Monster Champion Feedback

[Powerhungry]

And for a party that has some that like champions, and some that dont, the checkbox works just how?

Same as difficulty level- locked in (on/off) by the person that enters

[FeartheBow]

Monster Champions only have a chance to have True Seeing and/or Deathward. Some Champions won't have either one. We certainly expect players to use instant kill abilities on many Champions.

The exact chances to have True Seeing and Deathward are, of course, subject to change. We didn't want these to be very low, as that also reduces the tactical variety that's used -- not every champion should be instant killed or entirely invis-zerged past.



This sounds like confirmation that the current percentage is probably working correctly. If you felt there were 40 out of 400 normal monsters (plus extra for the higher chance for orange named minibosses), that's precisely 10%, which is only slightly higher than the intended amount.


We don't expect brand new players to be playing Heroic Elite most of the time.


Stealth is unaffected by True Seeing.



Each of the buffs listed here is already in the list of the possibilities. We agree!

New players don't play Heroic Elite Huh?????? Well it's kind of hard NOT to when that's all that's in the LFG's elite elite elite. Besides that there is the Bravery Bonus that adds like what +80% to your XP? Who in their right mind wouldn't want to run Elite so they could level faster. Anyways great job on destroying the game. I have decided to quit and go to world of warcraft and yes you can have my stuff and keep the $80.75 I spent on this stupid game just last week..........good bye

[Blackheartox]

New players don't play Heroic Elite Huh?????? Well it's kind of hard NOT to when that's all that's in the LFG's elite elite elite. Besides that there is the Bravery Bonus that adds like what +80% to your XP? Who in their right mind wouldn't want to run Elite so they could level faster. Anyways great job on destroying the game. I have decided to quit and go to world of warcraft and yes you can have my stuff and keep the $80.75 I spent on this stupid game just last week..........good bye

Have fun with enemies that have 10000000000000000000000000000000000000k hp bars

[Vanhooger]

Have fun with enemies that have 10000000000000000000000000000000000000k hp bars

Here we're not that far dude

[HAL]

We don't expect brand new players to be playing Heroic Elite most of the time.

Then you are not paying attention to the reality of the game.

Ever since you introduced bravery bonus anyone that wants to run in a group has to run on elite.

Maybe your hope is champions will change this, but that is going to take some time and I suspect many new people will give up and leave before that time comes.

This. And there are new players who are joining vet guilds / groups. We have 2 newer players in my static groups. Are Vets supposed to run content on Normal to make up for new players? Or maybe the Devs are trying to discourage vet groups from taking new players even less than they already do!

[HAL]

Pretty much destroys the permadeath concept when mobs can one shot critical damage, but so be it, it will likely kill permadeath style altogether, that will be the end of my ddo gaming as it happens.

Yet another playstyle choice deleted. Thanks devs.

[Giorgakis]

The only error was not to add a simple checkbox.

You want more challenge/loot? Tick checkbox.

You want to run as you did before U24? Do not tick the checkbox.

Done.

If you do this all the whiners about champion gone.

I think that Vanhooger's suggestion would be for the best of the game after my experience running solo or duo Epic Elite Quests with my Paladin after Update 24. Crowned mobs hit far to hard and sometimes they have true seeing and in some cases they are as challnenging as end bosses, althouth they have far less hitpoints, and you usually have to fight end bosses without any more additional monsters to add to the incoming damage you have to deal with. Epic Elite is pretty challenging as it for most characters and builds. Lots of past lives, heroic and epic, good gear and a good build allowed some of the players to be able to solo EE content but that was not the case for most people. Not everyone has an op self heal like Lay on Hands and the Bladeforged's Communion of Scribing and not everyone has displacement clickies and a lot of PRR/MRR. Things turned upside down now with the champion monsters. EE is hard to solo now for people who previously could and EH might be too much to solo for an average player without the best gear, strong self healing and dps. I won't bother with hirelings since they tend to die every once in a while even on EH. Not everyone want's to wait for a full balanced group to do a few quests and I thought those days where over. In my opinion champion monsters should be made optional since there are people who already liked them because they previously found the game too easy. For most players it wasn't easy the way it used to be prior to the update. For the few that they want to step up their game make them available with the tick box on the quest window and increase the xp gain and loot or something to make it worthwhile.

[redoubt]

We don't expect brand new players to be playing Heroic Elite most of the time.

Who do you expect them to play with?

I don't put up lfms that are not on the elite difficulty. I doubt many vets do.

