Monster Champion Feedback

[Impaqt]

Well, I know my 3 static groups run elite to 20 because its about twice the xp of hard.

Is it?

Is the difference literally double the XP? I actually havent doe th emath on that myself, but I find that hard to believe.

And even if it is.... Did it really take you exactly the same amount of time to run Elite as it did Hard?

And if it did. Doesnt that sound incredibly broken to you?

You actually need to ask this? Because, everyone needs the favor. Because I don't want to be level 20 before I get my second House K bank bag. Not sure you can even get it if you only run on normal. Because running on hard isn't that much better than running on elite when it comes to champions, so you end up having to run on normal.

thats exactly why I'm asking. People are complaining about the wrong thing here imo. Turbine does indeed strongly encourage the "Elite is Normal" attitude.
For this to work, Things like Bank and backpack space based favor rewards might need a look.

Running on normal doesn't give you the favor you need. Try getting 375 PDK favor to upgrade your weapons on normal. Try getting 400 Coin Lord or Silver Flame favor on normal. Etc, etc.

400 Coin Lord favor is hardly exciting. Its a flavor reward. which I find appropriate. the lower tiers might need an adjustment still though. and PKD? bah. hardly a necessary reward. I literally have NEVER used my 375 PDK favor.

So if champions make it impossible to run on hard or elite unless you're way over level (see screen shot in post #858 where a level 4 quest has a boss with well over 1200 HP), there's no point in having a VIP subscription.

huh? come on. first time open on elite is NOT the only reason to subscribe.

Lot's of VIP's are going to be canceling their subscriptions over this, assuming they don't leave the game entirely.

no. Lots of people may make grand claims that they will quit... be we all know the actually perentage of people that will leave is significantly lower.

Regardless...... actual FEEDBACK on the changes rather than rage quitting is what the devs need. anyone who just called it quits already, was just looking for an excuse to leave the game anyway.

[phillymiket]

Well, right off the bat, if a level 2 sorc picks up an ML2 thamaturgy staff with an appropriate lore, he already has a 16% chance to crit without spending a single AP: 11% from gear, 5% from magical training.

If we're talking about when Blackheart was new, dps spells are cheaper to cast thanks to the spell pass. (Niac's Cold Ray went from 10 sp to 4 sp, for example.)

Today's sorc gets SLAs with free metamagics starting at level 1 (!) thanks to the enhancement pass.

You get echoes of power. Add this to SLAs and you get, for example, unlimited maximized burning hands. (2 sp per cast with 16% crit chance!)

If all else fails and you master's touch a greataxe, it is way, way, way easier for the sorc to actually hit an enemy thanks to the new to-hit formula.


Would you like more examples? This was just off the top of my head.

What are the chances of pulling a Thamaturgy staff with an appropriate lore on Korthos? .0001%? Should they use the Korthos AH that doesn't exist?

They do a get a cheaper acid splash so i guess that's something, but i see you already assigned them the 16% crit from the staff they are "sure to pull".

Echoes, eh?

Using Master's Touch and a Great Axe is completely counter-intuitive and not something that would occur to a new spell caster.

So you got a cheaper SLA and echos.

I take you up on your offer and ask for more ways a brand new player is better off these days then they were when there was a vibrant, helpful player base running low-difficulty content on a regular basis to show them the ropes and group with.

[Gratch]

EH soloed an L26-27 character through all 5 sagas in Eveningstar this weekend. Really liked that the champion system changes things up a little. Removes the complete lack of randomness from quests. Adds some loot. Ran some EE's in group. So far I really like the change and that there's change to all the old quests.

Did not run Terminal Delirium or Haunted Halls and heard from a number of guildies that some mobs in heroic have gone crazy nuts (600 damage from heroic GH giants?). So obviously it needs ironing out in places though I also heard a lot of people and some guildies who want it removed or say it's too tough.

Just adding a tally for the "Like it, Fix it, but don't remove it side" for Cordovan.

[Aletys]

Not to argue with you, but just to point out... You don't have to do the quest at Level to get the favor...

Just Running quests on Normal can get you to 20. you can then go back and run many quests on Elite for Favor. There are Some quests such as Stealthy Repossession that I usually skip until such time as I can run it with a red alert and not worry... 3000 favor is actually very simple to achieve using this method. If you have a Lvl 15-20 character that has problems running an Elite Waterworks, even with the champion system, there is deeper problems than the champion system...

I don't mind doing a few quests more than once. But every single darn quest in the game? You have got to be joking. I absolutely hate some of those quests. That will make this game a grind, not fun. Further, on normal, those quests are not a challenge, not at all interesting. Why bother? So again, no reason to play the game. I have better things to do with my time. That's why I got VIP, so I didn't have to run on the lower difficulties before I could do elite. But, if that's no longer an option, then VIP will be cancelled. And, since I won't have most of the paks anymore, then well, I won't be playing at all. So I also won't be buying anything in the store.

