Monster Champion Feedback

[diasho2]

^^^ this

Here's some tips:

1) I see you don't have a single PL stance active
- I'd go with 3x brace for the PRR, 3x Ench Weap for DPS, 3x Fort (switch to dbl strike later), 3x Colors of the Queen.
- Did you have your 3x Shadar-kai Stance active? If you did I don't see why all that incorprality didn't kick in to save you when you went below 50% HP

You have to plan. No one is going to click those stances for you.

2) Have your Bottled Tornado on your Main Hotbar
- If you were away a didn't <cough, cough> so you could have unlimited tornados you at least should have <cough, cough> enough to have unlimited air ellies from the Cove.

Having the right tool would be better, yes? You should know this.

3) Hit Points, hit points, hit points
- How on Earth do you have so few HP? Maybe-log in and out so your 3x Barb PL kicks in.

Barbarian Past Lives are NOT a dump stat!

4) Ship Buffs
- Yours only stratch half-way across the screen, I know you're a Guild Leader but maybe find a real guild.

This is DDO not DD-SOLO.

I could go on.

Listen, There are FOUR difficulty settings.

1) Paper Targets, 2) Cardboard Targets, 3) The one that just killed you 4) The one you ran last week.

You need to know your limits and go with "Cardboard" or buck up or something.

We can't let you breeze through the Harbor on Hard by yourselves when there are people abusing EE.

The line must be drawn here.

Have you tried Normal?

1 Believe it or not, not everyone plays epic content, not everyone has multiple epic past lives. Some people like to make toons over and over again to try different builds. Even people that have been playing for years may not have trip complete, or even a single complete. It depends on how and what they play. Heavy, regular, and casual players are an important part of the player base. With out them you would not have a server to play on. So before you start talking down to people your game depends on think just a little and realize just because you may have 3 past lives in everything and 3 epic past lives in everything does not mean you can expect others to or look down on them if they don't. There was a time you didn't have those things either.

2 expecting people to have tornado's or ele's is a bit silly. Some may have these items but expecting them again is beyond wrong.

3 HP are a bit low at 4 but I have seen some fairly low con toons do fine if the player knows what they are doing and other stats/skills balance the low con. on barb past life, does he have 3? if so you are right something is very wrong if not see comment 1

4 Get a new guild really? Guilds are for more than just buffs. Believe it or not some people use them to associate with people that they know and actually like. Without knowing why he is leading the guild he is leading making that statement is ludicrous.

[Scrabbler]

Extreme challenge dungeons are extreme. That adventure is there to push you to the limit to find out ways to beat it if you up the difficulty.

That's reversing the proper cause and effect.

You're supposed to make a good dungeon first, and then later if you get complaints some people can't handle it, slap an "Extreme Challenge" label on the front so people won't complain as much when they die. That goes for stuff like Xorian Cipher, Crucible, or even Devil Assault. That's why the "Extreme Challenge" label was created: to inform people that even with Dungeon Scaling active, they shouldn't expect to be able to finish with every kind of solo character.

It is NOT something where you decide from the start to create an "Extreme Challenge", and then use that to justify excessive monster DPS. It could be reasonable to call Terminal Delerium an Extreme Challenge based on the Balloon puzzle, because that's a weird 3d trap situation that not everyone can handle flying through. But the Mirror room is a straightforward kill-or-be-killed fight; the Heroic version has no justification to be harder than boss fights in Epic dungeons 5 levels higher.

[redoubt]

^^^ this

Here's some tips:

1) I see you don't have a single PL stance active
- I'd go with 3x brace for the PRR, 3x Ench Weap for DPS, 3x Fort (switch to dbl strike later), 3x Colors of the Queen.
- Did you have your 3x Shadar-kai Stance active? If you did I don't see why all that incorprality didn't kick in to save you when you went below 50% HP

You have to plan. No one is going to click those stances for you.

