Monster Champion Feedback

[silverm_22]

After a few days of playing with the new nerfed champions, I must say I am very disappointed. I went from thinking about how to survive and teaching my guildmates tactics, strategies, and little nuances of certain builds (and getting taught some myself) while grouping with them to complete dungeons to once again soloing my way through an elite streak until some guildie gets on. I get a chest from them every once and a while, but other than that I rarely even notice that they are there. I die more from rolling a 1 than I do champions, and if that's the case, why even have them? I mean, occasional vendor loot is helpful with crafting sometimes, but who really cares about that? I went from grouping and teaching and learning with guildies to soloing. Granted, I still group with my guildies, but when three of the six members of the party are afk and the only strategy we talk about is how to get the kids to go to bed on Christmas Eve it really loses that group mentality it had for those two or three days. I thought the champions were supposed to make it harder? I don't even notice them usually and definitely don't change tactics to handle them. I thought the champions were supposed to encourage group play? It doesn't do that if they don't make it harder to complete quests. I thought they were supposed to drop loot? Vendor trash for completing normally counts as loot I guess, but still, nothing to get excited about. All of that combined makes me go from excited about champions to disappointed in them. I love the idea and agree there were issues with them at first, but feel the sudden nerf was a bit much.

Reading through the forums, I see the community is very split about this and want to propose a tweak that may or may not be possible to help appease both parties and bring back the excitement I felt when champions first came out. Make champions actual champions. By this I mean give them names or titles like the mini-bosses or explorer rares and each their own unique abilities and such. Every mob has it's own character sheet with specific stats and abilities that are unique to that type of mob, so why not take it a bit farther and make three or four 'unique champions' to represent a champion of each type of mob. Instead of a champion kobold shaman you're faced with 'Avatar of Kurtlumack' or 'Pun-Pun, Kobold Priest' who each have their own strengths and weaknesses that can be set and adjusted by the devs. This makes it easier to control the one hit kills people have experienced, the crazy hp in lower quests others have noticed, let tactics be used as the name will represent the special abilities they have, and help with the 'true randomness' some see as negative by introducing controlled randomness. If nothing else, it would give the champions a bit more of an old pen and paper DnD feel. I know that would be an absolutely ridiculous amount of work, but I figured I would post the idea in the forums to see what others thought and see if it was even possible.

[phillymiket]

Another poster suggested random traps. That sounds great too for more randomness!

Random traps? yes!

Champion traps? Ah, not so much.

To make traps interesting the boxes and traps would need to move and/or the trap type change.

If it was "suddenly the trap has a crazy high DC" or "Quests now have Random Spell Wards thrown about" just to slow you down, it wouldn't be so fun IMO.

I don't think they are going to do the quest-by-quest work to make Random Traps very fun.

Maybe with new content?

[Thlargir]

If it was ... or "Quests now have Random Spell Wards thrown about" just to slow you down...

Unfortunately, my guess is the only way that they could easily throw in random traps would be of the Spell Ward variety as little to no knowledge of the geometry is probably required (they float and are their own boxes. Alternatively a self-box mine might work.

[diasho2]

I have followed this conversation since the update, although, I admit I have not read through every page of every thread dedicated to this topic. I like most of you talk to the people I run with either in pugs or my regular group. Most of those I run into on the epic side love the champs. Some want more some want them a bit different. On the heroic side it seems to be more of a mixed bag, some quests, particularly the very low lvl and escort and guard quests don't seem to do well with them.


Personally I think they are a great addition to the game but them having a single list of buffs for all champs is one of the biggest problems with the current system. This being they can't nerf heroic without nerfing epic. If one set of champs is hitting way too hard but another is fine there is no way to fine tune the adjustment from my understanding of the current system. Any adjustment is made across the board heroic and epic.

My suggestion would be give all champs a % hp buff then have six tables. One table for intelligent melee, one for casters, one for other types, (rocks, rats, oozes, etc) at both heroic and epic lvls. This would make it much easier to give greater difficulty to those running epic lvl quests while not making heroic impossible. This would also make the buff random champs get more fitting to the type of monster since there would be fewer buffs to chose from in a given list and all would apply to that creature type. This makes it easier to do at least some planning for the random nature of champs.