Bottom line, Turbine will lose another paying customer.

[Seikojin]

I don't mind doing a few quests more than once. But every single darn quest in the game? You have got to be joking. I absolutely hate some of those quests. That will make this game a grind, not fun. Further, on normal, those quests are not a challenge, not at all interesting. Why bother? So again, no reason to play the game. I have better things to do with my time. That's why I got VIP, so I didn't have to run on the lower difficulties before I could do elite. But, if that's no longer an option, then VIP will be cancelled. And, since I won't have most of the paks anymore, then well, I won't be playing at all. So I also won't be buying anything in the store.

Bottom line, Turbine will lose another paying customer.

Let me get this straight: You want to be able to walk in elite, first life, lootgen, and stand still while spamming attack/spell and win every time? Because that sounds like what you are asking for.

[Ironforge_Clan]

Simply make every mob a champion. It isn't like this game is hard or anything. It is good to have a challenge.

[DragonMageT]

I don't mind doing a few quests more than once. But every single darn quest in the game? You have got to be joking. I absolutely hate some of those quests. That will make this game a grind, not fun. Further, on normal, those quests are not a challenge, not at all interesting. Why bother? So again, no reason to play the game. I have better things to do with my time. That's why I got VIP, so I didn't have to run on the lower difficulties before I could do elite. But, if that's no longer an option, then VIP will be cancelled. And, since I won't have most of the paks anymore, then well, I won't be playing at all. So I also won't be buying anything in the store.

Bottom line, Turbine will lose another paying customer.

I wonder if people actually read what they have written before actually posting.

I am guessing not!

[ForwardWu]

I do agree that DDO is not very challenging game now, it needs improvement.

However, making difficulty of heroic elite all scaled up is not a challenge, it is a punishment, or obstacle to current new players or casual players.

Difficulty of a game not always translate into challenge and fun, it needs better game design and stepping up from low level quest to lv 20 quests. It is so stupid to see a shaman casting one lightning blot to kill 2 or 3 members at DDO 2014. It wont even happens when the game is at DDO 2006 when we are playing the quest "Survive the Low Road".

So, be honest to yourself, how much are you really affected by the implementation, especially for those who doing e-tr, playing lv 28 maxed toon, heroic tr-ing with static vets, etc.

If, this group of people, cannot imagine how this implementation affect others, I have a suggestion.
Remove the Epic Destiny and only active when toons are at lv 28.
See how it will affect gaming experience between level 20-28. All epic quests are still playable but much slower.

[gaffneyks]

Just wanted to pop into the thread to let folks know that we are still reading and processing through what has become an extremely large amount of feedback. We want to give this system and the feedback time to cook and develop, rather than make knee-jerk reactions to a new system, so please continue to play with it a bit and let us know how things progress.

That said, we do see some large areas of feedback that we are looking into, including overall spawn rates, the number of mini-bosses who show up as champions, and whether there should be some development work to further differentiate Heroic and Epic difficulty spawn rates and Champion power, among other things.

For those who aren't aware, the current in-game reward system for Champions is temporary; we've already been working on a reward system for Champions that we expect to debut sometime fairly soon (either patch or Update.)

Thanks, much appreciated!

Thanks Cordovan for the quick response.

I played this weekend and tried to see if I could "enjoy it" but at the end I realized It just created a new level of Grind i was not interested in participating in.

I just cancelled my VIP Subscription.

You post shows me that Turbine plans to ram Champions down the throats of those of use who do not want them, not really into paying for what I do not want.

Just one less player in a dwindling fan base.

Thanks for you time.

[EllisDee37]

I take you up on your offer and ask for more ways a brand new player is better off these days then they were when there was a vibrant, helpful player base running low-difficulty content on a regular basis to show them the ropes and group with.

Okay:

Ship buffs are stronger now, and plentiful. With no more renown decay they can more easily get invited to join, because why not? No more having to establish yourself before a larger guild will risk the decay to extend an invite.

Named gear got stronger in heroic levels. There was an entire pass to make most heroic items stronger when augments went live. (Whirlwind, etc...) Heck, they even added a bodyfeeder weapon to the end reward for collaborator.

Named gear got WAY easier to acquire now that most of it is guaranteed to appear in every 3rd list. (Carnifex, etc...)

As for a thaumaturgy staff, I was assuming just buy one in the auction house and tailor your savant tree to whichever is most suited to the staff. But if you say they have to pull one, then fine: The very first T-Staff you pull that has an element on it (as opposed to devotion, nullification, etc...) choose that as your primary savant. Done.