2) Have your Bottled Tornado on your Main Hotbar
- If you were away and didn't <cough, cough> so you could have unlimited tornados you at least should have <cough, cough> enough to have unlimited air ellies from the Cove.

Having the right tool would be better, yes? You should know this.

3) Hit Points, hit points, hit points
- How on Earth do you have so few HP? Maybe-log in and out so your 3x Barb PL kicks in.

Barbarian Past Lives are NOT a dump stat!

4) Ship Buffs
- Yours only stratch half-way across the screen, I know you're a Guild Leader but maybe find a real guild.

This is DDO not DD-SOLO.

I could go on.

Listen, There are FOUR difficulty settings.

1) Paper Targets, 2) Cardboard Targets, 3) The one that just killed you 4) The one you ran last week.

You need to know your limits and go with "Cardboard" or buck up or something.

We can't let you breeze through the Harbor on Hard by yourselves when there are people abusing EE.

The line must be drawn here.

Have you tried Normal?

Am I failing my sarcasm check on this one? I hope that is the case, because it sounds like you don't believe someone should be able to run on heroic hard unless they are an epic COMPLETIONIST.

Wait, I think I see it... Barbarian past lives are not a dump stat... I think its there now... yes! Sarcasm detected... phew!

[arkonas]

Hilarious as this always is, it would seem some monsters should be tagged as not being able to be champions. In particular, monsters not intended to be fought (the scrag in that Korthos quest was a champion the other night) and objects that you just want to beat down (I read someone's flight pillar in WGU was a champion).

i wonder if they could squeeze that into the update to make sure the target can do things. i personally dont think a pillar or crystal can be a champion if it does nothing. just my thought.

[jalont]

I'd be willing to see champions go away if we reverted all the player buffs, specifically the ones in the last three updates. Nerf bards, nerf paladins and rebalance prr/mrr.

I see a lot of people claiming that the game didn't used to be harder, so surely reverting these buffs won't mean much, since they haven't made the game easier.

Once we're back at that place, I'd like to see a rebalancing of classes where the most OP classes and fotm builds are nerfed and brought back into line.

I think once this happens, we won't need such things as champions to overcome the power creep. We can say goodbye to them forever.

[Enderoc]

How about a champion setting for end game in all quests? Where you can look for mythical varieties of old named items that scale as you level from Heroic, Epic, Champion? I think this is to keep people from grinding hard in lower difficulty quests for items to boost the shard economy. Just create a champion setting if the level range is too far between.

[hit_fido]

I'd be willing to see champions go away if we reverted all the player buffs, specifically the ones in the last three updates. Nerf bards, nerf paladins and rebalance prr/mrr.

Would vote for this if available and included doing away with all ship buffs as well.

[redoubt]

The other problem is NPCs we have to protect or the quest fails. They're in the same boat as hirelings: champion chew toys.

And take that concept through to the finish line. Do the long quest out in threnal. You get Coyle and his merry men to the door safely (barely, most likey). Then you clear both wings and get the door open. One of the mobs with the boss is a champion with damage boost. As you sprint to the door, because you know Coyle and the Men in Tights are idiots and you want to get there before they do their suicide rush, and they go active. Haste boosting past them and spamming intimidate in the hopes that whatever randomness is in the room kills you instead of Coyle.

Then you see it. You look back to your cleric friend and to the caster and the rogue. The champion is surrounded by little blue rings.

But... Champion got off ONE shot... and you...

FAILED...

There is zero that you can do to alter it. You cannot talk to Coyle first. You cannot get him to stay out of the room. You cannot intim mobs and stop their current action like you used to. Mobs still do 2-6 actions after being mez'd.

I like the analogy of russian roulette. I like the concept of the champions, but the implementation is more like gambling and when it happens at the end of a long quest it is infuriating. Its one thing to make a mistake and die. Its another to simply be unlucky and have to restart. Its not different than a lag wipe at the end of a raid in terms of frustration.

