Monster Champion Feedback

[firemedium_jt]

I wanted to know if this could be a reboot on all raids by adding Champions to them with some chests with some stat tome drops.

Are you guys starting out with 6 man quests to get the concept right, and then maybe add them to raids later?


I really think some old raids that are not run need this especially if the Champion chests drop stuff that players would like for their toons, but are too gimp for purchase in the DDO store now with power creep. Like +4 tomes and below.

[Stinging_Bee]

really..?
(Combat): Greater Beholder hit you for a total of 6,059 points of slash damage after 5 were blocked by Good damage reduction.
~ yes, a beholder punked me with slashing damage...who ever heard of a beholder doing 6k slashing damage...its a beholder...
no EE deathknight ever bent me over like that.

(Combat): Xorian Gargoyle hit you for a total of 4,188 points of slash damage after 5 were blocked by Good damage reduction.
(Combat): Xorian Gargoyle hit you for a total of 2,192 points of slash damage after 5 were blocked by Good damage reduction


EE deathwyrm was tough, but I was never one-shotted in there from full life buffed to -5,000 hp.
a tank could hold the deathwyrms (with reasonably decent heals)
We complete EE deathwyrm periodically with very few deaths.
I have had more Champion deaths in the last week than total deaths in the last 6 months.
There is ouch that 500hp hit hurt and jump around to heal/get heals, that can be managed, its the periodic one-shot .ding. you are dead with -1khp... cant heal through that.

Why you keep giving bad feedback?
The numbers you provide can only be seen inside the mirror room of terminal delirium and have very little relationship with monster champions and much more with the mechanic of that specific quest.
Keep spamming those numbers here will only provide bad feedback for the devs.

My experience of monster champions and the experience of many friends and guildies that don't come on the forum, is that they are a welcome addition to the game and they add an element of interest in the quest because you have to pay attention if there is a champion ahead of you. No one is complaining about the oneshotting thing because if you play with some attention and have a geared toon it is simply too rare to be remembered. 99% of the deaths come from misplays.

Happy for your deathwyrm completions, but If you read my post again you'll see I was talking about the raid bosses of mark of death

[Cordovan]

Hey Cordovan,

There are many divisive point here but some not as much.

Most seem to be in favor of EPIC being difficult

A bigger area of contention seems to be HEROIC.

Can EPIC and HEROIC have different settings?

For example, HEROIC HARD being like now but EPIC HARD being bumped up a bit?

Or is HARD linked for the two?

What are the possibilities? (seeing as you asked for feedback, it might help to know what can and can't be done)

Separating out Champion settings on Heroic and Epic levels is something we may consider for the future, but will take additional development time if we pursue this path.

[Vulkoorex]

Separating out Champion settings on Heroic and Epic levels is something we may consider for the future, but will take additional development time if we pursue this path.

This might be the better solution for most players. Not all but most.

[DragonMageT]

We have tried to be clear from the start that the main impetus for the addition of Monster Champions was to increase game challenge on Hard and Elite difficulties. We've been making some changes in the past year in particular that have decreased game difficulty for many players, and have heard quite a bit of feedback suggesting that the game needed a boost in overall challenge. Our internal game analysis found those perceptions to have merit in many cases. Additionally, Monster Champions were added to bring some variety during questing, and to give us additional tools that we can use for various things.

Thanks for replying, good to know you guys are still watching this thread.
How you do it I have no clue, to many post, etc. I blinked and think I missed a few hundred posts
Haste potions in the Cup of Joe, maybe ?

More Feedback:

I think the Champion dial was turned a little bit to far to the left.
EH is a cake walk once again. Few more tweaks back to the right should do the trick both
in spawn rate and damage output.

I haven't run heroics stuff in ages so I can't comment on that.
But the EH content I ran over the last couple of nights was like the champions were non-extant.
The only time I got slowed down by them was if they actually dropped a chest.

It's not said enough Great job and thanks for making this game enjoyable to play.

Oh almost forgot, Merry Xmas and Happy New Year!

[Keladon]

Thanks for replying, good to know you guys are still watching this thread.
How you do it I have no clue, to many post, etc. I blinked and think I missed a few hundred posts
Haste potions in the Cup of Joe, maybe ?

More Feedback:

I think the Champion dial was turned a little bit to far to the left.
EH is a cake walk once again. Few more tweaks back to the right should do the trick both
in spawn rate and damage output.

