Monster Champion Feedback

[FestusHood]

Just Stun, Trip or use other crowd control on the Champ in the pack. If there are too of them let another player Stun, trip or use other crowd control on the other mob.
The crown just shows u wich target u should get while hitting the crowd control Buttons. The Game has tonns of that stuff. An Adrenaline trips the mob and makes him Helpless. No Save!

What if there are 8 of them? What if they are immune to stun?

[Theolin]

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. We wouldn't want to reflexively change champions based on extreme challenge dungeons meant to push parties to the limit.

Sev~

I really really dislike anything that one shots any character that has very little in the chance of being avoided, especially monster hits, this is one of those things I consider just lazy DMing, I hated & left a few paper groups over this where they thought it was fun to just randomly kill you. The job should be to keep you on the edge of death but not to actually kill you unless you just do something that is story wrong or really stupid.

[Impaqt]

To clarify my earlier comment: If you see a Champion monster with clearly 10x as many hitpoints as an identical monster standing next to it in the same instance and party, that's unintended. This is not intended as a discussion of party or difficulty scaling. That can certainly be a discussion but will only the muddy the feedback in this thread, where some players seem to be reporting Champion Buffs giving x10 hitpoints, which shouldn't be happening. (For the purpose of discussing Champions, please don't report that your solo Casual monsters had a lot less hitpoints than the Elite version with a full party.)

Just jumped into Genesis Point ELite solo.

Cleared the upper loop.

I noticed one orthon that has 1200hp, but the rest of the non champion orthons were at 1900-2300. Champions were at 6000-6700

Seems to be well within your parameters.

[Yalinaa]

What if there are 8 of them? What if they are immune to stun?

Be druid. Be wolf. Be in Fury. Use the tier 5 alpha strike with adrenaline. Profit.

[Impaqt]

What if there are 8 of them? What if they are immune to stun?

what if what if what if what if...

none of the champs are red or purple named. they ARE vulnerable to some form of crowd control. figure out what it is and use it.

[ArcaneArcher52689]

But orange name chance to be Champions is quite a bit higher than 40% right now, and we are likely to lower the amount of orange name champions more significantly.

I think this may be the biggest issue here.

Some quests spawn multiple orange names. In EH house of rusted blades last night, i had 5(maybe 6, was too busy not dying) orange named champions spawn. In EH The druid's curse, 4 wood woad champions spawned.

I'm fine with named minibosses being champions, but only when they spawn 1-2 at time. If possible, I'd like to see every individual orange name as a champion, but when more than one is spawned, 50% chance of being a champion.

[Livmo]

Although I've become a converted fan after playing more, the Red Alert seems to grief players when there are allot of champs around.

Before changes are made, if you want a good challenge and chance at chests (low drop rate), then hit up Haunted Halls before the changes. Here is a somewhat guide to the challenge of Halls.

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...-Haunted-Halls

Since the drop rate is low, to increase your chances of a chest drop, look for dungeons with lots orange and red named monsters. Only those champs drop chests and the chests are not always guarnteed.

[Hoglum]

I've seen some champs spawn with less than total hit points. It's happened more than once. If I were to guess, these monsters had equivalent hit points to a normal version but the hit point pool of a champ. They spawned around 1/3 of total.

This happened in Necromancer's Doom, Haverdasher's, & Delera's 2. I have not noticed it in any high level or epic dungeons.

[bbqzor]

To clarify my earlier comment: If you see a Champion monster with clearly 10x as many hitpoints as an identical monster standing next to it in the same instance and party, that's unintended. This is not intended as a discussion of party or difficulty scaling. That can certainly be a discussion but will only the muddy the feedback in this thread, where some players seem to be reporting Champion Buffs giving x10 hitpoints, which shouldn't be happening. (For the purpose of discussing Champions, please don't report that your solo Casual monsters had a lot less hitpoints than the Elite version with a full party.)

