Monster Champion Feedback

[count_spicoli]

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.

Ha ha +1.

Champions should be on Korthos and everywhere else. Love them. Should be put back to their intial run. Way more intense and fun. These lesser versions have reduced the game to group elite zerg blasts again.

[phillymiket]

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.

Clever but wrong.

At least it was for me, at any rate.

I went around on Normal for a second and then quickly went to hard and even tried some elite.

My goal was to unlock Elite and then run it, even back then.

How about you?

How long did you personally stick to Normal only?

How long before you personally wanted to try to group?

The real myth is the expectation that new players will want to stick to Normal when all the groups up are for Elite and every indication from the game and community is pointing you toward running Elite.

[Qhualor]

The real myth is the expectation that new players will want to stick to Normal when all the groups up are for Elite and every indication from the game and community is pointing you toward running Elite.

And here lies one of the biggest quest mechanic problems in the game. Fix this so that all sides can be happy.

[Monkey-Boy]

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.

You're not crazy. Champions are dumb.

[MonadRebelion]

Clever but wrong.

At least it was for me, at any rate.

I went around on Normal for a second and then quickly went to hard and even tried some elite.

My goal was to unlock Elite and then run it, even back then.

How about you?

How long did you personally stick to Normal only?

How long before you personally wanted to try to group?

The real myth is the expectation that new players will want to stick to Normal when all the groups up are for Elite and every indication from the game and community is pointing you toward running Elite.

It was a long time ago. So I don't remember the answer to all your questions. I do remember the first time I ever tried elite. It took me a long time to even try because I remember thinking elite was just for level 20 characters. At any rate, I was 5th level when I finally tried elite. I died very quickly in Haverdasher, and was baffled about how it was supposed to be possible for people to run quests on elite. After that I crawled back to normal. I don't know how long it was before I tried elite again.

For grouping I didn't really want to group for a long time. Mostly I wanted to run things for the first time on my own. I like figuring things out on my own.

At the moment, I am running low level quests with about 8 players who are brand new to ddo. About half of them have no experience with pnp dnd as well. We run everything on elite and do all optionals together. We go slow and use team play tactics (though we don't have a healer). We never wipe and usually only have a couple of deaths per quest. Champions have posed any issues for the two groups I've been running.

At any rate, I'm not sure what you think I'm wrong about. It seems like you figured out pretty quickly that the game was so fun you wanted figure out how to overcome the most challenging content as soon as you could.

[Wh070aa]

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.

okay.
f2P people don't have as many packs, or xp tomes. They have to repeat quests, to level up, and they do all quests on N,H,E to level up, and get favor to unlock packs.

If you think otherwise, you are not smart. Can you level up enough to do quests without gear on bad build from running all Korthos on normal? No? Then people run it at least on hard. Especially when all the parties they see and can join are for elite.

Hurr durr you arer not suposed to do quests on elite. Hurr durr you can unlock quests to see more of the game by doing elite. I don't think you guys have talked to a new player, not to mention remember being one, that is f2p. Also, what about VIP, players? They unlock elite right away. Can't they use their Vip?

You have no clue what you are talking about. This acts as a preview for pay to win. Want some free points? Too bad you can't get them lol. Go pay us cash, to get your character stronger. This is what it looks like.

[MonadRebelion]

okay.
f2P people don't have as many packs, or xp tomes. They have to repeat quests, to level up, and they do all quests on N,H,E to level up, and get favor to unlock packs.

If you think otherwise, you are not smart. Can you level up enough to do quests without gear on bad build from running all Korthos on normal? No? Then people run it at least on hard. Especially when all the parties they see and can join are for elite.

Hurr durr you arer not suposed to do quests on elite. Hurr durr you can unlock quests to see more of the game by doing elite. I don't think you guys have talked to a new player, not to mention remember being one, that is f2p. Also, what about VIP, players? They unlock elite right away. Can't they use their Vip?

You have no clue what you are talking about. This acts as a preview for pay to win. Want some free points? Too bad you can't get them lol. Go pay us cash, to get your character stronger. This is what it looks like.

I know they have to rerun quests to unlock harder difficulties. That is crucial to the point I was making. How much time do people spend trying to unlock harder difficulties in games they don't like?