I haven't run heroics stuff in ages so I can't comment on that.
But the EH content I ran over the last couple of nights was like the champions were non-extant.
The only time I got slowed down by them was if they actually dropped a chest.

It's not said enough Great job and thanks for making this game enjoyable to play.

Oh almost forgot, Merry Xmas and Happy New Year!

Why not play EE if EH is a cake walk? Just curious here.

[Kristii]

I read a post from someone else that went something like this. Sorry I lost it and can't quote it again:

"I played a lvl 13 quest on elite and took a cleric hireling. It used to take me ten minutes to complete. This time I died five times because of champions! I have toons with past lives/good gear, etc, etc, but they can't take these guys, so if they're not nerfed, I guess I'll cancel my subscription and leave."

Also being a longtime player (though my "furthest" character is only on her third life), this is my reaction to champions once their ability to one-shot even the best geared tones was toned down a bit (That's just aggravating rather than challenging):

WOOT!!!!

Devs, you guys done good! If you're able to complete Elite in ten minutes at level, the game is too easy. Elite is supposed to be a struggle. If it were a real D&D tabletop game (I know we've departed from that but bear with me), Elite is supposed to be the dungeon that you enter with a full GROUP of good players and just BARELY crawl out to tell the tale. Elite is supposed to be the difficulty you tell stories about that include something like, "Everyone was dead but one. He was down to two hp. He dived behind this pillar, popped a heal scroll while the boss was coming around to finish him off, went around the other side, shot the cleric a raise, and then ran around like a beheaded chicken with the boss's aggro while the cleric got the rest of the party going! I can't believe we actually won!"

Those are the gaming moments you actually remember and recount people, not your thirtieth 10 minute completion! We now have a game where elite can't be soloed with a hire by someone on their 2nd life. And there was much rejoicing!

[Monkey-Boy]

Separating out Champion settings on Heroic and Epic levels is something we may consider for the future, but will take additional development time if we pursue this path.

There is other stuff you can do besides tweaks champions to adjust the challenge level of content.

Sometime it's best not to try to teach a dog how to quack.

[Connman]

"Everyone was dead but one. He was down to two hp. He dived behind this pillar, popped a heal scroll while the boss was coming around to finish him off, went around the other side, shot the cleric a raise, and then ran around like a beheaded chicken with the boss's aggro while the cleric got the rest of the party going! I can't believe we actually won!"

I would say that unless you can tell this story you have never REALLY lived DDO, just my opinion though.

I remember when I was new, seeing the "baddest dude with 1 hp" was awesome.

[Dragavon]

Separating out Champion settings on Heroic and Epic levels is something we may consider for the future, but will take additional development time if we pursue this path.

You should differentiate by level. Low level quests on elite should have few champions, on higher levels there should be more.

[Monkey-Boy]

You should differentiate by level. Low level quests on elite should have few champions, on higher levels there should be more.

There is other stuff you can do besides tweaks champions to adjust the challenge level of content.

Champions wasn't a particularly good idea. Trying to make them the solution is a recipe for fail.

[JOTMON]

Why you keep giving bad feedback?
The numbers you provide can only be seen inside the mirror room of terminal delirium and have very little relationship with monster champions and much more with the mechanic of that specific quest.
Keep spamming those numbers here will only provide bad feedback for the devs.

My experience of monster champions and the experience of many friends and guildies that don't come on the forum, is that they are a welcome addition to the game and they add an element of interest in the quest because you have to pay attention if there is a champion ahead of you. No one is complaining about the oneshotting thing because if you play with some attention and have a geared toon it is simply too rare to be remembered. 99% of the deaths come from misplays.

Happy for your deathwyrm completions, but If you read my post again you'll see I was talking about the raid bosses of mark of death

I'm not giving feedback, I am just refuting your claim that Champions are not doing more damage than bosses because they are doing more damage.
The first number of 6k was from balloon side, the 2nd one was from mirror, the third was from one of the other quests and not even in delirium.
There are many more one shots occurring, I just marked out the first top 3 deaths I had on the first day of questing the new release.

There is no such thing as bad feedback, all feedback is useful to devs..

AS to your Mark of Death, go ahead and do your EE MOD I have and see how the deathknights are.. now hope you never see one as a champion.

On a side note I hear people complaining that trash mobs do more damage then raid bosses. That is just plain false.

so if you are going to make false statements, you will be refuted.

[DragonMageT]

Why not play EE if EH is a cake walk? Just curious here.

A. Time constrains
B. I didn't create the group, was helping a guildy. <-- mainly this one, as a mentioned EE and was shot down.

