Monster Champion Feedback

[Kerria]

The scaling and dropping is messed up on them. A regular no name champion should not be able to take out a player who can stand toe to toe with a boss in elite and get by with self heals. Telling players to just play one normal will kill your customer base. We need want the favor rewards. If you want to keep new players who do not have the gear and the favor you need to find a way to allow elite play with out champions. Make champions a nightmare mod you must pick. So far the loot I have seen from killing them is not worth anything. Saw one named item drop for one party member after doing 8 quests? And when they can one shot you regardless of your buffs and gear for 1000 hp then have the second one hit you again. It sucks. I am not going to TR or run any low levels til you can fix this some how. Having party wipes will drive away players who have vested time and money in the game. New people will run even faster. Getting killed, loosing favor, and ending up giving up after so many wipes will make any one go look for something they feel they can win at.

[Sushiboat]

I will preface this by saying I'm in the camp that dislikes this idea, but I don't think I'll be too heavily impacted. Of course, I can definitely see some edge cases where (with the current implementation) I'll be frustrated to the point of rage quitting.

That said, I think it's great Turbine is looking for feedback to (hopefully) refine the system, there's two things I'm hoping Turbine might be able to answer relatively soon (while they work through all the feedback and figure out their plan of attack):

1. What's the logic behind this change and why did we choose to release in the current state?
   
   • Helping players, especially those unhappy with the change, understand why they are seeing this in the game might help a bit.
   • In particular, I'm confused on why adding additional and (more importantly) random variables to the equation was the approach selected to help balance player power against content difficulty (I seem to recall a dev post saying something to that extent)
   
   
2. What's the stance on making this optional?
   
   • For those players that want the status quo, this will essentially calm all their fears. For players that wanted content to be more difficult, they now have that option. But then if it's optional and nobody uses it, why is this even a thing?
   • I don't know what the right answer is, but looking to see if Turbine already has a set stance.
   • Given some of the outraged players, I think this might help those who are thinking of moving on make an informed decision without sinking more time in to the game with the false hope things might improve for them.

I think those questions would really help out most of the general forum-going population with an interest in this thread.

For me personally, though, I'm curious to know why Turbine chose to move this to live knowing it would polarize the community.

The Lamannia feedback made it readily apparent that this change would split the community. It also led to tons of mud flinging between both sides, and neither side really seems to be interested in understanding the concerns of the other side. Just curious why Turbine would intentionally upset the boat. It's been kind of fun watching people sling mud at each other, but I realize these are the same people I play with in-game, and I'd rather we not be at each others' throats all the time.

[BoBoDaClown]

A copy of a post I made elsewhere:

I love the changes. Adds challenge to EE. Epic Hard is still really easy, don't think our completion times changed by much at all, barely noticed the champions most of the time (almost all the helmed horrors in HH were chamions and that made that fight more fun - actually had to heal people...crazy). Didn't do the newest quests though.

That said...

Could add a checkbox to epic hard, then add an xp bonus for killing champions. I do understand that people who don't like this change find being asked to do normal hard to take, simply because of how normal easy is. Some kind of irony there. So they do need an easier mode that requires you to notice the monsters. (i.e. old epic hard).

Another options could be to change casual to normal (but remove the half xp), normal to old hard, hard/elite remain as they are. They can increase xp rewards - i don't want peoples xp penalised for running lower tiers than they are used to. However, I don't know if that would alienate some ultra casuals - I don't think I have ever met anyone who runs casual frequently. Certainly don't see it in the LFM.

Epic elite needs them, no checkbox... it's the hardest difficulty and had largely become a joke.

I really would like an xp bonus for killing champions.


p.s. don't reduce monsters' dps - that's where the challenge comes from. If there are monsters doing 4k a shot, that's over the top, but apart from that...

[Yalinaa]

Well, it seems like people still don't get it, these concerns, the exactly same problems and ideas (check box, etc.) was discussed in Lammania forums for like 20 pagers or so, and was TOTALLY IGNORED by the devs. So, good luck if you think they are listening. THEY DON'T!!

