Monster Champion Feedback

[HAL]

Ok, where do you "see" people asking for an easy button? Please link.

Sorry, that would be against forum rules. Nice try though.

No its not, I linked to your words right here. If people actually asked for an easy button you can definitely link to those posts.

[Qhualor]

Ok, where do you "see" people asking for an easy button? Please link.

ill say it, the ones asking for a checkbox.

[BDog77]

ill say it, the ones asking for a checkbox.

Hmmm, this answer presupposes that Champions have made the game harder.

I believe it was on the Lamma forum, maybe, but I said I thought a checkbox might be a good idea for those that want to avoid the RANDOM.

[Stonemerge]

Remember what Ronald Reagen did in the 80s? He directly armed Iraq and secretly armed Iran so they can fight each other brutally for a decade.

In the past the player base has been very united on issues against Turbine - ETR, Guild Decay, etc. Now Turbine turned the tables and is having the players go at each other.

Stealing right from the gipper's playbook.

We do not play against Turbine, we do not play against other players.
Turbine/Warner wants our money, the devs want to keep their jobs (and some appreciation from us), and we just want to play -
we're all in the same boat.

Im still a friend of the checkbox - it pleases both sides, not 100% i know

Blackheartox (or maybe anyone else, cant find the post anymore) strongly disagrees, and he is one of the few pro-champs who is reasonable and explained why.
His proposal was good: Dont touch epic elite - make it a challenge for the best of the best and no-champs in heroic just for the peace.

If a player wants a challenge, he can always play a higher level quest. If Depths at level is no challenge, then play The Pit instead.
You can have the game always as challenging as you want - all up to you.
But that is not possible in epic elite ... it is too easy for some players - so give them what they want:
an extreme challenge.

Noone here explained why it should be necessary to have champions on heroic - you can always play a higher quest if you want a challenge.
No need to hurt casuals, soloers, non-rushhour-timezoners, permadeathers ...

And it doesnt matter if champs are 3% or 10% spawns - what makes them so bad for me is their randomness.
If i know there is a bossmonster waiting around the corner, i will prepare - buff, summon, sneak - and the resources (i.e. how many shrines are in the quest available) are part of the quest itself. Now i might be lucky or not - and there's nothin i can do.

If i zerg with a group through "Eyes of Stone" i would not care if i die, someone will raise me or grab my stone - and if not - its so fast to run quests with a group - lets restart or do something else.
BUT if i solo - i kill everything, unpetrify each guard, disable every trap, kill the troll opt - and then there is 1 (or 2 or 3) champions spawn at the endfight (and its not an easy endfight on heroic elite if an average player solo here), then its likely i will die. A Vanguard with thousands of HPs or an uber-cleric - thats my end - and that end is random. And no - not everyone has cc - A strengthbased Fighter may Stun - a monk can stun, a bard can sing and a caster has spells ... a rogue cannot, and many many build are not able to do that -> pigeonhole is the word here.

Yes i can restart the quest - a harbor quest takes 5 minutes - who cares - but later on ?! - later, when a quest takes an hour or more - not everyone is able to find groups (timezone)
Its not fun to play the same quest over and over again - with pure random mechanics - rolling a dice and see if u fail is not a challenge

And yes we can play hard or normal diff - but i would onehitkill everything on hard diff - thats not fun, im sure you agree.
And yes, hard is lesser xp than elite (mostly because of the firstime and bravery bonus) - but we can do hard quests significantly faster - so time is not the problem here. The repetition is the issue for me. Im more a roleplayer than a grinder - my toon is doing a quest 1 time and then another one. I dont want to repeat - thats why i buy all packs. And even if i would not care about that - repetition is boooring, doing the same quest 3 times and then another quest 3 times and another ... thats one of the reasons why i hate epic - grinding the same quests over and over again (btw the higher level epic quests break streaks - i bought them all and do not play them - dear devs: kick streaks in the can and raise the base xp of all diffs instead)

[Merfyn]

I'm not going to get all Aspie and super-scientific -

First post-fix Hard difficulty test tonight seems much more reasonable, to the point that the champion nerf *may* have overcompensated on Hard. Run was Swiped Signet using a level 7 ranger w/ healer hench. Seemed like about 3/4 groups included a champion, for a minimum of 13 with two double-spawns in small groups - Ironclaw and one of his mates were both champion from a group of 4(?). None of them were higher level than I was, none of them dropped my health bar by half in one attack as seen last time, but I definitely used the healer rather than just whipping through.

