Monster Champion Feedback

I took my level 6 ranger with light armor into Shaag's Helmet (or whatever it's called) on elite (that made it level 5). I got two champions (both melee types). They were doing between 10 and 20 hp per attack. About double the 1 to 10 of the normal fighter types. I quit before the end because this was right before guild night for me and I wasn't going to make the group wait while I finished a test.

The Guild did a gianthold quest on elite. We got several champions but not together. I wasn't able to track the damage as well but we didn't have any deaths. The party was levels 14 through 17. Tactics were simple. Hit the nastiest guys first, and keep hitting 'till they fell. We had a good healer with us.

After the official adventure, two of us (me with level 16 rogue, and my friend with level 14 rogue) got a couple of hirelings (level 14 healer, level 16 fighter) and went into Mired in Kobolds on elite (making it level 15). There were several champions but we only saw them show up singly or in pairs. Being rogues, we used smart rogue tactics. We set the fighter and healer back, sneak up and use bluff to draw the kobolds back to us one at a time and take them out. This worked well.

The champions were hitting me for somewhere around 50 to 75 hp a shot (when they got through AC and dodge). We only ran into one champion caster and while I had aggro I was hiding behind a wall, so I don't know what the damage was like. By the time the rest of the group got aggro, he was almost dead. So I can't comment on champion caster damage.

Note that both my characters have pretty good gear for their level (not uber, but lots of named items and raid items). This very limited test indicates to me that the elite champions should not be made any weaker than they already are (in my opinion).

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Originally Posted by MeliCat

Absolutely not. EEs are now super fun. People want easier they can do lower levels.

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What about the people that want harder?

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Originally Posted by Thrudh

Quests WERE indeed already designed to be a challenge at those levels for level appropriate toons.... using gear and enhancement trees from 5 years back. But characters have become much stronger, while quests remained the same. [...*]

How do you not understand this? Even if you don't agree with the implementation, you must understand why quests are no longer challenges for appropriate level characters.

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The development has to move on, but as longer the content is in the game the more complex are the ways to embed new quests, gear and so on without making the 'core game' look outdated.

If the game like it is now doesn't include challenges, then make your own! This is a fantasy based game, not a nice amimated platform for math artists.

Use your imagination to create challenges for yourself. 'Let's see how you do without your toys.' quote the Abbot

The developement can not satisfy everyones desire, but the player himself got the tools to do it.

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Originally Posted by Qhualor

ill say it, the ones asking for a checkbox.

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A checkbox as a tool for controlling difficulty is an option regardless of liked, or disliked. It's the same to me. It's without exception up to the player to use it, or not.

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Originally Posted by EllisDee37

I would be fine with champions giving bravery bonus. Opting out of champions would opt you out of bravery for that run, but would not break your streak.

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Wouldn't it in this case make more sense, if you add a bonus to the adidtion? Taking something familiar away makes people feel uncomfortable, giving an add on is welcome.

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Originally Posted by Seikojin

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Now, if we can only get these champs into raids...

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my only hope is, that this is ment ironic

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Originally Posted by Thrudh

[...*] Tweaking every single quest would take a lot more time than adding champions.

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For sure. But now they are random and unpredictable. They got some combination possibilities with buffs and can appear wherever a mob (including objects) can.

Scaling down the probability factor is one thing, you still might get into an unlucky situation.

In some quests this can be a big deal. Like in 'Protect Baudry's Interests' or 'Desert Caravan'. In cases like this there has to be some more fine tuning.

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Originally Posted by DarthCaedus

Nah, you have 20k posts and most I've seen have some sort of insult. That's your way of getting an insult in.

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Kettle, meet Pot... You only have 300 posts, and pretty much all of them have been about how Neverwinter is a much better game... You spent quite a bit of time trying to convince other players to leave this game. How come you're not playing over there right now?

I ran EE von 3. I killed 30 total monsters. 6 were champions. 2 were Tharask hounds, that spawned separate, one with a beholder the other were the three that stop you and you have to kill them to drop the ladder. The 4 spider champions spawned all at the same time out of 5, they dropped 2 chests. End fight was uneventful, no champs.

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Originally Posted by BDog77

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THEN we could see who really wants challenge in their game. Remember, the old Epic system gave no favor, no XP, and only incremental gains towards item power, and yet, people still ran it...