[phillymiket]

Adding champions in U24 isn't adding difficulty to an otherwise unchanging game. It's a rebalancing of the difficulty back to reasonable levels after many updates in a row of adding player power, which threw the balance off in the first place. Champions aren't an addition, they're a correction.

No.

No, they aren't.

They are a super-cheap, half-hearted, "easy-button", attempt at a correction for the mess of a game the Dev's have created in the last two years.

Sorry to state it so harsh.

DDO has been throwing out OP gear and player-powers for a good while now to sell content.

They care not one wit about game balance when it comes time to sell an expensive expansion, it's all about the bells and whistles to sell.

So I guess someone said, "Hey, I'll add an over-arching feature that randomly buffs random monsters already in our quests. I'll fix this by this afternoon."

Champions are fun (for me) but they correct nothing.

Don't think Champions will all of a sudden return this game to the Olden Golden days of balanced parties on Normal.

Don't think new players are going to suddenly band together and form their own guilds and LFMs to react to this.

Vets run the LFM board, they always have.

Elite will still be the norm for LFMs, I predict.

New People will... i don't know? I guess adapt, get better or quit.

I'm not much of a gambling man so i don't like that risk. Others clearly are fine with losing a few people.

Devs, bite the bullet and properly and re-balance your game again. Champs are fun and all, but re-balance nothing at the cost of <X> number of valuable players. Adjust them accordingly and turn Champs from a potential mistake to a clear winner move.

Edit - BTW

Have spawn rates gone down?

Yesterday morning 40-50% Champs, today more like the advertized 10%

Also, I finally got one-shot :-D

It was in "Foundations of Discord" Heroic Elite.

There were a few Dwarf Wizard Champs that were a little stronger, as usual, but this one in particular was just crazy powerful.

Zapped me with a Scorching Ray (of all things) that took me to dead from full even with resists and some MRR.

I ran back to the shrine, rez'ed, and charmed him to my side. None could stand against this one Champ mob. None.

Too bad I lost him before the boss.

So those claiming one-shots may be on to something.

I just think its a very rare bug.

Also, 0 chest in any quests...except... "Mired in Kobolds" had like 5 or 6 mini-boss champ chests. /shrug

[FeartheBow]

As the title states how do I do this. I am not coming back after this stunt by Turbine. I want to delete my entire account so that it cannot be hacked in the future.

[EllisDee37]

How about the following checkbox:

[ ] Monster champions, you get PRR and MRR
[ ] No Monster Champions, your PRR and MRR are set to 0 for this quest

Which would you choose?

[Zorzon]

OK. I do apreciate some extra dificulty in the game. But this monster champion thing just destroyed my new TR life leveling process. Every time I try to solo, I end up being destroyed by hordes of monster champions. It is okay when I face one or another, placed in the middle of an already saturated amount of trash mobs, but when 3 or 4 of them pile up, it is game over. I felt like playing Diablo, and had to face the one thing I most hated on that game. Please turbine, do something about it. It is really ruining my experience. I like the game being a little more defiant, but the way things were put into motion just were not the best way of doing it.

Everytime I think of logging into the game, I remember my latest experience with monster champion and feel glad I also have a LOTRO account, so that I have anything else to play until something is done on DDO to make it playable once again.

[Braegan]

Well I have posted, some of my thoughts read many others and have come to the conclusion, with everything I hear about the Champions against, and the few that like then which by the way seem to belittle those that don't. Come Monday my stock portfolio will be changing.

I can no longer accept the path the Dev's have taken in this game to make quest to a point only professional gamers can play (lack of a better work), and to get people to buy from the DDO store.

That happened In Wheloon, someone went spawn crazy and now how many people run it more than once.

So as stated I will be selling all my stock in TP's parent company WB. Some of you may think so what, how much can he have ? Well find out Monday, besides I have many friends that listen .

I too also base my decisions about how I handle my RL money transactions from the on goings of an MMO. I also like to shake a magic 8 ball to determine other important decisions I make IRL.

[Monkey-Boy]

As the title states how do I do this. I am not coming back after this stunt by Turbine. I want to delete my entire account so that it cannot be hacked in the future.

