chance that ignores PRR&DR.
Then they could be equally dangerous/challenge all builds.

I think a better idea is for the devs to just set the bar and that's it. We knew that you needed about 500 HP to survive in Shroud unless you had improved evasion. We knew what we had to do to beat the raid.
We, as players, currently have the system we have. It's up to us to work toward the right solution to the game difficulty as it presently is.

What the devs need to do is make sure that the changes they make to the game don't further separate the players. My main really didn't notice champions at any point. He's a KOTC paladin with either a SD or Harper secondary focus depending on whether he's in FOTW or not. Always mid 100's on PRR and at least 60ish on MRR. I feel the big issue here is that he's just a vastly superior character to most of the people who are complaining about champions.

[Monkey-Boy]

Havering a mortal fear 1/2 of HP hit that ignored PRR would be about the most balanced challenge as it would not matter what you HP pool or what Armor & gear you had.

1/2 damage to any build.

Better than stopping one shots on builds with low HP & low PRR which would make builds with high HP high PRR even stronger. Que the games too easy outcry again.

The solution is to level the playing field make some Champs have a chance to prove a mortal fear effect like that.

Give some champs a mortal fear proc would be better than the fort bypass, I like this idea.

[slarden]

actually the players said they don't want to be one shotted. the devs are actually considering nerfing that chance.

Sev previously said he found reports of one-shotting "troubling" and this is the last comment on it:

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/455892-Public-Poll-for-paying-customers-for-Champions#post5538825

I think the dev's position is clear - of course it could change if enough players like the one-shotting.

[slarden]

I would love an in game survey but I think it should go specifically to VIP's.

Yes I know F2P and Premier will scream they put money in the game as well. I get that. But they should be encouraging people to be VIP and this is a perfect example of why I think it should be done. VIP in GENERAL put more money into the game then the other modes of playing so lets reward them for doing this.

A survey sent to every VIP on many major changes would be a great reward.

Very much this - it is necessary to get rid of responses from sock-puppet bank accounts.

[Qhualor]

Sev previously said he found reports of one-shotting "troubling" and this is the last comment on it:

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/455892-Public-Poll-for-paying-customers-for-Champions#post5538825

I think the dev's position is clear - of course it could change if enough players like the one-shotting.

are you talking about this where he is going by player reports?

The goal is that everyone can find a difficulty where they enjoy the game. Some people like an easier game, some like it more difficult. I have heard several pieces of feedback and I understand where players are coming from: Some people who PUG feel obligated to run on Elite and reducing difficulty is therefore not an option. Some people feel Elite is now too hard yet Hard is still too easy. Some people just don't like the tuning of specific champion buffs; particularly Fortification bypass. We want to solve it. But understand that we see as many if not more people who wish we didn't pull back on the original difficulty.

[Sehenry03]

The OP that you quoted dropped his sub. Your idea could leave him/her out of the poll.

There is your answer...he dropped his sub. Everyone has a right to drop a sub that's a given...but to drop a sub 2 months after a major update? Dang give it time to flesh itself out.

I still don't get this overwhelming fear/hatred of champs. They were only tough for a week now they are like any other trash mob.

One guy on another post said something like "Great I will have every one of my toons take heavy armor for PRR". You know what? My sorc took adamantine body and I'm not sure if it was a huge help but it did help. A little bit of work and my ASF was 0% and he had 105PRR at lvl 18 I think it was.

This might sound harsh but it is not Turbines fault if people can't figure out how to adapt. Most people have. EVERY class in this game can work so figure out how and stop waiting for Turbine to adapt the game to YOU.

[etotheipi]

One-shotting shouldn't be done away with. Also, some players simply don't get one-shot. I think it's probably next to impossible for a properly built Paladin (on of the most OP classes in the game now) to get one-shotted. Not everyone is awesome, however, and there may well be a problem with too many people getting one-shotted. So how to fix it?

Two suggestions. The kind of buffs Champions can get should be based on the difficulty level. There should be a different set of available Champion buffs for Normal, Hard and Elite. On Elite, careless play SHOULD result in you possibly getting one-shotted. But being one-shotted should also be something you can avoid. To that end, Champions need to be given visual markers so that players know what they're up against. (Currently, the only way to see what you're up against is the completely impractical method of inspecting mobs.) If some mob deals 400% extra damage, it should be obvious to players so they can stay out range of that mob. Furthermore, (as an example) mobs that deal significant extra melee damage should have their HP reduced so that melees who don't have a ranged game can still get past them with a bit of work.

A lot of players want more difficulty. Many of these players are currently end game folks on toons that can't possibly be challenged by anything in the game. Champion buffs on Elite should take this into account. For example, Paladins should fear Champions on Elite and have to adapt their play-style (which is currently to stand in the middle of as many of them as they want until they're all dead). On Elite, Champions should be bypassing MRR, PRR, AC and FORT. The FoTM melees need to be toned way down, and this would do it.

For those that want more challenge, why not make Elite harder? A lot harder? Up the spawn rate of Champions significantly. For this to work, however, Bravery Bonus needs to be revisited. So kill the XP-incentive for running Elite and make the reward be all the extra Champion Chests and Fragments. (Please have Fragments go into bags automatically!) In fact, just kill Bravery Bonus entirely and up the XP somewhat for quests across the board to partially compensate for its loss. Champion Buffs and spawn-rate can then be tuned on a Normal/Hard/Elite basis to make Elite very tough and Hard actually somewhat hard.

The Champion system is great. It just needs a lot of work. I think that if you work out its kinks and make significant modifications to the system, you can do a much better job of tuning your difficulty settings.

[Warrax23]

[QUOTE=Sehenry03;5539444]

The main issue is the people with multiple accounts and there is really no way to know. So you are favoring the people already exploiting things like extra cards amongst other things. Lets not encourage that. Giving VIP's the option is simply a nice perk and a nice way to say thank you. F@P and Premium always have the options of the forums.

Umm you may want to reread what I said and not skim it. I am NOT in favor of that. However there is no way to tell them from any other account, what I said if they spend Money in the last year or two they should have a voice, and that I did NOT want the people who exploited to be able to have multiple accounts have multiple votes etc. If I did however phrase something poorly I'm correcting it now.

[Warrax23]

There is your answer...he dropped his sub. Everyone has a right to drop a sub that's a given...but to drop a sub 2 months after a major update? Dang give it time to flesh itself out.

I still don't get this overwhelming fear/hatred of champs. They were only tough for a week now they are like any other trash mob.

One guy on another post said something like "Great I will have every one of my toons take heavy armor for PRR". You know what? My sorc took adamantine body and I'm not sure if it was a huge help but it did help. A little bit of work and my ASF was 0% and he had 105PRR at lvl 18 I think it was.

This might sound harsh but it is not Turbines fault if people can't figure out how to adapt. Most people have. EVERY class in this game can work so figure out how and stop waiting for Turbine to adapt the game to YOU.

Yes, and they we have everyone taking heavy armor, ya cookie cutter games. I'm a rogue and have heavy armor.. umm.. ok that would never logically work, but it's in the game. Then EVERY rogue will do it because it's the only way to play. That's a not adaptation that's following the herd. And it's railroading us into playing a specific way, and horse hockey. In DnD I rarely see full blown casters (arcane) running around in full plate casting spells (Note the word rarely) there is a reason for that, because in DnD you can't do the spells that have movement components to it in full armor. So if it becomes a game everyone is the same, I won't be here. :) so enjoy.

[Oxarhamar]

I think a better idea is for the devs to just set the bar and that's it. We knew that you needed about 500 HP to survive in Shroud unless you had improved evasion. We knew what we had to do to beat the raid.
We, as players, currently have the system we have. It's up to us to work toward the right solution to the game difficulty as it presently is.

What the devs need to do is make sure that the changes they make to the game don't further separate the players. My main really didn't notice champions at any point. He's a KOTC paladin with either a SD or Harper secondary focus depending on whether he's in FOTW or not. Always mid 100's on PRR and at least 60ish on MRR. I feel the big issue here is that he's just a vastly superior character to most of the people who are complaining about champions.

The main issue with setting a bar is those well above the bar continue to see less challenge & those nearer the bar are very challenged.

A proc like this is equally challenging to all builds. Allowing the guys on the top edge of mitigation & HP get some challenge without excluding the lower end.



*For me, I've been still using evasion w/~60 PRR since champs first hit & ~900 HP @28 but, this most recent ETR I swapped for Heavy Armor got ~150 PRR ~900 HP @28. To me it wasn't worth the trade off. Sure I could take more physical damage but, being a trapper the loss of evasion was a bummer for those few traps you must stand in to disable. Also spells I could evade now we're bothersome.
I didn't see much challenge from any iteration of champions & the only ones that ever bothered me wear the "Wall of HP" just a boring beat down.

I've been killed here & there by champs but, I die from time to time anyways we play in groups who can raise. Pushing the envelope, biting off more than you can chew happens & it's that risk I find fun. It's too easy if I play it safe and don't wade into the danger.

