Monster Champion Feedback

[Celebras]

Well, i wouldnt consider myself a casual or uber Player. Regular would fit it. My primetimeplay after update looked like this:
When i logged after the update i started with lvl 4 quests elite on my lvl 5 toon. I updated for f2ps and irestone and proof as final quests to do. I entered Freshen the air with hire, prepped as usual. I would say from the kill list 10% were Champions, no chest Drops from them. I died once due to the fact that one encouter spawned 4 Champions and they 1 shotted my hire. I couldnt potheal fast enough to migitate the damage. But i was able to finish the quest.
I thought, well, nice challenge, i had to do it a bit slower but ok. I had 1 more joining in at the end, but he wasnt contributing to it, since it was at the very end.
Then i waited for irestone roughly 5 min before i started, and we had 2 ppl with 2 hires. From the Retro i would say that roughly 20% of the Mobs were Champions, half of them were also rednames. We moved in slow, sneaking sometimes to check what we would face next, regardless of that we died of course. Np with that. Of course it took double the normal time i did it on elite but ok, we 2manned it with 2 hires. Btw, no chests from those Champions in there.
The we did Proof. Of course its already challenging, but with proper buffs, clickies (Shield) and pots it was nice soloable on elite prior update.
I figured give it some time so we waited like 15 min before we 2 said, ok, heck what worse can happen than a wipe. So we went in again with 2 hires, properly buffed, clickies ready (Blur wand rdy). Got wiped at Spiders, where we faced 3 Champions, 1 was the redname Spider. They dealt so much damage on hits that even with blur and heavy armor and fort on the red numbers were 60+.
So we rebuffed (lfm was still on the whole time) and went in again. Not much we could prep more so i was hoping we would have a bit more luck this time. And yep we were lucky. It was tough and our hires and my collegue didnt survive til the end but we made it. Right before endfight we had 1 more to join.
Out of the kills i would say 30% of them were Champions and we had 1 chest from them.

So my expereince with them? What i think of them?
First i would like to ask Turbine, what the reason behind Champions is? If they want to make the elite/hard runs more challenging i would say, yep, good Job, and i really like champions therefore. But as i said, playing in my Primetime as a regular Player, not getting full Party for an elite run and spending now double time to completed quests on elite if at all, i would say u just made it harder for me to really enjoy it.
I like grouping, I always put my runs up for ppl to join. But i hardly get full Groups at my playing time. Maybe im just unlucky, maybe my account smells, i dont know. But if ur aiming to get ppl to do more Group runs, then by all means give out bonuses for Groups (XP scales with number of ppl in group; extra chest; Access to extra bossfights with extra named loot, etc) and dont just throw in harder Mobs to make it harder.
Now i havent tried EE yet, since my char is obviously in the process of getting there. But what i read also in this thread so far shows me that the same will also fit for EE Content. So if ur lucky and ur in a good time Zone and can Group up quickly or ur lucky and ur not facing that many Champions or ur lucky and they are fairly spread in the quest, then well... ur just lucky. As for full Party runs, im really in for those Champions, they make it far more challenging than old elite runs. And as i said i rather 2man quests than run it solo.
But when ur just unlucky on the above stated things... Playing gets more frustrating...

[Galeria]

Yesdterday, I ran Necro 3 with a decent group, Whisperdoom with a couple newbies and several Sands walkups, levels 12-14 ish.

I didn't have a problem with the champions although I'll agree there are a lot of them. We had a death or two each quest and they definitely hit harder, whether hitting or casting. I had 9 neg levels at one point and had to find a place to hide while I recovered... but I think that made it more fun than the usual zergfest where every enemy is one-shotted by the party and there's no danger at all.

Sorry to disagree with the vocal mob, but I do like the challenge. I am not an uber gamer, I have never boo hoo'd over the lack of challenge, but I like having some. Maybe there are some specific quests that got scaled up too much, but so far, I really like the idea of having to earn your way up to elite, not just wander in and kill everything on the highest setting with your Korthos gear.

I know that makes a lot of people mad because you are taking away something that they had access to- higher XP, better gear... but I think for the long term health of the game, there's got to be progression and that should include *gasp* running quests on normal while you are learning and gearing. It makes the game more interesting for longer. And as to fully-geared, knowledgeable people being one-shotted? Time for tactics, people. Flying through a dungeon and tapping the monsters dead was never much fun. Quick and easy achievements? Yes. Challenging and satisfying? No.