[Ironforge_Clan]

I don't mind doing a few quests more than once. But every single darn quest in the game? You have got to be joking. I absolutely hate some of those quests. That will make this game a grind, not fun. Further, on normal, those quests are not a challenge, not at all interesting. Why bother? So again, no reason to play the game. I have better things to do with my time. That's why I got VIP, so I didn't have to run on the lower difficulties before I could do elite. But, if that's no longer an option, then VIP will be cancelled. And, since I won't have most of the paks anymore, then well, I won't be playing at all. So I also won't be buying anything in the store.

Bottom line, Turbine will lose another paying customer.

Buh-bye (and keep your stuffs I don't wants it)!

[DragonMageT]

Simply make every mob a champion. It isn't like this game is hard or anything. It is good to have a challenge.

You must provide more details....

Do we get a check box with that ?
Do we get a new server just for those quests ?

Can Paladins have Holy sword like it was if said changes are put in place ?

Details man, we need more details, it may influence my vote.

[Aletys]

I dislike the idea of a "No Champions" checkbox. It's a lot like saying "Here, we made the game slightly more difficult, but it doesn't need to be if you just click this box right here."

Meh. I like having a smooth, no-death run as much as the next guy, but easy runs should be the result of good teamwork and preparation, not because the game is easy.

Edit: I don't believe Turbine's current game designers think like DMs... but that's just my opinion based on what I've seen of most quests after (but not including) House Cannith enclave appeared in the game. I.E. They don't seem to want to play tricks on us.

Yeah, but when even with a party all you get is wipes, or it takes you 3x as long to complete, or it takes multiple tries to complete, it's not fun anymore. This is based on heroics at level, btw.

I haven't had as much trouble on the very few epic quests I've run since U24 came out, but I also haven't run any epics on elite since U24, only a few on EH, & I was over level for about half or those.

[Ironforge_Clan]

You must provide more details....

Do we get a check box with that ?
Do we get a new server just for those quests ?

Can Paladins have Holy sword like it was if said changes are put in place ?

Details man, we need more details, it may influence my vote.

Voting? It doesn't matter since it is all rigged anyway. Voting is only so the masses think their voice actually means anything.

To answer your questions (seriously)...

No...you don't deserve one.
No...the hamster is already on its last life.
No...geez you don't get any easy buttons.

[Thrudh]

I don't know what happened either as I never experienced anything like some are saying here on Lama. I wont dismiss that its possible that Champions are probably a little wonky when updating over to Live. I mean, we have epic mobs in heroic Orchard still but die like heroic mobs. ive run many quests from 15-19 and still not seeing these high damage numbers or insanely high mob hp numbers. every chance I get to hard target a Champion in my group before its killed too quickly I check their hp if I have it unlocked and check their buffs. im seeing mobs with hp maybe a couple K higher than trash mobs and the damage they deal isn't too hard. I ran elite Weapons Shipment with a group and I was attacked by a couple Champions continuously at once with the waves and got dangerously low on health but never died. caster in the group was dancing them with trash mobs and using some kind of AOE acid practically insta killing them. orange names in quests don't feel any different to me either.

I feel like the guy that says there is no lag in DDO.

Heh, welcome to my world.

I've only run a few quests (about 10), all on EH solo (including all the stormhorns quests, which are mildly challenging anyway), and have had zero problems with any champions. A couple of them hit hard (maybe 200-400), but no one "one-shotted" me, and since I mostly just went for them first, they never lived long enough to do me any lasting harm.

I see zero problems with champions so far, in my limited testing.

[DragonMageT]

Voting? It doesn't matter since it is all rigged anyway. Voting is only so the masses think their voice actually means anything.

To answer your questions (seriously)...

No...you don't deserve one.
No...the hamster is already on its last life.
No...geez you don't get any easy buttons.

But, But, But. Fine, you don't care about my enjoyment or my play style

I vote No

[arkonas]

Hehe, me too.

I ran at least a half a dozen characters up to level 10 or 12 and would re-roll and try again before I stepped a foot into "end game".

My first GS took longer then it would take me to collect every single new non-raid named item since the expansion.

Here's the difference... It was a shared experience.

We were all in the trenches swinging our +2 Great Axe of Pure Good.

95% of the LFMs weren't Elite speed runs.

So it was actually fun.

We have this idealized memory of DDO from back in the day.

We think if a new person has to run Normal now it will be just like it was for us when we ran Normal.

It won't. They will be alone. The game has moved on.

"Normal" offers ZERO challenge anymore, even for a new person.

The game can't go from ZERO challenge to TOO MUCH with no in-between for our new players.

(and yes, I know, we all could roll a new toon on a new server and be fine with our Meta-knoiwledge. But not the guy without knowledge of how to build a effective character)

If I started playing back then and all the LFMs were Elite with these OP Super-TRs blasting through them and I couldn't handle it and was forced to do Normal as it stands now, I would not be here, I'd have quit.