I definitely appreciate the response time for the fix.

If the intent is to decrease BYOH and solo-ability, which I think are worthy goals, it's on the right track. Hopefully this will be something that can be fine-tuned... too bad explorer areas don't have champions, since those could do with a bit more random terror.

[Captain_Pengie]

Before we eliminate champions from escort quests, could we try a month or so of always making the escort a champion? Would be a fun switch to see them do all the work for once.

I'd much rather they simply give us a UI element displaying the escort target's health (ala LOTRO) so you can keep track of them without having to switch targets all the time. I'm sick of failing Last Stand because that idiot Viercha charges into combat and gets himself killed and you have no way to both target enemies and keep track of him.

As for Monster Champions I'm enjoying the challenge, which is only slight as even on EE they are not a huge pain - just wish there was more reward for the extra effort in the form of more frequent chests, better loot in the chests or XP bonuses for the number of champions killed in the dungeon.

[Monkey-Boy]

Those of you who hated these should come back and try it, it's not ridiculous any more (in EEs, haven't tried any heroics yet.)

[Kaytis]

A big hit to champion monstery, can you guys at least not scale down the damage output on epic elite?

Im fully ok heroic elite and hards being nerfed and easy as always, but can you at least keep the damage for epic elite?

I would be fine with this. EE can be the "champions" checkbox. Go bananas with it. I just want the rest of the content to be beatable with either skill, meta-gaming, or brute force as available. I don't want the DM dropping a piano on my head out of the blue.

[BDog77]

Instead of a checkbox, which so many people seem to dislike, why not do as they suggest, and use the checkbox system in game (normal, hard, and elite), HOWEVER, we could also invert the rewards, so that the best XP, BB streak, best favor, etc is all obtained on normal, and elite actually gives the most challenge for the least reward.

THEN we could see who really wants challenge in their game. Remember, the old Epic system gave no favor, no XP, and only incremental gains towards item power, and yet, people still ran it.

I personally would still run elite for fun, but for everybody in the game, all the pressure would be off to HAVE to run elite.

[Stonemerge]

Instead of a checkbox, which so many people seem to dislike, why not do as they suggest, and use the checkbox system in game (normal, hard, and elite)

And why champions in heroic quests, if all you need to do for a challenge is to pick a higher level quest ?

[Impaqt]

No its not, I linked to your words right here. If people actually asked for an easy button you can definitely link to those posts.

I challenge you to find anywhere in this thread where I accused anyone of asking for an "easy button".
I certainly do not think a checkbox is a reasonable request(or a possibility even), but ive been quite deliberately not calling people out or instigsting conflict in this thread.

I enjoy the banter and do not want the thread locked.

[Stonemerge]

Remember, the old Epic system gave no favor, no XP, and only incremental gains towards item power, and yet, people still ran.

that was proposed already, but rejected by the ubers - noone explained why ... ubers just want to be uber - no compromises - sadly

[Ovrad]

And it could potentially have a quicker and perhaps more obvious visual effect when it goes off.

All champions buffs could use a visual effect. Trying to select the champion mid-action, using the examine panel, and then hovering the icons to read which buffs they have is obviously impractical when there's a group of monsters attacking you.

How about a colored ring on the ground? (Think paladin auras from Diablo 2) Similar to the selection ring, but smaller so it doesn't interfere.


Also, as others have suggested, being able to select/unselect champions on the quest panels would be a nice idea. With maybe a 25% xp bonus or so if you turn them on.

[Impaqt]

Instead of a checkbox, which so many people seem to dislike, why not do as they suggest, and use the checkbox system in game (normal, hard, and elite), HOWEVER, we could also invert the rewards, so that the best XP, BB streak, best favor, etc is all obtained on normal, and elite actually gives the most challenge for the least reward.

THEN we could see who really wants challenge in their game. Remember, the old Epic system gave no favor, no XP, and only incremental gains towards item power, and yet, people still ran it.

I personally would still run elite for fun, but for everybody in the game, all the pressure would be off to HAVE to run elite.

Um. The old/original epic system was the only way to create epic weapons.

The item and weapon upgrades were substantial and dramatic upgrades from anything elsr in the game.