[DarthCaedus]

I know that makes a lot of people mad because you are taking away something that they had access to- higher XP, better gear... but I think for the long term health of the game, there's got to be progression and that should include *gasp* running quests on normal while you are learning and gearing. It makes the game more interesting for longer.

People are really better off switching to a game like Neverwinter rather than choosing the normal difficulty in DDO. Why should they? Because a few elites want to force it on them?

In Neverwinter there is no requirement to get less xp and gear while learning the game. It's a better option for new players than what you describe.

[firebones]

I dont understand why you (********) always cater to the 1%ers.
You dont expect new player to be running around in HE content? You obiously do NOT play this game. Hell you cant even get new players to stick around after lv7. Now it will be lv2. IMHO this spells doom for the new and casual players.
So keep it up and all you will have left is the 1%er.

[DarthCaedus]

Just change bravery bonus.
Also keep in mind that we who date to around the time when tring came out etc.
I date around 2009 myself for example, that we had a rougher time to play in heroic content.
Not because we were less skilled, because game was harder, sulficiency was lower, character power was weaker, enchantment trees did not provide as much power as now.

I was around then and I don't think the player power for a new person running korthos or harbor is really a factor. New players don't have their flaming festival icy burst of lacerating weapons at level 2. They don't have all the twink gear and past lifes. Level 8 greensteel items.

The difficulty in those days is blown out of proportion as I remember everyone running on elite until FTP then there were people running on lower difficulties cause they didn't have an opener. Then everything went back to Elite as the default difficulty within a few years.

I wouldn't doubt Turbine would do something stupid like getting rid of bravery bonus without a suitable replacement. I don't think it's the right answer. Adding a checkbox to make champions optionals is a better answer.

[nibel]

Lot of MCs just had two, three buffs, some up to seven. The number of buffs and debuffs is not a big deal - the combination of them is.
Some of them shouldn't appear on one mob at the same time.

IMO, the monster buff list should be a bit shorter, and each monster only have one "buff" of the list on hard, two on elite, and an extra one if orange-named (2 on hard, 2 on elite). You can even made separated lists for that: "Hard" list, "Elite" list, and "Miniboss" list.

Hard buffs should be things like some kind of damage resistance (slash, pierce, fire, force, etc), but no immunity; improved invisibility; deflect arrows (on a timer, like ours); +50% fortification bypass; blur; etc

Elite buffs should be the things that hurt: +100% Melee/Ranged/Spellpower (technically, double damage); some kind of damage IMMUNITY (slash, bludgeoning, acid, light, etc); displacement; true seeing; dodge bypass; impervious AC (like, set it as +999 AC); Evasion + impervious reflex; impervious fortitude; impervious will; etc

Boss buffs should be stuff that effect the other mobs around them as well: Healing aura (like the scorpions in Claw of Vulkoor); Damage aura (like skelly wiz necrotic aura); damage buffs (like the dogs in LoB); Haste aura; Circle of Invisibility (that don't affect the boss itself); etc

And I'm still advocating for clear visual effects that allow us to identify their buffs on sight instead of having to select and examine.

if it was 1% of the players that asked for Turbine to add more challenge to the game, there wouldn't be weekly threads about it.

Most people asking for "more challenge" are actually asking for "more shinies", but think that playing for shinies is somehow bad. This comic strip resume this kind of thinking well.

[Ayseifn]

People are really better off switching to a game like Neverwinter rather than choosing the normal difficulty in DDO. Why should they? Because a few elites want to force it on them?

In Neverwinter there is no requirement to get less xp and gear while learning the game. It's a better option for new players than what you describe.

So an easy start for new players but no challenge to build towards is what you want? Because that's what will happen, new players doing elite streaks all the way to epic cap but once they learn the game, get the gear and PLs there's no longer any challenge.

I'm fine with them either being mostly removed or toned down from most heroics but please leave them in epics mostly intact. This really is the most fun I've had in a very very long time, please don't take that away.

[EllisDee37]

The fact that most players, in their right mind and with the ability to do so, would choose to not play with champions shows the flaws of their current implementation.

No it doesn't. It's just a self-evident aspect of human nature, in the same way that choosing to wear gear instead of running naked isn't evidence of any flaws in the inventory system.

when they added the bravery bonus they also nerfed all base xp from quest's by a large margin iirc

No, base quest xp was unchanged when bravery was introduced. It was certainly not "lowered by a large margin."