[Sehenry03]

Umm you may want to reread what I said and not skim it. I am NOT in favor of that. However there is no way to tell them from any other account, what I said if they spend Money in the last year or two they should have a voice, and that I did NOT want the people who exploited to be able to have multiple accounts have multiple votes etc. If I did however phrase something poorly I'm correcting it now.

I did read it and I understood what you were saying. I was pointing out again that you CAN'T tell them apart. Again anyone who did NOT get the survey still have a voice on the forums. A question sent to VIP's would simply be a bonus for them to have direct input. And of course a F2P or Premium account can spend more then VIP's but I am gonna guess and say they don't. People go F2P to avoid paying as much as possible. They buy the packs and are done with a monthly fee but they might still buy stuff of course. A VIP who will spend the money each money I think will be more inclined to buy other stuff. I did say it was MY opinion.


Yes, and they we have everyone taking heavy armor, ya cookie cutter games. I'm a rogue and have heavy armor.. umm.. ok that would never logically work, but it's in the game. Then EVERY rogue will do it because it's the only way to play. That's a not adaptation that's following the herd. And it's railroading us into playing a specific way, and horse hockey. In DnD I rarely see full blown casters (arcane) running around in full plate casting spells (Note the word rarely) there is a reason for that, because in DnD you can't do the spells that have movement components to it in full armor. So if it becomes a game everyone is the same, I won't be here. :) so enjoy.

And of course everyone will have different builds. There are FotM builds that lots of people will copy. your example of a rogue in heavy is a little on the far side. Rogues can get a lot of abilities in light to make them viable. Nokowi in my guild is an assassin who solo's ALL THE TIME on EE because he adapted. When champs first came out he got slaughtered a few times when the champs had TS and he was caught but he just learned how to adapt. THAT is my point. Adapt. I am still deciding if I like adamantine body on my sorc or not. I don't know yet if I will keep it. I will play around with it though to see how it works. I am trying to learn new things I would never had done before.

My point is the OP is quitting because he hates champs. Its been 2 months and he hasn't figured them out? Most people in the game have them figured out by now and have ZERO issues with them...or at least everyone in my guild except 1 person and a few outside the guild I know. A majority of people I know and play with could absolutely care less about champs now.

And lastly...this game has changed from DnD a lot. People need to stop saying well I couldn't do it in DnD so I shouldn't be able to do it here. I loved DnD and played it for years. I wish this game had the capacity to do everything we did as a group but it doesn't. It HAS to change with the times and I think right now it is changing in a good way. if people hate it and need to leave well good luck I hope they come back. If your quitting because you don't like champs/dungeon scaling/whatever...well a lot of people do like them so personally I am glad I am on the side they seem to be leaning to. This is my game as much as anyone else's. We all have an equal say. But Turbine makes the final decisions and we live with those decisions. I just hope Turbine stops caving whenever someone whines about a boss being to hard or a champ hitting to hard or a trap hitting to hard.

[redoubt]

Give some champs a mortal fear proc would be better than the fort bypass, I like this idea.

Fort bypass just needs to be modified and it will be fine. We as players have the ability to bypass a part of fortification.

New fort bypass:

Hard / epic hard = CR + quest level
Elite / epic elite = CR + 2(quest level)

Mobs already bypass fort equal to their CR. Make the buff add either the quest level (hard) or twice the quest level (elite.)

In high level elite you get a CR 60 mob with fort bypass buff. total bypass becomes 60 + 2(30) = 120. In this case anyone with 120 or less is down to zero. But someone with 160 fort still has a 40 fort protection. If you have 220+ they you are still immune to fort (but that's not that common outside Pale Masters.)

This allows it to scale with difficulty selection and quest level and mob CR. The current fort bypass mechanic does not scale with anything.

[Sehenry03]

The main issue with setting a bar is those well above the bar continue to see less challenge & those nearer the bar are very challenged.

A proc like this is equally challenging to all builds. Allowing the guys on the top edge of mitigation & HP get some challenge without excluding the lower end.



*For me, I've been still using evasion w/~60 PRR since champs first hit & ~900 HP @28 but, this most recent ETR I swapped for Heavy Armor got ~150 PRR ~900 HP @28. To me it wasn't worth the trade off. Sure I could take more physical damage but, being a trapper the loss of evasion was a bummer for those few traps you must stand in to disable. Also spells I could evade now we're bothersome.
I didn't see much challenge from any iteration of champions & the only ones that ever bothered me wear the "Wall of HP" just a boring beat down.

I've been killed here & there by champs but, I die from time to time anyways we play in groups who can raise. Pushing the envelope, biting off more than you can chew happens & it's that risk I find fun. It's too easy if I play it safe and don't wade into the danger.

This is a great post and it talks about exactly what the problem is. I have no idea if Ox has the same views as I do but we do have the same idea as to what one of the problems is.

Easy way to fix the "bar" problem is difficulty. Elite should be for those who need the bar set HIGH. hard for those that need it a little lower. And normal for those wanting it even easier. It really is easy to set the bar properly using those 3 difficulties.

[redoubt]

This is a great post and it talks about exactly what the problem is. I have no idea if Ox has the same views as I do but we do have the same idea as to what one of the problems is.

Easy way to fix the "bar" problem is difficulty. Elite should be for those who need the bar set HIGH. hard for those that need it a little lower. And normal for those wanting it even easier. It really is easy to set the bar properly using those 3 difficulties.

So far I've only had one person wiling to answer how high they think the bar should be.

What % of the players should be able to complete:
elite in a group
hard in a group
norm in a group
casual on solo (needs to be 100% down here.)

I offered up 25, 50, 80, 100.

The only response offered: 10, 30, 80, 100.

Where do you place the "bar"?

[PermaBanned]

Yes, and they we have everyone taking heavy armor, ya cookie cutter games.If youwant to be taken seriously, don't say "everyone" and be careful about "most players." Everyone is not in heavy armor now (nor was everyone in robes prior to Armor Up).


I'm a rogue and have heavy armor.. umm.. ok that would never logically work, but it's in the game. Actully it works just fine - provided you're not a Stealth build - and it's not "the game" it's a player choice. Nothing requires you to make it.


Then EVERY rogue will do it because it's the only way to play.Wrong, just wrong on so many levels.


That's a not adaptation that's following the herd. And it's railroading us into playing a specific way, and horse hockey.This game (and I suspect most if not all others) has & will always have lemmings - that's how we get "Flavor of the Month" builds - but those herds always have leaders, innovators who separated themselves from the pack and made then posted those builds for the copy cats to emulate. It's up to each individual player to decide which group they want to identify with: the builders or copyers.


In DnD I rarely see full blown casters (arcane) running around in full plate casting spells (Note the word rarely) there is a reason for that, because in DnD you can't do the spells that have movement components to it in full armor. So if it becomes a game everyone is the same, I won't be here. :) so enjoy.Just one of the many left turns this game took from D&D - I'm kinda with you there - but it's not like D&D didn't give the option, it was just a generally costly one. Elves always could in Mithral armor, and Humans, Elves & Half Elves had the XP penalty free option to splash Fighter for the free proficiency, and when Meta Magic Feats were introduced we got Still Spell to eliminate Somatic (movement based) components. Not sure about your PnP buddies, but with mine we rarely did it because "casters belonged in robes." Nothing in DDO makes you put on some plate armor, it just gives a relatively easy boost to survivability - all be it at a build cost. Don't like it? Don't do it - that easy ;)

[PermaBanned]

This is a great post and it talks about exactly what the problem is. I have no idea if Ox has the same views as I do but we do have the same idea as to what one of the problems is.

Easy way to fix the "bar" problem is difficulty. Elite should be for those who need the bar set HIGH. hard for those that need it a little lower. And normal for those wanting it even easier. It really is easy to set the bar properly using those 3 difficulties.

The problem is in getting people to play at the difficulty bar they want (if the bar is Hard or Normal) when Elite offers the loot & XP they want (in other words the most possible on a per quest {not per min} basis).

[Standal]

So far I've only had one person wiling to answer how high they think the bar should be.

What % of the players should be able to complete:
elite in a group
hard in a group
norm in a group
casual on solo (needs to be 100% down here.)

I offered up 25, 50, 80, 100.

The only response offered: 10, 30, 80, 100.

Where do you place the "bar"?

You don't understand the question. All players should be able to complete the content at all difficulties. They should fail if they don't have the proper gear, build, and knowledge of the quest. The bar is what the level of gear, build, and knowledge is. All players should be able to figure out what the bar is and how to overcome it.

[etotheipi]

If you want to be taken seriously, don't say "everyone" and be careful about "most players." Everyone is not in heavy armor now (nor was everyone in robes prior to Armor Up).

That's true. Many players enjoy builds that aren't optimal. Some people like to roll with no HP. Others like to roll with no damage mitigation. Some folks like to play naked to make their life more difficult. Most people who have rolled with the changes and improved their characters so that they aren't squishbags are in Heavy Armor now. Some people will never adapt, for whatever reason.


Wrong, just wrong on so many levels.

You're right again! Some people will insist on playing squishbags. When DDO gives you a way to be non-squishy, some folks will refuse it on principle!