[phillymiket]

It was a long time ago. So I don't remember the answer to all your questions. I do remember the first time I ever tried elite. It took me a long time to even try because I remember thinking elite was just for level 20 characters. At any rate, I was 5th level when I finally tried elite. I died very quickly in Haverdasher, and was baffled about how it was supposed to be possible for people to run quests on elite. After that I crawled back to normal. I don't know how long it was before I tried elite again.

For grouping I didn't really want to group for a long time. Mostly I wanted to run things for the first time on my own. I like figuring things out on my own.

At the moment, I am running low level quests with about 8 players who are brand new to ddo. About half of them have no experience with pnp dnd as well. We run everything on elite and do all optionals together. We go slow and use team play tactics (though we don't have a healer). We never wipe and usually only have a couple of deaths per quest. Champions have posed any issues for the two groups I've been running.

At any rate, I'm not sure what you think I'm wrong about. It seems like you figured out pretty quickly that the game was so fun you wanted figure out how to overcome the most challenging content as soon as you could.

Your Mythbusters parody said basically new people don't have access to hard and elite therefore champions aren't a factor.

That is wrong.

New people both group up and also unlock hard and elite

As far as your answers, too bad you don't recall being new.
I'm really not sure how you would think Elite, a setting right there in front of you on each quest panel, could be for level 20, but maybe that perplexing confusion explains why you stuck to Normal for so long.

New people quite clearly group up early in their careers even if you took such a very long time. After all, you just grouped with some. So you know this.

As far as your further anecdote with grouping, whether new people run hard and elite is one question, whether they can handle hard or elite is another question.

I'm not as confident arguing that new people can't handle Champions. I've run with some that could just fine and some that struggled.

But I am almost 100% confident in saying new people certainly do run hard and and elite and therefore champions are indeed a possible frustration and therefore your parody, while humorous, is totally wrong.

[MonadRebelion]

Your Mythbusters parody said basically new people don't have access to hard and elite therefore champions aren't a factor.

That is wrong.

New people both group up and also unlock hard and elite

As far as your answers, too bad you don't recall being new.
I'm really not sure how you would think Elite, a setting right there in front of you on each quest panel, could be for level 20, but maybe that perplexing confusion explains why you stuck to Normal for so long.

New people quite clearly group up early in their careers even if you took such a very long time. After all, you just grouped with some. So you know this.

As far as your further anecdote with grouping, whether new people run hard and elite is one question, whether they can handle hard or elite is another question.

I'm not as confident arguing that new people can't handle Champions. I've run with some that could just fine and some that struggled.

But I am almost 100% confident in saying new people certainly do run hard and and elite and therefore champions are indeed a possible frustration and therefore your parody, while humorous, is totally wrong.

The busted myth isn't that champions affect new players. The myth that is busted is that new players aren't getting a chance to figure out if they like the game because they are getting stomped by champions too early in their experience of the game. That is roughly what took the post I was responding to as saying.

[Nigel137]

Excessive exaggeration isn't really productive or helpful

Neither is obtuse criticism. It doesn't take a Calashtar to get the point I was making.

[phillymiket]

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.

That is what you said ^^^^ That is wrong.

The busted myth isn't that champions affect new players. The myth that is busted is that new players aren't getting a chance to figure out if they like the game because they are getting stomped by champions too early in their experience of the game. That is roughly what took the post I was responding to as saying.

That's something else.

I have no real evidence one way or the other for Myth #2.

I mean, we both have people we've grouped up with recently, but for me or you, the sample size of our groupings is way too small to have any meaning for the whole population.

We can only imagine what is what.

I imagine that after I went around the Korthos Village on Normal and found it so very very easy, like I did, and then went to Hard, like I did, and unlike what I found, a more fitting challenge and enjoyable setting, instead found a setting that was way too hard, hence found a game with only way too hard or way too easy settings... I don't know what I would have done.

But I do know that unlocking Hard and Elite was a major reason I Sub'ed early in this game.

So if I was stuck on Normal, in the very least Turbine would have waited to get my money and possibly they would never gotten any of my money at all.

[Oxarhamar]

That is what you said ^^^^ That is wrong.