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Originally Posted by Stonemerge

that was proposed already, but rejected by the ubers - noone explained why ... ubers just want to be uber - no compromises - sadly

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It is because of epic destiny XP and cap not really being cap. To enter the old epics you had to be at cap.

So I would love to run end game content like this.

Minimum level 30 raids, must be at cap (30) to enter
No XP awarded, no excuse to be "off destiny"

On Normal: The loot that drops is either the EN loot, or it drops the ingredients for TIER 1 crafting. When you have acquired enough of this gear you are ready for hard. The gear should be designed to be desired for the raids. This should be challenging but not soul crushing.

On hard: Second tier loot, highly desirable for elite level.

On Elite: Third tier loot, best in slot can be crafted. If you are not prepared, difficulty should be soul crushing. If you are prepared and geared difficulty should be very challenging.

I do not know which loot system is best or what, but the idea is you need to do normal to be ready for hard and hard to be ready for elite.

I would like this.

Thanks and have a great day.

Here's an outside-the-box idea to address the new player/vet divide regarding champions:

The champion system only actives when a second life (or later) character is inside the quest. Only first lifers? No champions. Legend build enters the instance? Champions now start to spawn.

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Originally Posted by Connman

No XP awarded, no excuse to be "off destiny"

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I like the concept, but it's possible to be level 30 with your primary destiny active and capped but you still need karma for ETR, so they should still give xp.

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Originally Posted by Thrudh

Kettle, meet Pot... You only have 300 posts, and pretty much all of them have been about how Neverwinter is a much better game... You spent quite a bit of time trying to convince other players to leave this game. How come you're not playing over there right now?

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What makes you think I am not?

I was actually a very happy customer until Friday feeling really good about the DDO direction. But there is something about the process of logging feedback on the forum that makes the issue seem even worse and increases the frustration level. I don't really care any more. i gave my feedback. We would probably be back playing DDO to test out the recent changes but all the forum stuff soured me on the game.

After playing with new champions that are scaled down with damage output on ee, i must say that i am considerably disappointed.
The hit to their damage output was so big that now they present no danger at all.
Now they are just hp meatbags that serve no purpose.
If you want to name them champions then give them something at least for epic elite.
You can keep the toned down damage on lower settings and heroic, but for epic elite they present nothing but hp meatbags now, might as well call them, needless hp meatbag mechanic monsters instead of champions.

Im really really disappointed into the change for epic elite, wasnt the point to give us a challenge on that difficulty?
Then you tease us with a magnificent mechanic and then you practically eliminate it.
What for?
I dont see a purpose in champion mechanic if they cant present any form of danger to the experienced player on what you call hardest difficulty in this game

First off I just want to say I love the idea of champions and also that the changes are a lot better. Though there possibly might be not enough champions now but I'm not decided on that front, would need to run more quests before I made up my mind, but I think its probably alright.

I do however have some other issues with champions. Namely they punish light armour melees.

Casters/Ranged toons can just kite them and attack not getting hit, little effect on them. And honestly we need less of this. It is incredibly frustrating how everyone is just kitting everything around and I can't hit anything since I can't keep up, we don't need to encourage this more with harder hitting mobs who ignore some of their defences via ts. Though pale masters have more adverse effects in the form of the frequent db buff.

Heavy armour melees loose very little of their defences (I don't think I've seen a champion without ts) but they still have high PRR to deal with the extra hits and high dmg.

Light armour melees however loose a large chunk of their defences to ts. I mostly play a rogue assassin and I find with champions they hit me much more often and a lot harder. I have maximum PRR that I can get and all the miss chances I can but without blur/displacement the champions hit me noticeably more often and for harder, while the reduction to their damage is appreciated and helps imo it isn't enough. Also on my assassin I find champions frequently have db and stop me from assassinating them, fine no point putting in these harder mobs if I can still 1 shot kill them all. BUT db comes up too often I think, assassinate is core to my build and playstyle but if most of these harder mobs are immune to it then I can't really play to my playstyle.

I would suggest that TS be removed from the buff list and the chances of db spawning be greatly reduced or removed entirely, and also a clear indicator of them having db would be appropriate I think so that we don't have to examine them first to find out if our insta kills will work or not.

I sincerely hope that their buffs list gets a close look at and the implications of the buffs on various builds and playstyles is considered.