This game (and I suspect most if not all others) has & will always have lemmings - that's how we get "Flavor of the Month" builds - but those herds always have leaders, innovators who separated themselves from the pack and made then posted those builds for the copy cats to emulate. It's up to each individual player to decide which group they want to identify with: the builders or copyers.

Your dripping derision is showing. Generally speaking, the Flavor of the Month Builds are group efforts. They're designed by groups of people working together to get the most of out of what DDO offers in order to be a highly contributing non-squishbag. You can insist on ignoring crowd-sourced efforts to play a toon who is optimized if you want. You're welcome to have the lowest DPS you can manage along with no HP to go with it, if that's your cup of tea. But calling folks who don't opt for that route "lemmings", "copycats", and "members of the herd" is beyond obnoxious. Feel free to struggle all you want, but don't blame those who refuse to roll toons who get left behind when the game changes.

[Sebastrd]

That said, I suspect that one factor is that the needs of heroic level characters who have fewer tools to deal with things are different then players running on Epic. It might be that we need to have a different set of Champion buffs for heroic lives that are more subdued. As an example, we could just remove fortification bypass from heroic and dial back the hit point buff a bit for heroic.

Sev~

That'd probably reduce the complaints by half immediately. I suspect that the players hanging out in heroics do not have the same goals and experience as players that keep primarily to epics. New players in particular are in for quite a treat the first time they run in to a champion in Waterworks elite...

[PermaBanned]

All players should be able to complete the content at all difficulties.
I disagree, because not all players want the same thing from their gaming experience.

Some players (I'll call them group A) want to carefully craft, tweak, and develop a character to the point of being the best it can possibly be - and have that be rewarded by being able to have the best chance (note: chance, not garauntee) of success vs the game's highest difficulty setting. Some players (group Z) just simply want to log in & leisurely go about questing, with little to no chance of failure. Many more players (groups B -> Y) are probably somewhere in between. If all difficulties - including the hardest one - is completeable by Group Z, what is there to be interesting to Groups A -> Y?

The beauty of a multi-difficulty system should be that all content is completeable by all characters, on the difficulty setting most appropriate to both the player's desired level of challenge (from none to a lot) and the character's abilities.

[slarden]

are you talking about this where he is going by player reports?

The goal is that everyone can find a difficulty where they enjoy the game. Some people like an easier game, some like it more difficult. I have heard several pieces of feedback and I understand where players are coming from: Some people who PUG feel obligated to run on Elite and reducing difficulty is therefore not an option. Some people feel Elite is now too hard yet Hard is still too easy. Some people just don't like the tuning of specific champion buffs; particularly Fortification bypass. We want to solve it. But understand that we see as many if not more people who wish we didn't pull back on the original difficulty.

There is absolutely no ambiguity about where the devs stand with one-shotting. They've clearly stated it's not working as intended. As far as challenge in general the devs are saying there is a spectrum and that is absolutely true.

[Sebastrd]

These are not the same thing, by the way. If the GOAL is "eliminate one-shotting", there is evidence that "remove fort bypass" doesn't do that, which makes it a more complicated discussion. Second Wind is another culprit of one-shotting (and possibly causes more death than fort bypass), but we like the gameplay it adds. It probably needs better visual feedback and interaction, which is also possibly true in some other aspects of Monster Champions.

We're trying not to confuse goals (both the players and ours) with change proposals, but in this discussion that has sometimes been difficult to separate.

Perhaps you should consider color-coding the crowns. It would make things much easier on the folks who dislike champions if they could see which mobs have Second Wind, fort bypass, or just uber-HP. As it stands, every champion must be treated as though has a "one-shot" ability, because there's no easy way to to examine a mob in the midst of combat.

[Oxarhamar]

You don't understand the question. All players should be able to complete the content at all difficulties. They should fail if they don't have the proper gear, build, and knowledge of the quest. The bar is what the level of gear, build, and knowledge is. All players should be able to figure out what the bar is and how to overcome it.

The question is how to properly set the bar.

If the bar requires Heavy armor to avoid being one shotted (for example) then it's going to alienate many builds which would normally use lighter armors and render their unique types of damage mitigation moot.

Some players on the forum seam to be moving to the heavy armor even on casters, rogues, & Rangers.

Balancing content against the heavy armor high HP builds will alienate other builds.

I really think a Mortal fear type proc that bypassed PRR & DR would best bring challenge to the top mitigation builds without excluding other types.

[Qhualor]

There is absolutely no ambiguity about where the devs stand with one-shotting. They've clearly stated it's not working as intended. As far as challenge in general the devs are saying there is a spectrum and that is absolutely true.

where are you seeing its not WAI? i haven't seen one post by a dev that has said that.

I would think the devs would know when they allowed Champions to bypass fortification plus the damage boost the kind of damage it could cause players.

[caberonia]

Anyone else find it amusing that rather than properly balancing PRR that the solution to adding challenge it making some mobs ignore it?

This is part of my issue with the whole champs implementation.. alot of the Champ buffs Seem specifically geared to counter act all the "Buffs" they gave to players. What was the point of breaking the system (by not properly balancing PRR in Armor up, overpowering some trees in the revamps etc etc) and then adding a new system (champs)in order to try to fix it?

Why would you add new layers over old layers when you could and SHOULD fix the old layers?

Part of the issue i see with any attempt of putting champs in the right "zone" of power is that the system is broken as of right now, if you're attempting to balance champs to provide a challenge for a min/maxer you are going to make anything less easy pickins. The Gap of power between a min/maxed build and an average (but not completely gimped build) is far to wide.

(To be fair Sev stated that champs were NOT about adding or balancing difficulty but rather to add replay value. But since everyone else ignores that and any discussion of champs involves the difficulty/challenge discussion, I figure i will to)

Edit: Removed quote Because I quoted the wrong line in my response and I'm too lazy to find it again.

[PermaBanned]

But calling folks who don't opt for that route "lemmings", "copycats", and "members of the herd" is beyond obnoxious. Feel free to struggle all you want, but don't blame those who refuse to roll toons who get left behind when the game changes.
Umm... Yeah, I'm not one of the ones complaining about struggling, and my only complaints about difficulty revolve around the lack of it (@ level) vs how much character power is available.

The ones I refer to as lemmings, copy cats etc are the ones who don't make their own builds, or aren't part of these group efforts to develop the builds. They're the ones who make forum posts like "I need a build for X" or who follow the posted directions on what Race, Class, level split, when to take certain feats, when to get certain enhancements etc. In short, the ones who are copying what other people developed. I wouldn't call Cetus a copy cat lemming, but I would use that description for just about everyone "playing a Cetus build" who either didn't have a hand in it's design or didn't come up with it *independently. Same for all those Batmans, Juggernauts, Shuricannons and so on throughout the history of "FotM" builds.

If someone is taking (or splashing for) Heavy Armor proficiency on their Rogue because "everybody is" or "because the game makes me" that's on them. The game doesn't require it at all.


* I don't find it hard to believe that a lot of players don't read the forums and/or don't copy builds, but could still come up with the same idea as another player or players all on their own.

[UurlockYgmeov]

Havering a mortal fear 1/2 of HP hit that ignored PRR would be about the most balanced challenge as it would not matter what you HP pool or what Armor & gear you had.

1/2 damage to any build.

Better than stopping one shots on builds with low HP & low PRR which would make builds with high HP high PRR even stronger. Que the games too easy outcry again.

The solution is to level the playing field make some Champs have a chance to prove a mortal fear effect like that.

Hmmm... interesting - and worth thinking about

[Bluegirl_Two]

Polling is pointless as is analyzing the forums.

Vast majority of players don't post, don't visit, and don't care about the forums. That means the sense of the game gathered by reading the forums is badly skewed.

The complaints come from the same reliable sources who start and participate in multiple threads about the same thing regardless of any feedback they receive. When efforts at rational discussion fail those same posters resort to bully tactics and then cry foul to the forum moderators when they get responded to in kind.

Polling is meaningless for much of the same reason. It isn't worth the effort to participate in the poll to most people. They recognize that DDO is a game designed by a company and subject to that company's idea of what they want the game to be like. DDO is not a democracy.

And, it is a good thing it is not because the majority very probably has none of the complaints that drive the discontent. In fact, the apathy towards the forums exhibited by most players is evidence that they are not bothered by the complaint of the moment.

[HAL]

Umm... Yeah, I'm not one of the ones complaining about struggling, and my only complaints about difficulty revolve around the lack of it (@ level) vs how much character power is available.

The ones I refer to as lemmings, copy cats etc are the ones who don't make their own builds, or aren't part of these group efforts to develop the builds. They're the ones who make forum posts like "I need a build for X" or who follow the posted directions on what Race, Class, level split, when to take certain feats, when to get certain enhancements etc. In short, the ones who are copying what other people developed. I wouldn't call Cetus a copy cat lemming, but I would use that description for just about everyone "playing a Cetus build" who either didn't have a hand in it's design or didn't come up with it *independently. Same for all those Batmans, Juggernauts, Shuricannons and so on throughout the history of "FotM" builds.

