Monster Champion Feedback

[DarthCaedus]

So those asking for more of a challenge on EE means the rest of us running heroic get screwed?

Wasn't that their intention all the time? People claiming to run only EE are arguing in this thread EH should be harder even though they don't run it.

[EllisDee37]

My experience running EH last night (I don't run EE) was great. I soloed the first MotU chain, then the Druid's Deep chain, both on EH. (Then I did a quickie EN xp farm of VON3/Spies/WizKing, then Fathom/Claw and called it a day.)

Love the addition of the champions. Felt just about right. Again, for context I was soloing EH, low level epics. A couple times I actually noticed dangerous mobs before pummeling them into dust. A couple times I actually got nervous, but that wasn't champion related. It was all the earthquakes from the wood woads and the druid's deep final boss that kept knocking me down. But that's standard, no change from pre-U24.

I am not an uber elite. I'm not even an elite:
- I was running one of my new player builds, which are essentially the only builds I play.
- I do not have good gear; mostly the eveningstar commendation gear + cannith crafted.
- I was level 20-21 (0 epic xp at start of session, ~700k at end)
- I was leveling a good off destiny (fury on a melee; got sense weakness during session, woot!)
- I have 2 heroic past lives (both fighter) and 1 epic past life (3% doublestrike)

So not uber gear, not many past lives, not a particularly min/maxed build, not many epic levels, not my primary or even maxed destiny, soloing low level EHs, and for me, the champions were just about perfect. I particularly enjoyed that most of the "Man I hate that mob, I really hope it's not a champion " mobs just happened to be champions: The priestesses in Battle for Eveningstar, the wood woads in both overgrowth and druid's deep, the will o' the wisps in outbreak, etc... Perfect! Also the druids in thorn in paw; pretty sure every one was a champion. It was super satisfying stunning and/or tripping them. Very fun times.

My only complaint is that gimp mobs shouldn't be champions. It feels unflavorful. One example was during a priestess champion fight in Battle for Eveningstar, some of those teeny tiny baby spiders had crowns. That should never happen.

As for the spawn rate, my feeling is that trash mobs might be at around 10% crowns, but orange names seem to be 50% or higher.

Oh, and the chests. So many chests! I probably looted the same amount of champion chests as I did quest chests. In that final fight in thorn and paw (with the den mother, then the pack of dire bears) I think there were three champion chests in that one room when the dust cleared, in addition to the quest chest that's also there.

EDIT: In case it's relevant, I don't use hirelings.

EDIT 2: I didn't die all session. A couple times I noticed some dangerous, hard-hitting champions that seemed to do around 100 damage a hit. A couple times I got down to around 50% HP.

[OverlordOfRats]

The problem as I see it is there is such a huge gap in power between the bored with elite people and the pre-update difficultly was good for them people.

The first group needed something badly before they left do to boredom. Champions seems to be a good fit for them.
The second group was in a reasonably happy place. Champions do not seem to be a good fit for them and looks to be driving some of them away.
Driving paying customers away from either group is not good for the game.

So, put in a check box for Champions on the difficulty screen. Win-win for both groups.

The first group doesn't have to get bored again if Champions get nerfed.
The second group doesn't have to give up favor and XP, and have extra added game time to TR to "just run Normal".
As the second group gets closer to the first group they have an extra difficulty in EH with Champions to make that leap up to EE and EE with Champions.


Disclaimer: I run Normal and Hard solo at level for XP. I run Elite solo over level for favor only. I occasionally run with a RL friend. My play style will not be affected by Champions, but I need people from both of the above groups to help me keep this game alive. I cannot afford to pay for the entire game by myself.

[bennyson]

Yes, so me as a 14 sorc running elite sands and getting instant killed 3 times in 2 different dungeons, maybe you should read the whole thread before throwing in your 2 cents worth. Like about WW kobolds lightning bolting people for 850.

I don't think little, WW champion kobolds can hit you with the same damage that normal EE casters can deal to you. Maybe about 100ish, but not nearly over 1k. Also, I have read the whole thread, don't see why you had to rage on me there.

It's not bad if facing one crownie at a time with mob while soloing. It's bad when facing 3 crownies all at once along with other mobs means certain death if you can't run away.

The first room of the quest I was in had 2 champs in it, everything beyond that was smooth with one champ at each trash mob.

[Kamode_Corebasher]

I understand what you're saying here, but I hope (and think) that the end result with adding challenge (with champions and hopefully other good changes) will actually help the population of DDO. I believe retention of players will be longer if there's challenge and grouping becomes the norm again.