That's something else.

I have no real evidence one way or the other for Myth #2.

I mean, we both have people we've grouped up with recently, but for me or you, the sample size of our groupings is way too small to have any meaning for the whole population.

We can only imagine what is what.

I imagine that after I went around the Korthos Village on Normal and found it so very very easy, like I did, and then went to Hard, like I did, and unlike what I found, a more fitting challenge and enjoyable setting, instead found a setting that was way too hard, hence found a game with only way too hard or way too easy settings... I don't know what I would have done.

But I do know that unlocking Hard and Elite was a major reason I Sub'ed early in this game.

So if I was stuck on Normal, in the very least Turbine would have waited to get my money and possibly they would never gotten any of my money at all.

Absolutely

New players are likely going to run normal then attempt hard & elite afterwards.

New players are going to end up in elite groups with Vets thanks to elite being basically the only difficulty run in Heroics thanks to Bravery Bonus.

New players are going to be running into champions weather it be solo trying harder difficulties or trying to group up.

Grouping is where many new players learn the game this is done mostly on elite nowadays.

Conclusion: New players will encounter Champions

[MonadRebelion]

That is what you said ^^^^ That is wrong.




That's something else.

I have no real evidence one way or the other for Myth #2.

I mean, we both have people we've grouped up with recently, but for me or you, the sample size of our groupings is way too small to have any meaning for the whole population.

We can only imagine what is what.

I imagine that after I went around the Korthos Village on Normal and found it so very very easy, like I did, and then went to Hard, like I did, and unlike what I found, a more fitting challenge and enjoyable setting, instead found a setting that was way too hard, hence found a game with only way too hard or way too easy settings... I don't know what I would have done.

But I do know that unlocking Hard and Elite was a major reason I Sub'ed early in this game.

So if I was stuck on Normal, in the very least Turbine would have waited to get my money and possibly they would never gotten any of my money at all.

This is the last thing I'm going to say about my original post. I've already done too much by way of explanation. I've done so much explaining, in fact, that I'm just going to ask you a question. Is anything from the second passage you quoted helpful in clarifying the meaning of the apparently ambiguous phase "ambitions of new players" in the first passage you quoted?

[Nascoe]

This is the last thing I'm going to say about my original post. I've already done too much by way of explanation. I've done so much explaining, in fact, that I'm just going to ask you a question. Is anything from the second passage you quoted helpful in clarifying the meaning of the apparently ambiguous phase "ambitions of new players" in the first passage you quoted?

Sure, its a long time now that I was a new player. But I do remember it. And I mostly play / group with players that are new / less experienced and do find difficulty in doing lower lvl heroic quests on hard and elite (even on normat at times).

And I am fully with the "mythbuster" here.

The statement that a new player would be trying out the game and questing on elite and getting their ass handed to them while soloing it, which then apparently leads to them quitting is indeed false.

First of all, said player would be F2p or maybe Premium at best, so they couldn't solo those quests on hard/elite first time through. Yes, they can group, and they regularly do. But unless they feel up to elite (have gear, or are just amazing or over lvl, making the "new player" bit invalid), or have someone helping them through, they are hardly going to expect to zerg through a quest they haven't ever ran before.

The biggest issue I have with that argument however is not the "yes they can open by rerunning/ grouping" part. ITs the part where somehow a new player would WANT to play a game that is not challenging them at all, i.e. is boring/a grind. Because in my experience, getting badly beaten just means wanting to better prepare, be a tad more carefull and feel good when we then beat the big bad monster.

Sure, by all means, there are a lot of things that have to be ironed out on the champions, including extreme HPs on some, some buffs suddenly hitting like a nuke at lower lvls or certain combinations that make it neigh impossible to beat them, as well as too often seeing True seeing (which goes against recent changes to make sneak more interesting). I think their spawn rate currently is probably appropriate in most quest, although some specific quests probably need a bit of fine tuning due to combinations of mechanics with champions. Apart from that they could do with a wider list of common and rare types of buff.

And most of them could be somewhat harder to beat, the last week has been one of seeing a crown and just killing it to make sure nothing unpleasant happens (yes, they can still kill you if you go in carelessly, so that is a good basis to start from). I would like to see a them growing back to be a real challenge more often, altough certainly not 2-3 in a single group like the first iteration gave us.