If someone is taking (or splashing for) Heavy Armor proficiency on their Rogue because "everybody is" or "because the game makes me" that's on them. The game doesn't require it at all.


* I don't find it hard to believe that a lot of players don't read the forums and/or don't copy builds, but could still come up with the same idea as another player or players all on their own.

First, why insult people for using another's build when most of the builds you mention were posted by the "creator" of the build for people to copy?

Second, you're claiming that in a closed system two people can't come up with the same combination of traits independently?

[slarden]

where are you seeing its not WAI? i haven't seen one post by a dev that has said that.

I would think the devs would know when they allowed Champions to bypass fortification plus the damage boost the kind of damage it could cause players.

Check the post by Varg I linked previously. It's not ambiguous.

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/455892-Public-Poll-for-paying-customers-for-Champions#post5538825

[Qhualor]

Check the post by Varg I linked previously. It's not ambiguous.

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/455892-Public-Poll-for-paying-customers-for-Champions#post5538825

These are not the same thing, by the way. If the GOAL is "eliminate one-shotting", there is evidence that "remove fort bypass" doesn't do that, which makes it a more complicated discussion. Second Wind is another culprit of one-shotting (and possibly causes more death than fort bypass), but we like the gameplay it adds. It probably needs better visual feedback and interaction, which is also possibly true in some other aspects of Monster Champions.

We're trying not to confuse goals (both the players and ours) with change proposals, but in this discussion that has sometimes been difficult to separate.

where is he saying its not WAI?

I know he says later he wants to eliminate one shotting, but its obviously more complicated than that. how does one eliminate one shotting? remove fort bypass and second wind? why hell, might as well remove mobs from the game too than. by what you are saying, it conflicts with what Sev said.

[slarden]

These are not the same thing, by the way. If the GOAL is "eliminate one-shotting", there is evidence that "remove fort bypass" doesn't do that, which makes it a more complicated discussion. Second Wind is another culprit of one-shotting (and possibly causes more death than fort bypass), but we like the gameplay it adds. It probably needs better visual feedback and interaction, which is also possibly true in some other aspects of Monster Champions.

We're trying not to confuse goals (both the players and ours) with change proposals, but in this discussion that has sometimes been difficult to separate.

where is he saying its not WAI?

I know he says later he wants to eliminate one shotting, but its obviously more complicated than that. how does one eliminate one shotting? remove fort bypass and second wind? why hell, might as well remove mobs from the game too than. by what you are saying, it conflicts with what Sev said.

How can you not understand that if the devs don't want any one-shotting that it's not WAI?

Sev previously said reports of one-shotting were troubling. He never said he wants one-shotting and never contradicted what Varg said.

[warioman91]

same. if you don't like them - then play on casual and do the questing 4 levels below the quest. no champions still same challenge (if not more). :D

If you want boring - play DDO for Dummies. no randomness. all sameness.

Old proverb - "change is the only constant in the universe; stagnation only means decay and death."

This is so TERRIBLY IGNORANT.

Most players who don't like champions don't like them not out of difficulty, but the whole manner of the mechanic.

You say that DDO without champs is boring. Well, with champions it feels more like a chore to be honest. I don't get excited when I see a champion, nor do I feel "Oh ****! A champion, better be careful", I just go "oh yay, one of those....".

The gameplay just doesn't become more interesting when a champion is encountered and that needs to be fixed.

It's the same thing that happened with monster champions in Diablo 3. In the original Diablo 3(I mean when it was hard), when champions showed up, you really went "OH ****" and had to spend a good couple minutes or more fighting them, but the whole dance of fighting them was rather engaging and got your party into what I liken to Frantic Raid Mode.
Nowadays, champion mobs in Diablo 3 are more akin to how they are here in DDO. 1. They spawn so much more often than they should. 2. Because of this, they are also much easier to kill(I mean that the devs made them easier). 3. Because of #2, there aren't memorable fights that require the "dance of fighting"(by this I mean dodging and kiting abilities and attacks).

So, my point which I've already poked at is that champion mobs need to be exciting and memorable. They aren't right now.
Other thing I might add is that if you made the champion buffs more apparent and more easily noticed by the player, instead of needing to Examine or anything.(Take Diablo 3 where the champion mobs have all their special abilities listed like "Jailer", "nuker", "Cager").

However, to be honest, the buffs really are not interesting.
That's probably the main issue. The rewards aren't interesting either.

[Qhualor]

How can you not understand that if the devs don't want any one-shotting that it's not WAI?

Sev previously said reports of one-shotting were troubling. He never said he wants one-shotting and never contradicted what Varg said.

they are going by player feedback that they don't like it and the devs are doing something about it. that's not what "not WAI" means. heres what Sev said again. I suggest reading it again.

"End of year subs were higher than pre-Champion. But that doesn't matter. Feedback from the survey indicates that pretty much everyone who applied to the player's council thinks the difficulty of the game is fine. But that doesn't matter.

What bothers the hell out of me - and also bothers our team - is that there are players that are not having fun playing DDO. I want to find out specifics why so we can fix that. I want to fix that dissatisfaction without dismantling the Champions system because a lot of people like it and we have a lot of good feedback from players enjoying the system.

The goal is that everyone can find a difficulty where they enjoy the game. Some people like an easier game, some like it more difficult. I have heard several pieces of feedback and I understand where players are coming from: Some people who PUG feel obligated to run on Elite and reducing difficulty is therefore not an option. Some people feel Elite is now too hard yet Hard is still too easy. Some people just don't like the tuning of specific champion buffs; particularly Fortification bypass. We want to solve it. But understand that we see as many if not more people who wish we didn't pull back on the original difficulty.

We want to find solutions where everyone can find fun. We only ask that the players work with us, and maybe have patience. We are all in this together and we are working as fast as we can.

That said, I suspect that one factor is that the needs of heroic level characters who have fewer tools to deal with things are different then players running on Epic. It might be that we need to have a different set of Champion buffs for heroic lives that are more subdued. As an example, we could just remove fortification bypass from heroic and dial back the hit point buff a bit for heroic.

Obviously we want to keep tuning the system beyond that, but these are the types of discussions and idea we want to foster."

[slarden]

they are going by player feedback that they don't like it and the devs are doing something about it. that's not what "not WAI" means. heres what Sev said again. I suggest reading it again.

"End of year subs were higher than pre-Champion. But that doesn't matter. Feedback from the survey indicates that pretty much everyone who applied to the player's council thinks the difficulty of the game is fine. But that doesn't matter.

What bothers the hell out of me - and also bothers our team - is that there are players that are not having fun playing DDO. I want to find out specifics why so we can fix that. I want to fix that dissatisfaction without dismantling the Champions system because a lot of people like it and we have a lot of good feedback from players enjoying the system.

The goal is that everyone can find a difficulty where they enjoy the game. Some people like an easier game, some like it more difficult. I have heard several pieces of feedback and I understand where players are coming from: Some people who PUG feel obligated to run on Elite and reducing difficulty is therefore not an option. Some people feel Elite is now too hard yet Hard is still too easy. Some people just don't like the tuning of specific champion buffs; particularly Fortification bypass. We want to solve it. But understand that we see as many if not more people who wish we didn't pull back on the original difficulty.

We want to find solutions where everyone can find fun. We only ask that the players work with us, and maybe have patience. We are all in this together and we are working as fast as we can.

That said, I suspect that one factor is that the needs of heroic level characters who have fewer tools to deal with things are different then players running on Epic. It might be that we need to have a different set of Champion buffs for heroic lives that are more subdued. As an example, we could just remove fortification bypass from heroic and dial back the hit point buff a bit for heroic.

Obviously we want to keep tuning the system beyond that, but these are the types of discussions and idea we want to foster."

Which says nothing about one-shotting. He has mentioned it several times - and at all times indicating it's not what they want

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/453023-Monster-Champion-Feedback/page13#post5495825

[Bluegirl_Two]

"End of year subs were higher than pre-Champion. But that doesn't matter. Feedback from the survey indicates that pretty much everyone who applied to the player's council thinks the difficulty of the game is fine. But that doesn't matter.

What bothers the hell out of me - and also bothers our team - is that there are players that are not having fun playing DDO. I want to find out specifics why so we can fix that. I want to fix that dissatisfaction without dismantling the Champions system because a lot of people like it and we have a lot of good feedback from players enjoying the system.

The goal is that everyone can find a difficulty where they enjoy the game. Some people like an easier game, some like it more difficult. I have heard several pieces of feedback and I understand where players are coming from: Some people who PUG feel obligated to run on Elite and reducing difficulty is therefore not an option. Some people feel Elite is now too hard yet Hard is still too easy. Some people just don't like the tuning of specific champion buffs; particularly Fortification bypass. We want to solve it. But understand that we see as many if not more people who wish we didn't pull back on the original difficulty.

We want to find solutions where everyone can find fun. We only ask that the players work with us, and maybe have patience. We are all in this together and we are working as fast as we can.

That said, I suspect that one factor is that the needs of heroic level characters who have fewer tools to deal with things are different then players running on Epic. It might be that we need to have a different set of Champion buffs for heroic lives that are more subdued. As an example, we could just remove fortification bypass from heroic and dial back the hit point buff a bit for heroic.