Give it a week, take a small break. They have historically adjusted this stuff whenever turbine overdoes a quest mechanic.

[lyrecono]

Ok so for those wanting a check box to enable champions here ya go:



First 2 options are no champions and last 2 options are with champions. See I fixed it for ya =)

nice try, we're all better of with the opt out check box, maybe a seperate elite only server for you 1% lot with a perma death clause
cause most of us are happy with our builds, it survived elite just right as it is, we never asked for this incompetent blanket buff system nor do we like it, we don't want to see the return of the "ranged dps only EE runs"
It ruined the game from U19 up till U23 a lot of people.

I wasn't trying to dis other players. I went in multiple times, ran into several packs of shaman champs, never saw the result talked about. Maybe I got lucky? I've also spent most of my time working on an ER and doing more epic quests like the new chain a few times, I also haven't seen the 8k crits there. That's what I was trying to get at. Was what happened to those few claiming this a rare buff? a bug? Because it is not every time.

WW or Butchers both have elite shaman, the shamans have the same spell set for n/h/e. I also went with something I could walk right into since I am not VIP and none of my characters are currently under 20 so I needed to get an opener.

Most level 4 characters can survive a 40 pt tick. Especially with some buffs available to the classes at that level or found in pots/wands.

My guild is a solo guild (lvl 59) with the lowest resist (highest available to me) providing a whole 5 to energy resistance.

Not trying to provide a strawman. Just pointing out in a lot of running through there I didn't encounter it. I did forget about scaling, true. How often have you encountered that buff to spells? As I said I didn't see it once, honestly I've spent more time in epics than in heroics as I am working on an ER atm. I also haven't seen the crazy high damage in epics. I did get smacked with a 1600~ hit from a garg in Terminal.

But hey, I am all for tweaking things and whatnot. First we'd have to determine if these crazy high hits are wai, a bug, a rare buff, etc before I can logically get on board with any kind of changes.

champions seem to get 2 to 7 random buff, that could ramp up their damage. the base damage goes up in a full part instead of a 2 man party. try a full party on a non evasion toon (to be sure)
some quottes from ddowiki:
Elite
Enemies are always a higher CR than on Hard, and have far higher statistics designed to challenge very well seasoned veteran parties.
Enemy spell casters often have more and higher level spells and sometimes even gain the Maximize feat

i have been playing all this saterday to test things out on heroics, i keep getting these type of results, guildies are reporting the same.
enemies gain too many hp, usualy double of that of the endboss, they do too much damage
tommorrow we'll start the lordsmach plaza and predict a lot of deaths due to champion orcs and caster hyena's
i'm realy starting to dread the evasion heavy quests like etk....
I also dread the loss of more people, again

[Sushiboat]

How about the following checkbox:

[ ] Monster champions, you get PRR and MRR
[ ] No Monster Champions, your PRR and MRR are set to 0 for this quest

Which would you choose?

If they wanted to go that route, wouldn't the obvious solution be to just re-scale PRR/MRR to more appropriate levels? Adding in random variables seems counter-intuitive to creating a system that's easier to balance.

[phillymiket]

As the title states how do I do this. I am not coming back after this stunt by Turbine. I want to delete my entire account so that it cannot be hacked in the future.

Don't do it, man!

Come on, we all know Turbine.

They make some huge crazy move then back off it when they realize their error.

Hopefully one day they'll learn and take a baby step then another if needed rather then start with the giant steps.

Ride it out a bit.

I'll bet my bippy they scale things back.

And if I'm wrong, well, i guess I lose my bippy and you leave the game - but, sriously, wait a second before such an over-reaction as deleting your account.

[Jomee]

Have spawn rates gone down?

Yesterday morning 40-50% Champs, today more like the advertized 10%

Von 3 , the room before the 3 named champions in each phase there was 4 or 5 champions in mobs size of 7-8 so I'd have to say no it's still 40%.

I normally love this quest but the frustration wasn't worth the xp.

edit: btw there were 0 chest drops.