To say it another way, I believe newbs will get more good attention from vets if grouping becomes the norm again.

I'd also like to note your "first point" of number 2 below--If the devs slow down the game so that zerging is almost never performed and grouping is needed or the norm and tactics typically need discussed per encounter, then drop rates can/could be increased to compensate for time lost.

I rarely ever post in these forums, but for what its worth, I wanted to add my thoughts to this discussion....

I've played this game steadily since almost the very start and seen many, many changes over the years and seen a LOT of people come and go. One thing that has been consistent for me over that time is that it has been a lot of fun. I've enjoyed DDO more than any other of the great number of games I have played in 30+ years of video gaming.

I usually go my own path and play my own way, and not always do what others necessarily think you should do. For me, this is what is fun. Trying new characters - and keeping them to play again later rather than doing endless Completionist past lives (I've seen WAY TOO MUCH Completionist burn-out). I do play DDO a lot. More than I probably should, but I'm not a 1%-type uber powergamer. I'm more of a mid-level power player who does some EE quests, but not frequently. I do a lot of solo-ing and PUG-ging.

At a most basic level, every game is the same in one regard: If its fun, then people will usually continue to play. If someone no longer finds it fun to play, then they will move along to something else. No one HAS to play DDO or any other game. They have a choice. They can simply not log in and do something else with their time. So a game has to fun for the majority of players or else it .... goes away; like Star Wars Galaxies did.

I generally like the idea of random champions added to the game. However, I'm not sure if the current implementation will be appropriate/fun for most players. To test things out for myself, I played a number of different quests and different levels; Heroic and Epic. What I found out is that the brief comment in the U24 Release Notes about the addition of Champions GREATLY underestimates the actual reality of what I have seen. Not just in EE either.

1. Some of the random champions are indeed basically "speed bumps" as someone else called them. Others are much more powerful. This is not necessarily a bad thing and is probably working exactly as the devs intended. However, it greatly changes the progression/structure of the quest when random spawns can be SO much stronger than the mini-bosses and bosses. These "champions+" do significantly more than a "a bit more damage" than regular monsters as described in the Release Notes. Two quick (non EE) anecdotes would be 1500HP Kobold Shamans throwing Lightning Bolts and Magic Missiles in HE Butchers Path (not an easy quest) or Troglodyte casters in HE The Pit (decidedly not an easy quest), who spam Melf's Acid Arrows (no saving throw) that hit for 50-75HP/tick and that eat right thru Energy Protection. Or they toss multiple Scorching Rays (save for half damage) that hit for 250-350 HP per ray. One or two of these in a hall or room can be overcome with strategy and tactics of course, but a room full of them would seem to be very difficult for a good group to defeat without a lot of resources. I'm not trying to infer that new or casual players should be able to do these difficult quest on HE, but even well-equipped, multiple PL characters with ship buffs for Energy Resistance who can't repeatedly self-cast Energy Protection are not going to last very long when five of the seven casters are Champions as we saw in the end fight of The Pit. This is to say nothing about the various protection/escort type missions where the random champions maybe can't kill the player character, but obliterate the NPC you have to protect.

2. My observations over many different quests are that the random spawn rate is much higher than about 10%. Its closer to 25%-33% overall, with a much higher percentage (66%-75%) of orange-named and casters being champions.


From a "Big Picture" perspective, I'm not necessarily opposed to these new champions. I actually support the concept, but I've had to think quite a bit trying to make up my mind whether the introduction of champions in its current implementation has been -- or will be -- a good idea for DDO. People will have their own thoughts, but based on my experience and perspective, I believe that this is a rather fundamental overall change to DDO. We'll have to see, but whether you like them or not, the introduction of Champions would appear to have significantly changed the DDO game mechanism/structure. Some will take it in stride (as they have posted here and other places). Others clearly don't like it. Most of us are still trying to figure out what we think and are waiting to see how things shake out.

First point: As others have said, you can not please everyone all of the time. But I do think that this is a significant change to the overall DDO game "system" because it suddenly changes the expectations for many (majority?) of non-1% players. For some time, you have become accustomed to certain way of playing and utilizing your scarce in-game time. Now quests will take longer and you will NOT be able to play DDO (i.e. get the XP and loot) the way you did before. Of course this is going to make some people upset. Whether it is for better or for worse for the game or EE gamers is not really relevant in the short term if people get PO'ed and leave.