Obviously we want to keep tuning the system beyond that, but these are the types of discussions and idea we want to foster."

The first complaint about champions was in low level quests where HP and gear was not enough to keep up with the change. Turbine fixed that.

The biggest current complaint is about champions on the other end of the spectrum -- in epic elite. And, many of the complaints come from people who are soloing epic elite.

I had sympathy for players who wanted to keep elite streaks on reincarnate lives running low level quests. I don't have sympathy for players who no longer are able to solo epic elite content.

Lastly, the idea that champion buffs would be the same in both heroic and epic content was stupid from the outset. Turbine developers should have known that. The two parts of the game are separate and unequal elements. Nothing should apply across the board to all content. Everything should be tailored to the quest level.

That's the whole idea behind quest levels -- that there is a gradual change in difficulty and challenge. If it doesn't work like that then Turbine developers are less competent than even I think they are.

[Qhualor]

Which says nothing about one-shotting. He has mentioned it several times - and at all times indicating it's not what they want

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/453023-Monster-Champion-Feedback/page13#post5495825

again you are not proving this. that link shows page 13 of the Champion feedback thread. the prior links you had showed page 1 of this thread.

you mean to tell me they just suddenly realized that the "one shotting" is not WAI? they didn't know this when they were testing it before Lama and when we were playing with them on Lama? they didn't start doing anything about it until after the 3,2575,093,834 thread on Chanpions.

either way, it doesn't matter and its a moot point. Champions will get another round of nerfs and casualization wins again.

[slarden]

again you are not proving this. that link shows page 13 of the Champion feedback thread. the prior links you had showed page 1 of this thread.

you mean to tell me they just suddenly realized that the "one shotting" is not WAI? they didn't know this when they were testing it before Lama and when we were playing with them on Lama? they didn't start doing anything about it until after the 3,2575,093,834 thread on Chanpions.

either way, it doesn't matter and its a moot point. Champions will get another round of nerfs and casualization wins again.

Nope they've been consistent in saying that the purpose of champions was to add randomness and challenge, but they've also said one-shotting was not intended except in extreme challenges.

[SirValentine]

Some people feel Elite is now too hard yet Hard is still too easy.


That's not a "now" or "still" issue or Champion issue. The step up from Epic Hard to Epic Elite has been huge since it existed, while the step between Epic Normal and Epic Hard feels much smaller. I don't want to get into whether EE is too easy or too hard right now, but EH is certainly too easy, just on the scale between EN & EE.

[redoubt]

You don't understand the question. All players should be able to complete the content at all difficulties. They should fail if they don't have the proper gear, build, and knowledge of the quest. The bar is what the level of gear, build, and knowledge is. All players should be able to figure out what the bar is and how to overcome it.

So your answer is that 100% of the players should be able to complete elite/epic elite.

You also place a lot of conditions on that, but don't really define them.

By proper gear do you mean Best in Slot or fail?

By build do you mean only TWF wolves?

What do you call knowledge of the quest? Is knowing 5333 in Co6 p6 knowledge? Is knowing the number 4 in Von5 knowledge? Or do you mean skill at the keyboard to do the crucible swim on elite equally well on a rogue, paladin, cleric or sorc?

[Angelic-council]

I see absolutely nothing wrong with the champions... none. Champions are not that hard until level 28... 30, basically late game. And I see it as a good challege. What is the game without that good challenge. It doesn't matter what MMORPG you play, end game is always super hard. Even the Never Winter, mobs can 1 shot you, but people don't complain as much as we do here. Because they group and help each other. People just using "I spend money" as a weapon here.

I spend money too, more than 1,000$ for sure. And I'm not even super duper power freak. I have paladin, FvS, wizard and barbarian. All level 28... and I run EEs only. Sure, I die sometimes. I can't even complete a quest without a party (rarely, but true). So what is it that so special about me? When I party with other players on EE... they die so many times.. I guess people just can't play accurately?

[slarden]

Even the Never Winter, mobs can 1 shot you, but people don't complain as much as we do here.

The only time you will get one-shot in Neverwinter is if you fail to dodge when a clear warning is given at end game. All big attacks have a clear warning and give you a chance to avoid the damage. There is one enemy that requires a tank or you can get one-shot when he is rage mode if you have the aggro.

You will never get one-shot other than those situations. There is NO leveling content in Neverwinter where you can get one-shot even if you miss the red circles (unless of course you are extremely undergeared).

I don't think these situations are comparable to random trash one-shotting you.

I will mention I haven't been one shot since I the very first weekend of champions nor am I particularly concerned personally about it since I normally group and can get raised. I do think one-shotting is a stupid mechanic, but I get that Turbine is stil fine-tuning the champion system which I like overall.

[slarden]

That's not a "now" or "still" issue or Champion issue. The step up from Epic Hard to Epic Elite has been huge since it existed, while the step between Epic Normal and Epic Hard feels much smaller. I don't want to get into whether EE is too easy or too hard right now, but EH is certainly too easy, just on the scale between EN & EE.

In EH MOD the Death Knights are CR mid-40s. In EE MOD it's mid 80s. That's a huge step up.

The death knights will one-hit me in EE and I completely expect it and think it's appropriate there.

[RTFM]

^this

get some manpower and analyse the forum posts since the champs are active. shouldn't be to hard just time consuming. I think it's the best way to gather opinions.

This is not a way to do a proper poll, as the forums do not represent the player base consensus at all in a LOT of issues.. A proper poll would be an email poll with one response per account. Easy to create (10 minutes on survey monkey) and easy to distribute (they already mail with updates, sales, etc.).

As a plus for management, no need to make those email polls' outcome public if the outcome is not favoring management decisions!

[RTFM]

No matter how hard you will try to pick the variety of players to the PC, it will never give you the general representation of ddo community.

This 100%. I am kinda shocked when I see some PC posts and what the "players want", as the divergence from what I see on Khyber in general can be far from what is claimed. Not going to point to fingers or even give an example, but it is clear that some posts read more like a salesman's pitch than a statement of facts. Just sayin'

[AbyssalMage]

Well, day two on Heroic Elite and got smacked around by a Champion that didn't show a crown. That was a nice graphical bug but the chest was nice once I beat him. Before anyone asks, no it wasn't enjoyable. Losing 100-200 HP's a smack was heart pounding anxiety and not seeing the crown had me steaming hot as I ran around drinking CSW pots just to smack him once or twice before retreating to repeat the drinking of pots. Wiped a few minutes later thanks to deaths from this "no show" champion.

Overall, I am pleased with them but after farming favor in lower level content...rewards should show up if they show up. If I have to spend the resources they should drop the resources :) Orange/Red/Purple named drop loot whether you are under, at, or over level for the content.

On a side note, I may have to drop down to Hard Streak thanks to Champions which means I will be spending the same resources on them but less chance of returns. I already know how I feel about receiving less rewards for the same work and it isn't pleasant.

[Angelic-council]

The only time you will get one-shot in Neverwinter is if you fail to dodge when a clear warning is given at end game. All big attacks have a clear warning and give you a chance to avoid the damage. There is one enemy that requires a tank or you can get one-shot when he is rage mode if you have the aggro.

You will never get one-shot other than those situations. There is NO leveling content in Neverwinter where you can get one-shot even if you miss the red circles (unless of course you are extremely undergeared).

I don't think these situations are comparable to random trash one-shotting you.

I will mention I haven't been one shot since I the very first weekend of champions nor am I particularly concerned personally about it since I normally group and can get raised. I do think one-shotting is a stupid mechanic, but I get that Turbine is stil fine-tuning the champion system which I like overall.

The Shores of Tuern? some monsters will attack you without warning and potentially deal over 10k damage. It's good when you have 3 - 5 people dealing with them thought.

I don't think champions are some random trash. It's a challenge wall. DDO is indeed different, you can't really compare this game to another games out there: You can't select difficulty, multi class and so on. Some games are even worse, but I don't want to start another disccution here. If you play this game with decent people (not power creeps) you will complete EE just fine.

[PermaBanned]

Second, you're claiming that in a closed system two people can't come up with the same combination of traits independently?Instead of simply telling you to reread what I wrote, I'll just repost the relevant portions (with emphasis added). You can reread either the origonal post or the quote you made of it incase you feel I'm quoting myself out of context:


...who either didn't have a hand in it's design or didn't come up with it *independently.

* I don't find it hard to believe that a lot of players don't read the forums and/or don't copy builds, but could still come up with the same idea as another player or players all on their own.So no, I did not make any such claim that "people can't come up with the same combination of traits independently" - I actually said the opposite.

[wayreth602]

This is not a way to do a proper poll, as the forums do not represent the player base consensus at all in a LOT of issues.. A proper poll would be an email poll with one response per account. Easy to create (10 minutes on survey monkey) and easy to distribute (they already mail with updates, sales, etc.).

As a plus for management, no need to make those email polls' outcome public if the outcome is not favoring management decisions!

Wow, a post back on topic.

I doubt that turbine would do the poll. But you are right, a simple email, one per account would be best. Let Turbine weed out double/triple/etc votes.