Uh okay. I was in a party of 2 or 3 on heroic elite in genesis point and sins, and have monster manual unlocked so I could see orthon hp. They had nearly 10x the hp of the mobs next to them. Same mob, regular non-orange, etc etc. Just mean I dunno if it only happens shortman, or only on elite, or what. But thats one situation Ive seen it in, where it was extremely tangible. Again to summarize: be in shortman elite party, run orthon loop in genesis point or train halls in sins, target regular orthon and champion orthon, realize champion has nearly 10x the hp of regular. Not trying to muddy anything was just trying to be specific... has nothing to do with differences between norm and hard scaled hps or whatever, just saying maybe that if I was in 6 man party I dunno that it wouldve been the same size difference so may need to test it with same values to see the "big gap" between regs and champs. Cheers.

[FestusHood]

what if what if what if what if...

none of the champs are red or purple named. they ARE vulnerable to some form of crowd control. figure out what it is and use it.

That isn't a hypothetical. Heroic elite high road quest end of the road. Right at the bridge to enter the fortress. The part where you have to go up to the guy to activate him before crossing the bridge, then a horde of shadow rats or whatever they are called spawn, along with some humans that came rolling up the bridge. I counted at least 8 crowns in the pack.

For what it's worth, I have yet to find a champion that wasn't more powerful than any red named in that same quest. That includes the final boss in that quest, apart from his ability to telekinese you onto the spikes.

I have often found myself saying "whew, it's ok, it's only a red name" .

[Monkey-Boy]

I have often found myself saying "whew, it's ok, it's only a red name" .

You're not the only person to make that joke. The fact that it's true is ridiculous.

[Ausdoerrt]

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!

So I've played the game at low to middle levels for two days now with the new system in place (hard solo, elite in groups)

Only problem I have with champions is, orange-named shouldn't get the crown. ESPECIALLY not the HP boost. It drags the game down. I shudder to imagine what an orange-named champion with an HP boost would look like on EH/EE. Yuck.

Also just in general, I'd like to see more special abilities, debuffs etc. and fewer passive buffs ("higher numbers = difficulty!" /sarcasm).

Otherwise, I think it's an OK way to make the heroic levels less snooze-worthy and offset the permanent shipbuffs and enhancement powercreep.


Obviously, there are also lots of things to fix - like champions spawning with their HP bars drained, in too tight groups; crowns appearing on NPCs, crowns giving away monster spawns etc. But overall, conceptually, it's a decent system, just needs some polish. Scratch that, a lot of polish.

[Dmister]

Personally, I like the champion idea as it brings back more of an emphasis on crowd control and possibly even parties but, like many others, I think the creatures/objects/ect that obtain the champion tag should be changed. Orange named champions are fine imo since they offer the chance at another chest. However, things that already have a ton of health shouldn't obtain a health buff, inanimate objects that need to be destroyed, and non combative NPCs should not obtain champion buffs as well. Forgot to mention (in my original posting) that the final boss should be stronger individually than most (preferably all) of these champions.

[esojiul]

Personally, I like the champion idea as it brings back more of an emphasis on crowd control and possibly even parties but, like many others, I think the creatures/objects/ect that obtain the champion tag should be changed. Orange named champions are fine imo since they offer the chance at another chest. However, things that already have a ton of health shouldn't obtain a health buff, inanimate objects that need to be destroyed, and non combative NPCs should not obtain champion buffs as well. Forgot to mention (in my original posting) that the final boss should be stronger individually than most (preferably all) of these champions.

I also think it a good idea

[Aelonwy]

Correct. Reports of non-extreme challenge quests "one shotting" players are concerning and we are looking into them, so specifics would be great. We can also adjust champion damage output dividing my melee, ranged, and spell so if spells (as an example) are too severe we can adjust that separately.