Were things too easy before? Depends on your perspective, but if you are no longer able to accomplish what you were able to do previously, it leads to frustration and people getting upset. Some adapt and overcome as we have done in the past. I'm pretty confident that others will decide it is time to move along to something else because it is no longer fun for them. Neither you nor I can tell these people that this new way of doing things is good for the game. They have to decided this for themselves, and if they can never do HE/EE quests and continually die in HH or EH as they used to do, will they decide it isn't fun any longer? You can say (and some already have on these posts) that you can just "click" a different difficulty level. That is absolutely correct. You can. However, will they??? When they didn't have to before??

This is unfortunate because we ALL suffer the consequences when people leave and the game base population get smaller.

Second point: I also think this change will worsen the gap between the major of players (who rarely ever read the forums and NEVER post a message) and hardcore EE gamers. The EE crowd who generally have already gathered their end-game equipment and done their Past Lives will continue their EE ways. The rest of the players will now (appropriately??) have to click HN/HH and EN/EH based on knowledge of the game and equipment and WILL NOT be able to catch up with EE gamers or even mid-power people in order to do the endgame raids and quests because they "move slower" (so to speak). In order to gather the knowledge, XP and equipment they need, they have to do quests, but can't do them at the same rate, and so the current "delta" between them and the EE crowd will grow even larger. People see and hear about what the power gamers have done and loot they get, and naturally will want to be able to do this too. Most people understand that it has taken the power gamers a lot of time and effort to get to point where they "can solo EE." Many of them have been or are willing to put in the time/effort to get to a similar point, but now they will have to "go slower." It has moved the goal posts overnight.

Its also not necessarily just leaving the EE crowds to "do their own thing" as some have said because this two-tiered system creates -- or appears to perpetuate -- a perception of "Haves" and Have-Nots" which again leads to frustration and discontent. Many casual players will never get to even a mid-level status, which is where the bulk of game players are really located....

On a personal note, I do not support the way this change was introduced. It seems to have been very sudden and abrupt for the majority of people who do not go to Lammania or read the Lammania forums. It could have been presented in a much better way in order to temper/prepare people's understanding of what was going to happen. Instead, we got a short blurb in the release notes that really did not explain what was going to happened and what it meant.

Anyways, Good luck and have fun in game!!

[HAL]

Up to 40% of all monsters suddenly become incredibly powerful and no one could come up with a story for this event? I would have taken advantage of this opportunity. Very sad that apparently no one (at least no one with decision making ability) thought of it or at least wanted to make it happen.

[Garothe]

I don't think little, WW champion kobolds can hit you with the same damage that normal EE casters can deal to you. Maybe about 100ish, but not nearly over 1k. Also, I have read the whole thread, don't see why you had to rage on me there.



The first room of the quest I was in had 2 champs in it, everything beyond that was smooth with one champ at each trash mob.

ran 56 quest today, pugging from lv 1, had 2 or more deaths each quest, all elite streaking, lv 150+shipbufs+30 resist energy
ballanced party, 1 cleric (me), 1 sorc, 1 paladin, 1 rog, 1 barb, 1 monk, al tr vets, all aware of the changes
1200(rounded down) damage from a firebal in a lv 2 quest (the paly was in full plate and shield&def stance mode)
60+ damage per hit from a swarm of champion spiders in the catacombs
850 damage from lighning casting shaman in WW
besides al the useless deaths, the imunities, resistances and hp increases (1300hp non red named spider in the catacombs.....) make the journey through their a boring slog, the mobs die but much slower.

with all the party deaths costing me 10% exp everytime i feel inclined to invis&solo to speed things up
thumbs up for another nail in the lfm's coffin.
not that we're getting an overflow of newer players but this widens the gap between vets and newer players even more

seriously Cordovan, dev's, put in an opt out, this system is chasing of newer/weaker players and wastes my time


Edit, you can no longer say: get better saves, or better ac (paly had 66ac), more hp, etc, it just turned into rusian roulette, no longer does it mater if you are a tripple heroic, epic and iconic completionist, have mad skills, somethimes 12 champions spawn right on top of you and kill you, somethimes a rare pops and does 6 times the damage of your max hp, no amount of heal amp or prr/mrr helps here, it's unballanced, it's a slog, it's a waste of time, that could have been spend fixing the quests, bugs or the barbarian class

Apparently you didn't. The system on heroic elite is broken as hell. You will randomly get super mobs that are doing more damage than epic level raid bosses. Again, read the whole thread.