Now, that said, I'm going to be myself (a bit snarky, a bit analytical).

Any poll that was done would be bashed and trashed in the forums.

Some would say it should only be VIPs that get polled. Then you would have a new account that went VIP to try the game for a month have a vote when a founder that is now Premium doesn't have a vote and may have bought MOTU preorder and would have spent more money screams.

Then if you do the every account, you get the screaming that people have multiple accounts and would get multiple votes. After the build your guild and the anniversary cards, there are even more people with multiple accounts. Not to mention the players that had extra accounts as mules or quest openers. But on the other hand, you can't just weed these out by email, IP or billing details. You might have unique accounts that go to one email with the same billing address that are behind the same router. Strange as it might seem (/sarcasm), there are husband and wife duos. They might even have kids that play as well. These people might all get pushed to only having one vote if you filter too hard.

If you go by accounts that have only been active in say the last year, you run into quest opener account or account being used to give extra chest pulls from multiboxing so they would be active.

The same thing with if the accounts have spent money over the last year. Opener and mule accounts could be seeded with a TP or market purchase to give them more bank space or more quests to open.

sigh, I'm not even going to bring true F2P into this.

Turbine is better off not doing the poll. They would get flamed for posting the results for people thinking is was weighed by people with multiple accounts. They would get flamed for not posting the results with people saying that the results did not go the way that Turbine wanted.

Edit: sigh, go ahead and /flame

[Oxarhamar]

Wow, a post back on topic.

I doubt that turbine would do the poll. But you are right, a simple email, one per account would be best. Let Turbine weed out double/triple/etc votes.

Now, that said, I'm going to be myself (a bit snarky, a bit analytical).

Any poll that was done would be bashed and trashed in the forums.

Some would say it should only be VIPs that get polled. Then you would have a new account that went VIP to try the game for a month have a vote when a founder that is now Premium doesn't have a vote and may have bought MOTU preorder and would have spent more money screams.

Then if you do the every account, you get the screaming that people have multiple accounts and would get multiple votes. After the build your guild and the anniversary cards, there are even more people with multiple accounts. Not to mention the players that had extra accounts as mules or quest openers. But on the other hand, you can't just weed these out by email, IP or billing details. You might have unique accounts that go to one email with the same billing address that are behind the same router. Strange as it might seem (/sarcasm), there are husband and wife duos. They might even have kids that play as well. These people might all get pushed to only having one vote if you filter too hard.

If you go by accounts that have only been active in say the last year, you run into quest opener account or account being used to give extra chest pulls from multiboxing so they would be active.

The same thing with if the accounts have spent money over the last year. Opener and mule accounts could be seeded with a TP or market purchase to give them more bank space or more quests to open.

sigh, I'm not even going to bring true F2P into this.

Turbine is better off not doing the poll. They would get flamed for posting the results for people thinking is was weighed by people with multiple accounts. They would get flamed for not posting the results with people saying that the results did not go the way that Turbine wanted.

Edit: sigh, go ahead and /flame

Email is another poor way to do the poll. For other reasons commonly associated with e-mail.

In game survey 1 per account with a 1 astral shard payout would reach every active player.

[Hendrik]

im not worried about Champions because i find them to be too easy and the hundreds of pug groups and hundreds of solo questing side with me on that. what im more concerned about is that the hardest difficulty in the game is defeated with nearly no fail chance by most players. that's not my idea of fun and seriously questioning why im investing time to build powerful characters when i don't need to.

There is NO point to investing that kind of time into making a more powerful character.

All it will do is show you how easy everything has become.

Why grind out all those past lives, Heroic and Epic, only to discover that a first and only lifer with 32pt build crushes current content.

Grind out past lives you will discover that you are spending money to get more powerful with nothing to play or anyplace to go to use all that power. Your spending money to grind yourself right out of the game.

Seems kind of stupid to spend all that time and money to hurry to the end result of not playing anymore because there is nothing for you.

[slarden]

There is NO point to investing that kind of time into making a more powerful character.

All it will do is show you how easy everything has become.

Why grind out all those past lives, Heroic and Epic, only to discover that a first and only lifer with 32pt build crushes current content.

Grind out past lives you will discover that you are spending money to get more powerful with nothing to play or anyplace to go to use all that power. Your spending money to grind yourself right out of the game.

Seems kind of stupid to spend all that time and money to hurry to the end result of not playing anymore because there is nothing for you.

And yet just the other day on Sarlona a PUG EE MOD group that had 8 completionist characters struggled mightily including a person from your guild. Only 1 or 2 people had < 10 deaths. Rahmanii- is one of the best players on that server and was brave enough to start one - the only other person besides Jurgi on the server that actually tries to lead the difficult stuff when it's still difficult. Anyone else on Sarlona that says the game is to easy please tell me that AFTER you lead us to victory in an EE MOD run.

Until people actually play and master the most difficult content in this game I am not buying this argument. This isn't a criticism of you because you are a fine player and certainly mean well, but people simply take the path of least resistance and avoid the actual difficult content in this game. I suspect the devs data will show that players aren't LOL stomping all over EE MOD - the challenge is there but people avoid it and instead complain about how easy EE impossible demands is.

[Qhualor]

And yet just the other day on Sarlona a PUG EE MOD group that had 8 completionist characters struggled mightily including a person from your guild. Only 1 or 2 people had < 10 deaths. Rahmanii- is one of the best players on that server and was brave enough to start one - the only other person besides Jurgi on the server that actually tries to lead the difficult stuff when it's still difficult. Anyone else on Sarlona that says the game is to easy please tell me that AFTER you lead us to victory in an EE MOD run.

Until people actually play and master the most difficult content in this game I am not buying this argument. This isn't a criticism of you because you are a fine player and certainly mean well, but people simply take the path of least resistance and avoid the actual difficult content in this game. I suspect the devs data will show that players aren't LOL stomping all over EE MOD - the challenge is there but people avoid it and instead complain about how easy EE impossible demands is.

as of right now, you can pick and choose certain raids and maybe certain quests that still pose an actual challenge even for multi past lives and twinked out gear characters. its common on here to see people deny that the game hasn't gotten too easy when they bring up a handful of quests/raids. overall, the game has gotten too easy so that you don't actually need a lot of past lives or twinked out gear. ive been defeating EE content in off destinies using chest loot gear and playing classes that I have no real interest in learning to play outside of just passing through for the past life.

yes, I hear EE MOD and TF raids and EE GOP if your unlucky with the beholder is quite tough, but most of the rest of the game doesn't even compare. heroics are mostly a joke for any half experienced player. i can count on one hand in the past 2 years or so how many actual legitimate fails ive been in with fingers left over. i started off pugging more than i used to because it was a way for me to find some challenge, but now im finding myself soloing most of heroic more but grouping in epic because i want to play with people.

[Hendrik]

What bothers the hell out of me - and also bothers our team - is that there are players that are not having fun playing DDO. I want to find out specifics why so we can fix that. I want to fix that dissatisfaction without dismantling the Champions system because a lot of people like it and we have a lot of good feedback from players enjoying the system.


Sev~

You want specifics, here;

I have played the game I was given. Played within the rules. Now that I have done that, I have found the game to be far to easy and very boring. Been asking for a challenge in one of four difficulty settings for over 3 years one to be answered with things getting easier, things that were somewhat challenging nerf'd, and "soon".

How can anyone be expected to have fun anymore knowing full well that all you have to do to 'win' is click auto-attack.

I want to be challenged. I want to know that I will not win every encounter 100% of the time. I want hard fought battles. I want ONE difficulty setting, EE, to challenge the players that have been playing the game as it has been delivered to them, grinding out past lives both Heroic and Epic, to FINALLY have something to test all that power they have 'worked' to get. What IS the point to past lives, beside power creep, if not to adventure someplace to put that to use - facerolling everything is NOT putting it to use.

I have nothing but respect for you Sev and the whole team. But players have gotten so used to everything being so easy, to add difficulty now is going to be very difficult for you. Look at Champs for an example. Look to the Emissary nerf for another. I think you are going to have to make a difficult decision and even harder, stick to it.

Is the "end-game" goal for you to be for players to faceroll everything after TRs with nothing to actually and honestly challenge the grind you gave them to do OR will you add something to challenge all those players?

Can ONE difficulty setting be set aside to actually BE difficult and challenging without caving into casual and solo play. Does someone at Turbine have the big brass ones to stand up and say, "One setting WILL be difficult! Chances are high you will die. A full balanced party will be a must to survive! Solo is suicide in this setting, do not expect to complete."


Or will we have to continue to see DDO continually changed into Chutes and Ladders minus the chutes? Or is DDO so far gone now there is really no point?