Sev~

When I was one-shot repeatedly in Into the Deep on heroic hard it was the sonic? attack that the Sauhaugin shoot at you as they are swimming toward you. There were two of these champions together, but I'm not sure if that's considered a caster or warrior mob. I was on a 2nd life 2rogue/9ranger with ship buffs, evasion, over level farming bank favor, duo-ing the quest. All champions seem to have a damage buff, I don't know if they can double up on this buff or if they can have more than one damage buff but this one was doing more damage than my life bar whilst I had false life +40 (cove hat), +6 con (CC con item) with +2 con tome and at least 14 base con and as previously stated evasion, and ship buff elem res including sonic. I'll have to check but I'm pretty sure I also had vitality slotted somewhere. My son's hireling raised me a couple of times just to be one-shot back to death. It was... well let me just say not a pleasure to be playing at that moment. Later in the day I played heroic hard Reign of Madness with my husband, we did not have a difficult time with it though I at least was one shot once in the course of those quests by a caster champion. The character I was playing at the time was a 2nd life warforged sorc 200+ fort, but no evasion or MRR, she did have deathward.

I think if you can just do your best to make sure champions don't spawn too bunched together, or respawn repeatedly, and that they can't double dip damage buffs then you might achieve something workable and interesting.

[cdemeritt]

Dear Devs:

I'm not pleased to be doing this, because I hate the attitude that I'm important enough for this kind of message to mean anything... So this is not an ultimatum, it's simply where I draw the line for myself. You must do what you think is best.

However, I do think you've done goofed with the champions, and have now put yourselves in a corner with a no win situation... We have seen for the last few days a rage quit threat from a lot of people if the new system doesn't go away. I now must add mine to the list:


If the new system is nerfed to toothlessness, such as happened so many times (i.e. Traps on Elite) such that we return to the mindless faceroll of elite content, I will no longer be able to continue to play or pay for this game. Simply, and I know many disagree with me, Elite content should not be easy. A new player with a first life toon and starter gear should be able to easily beat normal, find hard a challenge, and Elite extremely difficult. Death and quest failure should always be an possibility / probability, as this and not XP, XP/min, loot or favor is what made the game fun. In Waterworks, Pt3 there is an ogre optional, Krung the Brutal, who is responsible for so many red smears, even with a full party, and to this day I get nervous when starting that fight... even though he hasn't been able to do me harm in a great many years (and no it's not just gear/past lives, he's no longer the danger he once was), the sense of victory is no longer there. What sense of victory is there when you beat Harry, The Reaver, or any of the other bosses if there is no chance they are going to win. at least GOP, there is a chance he's gonna get you first.

I fully understand, and agree that the system needs tweaks... But long history has shown those tweaks that should be made with a scalpel are usually made with a machete. I will say the lower levels probably need the most adjustment while the higher levels need the least. Please don't water the system down to pointlessness.

Basically, I have tried to adapt to the new "Easy" mode we have, making excuses like "it's getting more people to play" and such, However, the intro of the Champion system reminded me of what we once had, and a glimmer of hope that there was going to be some challenge left in to strive for. I cannot go back to sleepwalking through some of the Supposedly hardest content, and will not go back now.

Thank you.

[dunklezhan]

To clarify my earlier comment: If you see a Champion monster with clearly 10x as many hitpoints as an identical monster standing next to it in the same instance and party, that's unintended. This is not intended as a discussion of party or difficulty scaling. That can certainly be a discussion but will only the muddy the feedback in this thread, where some players seem to be reporting Champion Buffs giving x10 hitpoints, which shouldn't be happening. (For the purpose of discussing Champions, please don't report that your solo Casual monsters had a lot less hitpoints than the Elite version with a full party.)

Can I just check:

Are you saying, for example, a Champion Will O'wisp should not have 10x the HP of an ordinary Will O'wisp in the same pack of mobs, or are you saying it should not have 10x the HP of another champion Will O'wisp from the same pack of mobs?

Just so I know whether I'm bug reporting or not.

FYI I don't think turning down the number of orange nameds is what you should do - turn down the number of ordinary mobs which can become champs. I just feel that Orange names are more likely to be the 'champions' of their local environment, I mean that's kind of what they were created for in the first place, right? When an ordinary mobs is a champion, they are often tougher than a non-champion orange named, and in a great many situations that makes no sense at all. Orcs, Hobgoblins etc and many other intelligent adversaries respect only strength, culturally speaking - this is based on DnD that ecology/culture stuff does matter to keep the world feeling 'lived in'. Most "social" unintelligent creatures - particular 'animals' behave similarly. Mindless stuff like oozes and regular undead, sure why not, but where you've got intelligent or appropriate mobs, that Orange mob champion would have long ago been ousted by the regular champion who's tougher. So I would rather see orange name champs with the high frequency they have now, and regular mobs with a lower frequency.