[HAL]

Yes, so me as a 14 sorc running elite sands and getting instant killed 3 times in 2 different dungeons, maybe you should read the whole thread before throwing in your 2 cents worth. Like about WW kobolds lightning bolting people for 850.

I don't think little, WW champion kobolds can hit you with the same damage that normal EE casters can deal to you. Maybe about 100ish, but not nearly over 1k. Also, I have read the whole thread, don't see why you had to rage on me there.

You just ignored this fact AGAIN: Waterworks Kobold Shamen Champs throwing lightning bolt for 850. There have been many other reports of champs doing one-shot damage at all levels. Up to 6k damage in the highest quests. Or are you saying that everyone is lying?

[gwonbush]

Except when I tested it, I was getting hit more in the realm of 60 damage from champion lightning bolts. Of course, this is solo. I wouldn't be surprised to see 100 damage with a full party, sometimes hitting twice. And for anybody at level without tons of past lives (or Blood Tribute), that's pretty fatal. To me, 850 sounded more like the HP total for a shaman champion in a full party.

[mna]

Yep, a lot of people trying to TR, especially the first few lives might be forced to play Normal which will then force a grind which will probably end up losing players. Those who can do Hard or better will still be losing XP because of the random idiotic one-shot deaths.

... well, yes. Given the social multiplayer element, barriers to social participation can't be a good thing, and given the other mechanics already in the game, that's what this new champion system ends up being.



And another thing, if you want VIPs to be able to open elite already first life, it wouldn't be a good idea to make that just about pointless... not expecting them to actually run elite until they could do that anyway, well... no reason to pay either, is there? (And in the end, this seems to be the biggest thing the VIPs get over premiums. Oh well, I thought Turbine liked the stable income from VIP subscribers, but I guess not.)

And I expect Hirelings will be even more useless so many people will never be able to recover from that death and will have to restart the quest.

Exactly. Bring a healer-type hire, expect to have to actively guard them to keep them alive. Especially as they keep running off whenever they feel like it, regardless of what you tell them to do... before the hireling AI changes they at least most of the time managed to stay put when told to do so.

[Vulkoorex]

I don't think little, WW champion kobolds can hit you with the same damage that normal EE casters can deal to you. Maybe about 100ish, but not nearly over 1k. Also, I have read the whole thread, don't see why you had to rage on me there.



The first room of the quest I was in had 2 champs in it, everything beyond that was smooth with one champ at each trash mob.

Try it to solo a Heroic Elite quest with 3 crownies on you with no where to run. Or a crownie arcane that one shot you.

I can tell you it's not fun.

[bennyson]

Apparently you didn't. The system on heroic elite is broken as hell. You will randomly get super mobs that are doing more damage than epic level raid bosses. Again, read the whole thread.

Or maybe I just got lucky that I didn't get super mobs.

Btw, the quest I was in was Caged Trolls in house P

[DarthCaedus]

The problem as I see it is there is such a huge gap in power between the bored with elite people and the pre-update difficultly was good for them people.

The first group needed something badly before they left do to boredom. Champions seems to be a good fit for them.
The second group was in a reasonably happy place. Champions do not seem to be a good fit for them and looks to be driving some of them away.
Driving paying customers away from either group is not good for the game.

So, put in a check box for Champions on the difficulty screen. Win-win for both groups.

The first group doesn't have to get bored again if Champions get nerfed.
The second group doesn't have to give up favor and XP, and have extra added game time to TR to "just run Normal".
As the second group gets closer to the first group they have an extra difficulty in EH with Champions to make that leap up to EE and EE with Champions.


Disclaimer: I run Normal and Hard solo at level for XP. I run Elite solo over level for favor only. I occasionally run with a RL friend. My play style will not be affected by Champions, but I need people from both of the above groups to help me keep this game alive. I cannot afford to pay for the entire game by myself.

I like the checkbox idea - making it completely optional. If this is done they should buff the chests and maybe include some items that only drop in champion chests.

[Impaqt]

The named beholders in von 3 would be mini bosses and if champion should give an extra chest.

according to wiki red names are

Champion Deathblood troll

Grotkin beholder

Marut end boss

the rest are listed as orange. which beholder is in the pic?

I could of sworn all the named in von3 were acutally Red..... I'll have to pay more attention next run

[Blackheartox]

I think this is far more correct:




I do not join EE pugs unless I'm on an A toon in my primary destiny. When I put up EE pugs, I don't get people joining in off destinies and crappy gear. My experience is that people are coming prepared to EE pugs.