Some of it's still just adjusting to the tweaks that have been made and saying to myself or convincing others
EE is not the difficult/more time/effort/etc, let's hit up EE.

[zaranda]

I must be a lousy player(despite my playing for over 4 yrs, lots of toons but one on 3rd life and +3 tomes) or I failed to pick up something. I don't like the champs much, blink and your dead is not that fun to me. Some of us have yet to get bored with EE as we don't find it that easy to start with.

Another thing I see as I read this thread(not finished all the way yet), no one has commented on heroics. It's always EE this or EE that. At least I hear that the % is dropped, because it seemed more like 30% in heroics anyway(prolly not that high, seems like it). I don't mind the occasional debuff, but one-shot deaths on hard seem a little excessive. Ok, so I solo(with hire) most of the time, should I be punished for that?

I'm still having a hard time in some of the the epic but that maybe due to my not knowing them very well yet. I just can't figure how you could say epic anything is to easy. I can't even say that about Heroic yet. More chests, or a few with some good stuff in it and not always **** stuff you end up selling would be nice.

I'm sorry that people with past lifes and +6 tomes are bored. There is an easy fix for that you know, start another toon.

Just my thoughts hopefully in a respectable manner.

[redoubt]

Why you keep giving bad feedback?
The numbers you provide can only be seen inside the mirror room of terminal delirium and have very little relationship with monster champions and much more with the mechanic of that specific quest.
Keep spamming those numbers here will only provide bad feedback for the devs.

My experience of monster champions and the experience of many friends and guildies that don't come on the forum, is that they are a welcome addition to the game and they add an element of interest in the quest because you have to pay attention if there is a champion ahead of you. No one is complaining about the oneshotting thing because if you play with some attention and have a geared toon it is simply too rare to be remembered. 99% of the deaths come from misplays.

Happy for your deathwyrm completions, but If you read my post again you'll see I was talking about the raid bosses of mark of death

Its not just his numbers from the mirror room.

Consider 2 level 28 characters in Fashion madness on HEROIC HARD. Both hit one time and dead. (Yes, you can restart and try again, but should a quest 10 levels below you be able to one shot you?)

Next, as for the Mask Of Death insta (or near insta kill). The inferno has a large time from when it is telegraphed (and the voice literally tells you its coming) until you need to get to a safe place or swap gear. The force damage reduces the farther from the center you are, so you can mitigate that pretty well and are given time to do so. The blue fog is telegraphed several seconds before it lands with the blue circles, so again, there is plenty of time to adjust to it. The archers can be killed to keep them from getting the super damage buff. None of this is the same as what was (I don't know if it still is) happening with one shot kills from to much damage boost (i.e. the damage boost like second wind were not telegraphed and the devs even said they would look at making it more obvious that it was about to happen.)

All that said, I like the lower spawn rate better, but now lets make the champions special (i.e. harder, but in an intelligent way, not just damage and hp sacks.)

[redoubt]

Why not play EE if EH is a cake walk? Just curious here.

Same reason it has always been. EH is a cakewalk and EE is tough as nails.

(I know some people find EE to be easy. Its only been in the last few months that I've really put much time into working on running EE. Its always been a goal and I've been working towards it.)

Its also known as the gap from EH to EE is huge.

[Stinging_Bee]

I'm not giving feedback, I am just refuting your claim that Champions are not doing more damage than bosses because they are doing more damage.
The first number of 6k was from balloon side, the 2nd one was from mirror, the third was from one of the other quests and not even in delirium.
There are many more one shots occurring, I just marked out the first top 3 deaths I had on the first day of questing the new release.

There is no such thing as bad feedback, all feedback is useful to devs..

AS to your Mark of Death, go ahead and do your EE MOD I have and see how the deathknights are.. now hope you never see one as a champion.
so if you are going to make false statements, you will be refuted.

Last time I reply to you directly cause this is becoming boring.

As you admit 6k and 4k incoming damage is inside terminal delirium in special parts of the quest where you are extremely vulnerable to melee hits from monsters. The last one you say is from another quest and is a 2,192 points of slash damage.
I've seen raid bosses do 3000ish damage on party members. Specifically in fire on thunder peaks and Mark of death you can see raid bosses crit for way more than your 2000 damage which is by the way a huge amount for a trash monster but still lower than raid bosses.

[Nimdeadlee]

I've played quite a bit of EE and EH before and after the champion nerf.