Thanks for all the hard work you guys do and keep it coming :D

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Originally Posted by Blackheartox

After playing with new champions that are considerably scaled down on ee, i must say that i am considerably disappointed.
The hit to their damage output was so big that now they present no danger at all.
Now they are just hp meatbags that serve no purpose.
If you want to name them champions then give them something at least for epic elite.
You can keep the toned down damage on lower settings and heroic, but for epic elite they present nothing but hp meatbags now, might as well call them, needless hp meatbag mechanic monsters instead of champions.

In really really disappointed into the change for epic elite, wasnt the point to give us a challenge on that difficulty?
Then you tease us with a magnificent mechanic and then you practically eliminate it.
What for?

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Agreed, at least on EH. My experiences running EH today were that the champion system may as well no longer exist, since the effect of them in the runs was trivial at most.

EDIT: To clarify, seeing champions at all was rare, and when we did see them, it felt like they hit no harder than normal mobs and they maybe had double the normal hit points. Whoopdee do.

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Originally Posted by Impaqt

Um. The old/original epic system was the only way to create epic weapons.

The item and weapon upgrades were substantial and dramatic upgrades from anything elsr in the game.

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I meant per run, of course. Incremental steps toward your epic gear per run.

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Originally Posted by EllisDee37

Agreed, at least on EH. My experiences running EH today were that the champion system may as well no longer exist, since the effect of them in the runs was trivial at most.

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See, my experiences since Champions were introduced is that they had no effect on the EH runs I did. Perhaps you were a bit more unlucky than me, and got some combinations that you found challenging?

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Originally Posted by Cordovan

We have reduced the number of Monster Champions that spawn, and also reduced the overall damage boost Champions get. The numbers are now:

• Hard normal monsters: The percentage chance for a Champion to spawn has been reduced from 12% to 6%.
• Elite normal monsters: The percentage chance for a Champion to spawn has been reduced from 12% to 9%.
• Hard Orange named monsters (mini-bosses) is now 33%.
• Elite Orange named monsters (mini-bosses) is now 66%.
• Champion Damage boost: Reduced by 25%.

Please continue to provide us with your feedback on Monster Champions. Thanks!

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Ran Water Works and Irestone Inlet - 5 people Elite Lv 4-6.

We only saw a hand full of Champions - the few that showed up were stunned / trip - even without the bug - it was too much of a cake walk...

I have a hard time believing the change was from 12% to 9%.. felt like 12% to 4%...

We will run more this weekend - at this first glance - too little of a change to bother with.. turn it up some - maybe 1/2 between now and before....

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Originally Posted by BDog77

See, my experiences since Champions were introduced is that they had no effect on the EH runs I did. Perhaps you were a bit more unlucky than me, and got some combinations that you found challenging?

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Not really, no. The original implementation of champions didn't make any of my EH runs challenging. I don't think I ever went below 50% health. But champions did make my runs way more interesting and fun. After the adjustment, we're back to not challenging, not particularly interesting, and less fun. Largely because in epic levels there's so much more repetition than in heroic levels, where (for "one-and-done"rs like me) there is no repetition at all.

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Originally Posted by Cordovan

We have reduced the number of Monster Champions that spawn, and also reduced the overall damage boost Champions get. The numbers are now:

• Hard normal monsters: The percentage chance for a Champion to spawn has been reduced from 12% to 6%.
• Elite normal monsters: The percentage chance for a Champion to spawn has been reduced from 12% to 9%.
• Hard Orange named monsters (mini-bosses) is now 33%.
• Elite Orange named monsters (mini-bosses) is now 66%.
• Champion Damage boost: Reduced by 25%.

Please continue to provide us with your feedback on Monster Champions. Thanks!

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Hearing about champions inspired me to log into the game after several months of intermittent play. I love the idea and it made questing exciting again. I’m disappointed you didn’t wait longer before taking action.

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Originally Posted by EllisDee37

Not really, no. The original implementation of champions didn't make any of my EH runs challenging. I don't think I ever went below 50% health. But champions did make my runs way more interesting and fun. After the adjustment, we're back to not challenging, not particularly interesting, and less fun. Largely because in epic levels there's so much more repetition than in heroic levels, where (for "one-and-done"rs like me) there is no repetition at all.

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Why not run EE if you are looking for a challenge?