Finally in quests where someone or something must be guarded, IE a box, a crystal, a moron that keeps running into danger because he wont do as he is told etc.... Failing because you have one or several champs with the attack power to out dps not the party, but the thing that if it breaks, or dies you fail causes a problem. Either these quests need the objective massively buffed, the objective changed, or make sure at least in escort/guard quests just like in raids champs stay out.

[Kasiddy]

When one normal mundane ooze splits into multiple oozes, and one or more of the new smaller oozes is a champion with more HP and damage than the parent ooze, that's just silly.

My only deaths from champions have been either lag-related or involved me rolling into a group of mobs without thinking (well... like it worked last life) with half hitpoints. With some tweaking to make them more interesting instead of mostly just more hp and more damage I think they could be a good addition to higher difficulty settings.

[GYGAX_Stark1971]

After 8 or so hours running elite dungeons I think it's a fine idea. But it needs to be optional. While it adds something for hardcore gamers, it is more likely to alienate casual players and newcomers. They seem to appear way too often and are sometimes laughably difficult.

Funny that this was implemented around the holidays when DDO points happen to be on sale and keyboard warriors get flat presents from Gran. Because no matter how much Johnny McPaladin-pants claims he is still breezing through everything, he's not doing it as easy as he was before. And so he buys a gold seal hireling, or a supreme spirit cake, etc.

[LadySorrows]

I'm so far down in the responses I don't know who will see this but this is my opinion,

I was actually not to happy when you nerfed the champions, I walked into upper necro right after the update on a fire based sorc (come on we all know fire demolishes necro) went into Ghosts, and was doing my usual running ahead and basically one shot killing with my scorching ray, then I came up against a champion....oh H E Double L, I died. To be really honest I can't remember the last time I died from a mob just demolishing me.

So i brought myself up with cake backed off and was like '***' then I rebuffed, and waited for the rest of the party to catch up to me. I went back to the fight much more cautiously, strangely odd how all the old tactics came back in a rush. Oh I was cussing those champions, but by god I can't remember the last time I enjoyed the challenge of upper Necro so much. I noticed the parties I was in there wasn't anyone zerging, or rushing off by themselves. People were talking strategy against a common mob in a common quest we all know well enough to run with our eyes closed. I thought to myself wow haven't heard people talk like this in years, it made me smile - talking strategy etc that is what makes a player better. Hard to talk strategy, etc when your soloing everything.

So in my humble opinion I say bring it back make those champions just as bad as you can make them, it was really awesome to walk into the quests we always run through like they are nothing, and have to THINK, & REACT, to know that when you completed the quest it was worth more than XP, favor or parts needed for flagging.

[Ayseifn]

I'm so far down in the responses I don't know who will see this but this is my opinion,

I was actually not to happy when you nerfed the champions, I walked into upper necro right after the update on a fire based sorc (come on we all know fire demolishes necro) went into Ghosts, and was doing my usual running ahead and basically one shot killing with my scorching ray, then I came up against a champion....oh H E Double L, I died. To be really honest I can't remember the last time I died from a mob just demolishing me.

So i brought myself up with cake backed off and was like '***' then I rebuffed, and waited for the rest of the party to catch up to me. I went back to the fight much more cautiously, strangely odd how all the old tactics came back in a rush. Oh I was cussing those champions, but by god I can't remember the last time I enjoyed the challenge of upper Necro so much. I noticed the parties I was in there wasn't anyone zerging, or rushing off by themselves. People were talking strategy against a common mob in a common quest we all know well enough to run with our eyes closed. I thought to myself wow haven't heard people talk like this in years, it made me smile - talking strategy etc that is what makes a player better. Hard to talk strategy, etc when your soloing everything.

So in my humble opinion I say bring it back make those champions just as bad as you can make them, it was really awesome to walk into the quests we always run through like they are nothing, and have to THINK, & REACT, to know that when you completed the quest it was worth more than XP, favor or parts needed for flagging.