EH pugs I get all sorts of randomness. Its okay there.

Heroic elite, well we get all types. I actually do see a lot of new players join who are way over there heads. But once we go in progress (as seen by the time in quest counter starting) we don't get new players joining any more.

I will be perfectly honest, ee before this update was so blatantly easy to a experienced vet that only way he could find some fun was to group up with people who are sub prepared for the quest.
Some did it for braging rights, some did it to fill ego, some did it to help others.
No idea what my reason was, mixed feelings.

But i had very very random people in my groups, and i didnt mind a monkcher in magister, a cetus in primal, a sorc in dreadnought.
And i had it all, i mean we had a ac wizzy in group. Pure tank sorc.
All sort of random builds that you know before it steps into the quest that it wont help much to complete it.
But i didnt mind it.

I i really love this change,
Epic elite, feels finally like epic elite.
And i would be a happy specimen if it stayed this way, and got some more spice added to the story.
Now im for example looking forward to solo breaking the ranks and wgu again.

[Buddha5440]

Champions are a good idea but the spawn rate is WAY too high. 30-50% of mobs being champions is ridiculous. Change the spawn rate, give us SOME kind of reward for them, and revisit the buffs.

[DarthCaedus]

And another thing, if you want VIPs to be able to open elite already first life, it wouldn't be a good idea to make that just about pointless... not expecting them to actually run elite until they could do that anyway, well... no reason to pay either, is there? (And in the end, this seems to be the biggest thing the VIPs get over premiums. Oh well, I thought Turbine liked the stable income from VIP subscribers, but I guess not.)

It never ceases to amaze how some of the decisions Turbine sabotages their bottom line. Why they don't want new players to run Elite is baffling because some are going to sign up for VIP for one year. Instead people will get discouraged and just stay FTP and then some percentage will just walk away instead of sticking with it for a year with VIP.

I like another person's suggestion to make it totally optional. Basically it provides better loot and maybe some xp, but it's not required if you just want xp and the standard loot. Forcing this can only result in a player reduction - in fact I am sure it already has.

[Stonemerge]

I rarely ever post in these forums, but for what its worth, I wanted to add my thoughts to this discussion....

wow, thanks Rocke to your excellent post (year 2006 - 12 Posts) ...



this is the biggest design decision ever, with more impact on the player base than the F2P or the Epic Destinies. I still cannot believe that they are not changing this and rather let paying customers go, but with so many people excited about these changes im not so sure anymore.

I installed an offline RPG game today. The first time i will play anything else than DDO since an 8 week timeout after the MotU-Bug-Update.
I will see what has changed (or not) in around two weeks and i will make my decision then. Playing with my well-geared toon and all my experience as a player on heroic normal is a no-go, playing a quest that will kill me randomly without a way to react oder develop a strategy is a no-go too for me. I dont want to dupe Tornado Bottles or use Whirlwind-Avatar-Twitches, i dont want to pile up thousands of Hitpoints or play Fury-Monkchers and always wait 90secs ... all i want is to play the game i liked so many years, creating all those builds i have still on my mind, on my own speed, the quest i want to play and not logging in in hope if there is any lfm going on or not.
Im so depressed; all those guys here who seem to love this change and then me, the crybaby who knows this will be the end of DDO for him.

I cannot even imagine why players want to die in a quest - if i die, i failed, i need to redo this and i will not; not just because thats frustrating - because there is nothing i can do about the deaths - they will happen. And no - i will never buy a spirit cake - i have all packs, races, inventory - but that ? never !!!

Why spawn monsters ? just say: after each minute there is a percentage chance that u will die and u can do nothing against that. There are still some players(?) who think that would be an new amazing challenge, i bet.

[FestusHood]

A would rather have seen ALL mobs in EE get smaller buffs than what was implemented. I don't want to play friggin Diablo.

This right here. If they absolutely had to make the game overall harder, this would have been a better way to do it.
Some people like random, and some don't.

Some people like Monopoly, some people like chess. I had no idea there were so many Monopoly fans in DDO. Maybe there aren't, since the silent majority will never be heard here.

[DarthCaedus]

If you go into EE quests, and you're taking 1000 damage, I would say you have 0 PRR, and you probably haven't being paying attention to the evolution to the game in the past several updates (hardly ramp up).

You are incorrect and obviously don't know what you are talking about. My PRR is fine and so is my understanding of the game. What is lacking is your understanding of the damage output of some of the champions.