I have to say, I'm disappointed they were nerfed. I loved the original champs. I feel the nerf was too much - the game difficulty now feels the same to me as it did before update 24. Before the nerf I could actually feel the champions in the quest. I had to pay attention to them, deal with them first by either CC'ing, kiting, or burst DPS'ing them.

After the nerf I can REALLY feel the difficulty difference. It feels much easier than Cordovan's description would suggest. Devs are you sure you only reduced the spawn chance on elite by 3%? It feels like way more than that.

And not just that, I can REALLY feel the difference in the damage buff reduction. I don't even notice it now on EH. EH feels exactly the same now as it did before U24. I don't have to respect the champions at all. Again, are you sure you only decreased it by 25%? It feels like more than that.

So bottom line, before the nerf I was loving the champions. They added an interesting gameplay element to DDO and I was having lots of fun. Now the difficulty of the game feels more or less the same as it was pre-update 24.

I'd like to see you undo the nerfs (at least some), along with introducing a real rewards system (with extra XP) so some players don't get upset. Or perhaps keep the nerf in heroics, undo it in epics. Seems like losing elite bravery bonus is heroics is what's irking casual players the most anyway. Very few elite streak in epics and epics are supposed to be harder anyways right? Especially EE.

If you would have rolled out your rewards system at the same time as champions I think the player base would have been much more accepting of the changes. A lot of the uproar stems from increased quest time with no meaningful reward. Nerfs may not have been necessary.

+1, except roll back nerfs in Heroic too.

[Artrish]

This thread has been quite an interesting read during the week. The nicest looking option from my view in what has been discussed is people wanting the champions in quest to be an optional tick box. I like that preference for a solution though my motivation is to use it to be able to play without them in the quest, hehe.

I took the week away from the game due to the addition of them, i don't play for the thrill of accomplishing something that very few in the world can do. I play to fill in time and enjoy character progression and the thrill of earning something for my time put in.

Reading that the champions have been toned down makes me want to login to check out the changes though i am trying to stay away for a bit longer as this whole experience has been refreshing to help me take a look at why i play games for my recreation and what types i want to be playing. This environment where the social community has a major focus of the best of the best with high competition while those that don't measure up get lightly nudged away in a corner to go solo by themselves or expected to feel grateful to be a soulstone in someones pocket for a quest is not a scene that is enriching to ones lives in the way i feel are important in life.

I miss many parts of the game, it is a very nice interface and very fun gameplay. Tonnes of fun to be able to add all different abilities and things like that. Though i digress from the theme of the topic to walk down this memory lane.

To nerf the champions, seems as though the whole process has managed to add two large barriers to progression in the game. In the segregation of the player base, it has managed to tease those looking for difficult gameplay options with an option they feel brings them a thrill they are looking for though cannot fully use due to having to nerf for others. And for those not wanting extreme challenges, is has added a random form of nuisance that occurs in quests.

As complex and varied peoples personalities and styles are, there is quite an obvious seperation of a competitive group and non-competitive group. Maybe it is ddo's intention to try bring us all together to enjoy the same quest at the same time. I persoanlly don't think it is possible to please everyone at once. In all sports and recreations, competitive players and social players always have their own seperate leagues for good reasons. And no, normal difficulty is not an option for social gamers as much as evereyone thinks it is. 3.8million exp to get to 20 at a rate of 200 exp/min (the rate social gamers on normal earn and often lower for repeats) is 317 hours of quest time (social gamers tending to spend a lot of time being social and not always in the quest advancing) which is a very very long time to see character progression.

Anyways, the situation is very complex and the developers have way more expereince and tools in environment design then i could ever think to have. On my side of it all, i will login sometime to check out the changes though i am trying my best to get out of this environment. Overall it feels like a waste of my time and an unnecessary stress to take on in life. I do get a lot of free time though and i like gaming and the rpg scene, so who knows, next week i will possibly back trying to grind out past lives again, haha.

Take care out there everyone, and thank you kindly for the opportunity to express our opinions and feedback on the changes. In the least an environment being actively aware of how people genuinely feel and play is better equipped to make effective and productive changes toward future developments. Something i feel ddo is quite good at, with interacting with players often.

P.s Enjoy the festive seasons and have a merry time in your quests

[Nimdeadlee]

You should differentiate by level. Low level quests on elite should have few champions, on higher levels there should be more.

Sorry, disagree. Low level quests on Elite are already too easy for TRs. At least make it fun for those who multi-TR.