Even in their now nerfed state they can catch you unaware, e.g. you're doing your normal zerg then just around the corner 2 champs spawn and start really putting the hurt on. You have a trail of chumps following too so you have to adapt fast or die. No planning could have foreseen this other than slowing down to a crawl and taking things slow but where's the fun in that? So 10 chumps and 2 champs, check your cooldowns quick to see what's available, check short term buffs to see what will need refreshing soon and engage.

I love it, red DA is no longer the thing that slows me down it's champs, and they do it because they're a legit deterrence to zerging and not just making me move slow. When I see one I stop and make sure I'm ready to take whatever crazy they can throw at me. It's dynamic, can happen at almost any point in a quest and really makes you pay more attention.

[LadySorrows]

Just going to reiterate my points from the other thread, than I'm done with this, looks like break time from DDO for me. I'm a 7 heroic tr character, and have never done an epic tr, so I have almost no PRR or MRR. I run solo and groups on Elite, and am pretty well geared for under epic content.(No I don't do EE content, I found it too difficult, yes there are a lot of us out here that do) Was running various sands quests yesterday, and in 2 different dungeons, I was one shotted. I'm a sorc with 268 hps(yes I could get more, but I'm a sorc, why should I be concentrating on HPS). In Raid the vulkrum, a hatchling crown was doing roughly 138 damage a hit, the boss of the dungeon was doing about 34. I still don't see a world where that makes any kind of sense.

So basically I can no longer run elite without a group. This now means I am waiting sometimes an hour or more to try to find a group where I get at most 3 quests with them in before they disband, or I can choose to break my streak, run hard quests, which yes I find insanely easy, and redo the same quests over and over and over again in order to get enough xp in order to level. This obviously sounds like a ton of fun.

All your mid range players who are playing even a remotely squishy they are losing virtually all of there solo ability. Because of course hires work so well at well... anything, so your dead before they even attempt to try healing you. Basically all it takes is one group to run up to me, I don't see the crown in time, and I'm dead before I know what's happening, the hireling follows almost immediately after words, and I just wasted the last 20 minutes of a dungeon. Yes elite dungeons should have a fail chance, and I have died / wiped on heroic elite before. But that doesn't mean I should be dying in a single shot! This is a **** idea which is trying to make the game more difficult for the 10% top end people, who are largely unaffected by this anyway. Us more regular players, we'll get to enjoy our time standing around doing nothing, while trying to get a group.

Unless I am completely mistaken (I am currently running a sorc too) you need to learn to use your spells for more than damage, you are given web, hypno at low lvls and web is awesome all through the game on all lvls of game play including EE which I still use it on, then you are given the otto's spells - of all of the toons in the game the wiz and sorc still have to most solo ability because of crowd control alone. Also just so you know champion are extremely adversely affected by crowd control. You should maybe look into alternate play styles instead of giving up because you can't play how you always have. Just saying

[Kuunkukka]

I'm loving the champion monster addition to the game, it is really spicing up things for someone who has played DDO from the very beginning of times.

Today I ran into some quite nasty customers though, and while they were not at the magical 10x hitpoints, he was still quite a lot tougher than his regular counterpart. The perpetrator was a Hobgoblin Slayer in HE difficulty in the quest Deadly Package, soloing with a paladin + a cleric hire. CR9 mob, regular version has 186 hitpoints, Champion mob had 1502 hitpoints. Also did a cool heal debuff aura. Most other Slayers that got champion'ed were around 560-650 hitpoints.

I've got screenshots of the mobs, but can't seem to link it here for some reason.

[XodousRoC]

I'm so far down in the responses I don't know who will see this but this is my opinion,

I was actually not to happy when you nerfed the champions, I walked into upper necro right after the update on a fire based sorc (come on we all know fire demolishes necro) went into Ghosts, and was doing my usual running ahead and basically one shot killing with my scorching ray, then I came up against a champion....oh H E Double L, I died. To be really honest I can't remember the last time I died from a mob just demolishing me.