[slarden]

as of right now, you can pick and choose certain raids and maybe certain quests that still pose an actual challenge even for multi past lives and twinked out gear characters. its common on here to see people deny that the game hasn't gotten too easy when they bring up a handful of quests/raids. overall, the game has gotten too easy so that you don't actually need a lot of past lives or twinked out gear. ive been defeating EE content in off destinies using chest loot gear and playing classes that I have no real interest in learning to play outside of just passing through for the past life.

yes, I hear EE MOD and TF raids and EE GOP if your unlucky with the beholder is quite tough, but most of the rest of the game doesn't even compare. heroics are mostly a joke for any half experienced player. i can count on one hand in the past 2 years or so how many actual legitimate fails ive been in with fingers left over. i started off pugging more than i used to because it was a way for me to find some challenge, but now im finding myself soloing most of heroic more but grouping in epic because i want to play with people.

I am certainly not denying that old quests are easier now. Of course they are but unfortunately that is mostly what is run.

What I am saying is that there are actually EE challenges in the game and people are opting out of those and instead complaining about the easy content being too easy.

ee MOD is there to run and yet people don't want to run it. It's hard - possibly not when you've mastered it but it's not run much on Sarlona and all runs have been very difficult - so I don't know about it getting easier with practice.

[Hendrik]

And yet just the other day on Sarlona a PUG EE MOD group that had 8 completionist characters struggled mightily including a person from your guild. Only 1 or 2 people had < 10 deaths. Rahmanii- is one of the best players on that server and was brave enough to start one - the only other person besides Jurgi on the server that actually tries to lead the difficult stuff when it's still difficult. Anyone else on Sarlona that says the game is to easy please tell me that AFTER you lead us to victory in an EE MOD run.

Until people actually play and master the most difficult content in this game I am not buying this argument. This isn't a criticism of you because you are a fine player and certainly mean well, but people simply take the path of least resistance and avoid the actual difficult content in this game. I suspect the devs data will show that players aren't LOL stomping all over EE MOD - the challenge is there but people avoid it and instead complain about how easy EE impossible demands is.

One Raid, ran maybe once a week if your lucky, is a challenge - for the time being.

Love it! However, one Raid that is rarely ran on EE and using PUGs for filler, does not discount that every single other Quest and Raid in game is cake for those 8 completionists + 4 filler pugs.

Take 6 of those completionists and put them into any other Quest and watch them faceroll it. That is what I am talking about ALL other content minus this one single raid. Just because one single raid is not run ad nauseum by default on EE does not invalidate the fact that those very same players are going to have no fail runs of everything else out there. Just because people have not yet mastered EE MOD yet the whole 'the game is easier' argument is invalid?!?!

So if people want challenge, they can only do EE MOD. Joy.

[Qhualor]

I am certainly not denying that old quests are easier now. Of course they are but unfortunately that is mostly what is run.

What I am saying is that there are actually EE challenges in the game and people are opting out of those and instead complaining about the easy content being too easy.

ee MOD is there to run and yet people don't want to run it. It's hard - possibly not when you've mastered it but it's not run much on Sarlona and all runs have been very difficult - so I don't know about it getting easier with practice.

old quests and newer quests are just as easy.

people opt out of EE content because the incentive doesn't match the difficulty. its the path of least resistance argument to get what you want. i do see a lot of people running EE quests on the lfm and in my channels that is all that is posted. i see some of those "IP" and shortmanned. to some its about efficiency and prefer running fast and easy on normal if they only really care about leveling or racking up completions for that 20th reward list. the difficulties simply don't match the growing character power because that's what Turbine was pushing on us instead of having an end game the past few years. the incentives to run higher levels don't work mostly because people were complaining about not getting the same loot as players who run higher difficulties and raids. people complained about it taking too long to get the loot they want so its about speedy completions on normal to get powerful loot.

there are people who want an honest to goodness challenge in this game, but it needs proper incentivizing and it needs to properly scale to current character power.

[patang01]

End of year subs were higher than pre-Champion. But that doesn't matter. Feedback from the survey indicates that pretty much everyone who applied to the player's council thinks the difficulty of the game is fine. But that doesn't matter.

What bothers the hell out of me - and also bothers our team - is that there are players that are not having fun playing DDO. I want to find out specifics why so we can fix that. I want to fix that dissatisfaction without dismantling the Champions system because a lot of people like it and we have a lot of good feedback from players enjoying the system.

The goal is that everyone can find a difficulty where they enjoy the game. Some people like an easier game, some like it more difficult. I have heard several pieces of feedback and I understand where players are coming from: Some people who PUG feel obligated to run on Elite and reducing difficulty is therefore not an option. Some people feel Elite is now too hard yet Hard is still too easy. Some people just don't like the tuning of specific champion buffs; particularly Fortification bypass. We want to solve it. But understand that we see as many if not more people who wish we didn't pull back on the original difficulty.

We want to find solutions where everyone can find fun. We only ask that the players work with us, and maybe have patience. We are all in this together and we are working as fast as we can.

That said, I suspect that one factor is that the needs of heroic level characters who have fewer tools to deal with things are different then players running on Epic. It might be that we need to have a different set of Champion buffs for heroic lives that are more subdued. As an example, we could just remove fortification bypass from heroic and dial back the hit point buff a bit for heroic.

Obviously we want to keep tuning the system beyond that, but these are the types of discussions and idea we want to foster.

Sev~

I will say this again; had you made it an option with an incentive to use it in a quest, this would never had become the problem you yourselves made it into. It's like so many other times when you guys didn't listen to feedback early on in the process and released terrible stuff that simply made the player base leave in disgust. I understand that you have a vision and I understand that you have ideas, some of them are terrific. But making things optional, even if it takes you longer to implement with a clear incentive to use them will ALWAYS work. Instead you have now spent so much time and energy finding a balance to satisfy everyone when you keep either p!ssing off people who love to drag themselves across broken glass and those that just want it to be as it was before when they had fun.

I get what you're trying to do, but you keep insisting on finding this imaginary balance where everything is happy happy awesome.

[slarden]

old quests and newer quests are just as easy.

people opt out of EE content because the incentive doesn't match the difficulty. its the path of least resistance argument to get what you want. i do see a lot of people running EE quests on the lfm and in my channels that is all that is posted. i see some of those "IP" and shortmanned. to some its about efficiency and prefer running fast and easy on normal if they only really care about leveling or racking up completions for that 20th reward list. the difficulties simply don't match the growing character power because that's what Turbine was pushing on us instead of having an end game the past few years. the incentives to run higher levels don't work mostly because people were complaining about not getting the same loot as players who run higher difficulties and raids. people complained about it taking too long to get the loot they want so its about speedy completions on normal to get powerful loot.

there are people who want an honest to goodness challenge in this game, but it needs proper incentivizing and it needs to properly scale to current character power.

People don't run EE MOD because it's hard. CR 84 death knights that one shot you. Vol's breath one shots you.

If people want a challenge why is nobody on Sarlona running EE MOD and few even try it?

People didn't PUG EE FOT without an exploit when it was new but do now because it was harder a few years ago and is not so hard now. It's not the incentive, it's just easier now. People say they want a challenge but always seem to choose the path of least resistance when given a chance.

Incentive has nothing to do with it - I saw some of the best players on Sarlona getting their butts handed to them in EE MOD. And people don't complain about the difficulty of EE MOD because the loot isn't exclusive. Now the devs have their model for future content development. Make EE so difficult few will want to run it and don't make the loot exclusive so people will run the difficulty that fits them.

[Qhualor]

People don't run EE MOD because it's hard. CR 84 death knights that one shot you. Vol's breath one shots you.

If people want a challenge why is nobody on Sarlona running EE MOD and few even try it?

People didn't PUG EE FOT without an exploit when it was new but do now because it was harder a few years ago and is not so hard now. It's not the incentive, it's just easier now. People say they want a challenge but always seem to choose the path of least resistance when given a chance.

Incentive has nothing to do with it - I saw some of the best players on Sarlona getting their butts handed to them in EE MOD. And people don't complain about the difficulty of EE MOD because the loot isn't exclusive. Now the devs have their model for future content development. Make EE so difficult few will want to run it and don't make the loot exclusive so people will run the difficulty that fits them.

already outlined that to you. path of least resistance.

yes, EE GH was considered quite tough and it was before the armor changes. it gave rise to ranged builds and melees were less optimal. eventually as the game changes, we figure out better ways to defeat content and power creep those tough quests become easier. it takes a little time, but not until after people rant about how they die on elite in a new raid/quest. as typical, some prefer easy completions to get their loot because that is the primary incentive to even running the raid.

i don't understand why you are focused on 1 raid. im talking about overall. just like FOT, MOD will eventually be easier to defeat in time. in the meantime, if all people do is run normal for loot and completions than they aren't getting the experience and skill to defeat it on elite. they shouldn't expect to defeat elite or rant about it being too hard for that random chance they decide to run elite. there was 1 guild on my server that always ran elite Abbot and were quite good at it and for the longest time able to have the speediest completions while most everyone else were still running normal because it was too hard. if you saw an lfm with that guild up, you jumped at the chance to get in there. they never ran below elite and failed many times until they finally got it down.

[slarden]

i don't understand why you are focused on 1 raid.

Because IT IS a challenge and yet nobody is running it. Instead they zerg through quests in sagas.

There are other quests avoided on EE - Terminal delerium if no cc - GOP - even the U21 raids aren't run that much on EE, but they are easier now.