Refusing to see the obvious flaws in this system in some bid to return the game to it's former glory is silly.

Desire to return the game doesn't actually solve anything, nor does Champions. We'd have to fix a whole lot more to even begin to return to balanced parties on Normal.

As it stands, for Heroic questing, we are trading a whole lot of game options for the next generation of DDO players for a slight bit of extra amusement for vets while they blow through another TR.

Bad Trade.

Epic Champions and Heroic Elite Champions are enough, leave the new folks exploring Korthos the Hard setting at least.

I mean, do any of you who want Champions to stay as is even play on Heroic Hard?

yet again you're only talking about your experience and no one elses. i have ran with 2 of my guildmates who have been playing for 2 years and 3 years. first one has never had a toon higher then 16. i saw them struggling on a first life toon in sleeping dust on normal. so please don't tell me they aren't. this person was a very casual player. they have ran elites as well. i don't know what type of experience they had there. i didn't ask. they couldn't find their way out of rainbow's first tunnel. i even saw them take over a hour in rainbow. i have no idea if they even completed. So please stop speaking for all new players like you know each one. 2nd one was a tr who struggled with quests and died a lot. yes he got carried through quests. still didn't mean he was happy. he constantly said how much his toon sucked and he couldnt do a lot of quests.

my friend just returned after 2 years. had a great rogue when cap was 20. i saw him dying on eh. yes before and after champions. now there is a difference between him and the other 2 mentioned above. he has a better grasp on the game then they did. it wasn't new. he wasn't running around naked either. was not a tr. just first life. he still died, but he had a lot of fun. he knew his toons needed gear and was loving the changes. not one time did i hear him complain. Yet again a different person so different personality. so 2 guildmates and 1 friend all have different views. sometimes we think we know what is best but we really don't.

want to know why new players are doing elite? its the only groups you see up normally. want to know why most my not do their own? their scared that they might not hold their own or **** someone off because of their style. its the same reason most vets don't host a group either. there are a ton of people that will never lead a group. same principle. new or vet. nor does everyone of them have friends when they start. sometimes its just solo. the 2 guildmates i mentioned solo then eventually they were talked into joining us. months later they still didn't join us grouping.

i just people would leave normal alone for the new/casual/ speed runs. leave it be. hard and elite is for everyone else.

[Pikeman]

Now that Update 24 is out, and clearly there's a lot of community interest in discussing the new Monster Champion system, we thought it would be a good idea to consolidate the large number of threads on this topic into an official thread. Please run some quests, give it a bit of time, and provide us with your feedback on the Monster Champion system.

We have seen a lot of feedback that appears to be tilted toward Terminal Delerium in particular. It should be noted that Terminal Delerium is an Extreme Challenge dungeon, so particularly if you are running it on Epic Elite, it may not be the best quest to singularly evaluate Monster Champions on. That said, we do appreciate all of your feedback on this topic, regardless of what quest(s) are being used to evaluate the system.

Thanks!

You asked for feedback, here's mine:

I like the idea of the champions. It is very much in line with some ideas that I posted long ago. I think it is silly to have champions for mob-types that are non sentient, but for most everything else I think it makes sense that there should be some variety between mobs in a pack. This reflects how each mob is an individual, with unique stats, gear, training, etc. Also, I've long thought it was strange that there were certain key abilities (fort, deathblock/ward, etc) that players pick up as soon as it is possible (low heroic levels), but we see epic mobs (even epic mobs of player races) without them. The introduction of champions starts to address this issue, at least in a limited way, as well. Bravo. My only other suggestion is to get rid of the crowns. Do not ID the champions at all.

That said, understand that I've devoted all of my play time over the past year+ to a single character, a PM wizard. He just went from awesome-sauce to less than mediocre. So I've stopped playing and dropped my sub while I decide whether I want to invest the time to rebuild him as something else, or maybe just quit.

So, like my post title says. Nice job, devs, but you really can't win.

[Ironforge_Clan]

But, But, But. Fine, you don't care about my enjoyment or my play style

I vote No

You misunderstand and wound me with your comments. I care very much about your enjoyment and play style. Unfortunately the fact remains the people that make the game and the Trolls they listen to don't. As I stated previous it doesn't matter whether you vote no or yes...

[Powerhungry]

Is it?
Is the difference literally double the XP? I actually havent doe th emath on that myself, but I find that hard to believe.
And even if it is.... Did it really take you exactly the same amount of time to run Elite as it did Hard?
And if it did. Doesnt that sound incredibly broken to you?

First time quest on elite +80%
First run entering on elite +20%
Elite bravery bonus (up to) +50%
That's +150% to base exp (and base exp will be higher on elite than on normal).
Plus most vet players will have a +50% exp tome for a total of +200% bonus to base exp.
So +200% is actual triple, not double the base exp - that's why bravery bonus is so important to the TR grind...