And please understand its not an unwillingness to accept failure or to try something hard knowing you will likely fail. I've finally finished 4 of the storm horns on EE. I've solo'd the first 2 (both are very difficult for me.) I ran Breaking the ranks several times. I even did it on normal to learn more about it. I finally went back and did it in a full group. Dying in that quest did not upset me. Even 130 kills in. I knew it would be a ball breaker. I went in knowing I was after the brass ring and that it was a high bar to reach. I was outmatched and failed. That is okay. The champion system is not that. For the most part, I still greatly overmatch the champions, but then you get unlucky and one shotted by random stuff.

Do you see the difference?

[redoubt]

i wonder if they could squeeze that into the update to make sure the target can do things. i personally dont think a pillar or crystal can be a champion if it does nothing. just my thought.

Animated barrel as a champion.

Animated rock as a champion.

Oozes as champions.

Mindless undead as champions.

These all seem dumb to me. These and even others do not make sense to have champion versions of them. Unless the problem is the word "Champion" and it should just really be called the "Randomly Buffed Mob System" or RBMS for short.

[ForwardWu]

And to those people saying how lots of people playing the game don't post on the forums...

I'm sorry but if you aren't gonna post feedback on the forums you have no say as to what happens in the game.

Its like voting...if you didn't vote then plz don't complain about the president as you didn't actually try to make an impact.

If you want a voice in changes to the champion system you should be on the forums. People in game either complaining or advocating them should be ignored til they come here with feedback. EVERYONE playing an MMO should use the forums for this exact purpose.

So whatever wins in the Champion golf is the majority of the forum voices? Its a fun way of reasoning.

MMO Players are not game tester, we are not paid to do so. I think we all express our opinion of the game either we want to improve our gaming experience or the game itself.

[janave]

In heroics champ spell damage is over escalated in full parties, its is not the damage itself, a combination of
* uninterraptable casting
* endless spamming
* way too fast casting speed

Vampire form is pretty useless at the moment, since any champion cleric will 1 shot you, even with cloak toggle, i use tons of cc, but yeah bads happen :d.

Im wondering what Running with the Devils is like, which always had funny amount of light damage . Specifically thinking of Ghaele champions.

[phillymiket]

Am I failing my sarcasm check on this one? I hope that is the case, because it sounds like you don't believe someone should be able to run on heroic hard unless they are an epic COMPLETIONIST.

Wait, I think I see it... Barbarian past lives are not a dump stat... I think its there now... yes! Sarcasm detected... phew!

You have Passed your detection check... barely.

You may proceed to the Hard and Elite Forums.

1 Believe it or not, not everyone plays epic content, not everyone has multiple epic past lives. Some people like to make toons over and over again to try different builds. Even people that have been playing for years may not have trip complete, or even a single complete. It depends on how and what they play. Heavy, regular, and casual players are an important part of the player base. With out them you would not have a server to play on. So before you start talking down to people your game depends on think just a little and realize just because you may have 3 past lives in everything and 3 epic past lives in everything does not mean you can expect others to or look down on them if they don't. There was a time you didn't have those things either.

2 expecting people to have tornado's or ele's is a bit silly. Some may have these items but expecting them again is beyond wrong.

3 HP are a bit low at 4 but I have seen some fairly low con toons do fine if the player knows what they are doing and other stats/skills balance the low con. on barb past life, does he have 3? if so you are right something is very wrong if not see comment 1

4 Get a new guild really? Guilds are for more than just buffs. Believe it or not some people use them to associate with people that they know and actually like. Without knowing why he is leading the guild he is leading making that statement is ludicrous.

You have Failed your detection check.

If the Forums are too difficult, you could try a different setting.

Have you tried Normal?

[Braegan]

^^^ this

Here's some tips:

1) I see you don't have a single PL stance active
- I'd go with 3x brace for the PRR, 3x Ench Weap for DPS, 3x Fort (switch to dbl strike later), 3x Colors of the Queen.
- Did you have your 3x Shadar-kai Stance active? If you did I don't see why all that incorprality didn't kick in to save you when you went below 50% HP

You have to plan. No one is going to click those stances for you.