[Albinosaurus]

when i started playing, running elite's solo was never an option we soloed normal and some hard quests after that we would start looking for groups for elite. but back then we didn't have bravery bonus so we weren't punished for playing normal like we are now, now its almost tabu to put up and lfm for anything but elite today.
when they added the bravery bonus they also nerfed all base xp from quest's by a large margin iirc, if we revert quest xp back to that i don't think there will be much issues with champs anymore since the casuals as the bandwagoneer's like to call them selfs still get their exp without having to deal with to many champions. im not a fan of BB either way but i have no problem leaving champions as they are with some minor tweaks to a few of them

i also question this casual exodus, my tomeless 32point cleric pugger dont have any issues with champs sure im not soloing any elites anymore but im pugging heroic elite and enjoying that content a lot more then i did before u24. i don't think CC is to advanced for anyone no matter how much of a casual they claim to be

i haven't played any epics with that cleric yet but i will do as soon as i hit cap wich im only 2 ranks away from,
my reflex really sucks, i have eaten some nasty spells but i have yet to see any champion one shot me ive seen things come close though in gh tor the pyramancers delay blast fireballs where hitting so hard while i kept failing my saves. same in running with the devils and those ray spells, but my cleric isn't built to be on the front lines so i only have my self to blame for eating those.

Just because someone doesn't like running into 3-6 champs at a time, it doesn't mean they are "casual." In fact, just about everyone in this thread needs to put that term to bed, because it is merely a false stereotype perpetuated by people who want to feel elitist that other people struggle. You know why they struggle? It's not because of skill (usually); it's because of time. Newer players haven't farmed out every quest for every good piece of gear and have millions of plat for all the consumables they should have. Nor do they have multiple completionists, or even min-maxed builds--assuming they even want to play such builds. Veteran players have this advantage, so they are better equipped to deal with this champion b.s. This isn't about the player attitude (casual vs hardcore) at all. It's about the player power gap (especially f2p vs 5+ years as VIP).

So please, if you want your non-Vet players to leave, continue doing what you're doing. I promise you it's working. Then when you have nobody to play with, you can thank yourselves. When DDO has to shut down the servers because they can't afford to keep them on, you can thank yourselves. When you wonder what eventually killed this game, you can thank yourselves.

[R1ncewind]

great job with the monster champions!
U24 is pretty good in general (excluding barb stuff). It's nice seeing a challenge to quests and really funny hearing people freak out in party as they get beat down. I think some of the people i was partied with had not been killed in years. I seemed to have lucked out and didn't get killed by any of the champions, yet. It was fun seeing most of the party turned to stone in the new content while the barb was running around cleaving everything to pieces. The reaction to monster champions reminds me of when miior was unleashed on us. Different tactics were needed, peoples feeling were hurt, hopes were crushed, etc. Good stuff. Next update please bring out random traps in dungeons! Oh yes, you know you want to.

yes yes yes plz random traps :d

[Celebras]

yes yes yes plz random traps :d

of course with check box

[lyrecono]

more quests, full ballanced party, see earlier post in here

heroic elite chamber of insanitey, lv 5 (7 on elite)
30 monsters killed in total,
4 champions shades, 2 champion skeletal mages, 1 champion ghost endboss, 8 champion wights, 1 champion human necromancer, 1 champion wight caster
thats 17 out of 30 mobs

forgotten caverns, lv 6, 8 on elite
30 kills
2 champion icemephits,
2 cm troll shamans,
4 cm oozes spawned out of a normal one,
1 cm ochre jelly, it spawned 4 smaller ones
1 cm earth ellemental
1 cm greater earth ellemental
2 cm trolls
12 out of 30

heroic elite lair of summoning, lv 5 (7 on elite)
4 cm wights,
1 cm ochre jelley
2 cm mephits
7 out of 25, this was a douzy

heroic elite ruined halls, lv 6 (8 on elite)
1 gall ran through it whille we picked taking bio's running for drinks, she reported seeing 17 cm's, 1 boss got killed.


necro 1, crimson hart
91 kills, 49 reportrd cm's

the rest of the necro 1 quest had simular numbers.