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Originally Posted by Vargouille

We may make more substantial differences between Heroic and Epic (or other level ranges) at some point, but the changes today are across all levels. There's some changes we weren't prepared to make today within the first week of Champion Monsters being live, and we'd like to see some more feedback with the new values as well before committing to other changes that are more complicated (as well as more time consuming on our end). We felt today's changes were good "bang for the buck", without disrupting live play.


We'll keep listening to feedback from all players.

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The pendulum swung too far back the other way. Champions are far to rare and far too easy based on tonight's experience. Elite quests have become boring again; the renewed excitement I felt towards grouping is gone, I sense that I and others will unfortunately drift back into monotonous solo zerging mode on Elite quests.

I was struggling to find any Champions in the quests I ran tonight and those that I did find felt trivial compared to this weekend's version of champions.

My guild ran a lowbie group through Elite WW chain and Elite Irestone inlet. I only saw a handful of champions per quest, never 2 champions at once and only a few of the named monsters had champion status.

This is a step back in the wrong direction.

- My group never seemed in danger
- We could safely split up and zerg
- We could dispense with tactics
- We could run the entire WW chain of 4 quests without anyone using a shrine; that's just wrong for an Elite difficulty.
- I even let a few champions beat on me for a few seconds with little observable impact. Sure, I eventually lost 50 hit points or so but it is clear nothing was going to one shot me and there was no imperative for me to alter my tactics. It's back to boring auto-attack for everything. From my point of view you might as well remove champions all together if Elite equates to this watered down experience.

Here is my vote for tweaking Elite as it stands after tonights changes

- Every named should be a champion

- Increase Champion Damage by 25%. The champions I experienced after tonights changes were nearly indistinguishable from other mobs. Norma casters had a much bigger damage output than champions

- Double the total number of random champions on Elite as are generated after tonight's change. A quest like Irestone inlet should have at least one champion among the monsters grouped around the various powder kegs and prisoners. I only saw 4 maybe 5 champions tonight including named. I would expect Elite Irestone Inlet to have at least 10 random champions plus named champions.

- Alternatively, leave the champion spawn rate at it's present low, low levels but make those few champions that spawn considerably tougher/more deadly.

- Allow for the possibility of 2 or even 3 champions spawning in the same area. Fighting 2/3 champions is cool and exciting whereas fighting 6, 7 or 8 champions at the same time is too much challenge. In the quests I ran following tonight's changes I never encountered more than 1 champion at a time.

- Please, please, please make the word Elite mean something.

They should just make an end game quest.

"Audience with the Dungeon Master".

Very specific requirements to even enter the 12 man raid. Must have all favors. Must be completionist. Entering quest resets all favors to ZERO.

Challenging puzzles that need at least 6 players to operate at the same time.

Fights with former raid bosses but they are all buffed up.

Random traps that can one shot you.

No shrines except to the door of the Dungeon Master.

A Dungeon Master so powerful that if the quest is completed, it's likely only one or two players were left standing.

The reward..for those that died, a named item of your choice. The one's standing, a named item and one wall of the most sought after Trophy Room.

The wall will be daggers, next wall will be shortsword, etc. Once an item is placed on the wall, it can never be removed.

That should keep the very best busy for awhile.

:)

I liked the original implementation of Champions much better. With the latest change I'm finding that running across a Champion is much rarer, which means I'm running into combat without worrying too much, and the quests are almost back to as difficult as they were before. With the original implementation I was going much slower, making sure to look around and see if/which mobs were Champions and plan accordingly or once in a while getting surprised by more one or more and having to deal with it. There was danger in a quest.

I say increase the number of Champions somewhat.

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Originally Posted by Vulkoorex

They should just make an end game quest.

"Audience with the Dungeon Master".

Very specific requirements to even enter the 12 man raid. Must have all favors. Must be completionist. Entering quest resets all favors to ZERO.

Challenging puzzles that need at least 6 players to operate at the same time.

Fights with former raid bosses but they are all buffed up.

Random traps that can one shot you.

No shrines except to the door of the Dungeon Master.

A Dungeon Master so powerful that if the quest is completed, it's likely only one or two players were left standing.

The reward..for those that died, a named item of your choice. The one's standing, a named item and one wall of the most sought after Trophy Room.

The wall will be daggers, next wall will be shortsword, etc. Once an item is placed on the wall, it can never be removed.

That should keep the very best busy for awhile.

:)

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And it will be nerfed in difficulty to the ground after 2 hours it goes live on lamania