2) Have your Bottled Tornado on your Main Hotbar
- If you were away and didn't <cough, cough> so you could have unlimited tornados you at least should have <cough, cough> enough to have unlimited air ellies from the Cove.

Having the right tool would be better, yes? You should know this.

3) Hit Points, hit points, hit points
- How on Earth do you have so few HP? Maybe-log in and out so your 3x Barb PL kicks in.

Barbarian Past Lives are NOT a dump stat!

4) Ship Buffs
- Yours only stratch half-way across the screen, I know you're a Guild Leader but maybe find a real guild.

This is DDO not DD-SOLO.

I could go on.

Listen, There are FOUR difficulty settings.

1) Paper Targets, 2) Cardboard Targets, 3) The one that just killed you 4) The one you ran last week.

You need to know your limits and go with "Cardboard" or buck up or something.

We can't let you breeze through the Harbor on Hard by yourselves when there are people abusing EE.

The line must be drawn here.

Have you tried Normal?

I am going to assume the above is comedy.

As guy in pic is trying and I (in follow up posts) offer my help to guy.

I admit you are a funny guy tho Philly. I am entertained by a lot of your postings.

[ForwardWu]

I think heroic champion is overdone for new and casual player, and epic champion makes top players exciting.

A simple solution is to apply the following champion scaling formula

X = Power Factor of Champion

Difficulty = Hard - 1, Elite - 2

X = Quest Level * 0.05 * Difficulty + 0.05 * Number of Team-members

Champion Power = (1 + X) * Normal Creeps Power

Example:
Epic Elite lv 28 quests, duo, yield Power of 2.9 of Normal Creep
Heroic Hard lv 6 quests, full team, yield Power of 1.6 of Normal Creep

Can always fine tune the Parameters for better Power Differentiation

[janave]

^^^ this

Here's some tips:

1) I see you don't have a single PL stance active
- I'd go with 3x brace for the PRR, 3x Ench Weap for DPS, 3x Fort (switch to dbl strike later), 3x Colors of the Queen.
- Did you have your 3x Shadar-kai Stance active? If you did I don't see why all that incorprality didn't kick in to save you when you went below 50% HP

You have to plan. No one is going to click those stances for you.

2) Have your Bottled Tornado on your Main Hotbar
- If you were away and didn't <cough, cough> so you could have unlimited tornados you at least should have <cough, cough> enough to have unlimited air ellies from the Cove.

Having the right tool would be better, yes? You should know this.

3) Hit Points, hit points, hit points
- How on Earth do you have so few HP? Maybe-log in and out so your 3x Barb PL kicks in.

Barbarian Past Lives are NOT a dump stat!

4) Ship Buffs
- Yours only stratch half-way across the screen, I know you're a Guild Leader but maybe find a real guild.

This is DDO not DD-SOLO.

I could go on.

Listen, There are FOUR difficulty settings.

1) Paper Targets, 2) Cardboard Targets, 3) The one that just killed you 4) The one you ran last week.

You need to know your limits and go with "Cardboard" or buck up or something.

We can't let you breeze through the Harbor on Hard by yourselves when there are people abusing EE.

The line must be drawn here.

Have you tried Normal?

So 1 of your 1st recommendation is to have epic past lifes in lvl4 heroic content? sry cant check for sarcasm early in the morning, but you gotta be joking .

Im 100% positive that heroic content should never expect epic PLs. Its not like we dont have design errors, but it would be another one for sure.

How about fixing stupidly op builds so we dont need over escalated difficulty levels for the cheaters, cough, elites.

[phillymiket]

I am going to assume the above is comedy.

As guy in pic is trying and I (in follow up posts) offer my help to guy.

I admit you are a funny guy tho Philly. I am entertained by a lot of your postings.