canaval pack,
a small problem, 2 resets due to something 1 shotting the npc giant, the third time he was a champion.
party crashers was ok ish, 40% cm's though, people reported 200 damage from the pixies.
Snitch few deaths,
big top, this quest was a huge slof, borring to no end, we got through but much too slow for our tastes
12 quests, 3 extra chests, no extra exp or reward, a big waste of time


at one points 1 guys says this in party:
Why bother?
if all the pastlives and uber gear don't make a difference, why spend time getting them if they don't allow you to run elite content?
Auction house and housse c crafting is good enough for normal, the entire elite thing is only a self emposed bar anyway, we've proven we can crush elite content, even when champions slow things down, there is nothing out there to proof to anyone but ourselfs, why not do normal and run things fast like we used to on first life toons?
The devs created fun, handcrafted conted for a few year but somewhere down the line lost their touch, why feel pressured to buy store stuff to run their broken content?
Most of us own enough content as it is, no need to spend a dime untill a better game comes around. (we're waiting for star citizen)

i think he had a point, we keep going to lamania, we keep warning the devs about all the broken stuff, the dev's do it their way anyway, they asked for our feedback on lamania, they didn't listen and rolled it out to live server. After all these years i feel i'm wasting my time giving feedback

i think it's fair to say that enough people don't want to deal with champions to justify an opt out box on the quest menu

[Standal]

I've played around a little with champions on low level EEs and some GH EHs. I don't really notice a big difference in difficulty, but I'm a double digit ETR with 4 ITRs and 5 HTRs. The 10% chance of a mob spawning as a Champion is clearly a problem and the need to start understanding that. A random spawning generates exactly the complaints we see here. Sometimes you get no champions. Sometimes 50% champions. If you're in a dungeon with a lot of multiple mob encounters, you're likely to run into a champion heavy encounter at some point.

From a fun standpoint, orange named champions are fun to me. Getting a chest is always fun. It would be nice if Turbine would fix their random loot so that getting those chests was more than just a shot at some guild renown, but I guess that's a more difficult problem than I understand.

Regular mob champions are just an abomination. No reward whatsoever. Drop these from the game. That would solve your problem with randomness causing to many champions to spawn, since there aren't that many orange names in the game.

I kinda like the idea of having someone geared as well as players inside a castle, tower and whatnot cause, hey, if you want to conquer something you might as well be prepared.

The problem with this is that DDO is not built for any mobs to be geared like players. All mobs have way too many hit points. All players do way too much damage. When I hit a mob for 2k, it's maybe knocked down 50% on a low level EE. I'm instakilled.

[Knobull]

I'll just leave this here.. a harbor quest on heroic elite

Couldn't help noticing your chat:

[Blackheartox]

I dont understand why you (********) always cater to the 1%ers.
You dont expect new player to be running around in HE content? You obiously do NOT play this game. Hell you cant even get new players to stick around after lv7. Now it will be lv2. IMHO this spells doom for the new and casual players.
So keep it up and all you will have left is the 1%er.

THEY never cater to the 1%.
NEVER, NOT A SINGLE TIME.
THEY ALWAYS CATER THE 99%.
ALL PROPER GAMES CATER THE 1%.

RIOT THE MOST POPULAR MMO AROUND CATERS AND TAKES FEEDBACK ONLY FROM 0.2% GAMERS WHEN IT COMES TO BALANCE AND THEY TAKE 99,8% FEEDBACK FOR COSMETICS WHAT STYLE FOR NEW CHAMPS AND WHAT COLORS TO ADD TO SCREEN.

Sigh.

They just need to fix it for heroic and induce some rules for epic.
Its a great system that should stay, just needs some tweaking for masses.
Personally i would like it to stay as it is.
No special reward but harder and more fun.


But best choice would be, keep it for ee only, or add a stupid ******** checkbox, but if you add that we will need to get appropriate rewards for killin champs since otherwise it will be a waste of time and a pointless mechanic.
If we get more loot and more xp with a chekbox people who are unable to kill those monsters will complain and after that this mechanic will be ignored and become yet another thing that was a good idea but took the wrong turn because they listend to bad feedback.
And we will go back to a game that has the most easiest "elite" difficuly from all games.

ITs a vicious cycle i would never want to be a dev trying to balance this mechanics.
You cannot please everyone.
But you guys should do the simple thing, just check when you had more players.
Before motu when the game was considerably harder and people had a need to improve their character with any means possible, or now.
That is the only question you guys should ask yourself.