[phillymiket]

I certainly do not think a checkbox is a reasonable request(or a possibility even), but ive been quite deliberately not calling people out or instigsting conflict in this thread.

I have to agree with you.

Looking at how it was put in, and how it is being adjusted...

I think Champions are either ON or OFF, and there can be no Checkboxes, no Champs at this level but not that, no Champs in this quest but not that...

ON or OFF

So the best we can do is provide feedback at this point so the "slider" is set well.

Just did Heroic Elite Harbinger of Madness solo at level.

3-8 Champions each quest, reasonably paced. For ex, one champ each wave in storehouse except for one wave with none.

Damage was from about 50 HP a hit to a little over 100.

No crazy HP mobs. One had about 4500 HP compared to 1100 or so non-champ, for example.

Noticable difference in spawn (lower by a lot)

Almost all Champions had "I hit harder" or "True Seeing" or both.

[Qhualor]

small sample size so far, but ive only run EH tonight in a variety of quests.

1. spawn rate was seriously decreased for Champions. I actually went several groups of mobs before actually encountering one. haven't seen more than 3 in a group spawn at once. ran quests like EDA that have a lot of mob spawns. this makes Champions more special.

2. hardly seeing any extra chests now that chance of Champions to spawn has been seriously dialed back. don't really care myself about being rewarded for killing a Champion that's a little tougher than a trash mob, but some do.

3. heres the rant... Champions on EH are now a joke. their damage is too far scaled back. I didn't find them any tougher than a trash mob. I stood toe to toe killing them with my weak defense and casting Cocoon once or twice as a Rogue with agro with no fear of dying. players who found Champions hard and didn't want to drop down to normal to avoid them should have no problems with them on hard. to be perfectly honest, unless Champions are borked somewhere else, ill be quite surprised if anyone still complains about them. they went from an actual threat to an actual joke. my my the pendulum swung too far.

ill try to run some EEs before the night is out.

[MeliCat]

Leave the change for Heroic and change it back for Epic.

Absolutely not. EEs are now super fun. People want easier they can do lower levels.

[Spoonwelder]

More feedback - I TR'd an alt yesterday - been working through quests up to level 6 so far.....deaths/quest fails so far.....including pugs

First Champ iteration:
Cannith Crystal - champ one shotted crystal - crystal is notoriously weak anyway
Kobold Ringleader - Champ kobold hit me harder/faster than I could pot heal and trip was on timer (missed him on first attempt) - kobold remember waterworks!!!
Sunken Sewer- champ spider just after getting hit by trap and before hireling or i could heal me bad circumstances
Garrisons - champ caster got a soloing paladin puggie while we were doing optional
WW3 - Venn trail - 3 champ casters in room with the ramp around it before the blue crystal - tried to rush them - duoing party wipe - used my korthos cake and went slower with bow and using pillars for cover - recovered and finished.

Second Champ iteration
Swiped Signet - more about getting caught in a sleet storm than the champs


That said - I know the game inside and out at the lower levels - I rarely died before VoN3 in the past (mass of beholders can rip through what little protection you have at that level). So this change is adding challenge.....but I don't really think challenge is the issue at levels 1-12 since that is newby realm and trust me on undergeared alts or watching others - 1-12 is hard enough. Any change in this zone hurts new players vastly more than vets(challenge seekers).

The new iteration is much more player friendly and I think closer to what we want in the end. My money goes on fewer, more powerful but NOT high damage random. This game has always had a problem with Spike Damage from mobs. Players can't absorb big spikes - we don't have 600hp at Level 10 or heal fast enough to recover. This is less of an issue in groups since you can still recover but soloing it means you just lost an hour of you life.

[DarthCaedus]

I challenge you to find anywhere in this thread where I accused anyone of asking for an "easy button".
I certainly do not think a checkbox is a reasonable request(or a possibility even), but ive been quite deliberately not calling people out or instigsting conflict in this thread.

I enjoy the banter and do not want the thread locked.

Isn't that basically what you said here

Dunno what to say to that. I simply dont believe its possible to please every type of player with a system change like this.

some players are always going to want someone to look down on. Others are always going to feel entitled to complete the hardest difficulties at no cost.

there truely is no medium ground for these players. and often they are quite loud in the forums.

[Impaqt]

Isn't that basically what you said here

No. I dont think thats even in the same ballpark.