Do you think a lot of new players put up lfms?

[caberonia]

Who do you expect them to play with?

I don't put up lfms that are not on the elite difficulty. I doubt many vets do.

Do you think a lot of new players put up lfms?

New players are supposed to solo normal and casual til they get 12 or 13 TRs under their belt then they can party.

[HAL]

Hey DEVS,

Can you not see the general theme of the responses here!!!!!

All the UBER I am soooo epic guys, say they love it because they think that they are in some rat race and hope others wont catch up!

And then,

There are the others who generally just dont care and have no interest in catching up to the said above UBERS, they just want to play the game and enjoy it, these folk are saying leave it in Epic Elite Content or give them a choice to play with Champions or not!

Seems pretty simple!!!

/Signed if you agree

I definitely would prefer that Champions be an option.

[mutilador]

EE mobs do enough damage already.

Champions don't need damage boost.

This is a nerf for all melee classes.

The ppl having fun are casters players as always.

[redoubt]

Buffing 30-50% of the mobs is just a buff to the mobs. Its not a "champion system". If you want a system that reflects the occasional champion amongst the bad guys consider this:

1. Catagorize the buffs:
-- offensive - 50% fort bypass, TS, 2x damage, vorpal, etc
-- defensive - +50 to 100% fort, displacement, +50 to one energy resist
-- party - bard song damage boost, haste, mass heal (to include long cast time)

2. Set the rate by level (no named):
-- normal: 1% of mobs
-- hard: 2%
-- elite: 3%

3. Set the buff rate:
-- normal: one buff
-- hard: two buff (not from same category
-- elite: three buffs (one from each.)

4. Set auto drop reward from ALL champions (make champions worth killing or don't bother putting them in the game.)
-- each champion is worth xx% of base xp. (5-10?)
-- XP capped characters get: commendations, heart seeds, tokens of the 12, astral shards... something worth actually getting.

[Lantander]

This "feature" seems tailor-made to drive away players and anyone who doesn't have a dozen ETRs under their belt. Some of the people posting on this thread may have been bored in their 30th run-through on Elite through all quests, but that isn't a reason to add in "fun" sudden death and party wipes for everyone - without any additional rewards. And even if more champions had chests - trading almost guaranteed player deaths for some "precious" random trash loot is short-sighted at best.

We have (or had) quests with a more or less well-laid pacing... now it's just gambling if the one monster that already was very deadly gets a crown and kills a whole group for sure.

[Qezuzu]

-Champions are currently too common

-Champions should be much rarer in hard and epic hard difficulties, and heroic elite difficulties, or the buffs in those difficulties should be toned down. I know that you "don't expect" new players to be running elite/hard but with the climate of Bravery Bonus, that's what they're going to be doing if they want to group with most players.

-Champions should reward XP upon kill. Something like 50 x [quest level]. CHANCE at trash loot from ORANGE NAMES ONLY is garbage, I don't have the inventory space and most champions are not orange name in the first place.

-The damage buff is too much and too common. I looked at every champion's buffs in multiple EE quests and virtually 100% of them had it, most of them exclusively having damage buff. It should be reduced to 2x normal or so, and more interesting things like "Absorb Slash" (not DR against slash, literally heal from slashing attacks) or "Reflect Fire Spells" would make this a much better system, as opposed to "CC me or kill me in three seconds or else I'll two-shot you!"

-ALL buffs should come with weaknesses. Stuff like reduced [will, fort, or reflex] save, weakness to [element] or [physical damage type,] weakness to [tripping, stunning,] etc.

-The bypass fortification buff should bypass 100% of, but not entirely negate, fortification

-Buffs should be able to be dispelled by Disjunction and the like, or nerfed (e.g. damage buff gets reduced from 3x to 1.5x)

-Anti-caster/archer buffs should be more common. Melee mobs that do massive damage to melee players are far more common than any buffs that hinder players who can kite+attack. Stuff like deflect arrows, mantle of invulnerability, and heal from [element.]

[Sam1313]

We had 6 new people to the game in our reserve guild on cannith, U24 comes out and last night me and a few others from the main guild log in to run some quest with the new players since we was all on at the same time. After getting wiped out in a heroic elite quest in the Red Fens 3 of those 6 new players logged out and deleted their characters all at the same time. I tried to explain to these guys that this should not had happened that the Champions was to my understanding only suppose to appear in epic hard and epic elite. I think a few of them understood but the 3 that ended up deleting their characters had stated to me that there was no point in trying to continue to play the game because when they are not running with me or any of the main guilds officers that the game is just right down too hard for them even on heroic hard. 2 of the 3 was free to play and couldn't open elite and said there was no point in continuing on because they can only play when I run with them due to them having a bravery bonus now and they don't want to break that and lose the xp from having a elite bb. The guy that posted above (Fearthebow) was one of those players who logged out and deleted his character.