[Zzevel]

...That said, I suspect that one factor is that the needs of heroic level characters who have fewer tools to deal with things are different then players running on Epic. It might be that we need to have a different set of Champion buffs for heroic lives that are more subdued. As an example, we could just remove fortification bypass from heroic and dial back the hit point buff a bit for heroic.

Sev~

The problem is the people complaining are probably the ones with no fort to begin with as "they aint got no time for that, they being casual man"

[Qhualor]

Because IT IS a challenge and yet nobody is running it. Instead they zerg through quests in sagas.

There are other quests avoided on EE - Terminal delerium if no cc - GOP - even the U21 raids aren't run that much on EE, but they are easier now.

right and ive said several times already that there are specific quests/raids that do pose an actual challenge but its tough to fill groups for them regularly when the path of least resistance is the most popular way to go and incentivized better.

[Warrax23]

You want specifics, here;

I have played the game I was given. Played within the rules. Now that I have done that, I have found the game to be far to easy and very boring. Been asking for a challenge in one of four difficulty settings for over 3 years one to be answered with things getting easier, things that were somewhat challenging nerf'd, and "soon".

How can anyone be expected to have fun anymore knowing full well that all you have to do to 'win' is click auto-attack.

I want to be challenged. I want to know that I will not win every encounter 100% of the time. I want hard fought battles. I want ONE difficulty setting, EE, to challenge the players that have been playing the game as it has been delivered to them, grinding out past lives both Heroic and Epic, to FINALLY have something to test all that power they have 'worked' to get. What IS the point to past lives, beside power creep, if not to adventure someplace to put that to use - facerolling everything is NOT putting it to use.

I have nothing but respect for you Sev and the whole team. But players have gotten so used to everything being so easy, to add difficulty now is going to be very difficult for you. Look at Champs for an example. Look to the Emissary nerf for another. I think you are going to have to make a difficult decision and even harder, stick to it.

Is the "end-game" goal for you to be for players to faceroll everything after TRs with nothing to actually and honestly challenge the grind you gave them to do OR will you add something to challenge all those players?

Can ONE difficulty setting be set aside to actually BE difficult and challenging without caving into casual and solo play. Does someone at Turbine have the big brass ones to stand up and say, "One setting WILL be difficult! Chances are high you will die. A full balanced party will be a must to survive! Solo is suicide in this setting, do not expect to complete."


Or will we have to continue to see DDO continually changed into Chutes and Ladders minus the chutes? Or is DDO so far gone now there is really no point?

The problem is, some content is too easy, while some is still pretty difficult. (I usually only play in epics now a days, but am going through a heroic tr starting today) I truely honestly believe that another difficulty setting with Champions being how they were when they first came out for the 1%ers would be an excellent answer, but again that's my personal opinion. There is not Correct answer on this entire subject, that's why we're trying to have conversations with both sides. I personally and a few friends of mine do not like champions as they are, with the death penalty as is. it's too easy to lose that bonus when we're trying to grind EE saga's. And we try to do them all at or below level when we have too to increase loot chances. I've had to change several of my toons to Heavy armor, and while I don't mind it on a few toons, I don't want ALL of my toons to do that because now Epic elites like (Friends in low places and others in GH, Stormhorns and Wheelon drop down 3-6 champions per wave) that is overwhelming. And leads to Stress rather than Adrenaline and fun.

I am definitely in support of another view point besides my own, I would like to find the middle ground that we can all live with and hopefully retain and reclaim subs and accounts. I also believe Sev and the Dev team are trying really hard, and their actually talking with us, which shows that they also care. Sev is one of the first EP's I've respected in years, and I want him to leave a lasting legacy and to show others after he gets promoted that shows what to do right.

-Mark

[arkonas]

First, why insult people for using another's build when most of the builds you mention were posted by the "creator" of the build for people to copy?

Second, you're claiming that in a closed system two people can't come up with the same combination of traits independently?

its not insulting people when its true. i can tell you there is people out there that don't want their own build. they just want to copy another's. what would you call that then? a copycat, lemmings, etc. its true. you don't believe people can be herded into something? you're wrong there yet again. look at history for example or even cults. there are various factions, groups, religons, etc that have convinced people to follow them without having a single thought process. look at manson had a following of people as well who thought of him as someone important. yet again herd/lemmings. its the same thing in video games. how many people are playing Cetus builds when cetus is the one who created it? how many did juggernauts, monkchers? how many actually had their own build? sure there are people out there but there are both types. followers and leaders.


You want specifics, here;

I have played the game I was given. Played within the rules. Now that I have done that, I have found the game to be far to easy and very boring. Been asking for a challenge in one of four difficulty settings for over 3 years one to be answered with things getting easier, things that were somewhat challenging nerf'd, and "soon".

How can anyone be expected to have fun anymore knowing full well that all you have to do to 'win' is click auto-attack.

I want to be challenged. I want to know that I will not win every encounter 100% of the time. I want hard fought battles. I want ONE difficulty setting, EE, to challenge the players that have been playing the game as it has been delivered to them, grinding out past lives both Heroic and Epic, to FINALLY have something to test all that power they have 'worked' to get. What IS the point to past lives, beside power creep, if not to adventure someplace to put that to use - facerolling everything is NOT putting it to use.

I have nothing but respect for you Sev and the whole team. But players have gotten so used to everything being so easy, to add difficulty now is going to be very difficult for you. Look at Champs for an example. Look to the Emissary nerf for another. I think you are going to have to make a difficult decision and even harder, stick to it.

Is the "end-game" goal for you to be for players to faceroll everything after TRs with nothing to actually and honestly challenge the grind you gave them to do OR will you add something to challenge all those players?

Can ONE difficulty setting be set aside to actually BE difficult and challenging without caving into casual and solo play. Does someone at Turbine have the big brass ones to stand up and say, "One setting WILL be difficult! Chances are high you will die. A full balanced party will be a must to survive! Solo is suicide in this setting, do not expect to complete."


Or will we have to continue to see DDO continually changed into Chutes and Ladders minus the chutes? Or is DDO so far gone now there is really no point?


ill agree with you on a lot of this. i think the emissary nerf sucked. i think they should change it back. heck i think dargan is a wuss. he doesn't even hit as hard as emissary. he should be dangerous. its what i expect from a raid area. i took a friend into EE lords of dust last week. he died right off the bat. he spent half of his sp bar in the fight. So to some people lod ee is easy. while to others who are still new, casual, etc its still tough. when they create end game i want them to be so difficult that a group is needed. if people don't like this too bad. do a lower difficulty. i will stand by this. if you can solo it and complete. great job. you did well.

there are a few ee's on some toons i have i can do no problem, but at the same time there are still some i still struggle on and i consider myself a moderate player with fairly decent gear. i never play the optimal builds nor do i have have a copycat build. mine are always my own thoughts. i don't have heavy armor on all of my toons. only 1 is in heavy armor out of 8. i have a few wf without the body feats. i have light armor on the rest. that is just me.

i remembered when epics were first introduced. wow i had such a hard time in sand epic. that was considered the toughest area at the time. you had to be on your a game to be able to be in there. while other epics like carnival were being completed with groups. it was still a little rough but doable. i miss days like that. some epics were easier to do but it helped you get set up for the tougher areas like sands. ddo needs to remain that way. you need to gear up to do the hard epics. that is my opinion and it should NEVER be easy. as you level up to 28/30 things should be freaking tough. parties should be required for the hardest content.

Take rift for example. when they introduced the plane of water 3.0 up to level 65. in the pve are there are things that will slap you around like the elites with 1 million hp if you have 0 gear. the content can still be done outside. the harder rares require more then one person to do or unless you're geared you can do it probably easier then most. then once you get near the top of Goboro Reef it turns from regular mobs with 90k hp to elite mobs with near 700k which will kick your butt if you're not geared. there is NO way i would ask trion to make them easier. then of course there is drunheim i know im spelling that wrong. that is level 62/63 area. if you use these bouncers it puts you into the Calceron sea. yet again i think i misspelled it. omg the mobs in there. basic ones 1.3 million hp. the big one floating around 2.6 million hp. my friend and i are both meh geared and really basic players. we were able to kill 1 of the 1.3 million mobs at a time. but we were struggling each fight.

i havent even gotten into the major invasions that happen in the plane of water. These are the big boys of the pve environment. these require a lot of people to kill. they deal major damage and have anywhere from 60 million hp to 650 million hp. these can rock a lot of players to their knees unless they're decently geared or paying attention to the special attacks. yet again these all can be completed. then you have your nightmare expert dungeons that require you to have anywhere from 800 hit to 1k hit to even get in. these are extremely hard and need a good group. the raids in pve area need 1k hit or you're dead. i have 800 hit on my level 65 rogue. im no where even close to being able to compete vs some of these players. i die a lot. i have a fun time though. i enjoy the game for being difficult. i enjoy the fact if i want to do a raid or do something tough i need to work for it.

my point is ddo needs to take this idea of having a tough game and keep it. you can still level to 65 in rift without doing anything hard. you can level to 28 without doing anything hard. so no one can complain that they can't level. but we do need our challenge and it needs to be earned.