I like you Braegan.

I think you were on my friends list at some point for some reason.

But to be honest, I felt you were a little callus. No offense. Many people here.

Come on, the guy said he's been playing for years, his sig says he's Guild Leader.

I'm pretty sure he's not "testing bounderies" or whatever you said.

He is one of the many people in this thread who seem to fall into the giant chasm between Heroic Normal and Heroic Champion Hard.

One is boring, the other too hard.

Let's take him on faith that he is truly at a point of frustration. There are probably many, many more. Who knows?

In the past, when there is a "DOOM QUIT!!!" inspiring topic people say they'll quit... but they don't.

That's because it's about some Nerf to some class or some item or something petty and selfish (usually IMO).

Such Nerfs are easily adjusted for so the rage wears off and the guy comes back or never even leaves.

How does a player adjust for "This game is either way too easy or way too hard for me"?

You can't easily. This might actually cause a few people to say bye.

And, yes... They are aware there is a grouping system, they know there are lower difficulty settings.

It's patronizing to tell someone this especially when they are frustrated at the moment.

But otherwise...

Happy Holidays Breagan, (I hope I'm Ok saying the above). :-)

So 1 of your 1st recommendation is to have epic past lifes in lvl4 heroic content? sry cant check for sarcasm early in the morning, but you gotta be joking .

Im 100% positive that heroic content should never expect epic PLs. Its not like we dont have design errors, but it would be another one for sure.

How about fixing stupidly op builds so we dont need over escalated difficulty levels for the cheaters, cough, elites.

Oh for crying out loud!

I never should have posted that.

IT"S CALLED FASHION PEOPLE!!

I mean Sarcasm...It's called sarcasm ;-)

[Braegan]

I like you Braegan.

I think you were on my friends list at some point for some reason.

But to be honest, I felt you were a little callus. No offense. Many people here.

Come on, the guy said he's been playing for years, his sig says he's Guild Leader.

I'm pretty sure he's not "testing bounderies" or whatever you said.

He is one of the many people in this thread who seem to fall into the giant chasm between Heroic Normal and Heroic Champion Hard.

One is boring, the other too hard.

Let's take him on faith that he is truly at a point of frustration. There are probably many, many more. Who knows?

In the past, when there is a "DOOM QUIT!!!" inspiring topic people say they'll quit... but they don't.

That's because it's about some Nerf to some class or some item or something petty and selfish (usually IMO).

Such Nerfs are easily adjusted for so the rage wears off and the guy comes back or never even leaves.

How does a player adjust for "This game is either way too easy or way too hard for me"?

You can't easily. This might actually cause a few people to say bye.

And, yes... They are aware there is a grouping system, they know there are lower difficulty settings.

It's patronizing to tell someone this especially when they are frustrated at the moment.

But otherwise...

Happy Holidays Breagan, (I hope I'm Ok saying the above). :-)

I didn't think I was being overly rude, if I was, wasn't my intention.

Let's chalk it up to energy is high during changes to game and folks are well energized and sometimes tone doesn't reflect well.

I do play on the same server as Sam and offered my help. I am part of that woefully underused New/Returning Player thingie and am more than happy to help a fellow gamer out.

And that part I am real on, I am more than willing to set aside time from my norm playing to help another out, I don't have all the answers and don't crunch math all the time, but I can show you some legit ways to deal with current challenges.

I like these challenges.

I am happy to help when I can to get others to overcome them.

I am really happy teamwork and CC are making a comeback.

I hope that clears up a little bit where I stand. Sometimes I can be snarky, but it can wear on anyone the amount of venom you read, and really the anti-champ camp has been much nastier than the pro champ team so far.

ETA: Testing Boundries is something I do all the time. I didn't mean it as a mean thing. For example. I saw some posts of solo elite ToD. It got me to wondering how tough it was to solo. Well it was! lol. I tested my boundries and found soloing normal was something I could do. I may go back and try hard next time. But my statement wasn't meant to offend, I try all the time different things ,sometimes I fail sometimes I win.