Whether that achieves the balance you're after I guess I have no way of knowing, but it makes more sense to me as a player that those orange names are far more likely to be champs of their local area.

[GoldyGopher]

• I have read a number of players complaining that because of Monster Champions they had to end their Bravery Bonus Streak on Elite.
  My response to this compliant is 'Tough Tiddlywinks'.
  Elite quest are supposed to be difficult for character to do, the fact of the matter is we, or at least I, have been complaining that Elite has gotten to easy for five years. Both by the devs making changes to make the quests easier (cough Shan-To-Kor cough) and the fact that we have monty haul of loot now-a-days.
  Hard has gotten so easy that a blind monkey on acid has little problem completing the quest, well maybe not quite that easy but you get the meaning. The level of difficulty between normal and hard is nonexistent as far most players are concerned. Instead of a mob having 100 hitpoints it has 110, whoopty doo.
  
• I have read a number of responses from posters complaining about the number of hit points some of these champions have.
  My personal experience is that almost every Champion I have come across has 3X the HP of the regular versions, I am fine with that until a point. A CR18 (CR10 normal) Mini-boss with 18K HP is a lot excessive when characters are doing 60 points of damage a swing. Two minutes of holding down or mashing a button to attack is not challenging or for most part fun.
  
• Way too many champions spawn at one time.
  I was running Where there's Smoke... and through the quest I had to deal with one or two at a time, no problem, however in the last fight when 15 Orc Ambushers activate all at once and 8 of them are Champions, what a pain in the buttocks for even a geared TR party of three, let alone a inexperienced party.
  
• I have seen way to many non-humanoid Champions.
  Mucks, Dogs, Defenders, .. When they start casting spells on you it cannot be WAI, can it.
  
• Why do Champions charge hirelings blindly.
  Just saying I would love to have that kind of agro magnet on my Tank. I left a Cleric Hireling parked two rooms back when I encountered two champion Arzag-Khor Berserkers did the 110 High Hurdles back to my hireling and decided to play catch with her.
  
• I agree wee need a better reward system for Champions.
  I ran an elite The Kobolds' New Ringleader fought 15 champion Kobolds, including three of four in the final room and got diddly squat nothing extra.
  How about a Monster Manual entry for killing Champions that grants XP. Defeat 10 - 1000 XP, Defeat 25 - 2500 XP, Defeat 50 - 5000 XP, Defeat 100 -10000 XP, Defeat 250 ....
  
• I have read a number of players complaining about being one shot, happened to me once, I was not wearing a fortification item in a level 33 quest my bad, but other have complained it happens all the time. Yet I don't see much detail in those complaints. I would enjoy knowing where this is happening so I can go try it out, beyond Terminal Delirium which I dislike anyways for other reasons.
  
• I would love to see Champions get a variety of different buffs.
  I often see Champions that are identical in the same clustering/group, beyond the same quest. It would be nice to see Tank version of Buffs, a Rogue Version of Buffs, a Berserker version of Buffs, and then give them AI adjustments based upon the buff package.
  

[Keladon]

What sense of victory is there when you beat Harry, The Reaver, or any of the other bosses if there is no chance they are going to win.

Believe it or not, you can't expect endgame content from 7 years ago to still be challenging now. But at least people still run it, that's something you can't say about a lot of games.

And I still believe making champions optional would please everyone. Don't nerf or change them, just give people the option of having them in quests. Or would having more options in a game be a bad thing?

YOU think the game is too easy, so YOU should be able to have champions in quests. No need to force them upon everyone.

[GoldyGopher]

YOU think the game is too easy, so YOU should be able to have champions in quests. No need to force them upon everyone.

This is where I see the problem in your logic.
It is Optional already, you may run the quests on Casual or Normal if you do not want to encounter Champions. Champions only appear on Hard or Elite Settings.