Well and the last, but very important point, is that we need an easier way to spot what buffs a champion has to give more of an incentive to actually look at what that one has for buffs. That would also make it more viable to have a certain buff be powerfull, because we could more easily prepare the right spell/weapon/tactic for them.

[phillymiket]

This is the last thing I'm going to say about my original post. I've already done too much by way of explanation. I've done so much explaining, in fact, that I'm just going to ask you a question. Is anything from the second passage you quoted helpful in clarifying the meaning of the apparently ambiguous phase "ambitions of new players" in the first passage you quoted?

Too many people, maybe myself included, are summing up this thing with little phrases and platitudes when it's a complicated thing.

Be it a mythbusters parody or Sev simply saying "we don't envision new players playing hard or elite" as an answer, its a terrible mistake to simplify it so.

New people do in fact play Hard and Elite, whether envisioned or not, whether it is initially locked for solo or not.

They are there on Elite. Myth confirmed. We all know this.

Starter Island is not the place for platitudes of what Hard Elite should or shouldn't be IMO.

Starter Island is not the place for experiments IMO.

Starter Island is not the place to introduce challenge for our most Veteran players IMO.

Starter Island should focus on bringing in new players. Every other thing should be a distant second.

I have no doubt in my mind that, if the Devs could, they would remove Champions from Korthos despite what they say but they don't know how.

But to answer your question, the second quote does clarify your position but I still disagree with it.

It's just the second quote is open for debate and I'm allowing room that I may be wrong, unlike the first quote which is just patently false.

[phillymiket]

The biggest issue I have with that argument however is not the "yes they can open by rerunning/ grouping" part. ITs the part where somehow a new player would WANT to play a game that is not challenging them at all, i.e. is boring/a grind. Because in my experience, getting badly beaten just means wanting to better prepare, be a tad more carefull and feel good when we then beat the big bad monster.

The thing is the game was already fairly challenging for a new player without ship buffs or twink gear of any kind.
Before Champions - I'm talking about on Korthos here not EE or whatever - a new player could find Normal easy, Hard quite doable and Elite a real challenge but still able to be done after a mistake fail or two.
That reenforces people positively.
Again, starter area should strive to create the fantasy of a fun game that the player will be challenged by and eventually master so they spend money.
You want people to say to themselves, "wow this is tough but i'm really good at this", not, "I'm dead again, what happened?"
Let the reality of the fact that Elite will take work sink in later after they bought the bank and warforged race or whatever.

Sure, by all means, there are a lot of things that have to be ironed out on the champions, including extreme HPs on some, some buffs suddenly hitting like a nuke at lower lvls or certain combinations that make it neigh impossible to beat them, as well as too often seeing True seeing (which goes against recent changes to make sneak more interesting). I think their spawn rate currently is probably appropriate in most quest, although some specific quests probably need a bit of fine tuning due to combinations of mechanics with champions. Apart from that they could do with a wider list of common and rare types of buff.

True.
If Champions were ironed out they would be far less of an issue for Starter Island.
But they aren't ironed out.
We have extreme and bugged Champions.
What's more likely three months from now, they will have ironed out the bugs? or that we will still be posting screenies of 7x HP mobs and NCPs with crowns?
Six months from now? Next year?
I'm not holding my breath for the Devs to fix them.
Maybe after they fix Hirelings.

As it stands you can run into a 600 HP trash mob on Korthos, I have with screenie.
That's what exists.

But I guess that's cool.

[dunklezhan]

Neither is obtuse criticism. It doesn't take a Calashtar to get the point I was making.

It is when Turbine have asked for specific examples of excessive hitpoints. It would be helpful if they knew how excessive, because it may be a random confluence of buffs that causes it. Of course, without turbine providing a completed set of monster manuals it is not possible to actually tell the hit points of a range of mobs. I think dogs are in the MM though. Still, that would then assume that all players have unlocked all rewards in all MMs if Turbine want specific hit point numbers, so I don't know how reasonable their request is in the first place, I certainly haven't unlocked everything.