Now my own personal experience with the Champions in Epic levels. Ok I used to Solo with a hire Epic Elite, after U22 That seemed too hard for some reason. So I went to running Epic Hard with Garret the sainted placed at the entrance just in case. NOW with the introduction of the champions it looks as if I will be FORCED to run Epic Normal. I have a level 28 Human Arcane Archer that ran Devils Assault on Epic Elite last night with the Hire Garret the Sainted. That character BARELY made it through that quest alive due to the champions. Now I also have a level 25 Human Arcane Archer that has 5 past heroic lives as a AA Ranger so he is supposed to be getting a +6 to bow damage and attack (I seriously doubt this though) this character has all the best gear in the game (he is my Champion) even he had a difficult time completing some eveningstar quests last night because of these champions. I am not complaining about them, but seriously my time is very limited and if I sit down to run a quest and spend 35 minutes in a quest just to wipe out then I consider that a waste of time. That is BS.

[Stonemerge]

btw what's so wrong about normal? i'm no spring chicken, and still sometimes i run normal when i don't think i can handle harder difficulties.

Nothing is wrong with epic normal (I will onehit kill everything and the mob cannot hit me - ehard fits more to my playstyle)


but there is something wrong with heroics now


i.e.

preU24:
i am lvl 18 - so i play lvl16-quest on elite for BB - i.e. "Rainbow in the Dark"
Base XP 9000 +
80% 1st time bonus + 50 % BB Bonus + 30 % Traps + 25 % Conquest + 15 % Ransack + 8 % Vigilant + 10% Persistence + 10% Flawless + 50% GreaterTome 1st

43.725 XP (miscalculation possible )

but i cant play heroic epic anymore - im not so uber, im not so masochistic
there are no groups at my play time; if there are groups, they r selective or play hard diff
and i dont want to lose my streak (maybe i would find a group later and the bonus is so high and the number is so nice: Elite streak - 4132 or so)


what can i do, i play hard without breaking my streak - lvl18-3 is 15 - "Missing" hard

Base XP 5700 +

40% 1st time bonus + 0 % BB Bonus + 10 % Traps + 10 % Aggression + 15 % Ransack + 10% Persistence + 10% Flawless + 50% GreaterTome

16.672 XP

but because i need to repeat those quests its more likely a (no firstime bonus - Tome only 20%)

10.600 XP

I need to do lower quests to not break my streak now and i need to run them 3 or 4 times (repeats on the next day for daily bonus and the next day and the next day) - all of them ... PreU24 i was just doing elite quests once per life - now i need to do the same stuff 3 times - boring - i know, we did this all the years ago - but i was glad, that i didnt needed this anymore - OR i buy Superior XP Pots and Stones of Experience in the DDO Store




Plz no champs in heroics - only in epic elite quests - thx

[redoubt]

A point of data for the Devs from one players:

90% of my play time is spent with at least one guild mate. The three characters I am currently playing are all in set groups. Depending on which combo of guild mates is on, we play a set of characters together. Non of our groups have a healer. All have a trapper.

We run heroic elite and EH for leveling. Lately I've been able to get them to run EE as well. Getting them to run EE ended last night. Two of my guild mates I was running with logged out yesterday very frustrated and mad at the game. I do not expect them to be willing to run EE with me again for a long time. This is disappointing.

On the topic of pushing down to lower difficulties. Each life I do requires 3.8 + 6.6 mil xp (10.4mil xp) We have always run one and done. With streak you can do that easily in heroic elite and nearly so in epic with a mix of EE and EH. I did TR2s back before streak and it was a long slog. My guild mates didn't do it with me because it was more than they wanted to grind. Getting streak fixed that, they TR with me now. If we get pushed back down into less streak bonus and the time per life goes up significantly, this will end as well.

Again, this is one persons opinion (others may speak for themselves).

[redoubt]

-Champions are currently too common

-Champions should be much rarer in hard and epic hard difficulties, and heroic elite difficulties, or the buffs in those difficulties should be toned down. I know that you "don't expect" new players to be running elite/hard but with the climate of Bravery Bonus, that's what they're going to be doing if they want to group with most players.