So i brought myself up with cake backed off and was like '***' then I rebuffed, and waited for the rest of the party to catch up to me. I went back to the fight much more cautiously, strangely odd how all the old tactics came back in a rush. Oh I was cussing those champions, but by god I can't remember the last time I enjoyed the challenge of upper Necro so much. I noticed the parties I was in there wasn't anyone zerging, or rushing off by themselves. People were talking strategy against a common mob in a common quest we all know well enough to run with our eyes closed. I thought to myself wow haven't heard people talk like this in years, it made me smile - talking strategy etc that is what makes a player better. Hard to talk strategy, etc when your soloing everything.

So in my humble opinion I say bring it back make those champions just as bad as you can make them, it was really awesome to walk into the quests we always run through like they are nothing, and have to THINK, & REACT, to know that when you completed the quest it was worth more than XP, favor or parts needed for flagging.

The Champions are not a bad addition to the game, very definitely agreed there.

Champions that one-shot players are a silly mechanic. I wouldn't mind it if they turned them back up sans one-shot ability. Making them harder than the end boss trivializes the end boss. If we are really going to make random mobs that op, then let's get ridiculous and make sure the end boss is worthy of being just that. He must be stronger than all of the other mobs or he's a joke. That is the biggest issue I see with Champs. Having randomly generated buffs on a random mobs to introduce challenge is fine. Random mobs one-shotting players and being potentially more challenging than end bosses is not.

We have two very disparate view points across the boards because we have two very different sub-sections in our player base. The higher end players who are geared, often completionists (triple even), and know all the tricks aren't challenged. They over-geared, over TR'd, and over-compensated for a game that does not need all those things to be successful. We also have the casual players (often maligned by the high end crowd) who actually drive the game just as much as the ubers. This game is for everyone, but how do you make both crowds happy? Most casuals (despite the opinion of the ubers) can NOT play in EE. They get crushed. They haven't the gear and PLs to be competitive. They play in EN or EH. Introducing a mechanic that forces them out of EH into EN is not going to make them happy. That same mechanic does not challenge the ubers unless it's cranked up to the point that you push casuals, and even many moderate players, out of the game entirely.

I play EE. I like it. I'm not here to advocate nerfing champions into the ground. I absolutely think they should be optional. I absolutely think that they should be challenging. I don't think they should one-shot players. I don't think they should overshadow end bosses.

Throwing cookies at a dumpster fire only ends up with singed cookies nobody is eating while the dumpster still burns. This system is a hot mess. Giving random trash or even xp bonuses doesn't help those who are overpowered by random mobs that are suddenly more powerful than the "boss" they are supposed to be working toward. Make them tough, but remove buffs that completely ignore fort or give them the ability to one-shot. Make them optional. You will not find a happy middle ground here. You're losing people at both ends. You won't make ubers happy with a checkbox, but they are free to check it. Keeping the champs non-optional does not give the casual/moderate gamer any kind of recourse for their frustrations. Arrogantly suggesting they gear up/learn tactics doesn't help them. The suggestions to show them some tactics do. The lack of civility coming in from many of those who endorse the champions is appalling (from another gamer who supports them no less).

[Rinnaldo]

...Make champions actual champions. By this I mean give them names or titles like the mini-bosses or explorer rares and each their own unique abilities and such. Every mob has it's own character sheet with specific stats and abilities that are unique to that type of mob, so why not take it a bit farther and make three or four 'unique champions' to represent a champion of each type of mob. Instead of a champion kobold shaman you're faced with 'Avatar of Kurtlumack' or 'Pun-Pun, Kobold Priest' who each have their own strengths and weaknesses that can be set and adjusted by the devs...

I really like this idea. It is more of what I envisioned when I first (mis-)read about champions. I really like the idea of a random, yet thematic, encounter happening in any given dungeon. Think of it like the pseudo-random NPCs in Challenges. A tough storm giant or large rust monster suddenly attacking makes things more interesting. So, too, in a dungeon with hundreds of hobgoblins (Tear of Dhakaan), it would be cool if one of the red-named, known, Champion Hobgoblins showed up - and maybe some people in your party know that "Murog-Khor, Hobgoblin Archmage" has some randomized traits, but is ALWAYS immune to fire and prone to using cloudkill.