Still, I have no idea from your post whether the dog in question has a thousand or ten thousand hitpoints. As a rough measuring stick - did the dog take longer to beat down than either of the bosses at the end of LoD?

...and I hate to do this, its not terribly in keeping with forum rules but: it's Kalashtar.

[gaffneyks]

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.

Why do you keep trying to ram this down everyone's throats? Can't you see what a complete fail it is? Those wanting a challenge are upset that it has been nerfed. Many, like myself, have just cancelled our VIP because we think it is just useless grind added to the game. It just loses the D and D feel when you have a giant rat that has more hit points than the end boss. It has nothing to do with difficulty, it just adds extra time to the quest, for no reward and adds nothing to the storyline.

Can't the DEVS figure some other way to challenge the elite players than this? This has driven a wedge in the community. Just look at the forums. You would have been better off leaving it the way it was and making it an option and attaching some bonus to it. At least that would please more of your player base.

What a complete fail. So many other ways or things that could have been done, even random traps would have been better.

Also, why spend time on something like this when we have so many bugs in the game? How about we fix the lag? The new raid is a joke. Can't something be done about the lag in it? That would have pleased a lot more people than this stupid champion idea.

[Keladon]

If Champions were ironed out they would be far less of an issue for Starter Island.
But they aren't ironed out.
We have extreme and bugged Champions.
What's more likely three months from now, they will have ironed out the bugs? or that we will still be posting screenies of 7x HP mobs and NCPs with crowns?
Six months from now? Next year?
I'm not holding my breath for the Devs to fix them.
Maybe after they fix Hirelings.

As it stands you can run into a 600 HP trash mob on Korthos, I have with screenie.
That's what exists.

But I guess that's cool.

I would even call that positive thinking. For all we know they don't even have the ability to prevent certain mobs from spawning as champions or even remove them from specific quests.
All we know right now is that they can adjust global settings, who knows if they'll ever be able to flag an npc (for example) to spawn as a champion or not.

Champions still feel like a quick fix without thinking of the possible consequences.
And to be honest.. I don't even know if you can call it a 'fix' at all.

Why do you keep trying to ram this down everyone's throats? Can't you see what a complete fail it is? Those wanting a challenge are upset that it has been nerfed. Many, like myself, have just cancelled our VIP because we think it is just useless grind added to the game. It just loses the D and D feel when you have a giant rat that has more hit points than the end boss. It has nothing to do with difficulty, it just adds extra time to the quest, for no reward and adds nothing to the storyline.

So true, champions either slow me down or they spawn with an overpowered combination of buffs. Neither adds any challenge at all. It's annoying or frustrating depending on which of the 2 I get, it's not challenging.
And yes, bosses are just disappointing right now, but if we complain enough I'm sure Turbine would make them frustrating too instead of fixing or removing the champion system.
Like you said, 90% of the things I read is "I left because of champions", "I left because they nerfed champions" or "Champions are too strong/weak" .. I'm just not seeing a lot of people who actually like them the way they are now.

Out of curiosity, doesn anyone even like them the way they are now? Compared to no champions or stronger champions.
Because I see a lot of people with an "I can deal with them" attitude or even "I don't really notice them", but that's hardly liking them.

[Xionanx]

Out of curiosity, doesn anyone even like them the way they are now? Compared to no champions or stronger champions.
Because I see a lot of people with an "I can deal with them" attitude or even "I don't really notice them", but that's hardly liking them.

Since I have been back to DDO, I have grouped with roughly 30 some odd people on Khyber, none of which "liked" champions.

The opinions I get from conversations with players are:
1. Not special at all so no excitement on seeing one
2. Too "random" so no way to plan for them (either they have some crazy powerful ability or might as well not have a crown at all)
3. Ruin Escort/Protection quests
4. Ruin quests that were already incredibly hard on elite in the first place (E Enter the Kobold when the end boss room spawn 2-3 champion living meteors/fireballs with "Added Damage".. )
5. Ignore the fact that "Grouping" is now NOT the norm, soloing is, so when you put up LFM's you will likely never see anyone join your group.

I personally like the "Concept" of champions, but the system needs a complete rework IMO to be something good.. a rework that I fear Turbine will just not invest the time into, leaving it the broken mess it is now.