ETA: Yes Happy Holidays are very welcome! Back at you bro!

[Aletys]

I like you Braegan.

I think you were on my friends list at some point for some reason.

But to be honest, I felt you were a little callus. No offense. Many people here.

Come on, the guy said he's been playing for years, his sig says he's Guild Leader.

I'm pretty sure he's not "testing bounderies" or whatever you said.

He is one of the many people in this thread who seem to fall into the giant chasm between Heroic Normal and Heroic Champion Hard.

One is boring, the other too hard.

Let's take him on faith that he is truly at a point of frustration. There are probably many, many more. Who knows?

In the past, when there is a "DOOM QUIT!!!" inspiring topic people say they'll quit... but they don't.

That's because it's about some Nerf to some class or some item or something petty and selfish (usually IMO).

Such Nerfs are easily adjusted for so the rage wears off and the guy comes back or never even leaves.

How does a player adjust for "This game is either way too easy or way too hard for me"?

You can't easily. This might actually cause a few people to say bye.

And, yes... They are aware there is a grouping system, they know there are lower difficulty settings.

It's patronizing to tell someone this especially when they are frustrated at the moment.

But otherwise...

Happy Holidays Breagan, (I hope I'm Ok saying the above). :-)



Oh for crying out loud!

I never should have posted that.

IT"S CALLED FASHION PEOPLE!!

I mean Sarcasm...It's called sarcasm ;-)

lol. As I'm sure you've noticed, folks in here are pretty steamed. That doesn't generally make them receptive to sarcasm, assuming they can even spot it through the clouds of steam.

[hit_fido]

In heroics champ spell damage is over escalated in full parties, its is not the damage itself, a combination of
* uninterraptable casting
* endless spamming
* way too fast casting speed

Vampire form is pretty useless at the moment, since any champion cleric will 1 shot you, even with cloak toggle, i use tons of cc, but yeah bads happen :d.

Potential for multiplied spell damage needs a closer look aside from the tweaks already mentioned. Mephits are another good example that may or may not be an unintended consequence - they already casted very fast and repeatedly, they tend to cast spells that hit two (or three?) times (lightning, scorching ray), and they summon more mephits. There are also a number of places in the game where clusters of mephit spawn in "ambush", so you can't always sneak up and see whats what first.

In one of the last circle of six quests there was a cluster of 4 mephits guarding evil portal - 3 were champions with 910-950hp each; one champion was air mephit with added lightning damage to its attacks and one champion was fire mephit with added sonic damage to its attacks, thats in addition of both having the amped damage. I guess start casting sonic resist now as a general rule just in case? So for me this is encouraging some new preparatory thinking in reaction to the new mob characteristics but it's just tuned up too high, for my taste.

I also forgot how annoying those quests were with the cultists constantly dispelling buffs.

[Aletys]

I didn't think I was being overly rude, if I was, wasn't my intention.

Let's chalk it up to energy is high during changes to game and folks are well energized and sometimes tone doesn't reflect well.

I do play on the same server as Sam and offered my help. I am part of that woefully underused New/Returning Player thingie and am more than happy to help a fellow gamer out.

And that part I am real on, I am more than willing to set aside time from my norm playing to help another out, I don't have all the answers and don't crunch math all the time, but I can show you some legit ways to deal with current challenges.

I like these challenges.

I am happy to help when I can to get others to overcome them.

I am really happy teamwork and CC are making a comeback.

I hope that clears up a little bit where I stand. Sometimes I can be snarky, but it can wear on anyone the amount of venom you read, and really the anti-champ camp has been much nastier than the pro champ team so far.

Yeah, it's been a bit heated. But from my viewpoint, it's the "don't change a thing - love the champs as is" camp that has been nastier, and extremely condescending to the players who don't agree with them. But, that's just my opinion.