This would be a cooler version of champions. And there's a lot to draw on, and you can generalize a lot of dungeons to pull champions like Mimics, Kobolds, Trolls, Ogres, or Undead - though I understand that a lot of grouping and organizing of said groups would need to be done.

Heck, I wouldn't even protest is this mechanic used existing red-named NPCs from OTHER QUESTS. How neat would it be if Jacoby Drexelhand from Korthos showed up in a level 12 undead quest, proclaiming that the Devourer had saved him? Re-use Vargo Bodybreaker and Hestess and Inquisitor Gnomon in other quests where a vengeful Hobgoblin, Medusa, or Rakshasa would make sense, and throw those random bonuses on them. I would love to see that. It would even make the storylines that much more interesting.

In the meantime, it seems like champions have become a little too easy. I'd rather see fewer of them, but with greater stats, harder to kill, and always dropping a chest - if they are left as they are.

[BDog77]

Heck, I wouldn't even protest is this mechanic used existing red-named NPCs from OTHER QUESTS. How neat would it be if Jacoby Drexelhand from Korthos showed up in a level 12 undead quest,

Really? Jacoby does already show up in what? 3 or 4 quests up to level 6 anyway. I certainly think they got their mileage from him.

[Vargouille]

Thanks for the continued feedback. There probably won't be changes while many Turbine employees are on holiday, but we're trying to follow along and we do expect more changes and fine tuning in the future.

[Nigel137]

Honestly I am not impressed with the new Champions. Today I fought a champion dog in Lords of Dust that had like a million hit points. Spending 10 minutes beating down a dog with a crown wasn't really enjoyable for me. Just call me crazy if you must, I don't care.

[PermaBanned]

Lords of Dust... like a million hit points... 10 minutes beating down a dog with a crown...

Excessive exaggeration isn't really productive or helpful

[Vorthian]

New players to the game, trying to protect a crystal and an old man, may decide quickly to uninstall the game when champions cause them to fail their quests. Remove champions from Korthos Island. This should have been a self-evident game decision at the beginning, assuming DDO wishes to attract new players and retain them through the first few levels.

[Qhualor]

New players to the game, trying to protect a crystal and an old man, may decide quickly to uninstall the game when champions cause them to fail their quests. Remove champions from Korthos Island. This should have been a self-evident game decision at the beginning, assuming DDO wishes to attract new players and retain them through the first few levels.

The devs have said they don't expect new players to run quests on elite. I don't expect them too either when they should be learning how to play. I have also agreed though that Champions shouldn't be on Korthos, except a lower spawn chance on snowy side.

[Xionanx]

I still find champions to be horrible.. time and time again I run into situations that are "Can't win" because of random luck, and thats just not fun. Combined with random lag spikes that are constantly plaguing Khyber, which will also wipe you.. I am just not feeling like champions are a good addition to the game at this time.

What with: Dupe Exploiters, Major and Constant Lag Spikes, Bugs of multiple kinds (my favorite one today was loosing all the XP for a quest because of a non-existent level 28 party member), and many other systems that could use an overhaul...

I just can't understand how adding champions was a good idea VS attempting to fix those issues.

[MonadRebelion]

New players to the game, trying to protect a crystal and an old man, may decide quickly to uninstall the game when champions cause them to fail their quests. Remove champions from Korthos Island. This should have been a self-evident game decision at the beginning, assuming DDO wishes to attract new players and retain them through the first few levels.

Welcome to DDO Mythbusters. In today's episode we investigate the claim that new players are leaving the game because champions are preventing them from completing introductory quests resulting in said players leaving the game in frustration. After considering this proposition for two seconds it became obvious that players beginning the game with no real sense of how much they like the game and whether playing hard or elite quests on Korthos is desirable are f2p. F2p players just starting out on Korthos don't have access to hard and elite quests. Champions only spawn on hard and elite difficulties. Clearly, then, the ambitions of new players on Korthos are not being frustrated by champions.

This myth is busted. No one should ever bring it up again. You are all welcome.