[EllisDee37]

If they wanted to go that route, wouldn't the obvious solution be to just re-scale PRR/MRR to more appropriate levels? Adding in random variables seems counter-intuitive to creating a system that's easier to balance.

It was a rhetorical suggestion to highlight why we got champions in the first place.

As for adding random variables, isn't that the founding principle of D&D? Roll dice to determine your fate?

[Keladon]

How about the following checkbox:

[ ] Monster champions, you get PRR and MRR
[ ] No Monster Champions, your PRR and MRR are set to 0 for this quest

Which would you choose?

Easy: No monster champions, PRR & MRR = 0.

I just came back after a long break and they come up with this mess.
Questing was fun before Monster champions and PRR/MRR, these champions just add frustration.

Make them optional, some people seem to like them, so they can keep them. (Not that they will ofcourse, path of least resistance like someone said before)

[TechknowCat]

My point, which I may not have even mentioned in this thread (but did in the locked threads) is that the game has gotten easier by leaps and bounds with the past half-dozen or so updates. I don't even mean epic destinies; I mean day 1 wash up on the beach in Korthos the game is way easier than it ever was before. The biggest giant leap of easy was U23, with the Armor Up changes. Adding champions in U24 isn't adding difficulty to an otherwise unchanging game. It's a rebalancing of the difficulty back to reasonable levels after many updates in a row of adding player power, which threw the balance off in the first place. Champions aren't an addition, they're a correction.

I get the exact opposite from this thread. The ones that like it are saying things like "You can play on normal." The ones that don't like it are saying things like "The only people who like it are no-life losers who just want to exclude normal people." Far and away most of the insults and unflattering generalizations are coming from the anti-champion crowd.

I agree with you the game is a lot easier than it was in the past, and I think that's were the problem lies. people who would never have been able to play on the harder modes back in the day, are now because they made it too easy, really for both normal and hard. now buff hard mode to basically were it was before the easy button but leave normal mode the same, it leaves those players no place to go.

but seriously should 7 out of the 10 mobs in this group be champs (ok that only happened on a couple of my runs but my bum is still puckered after that LOL I will remember to take screen shot if it happens again) ? is that WAI on hard? I can see that on elite, but hard really?

and further more if I have to slog through 7 champs in a group I want a chest or some plat to cover my repairs something dammit!

[Keladon]

It was a rhetorical suggestion to highlight why we got champions in the first place.

As for adding random variables, isn't that the founding principle of D&D? Roll dice to determine your fate?

Random variables, sure, but luck being the deciding factor if you can complete a quest or not.. No thanks.

Rolling two 1's in a row isn't going to make me fail a quest, bumping into the wrong champion or group of champions might or even will.

[Xipify]

Yeah, it needs to be tweaked slightly but that's the reason you're asking isn't it? The idea is basically correct I think. It'll be easy to scale. Just increase or decrease the rate of champions. I fully expect there to be tweaks with every update having been through a number of them and not remembering a single one that didn't require 'tweaks'. Give my thanks to the folks working on the scenery in the wilderness (and quest) areas. Game's looking beautiful.

[Gizeh]

And that would be the direct result of my primary complaint against them: They take more time/resources and give nothing tangible to the player. "Challenge" isn't enough when everyone in the game is concerned with "efficiency." This is doubly true for 2nd life, and triple true for 3rd life and on.

The three best things they could do if they want to keep champs in the game:

1) Make them optional.

2) Add substantial rewards for defeating them. Exp and loot are the best ways, but other things may be acceptable.

3) Tone down the spawn rate and adjust the high end damage they can do.

I agree, except for point 2 - that one reminds of the discussions about epic difficulties:

First, players asked for a challenge, but once Turbine gave it to them by adding epic hard/elite, the players realized that epic elite was HARD and as a result demanded SPECIAL REWARDS. As a result, the players who were able to run EE had superior loot compared to what anyone who wasn't able to run EE could attain, and the gap between those groups widened even further.

Make champions optional, and let the players who want them fight them for the extra challenge, but the challenge itself should be the reward (bragging rights, more interesting quests). If you ask for an extra reward beyond that, then you're merely looking for extra loot and not for a challenge.