Sorry if this seemed rude, but im just tired from people making false claims all the time.
I got hit for 6 k damage, all champ mobs 1 hit.
(in a place and a quest where you damage recieved gets amplified)
I got hit by a 850 light bol from a champ
Several people go to a kobold shaman champ and stand there literelly for hours and never get hit by that damage.
But no you get 1 shot, its bad.
Why would it be bad to be 1 shot?
We never had risk in this game anyway

[JOTMON]

Most people asking for "more challenge" are actually asking for "more shinies", but think that playing for shinies is somehow bad. This comic strip resume this kind of thinking well.

I like shinies.
Better challenge=better shinies. ergo I like challenge.

[lyrecono]

why don't we make a hardcore server?
elite only, always spawns champions, dead in the quest and you recall? character gets auto deleted, just for the 1%
i'll pay for 1 toon transfer per account just to stop this madness

[InsanityIsYourFriend]

alright since it seems everyone has SOMETHING to say about champions here's my thoughts, concerns, and idea's

I was on lammania when I first encountered these things. I felt while difficult a reasonably geared toon and character build could handle them. When they hit live I ran a couple EHs, and an EE. We had some not as powerful members and some powerhouses in that group, so we pretty much wiped the floor with the quests. One thing that stuck out was that champions have roughly 3* the health of their peers. That's a mountain of hit points generally. But on epic they were reasonable enough. It wasn't until I ran my TR (level 12-15 since update) and what I found was not pleasing. While reasonable for an epic mob to deal 2* damage hitting for 150-300 its completely fine because the self heals are working up there. On heroic where my acrobat was dealing with the enemies just fine without withdrawing my heal scrolls, without using sovereign elixirs of healing, basically running with (main class is druid this life) vigor/cure serious/pots I could no longer do so. Enemies were hitting for 80-150 damage easily. So every hit was a flee tactic. I'd attempt to range the enemy but when your facing a duergar with 2.4k health and your ranged weapon is hitting for 30s you realize your not going to kill that enemy before you make a mistake and get hit again. I have a Minos Legens so with ship buffs I have 110% fort. After I use Shadow dodge (-15% fort its a 95%) I should be crit around 5% of the enemy's crits. That Duergar Champion wielded a pick. So I was facing a 1d6 to 1d8 20*4 weapon. I was fairly impressed when that Duergar Champion landed a critical hit on me, as that critical hit dealt around 400-800 points of damage (don't recall actual number just know that it one shot me to -200 ish). My TR has some of the best gear available for the level (levik's bracers, litany of the dead, breeze, dragonscale armor, GS etc) and a very good build that makes use of no exploits (those of you that say Shadow Dodge remember if you die then it will revert itself to the correct stance as its supposed to be). Rocking a 42 dex and 28 wisdom my AC is in the 60-70s. As a monk PRR and MRR are hard to come by so my PRR is around 3-8 (wind stance generally, no enhancements to increase earth stance yet).

Rant off what I'm trying to say is my TR while not the most uber nor an exploiter was in the top 10% for the level. No ranged option + few self heals caused me to look at each and every melee champion warily and have my friend (a shuriken build) take down the enemy for me while i kill the other ones. In heroic levels TR's generally solo through the content that is soloable or they bring one-3 companions. Some will leave public grouping up for others, but monster champions are very difficult and I'd be fine with a champion here or there on heroic are extreme challenges in of themselves at times.

My suggestion is Monster Heroes. Heroes are not as powerful as champions, but they have 'units' that would generally spawn with them. These 'units' would gain a few buffs as if they had better equipment, were more strategic and cooperative with their partners, and would pose an actual challenge if done correctly, while none of the enemies would be champion level powerful. At epic levels:

An archer comes in and fires a single shot, and one of their comrades are dead. The hero looks to his comrades and the unit retaliates. The hobgoblin wizard casts Mordekein's Disjunction at the Adventuring Archer. The cleric casts Ressurection at the fallen comrade. Our own archer fires a Leg Shot at this powerful being, and ducks behind cover. The Ogre Fighter charges the archer, mid stride the wizard casts a haste on him. He reaches the slowed archer (leg shot) and smacks that archer with a Stunning Blow. The Gnoll rogue comes up at the archer from behind and uses Hamstring. Effectively the archer is now immobile, but the archer regains his wits and activates manyshot, targeting the cleric that can raise. The wizard casts blur on the cleric, and the Ogre attempts to stand in between the archer and the cleric. The Hero of the unit takes to the field and raises his tower shield. The archer spotting the hero knows what will become of the unit if the hero is slain, and immediately rains down arrows upon the poor hero. The cleric seeing this casts a few buffs and then targets the archer with a cometfall. The wizard casts enervation, and ice storm. The Gnoll rogue continues to flank the archer getting a few good hits. The ogre continues to pound the archer even though he feels his wounds begin to take effect. The adventuring archer is feeling ragged, and casts Rejuvenation Cocoon. The hero finally reaches the archer and hits the archer with a stunning blow. In seconds the archer is slain. It was a short but brutal battle but the Unit has prevailed.