-Champions should reward XP upon kill. Something like 50 x [quest level]. CHANCE at trash loot from ORANGE NAMES ONLY is garbage, I don't have the inventory space and most champions are not orange name in the first place.

-The damage buff is too much and too common. I looked at every champion's buffs in multiple EE quests and virtually 100% of them had it, most of them exclusively having damage buff. It should be reduced to 2x normal or so, and more interesting things like "Absorb Slash" (not DR against slash, literally heal from slashing attacks) or "Reflect Fire Spells" would make this a much better system, as opposed to "CC me or kill me in three seconds or else I'll two-shot you!"

-ALL buffs should come with weaknesses. Stuff like reduced [will, fort, or reflex] save, weakness to [element] or [physical damage type,] weakness to [tripping, stunning,] etc.

-The bypass fortification buff should bypass 100% of, but not entirely negate, fortification

-Buffs should be able to be dispelled by Disjunction and the like, or nerfed (e.g. damage buff gets reduced from 3x to 1.5x)

-Anti-caster/archer buffs should be more common. Melee mobs that do massive damage to melee players are far more common than any buffs that hinder players who can kite+attack. Stuff like deflect arrows, mantle of invulnerability, and heal from [element.]

Good points. What is sad is that this was all discussed on the lama forums. And for the, what update is this? 24? And for the 24th time...

the feedback was ignored.

[FAQ]

I've had some contact with champions so far and it seems like an interesting concept but I have some suggestions:

1) Number of champions. No way is the chance correctly set at 10% for regular mobs. From my experience and from all the reports on forums. Tone down the number of champions that spawn.

2) Champion buffs. I do not know if they already are (and I have not tested it), but please consider this: make them dispellable. This would be an interesting option for casters to actually slot dispel and disjunction. Got a tough mini-boss with some nasty buffs, use dispel to try and get some off. This would be an interesting option for using tactics (instead of the current state of 'DPS is king and BYOH'). But I must stress, DO NOT EQUATE MONSTER CR WITH CASTER LEVEL FOR THE BUFFS. Set the caster level for buffs at the QUEST LEVEL.

3) Automatic guild renown: if you want champions to be tough, reward accordingly. All champions should award guild renown when killed.

4) The damage buff: is it correct that champions deal 3x normal mob damage? If so, IMO, that is incompatible with the current spawn rate and will only push builds back toward ranged. Lower the spawn rate and keep damage as is or vice-versa.

Just my 2cp. But please really consider option number 2.

[janave]

After running almost all base lvl 6-7 (+2ebb) quests with the m.champions, i think at least the early heroics need treatment, and maybe adjust in steps of lvl4s, as it is a common pattern for gear update too!

This would optimally take my earlier suggestion with it, that is to slow down enemy movement rate on lower levels, to give room for players to move around and position their characters, oozes with several 100s hps overrunning hasted characters is not funny. 2240HPs on a skeleton archer in one of the base lvl7 deleras quest was really surprising too, i quoted into party chat since i have the monster manual perk, and everyone had the same reaction .

Some stuff due to the buffs both moves and hits like a truck, i seen spell damage over 350points on my lvl8 wizard, and physical damage over 100pts. The latter was often paired with 30 something light damage, this is just too much in the early heroics to be fun, being on the edge is fun, but having no chance to react is just disappointing.The numbers we are now seeing in early heroics were something we previously seen only in lvl20+ Epic Hard quests. I remember when getting hit in Amrath Elites for 60pts melee damage was a thing, now in lvl7 quests we get hit for 100+dmg.

Its a very cool idea, but needs some tweaks with a gradually increasing approach vs flat boosts.

I dont think further cc immunity is needed, since many subtype of cc immunity is already in place, such as those immune to mind affecting spells and so on.

Lastly, yes pls try to make chests to be less likely to float mid air.

-Anti-caster/archer buffs should be more common. Melee mobs that do massive damage to melee players are far more common than any buffs that hinder players who can kite+attack. Stuff like deflect arrows, mantle of invulnerability, and heal from [element.]

Very much the above, i sorta had that feeling it will be most punishing to melee range characters as nearly every challenge before. Add more elemental absorbs, and super ac/dodge vs arrows.

On a wizard i find plenty of tools to deal with champions, i throw webs, i dominate them to take advantage of their buffs, instakill em, and if i just get tired ..put em hapless and nuke em from orbit .