As the cleric tends to the wounds of the ogre the hero yelps in pain, the unit looks to where their leader is, and finds him dead lying in a pool of his own blood. A short creature with wicked knives stands over the corpse. Morale plumets as they realize their folly. The archer they slayed was a scout of the larger party to come. The halfling does a leap backwards and downs a potion of invisibility. He's gone. They look to the cleric who shakes his head. I can raise no more this day. He looks saddened as a bellow comes from outside. They look to see the most powerful half orc they have ever laid their eyes on. He raises his greatsword, seeming a mile long, and charges like one posessed. The ogre rushes to meet this new foe only to meet an untimely demise as a large red finger points at him. The wizard realizes the half orc has a wizard. He casts displacement only to find that the halfling has found his heart. The brutish half orc reaches the gnoll rogue and with a few sweeps of his mighty blade the rogue is laying face down. The cleric dismayed realizes his friends are all dead, and attempts to cast Word of Recall. Then realizes his connection to his gods has been cut. The halfling seems to have been fiddling with his belt. Suddenly the archer they slayed just a little while ago is standing, looking none to pleased at how long it took the rest of his group to get there. The cleric knows that his life is over, that what he faces is not of this world. They are gods of men. The power these adventurers wield is just to great. With that the rogue happily lops off the head of the cleric.

My short story for the day ^_-

[Tokeri]

@EllisDee 37

are you sure ? i could have sworn they lowered the base xp of quests when they gave us those huge streak bonuses, now you make me doubt myself.


@Albinosaurus

i agree the term casual is misleading, yet many players have already claimed the title casual then went on a rant on about how champions is making this game anti-fun and that they have already canceled their subs and leaving and so on. while others claim the title just to call others elitist's, and sure some players that are fine with u24 are acting it up a bit to much as are the players that dislike it and creating a bandwagon that really is nothing but static noise for the devs. and you arent wrong no new player have the funds to stack up on every important potion or even know what potions are important so why should the elite quests be a cake walk for them? there is a learning curve to every game and i sure as hell didn't learn it by the time i had rerolled my 5th toon.
what im seeing on these boards isn't the outrage of a large company of newbies, there are many very vocal guys that bombard almost every thread about the subject claiming that they speak for the masses of casuals. this thread is among the few that actualy have posters that give feedback among the many rants.

while i think the monster champion system needs some tweaks i dont think newbies will leave because of this, they will like we all have adapt to it and learn that a well placed web is king in the waterworks just like we did. it has been the norm for a long time that elite is what everyone runs be it solo or in a group hard or normal its not even a consideration except for the guys fresh of the boat. much of that is thanks to the power creep we have had in the last couple of years and introduction of BB, while almost every content have stayed more or less the same the entry bar into these quest modes have been removed. it isnt elitist to want elite to be what it was meant to be elite.

this game is also rather old and completely alienating what veteran player base that still exists is not a very healthy thing. introducing new mechanics to a old game is never a bad thing, people ranting all over the feedback thread throwing out empty threat's starting bandwagons is.

[Blastyswa]

No it doesn't. It's just a self-evident aspect of human nature, in the same way that choosing to wear gear instead of running naked isn't evidence of any flaws in the inventory system.

The point that I went on to make in my post was that that is the precise reason why we need to have the check-box, but with rewards for activating champions. People don't want to run quests without gear because it is pointless, though it would give the added difficulty that is asked for on many an occasion. People do not want to have champions because it is pointless, though it would give the added difficulty that is asked for on many an occasion. The fallacy in your example of the gear-less running, however, is that there wasn't an update that suddenly made all gear unable to be equipped; there was, however, an update that forced a new system with added difficulty but no rewards upon all players of the game. The rewards for champions should be made suitably high that the check-box for disabling them is not always used; if an option was made to make gear-less runs on quests, and it gave suitable reward to do so, then it would be a used feature. However, if update 25 disabled all gear, and in return you had a chance to gain trash loot, it would not be the best developer decision.