Monster Champion Feedback

[HAL]

ran 56 quest today, pugging from lv 1, had 2 or more deaths each quest, all elite streaking, lv 150+shipbufs+30 resist energy
ballanced party, 1 cleric (me), 1 sorc, 1 paladin, 1 rog, 1 barb, 1 monk, al tr vets, all aware of the changes
1200(rounded down) damage from a firebal in a lv 2 quest (the paly was in full plate and shield&def stance mode)
60+ damage per hit from a swarm of champion spiders in the catacombs
850 damage from lighning casting shaman in WW
besides al the useless deaths, the imunities, resistances and hp increases (1300hp non red named spider in the catacombs.....) make the journey through their a boring slog, the mobs die but much slower.

with all the party deaths costing me 10% exp everytime i feel inclined to invis&solo to speed things up
thumbs up for another nail in the lfm's coffin.
not that we're getting an overflow of newer players but this widens the gap between vets and newer players even more

seriously Cordovan, dev's, put in an opt out, this system is chasing of newer/weaker players and wastes my time


Edit, you can no longer say: get better saves, or better ac (paly had 66ac), more hp, etc, it just turned into rusian roulette, no longer does it mater if you are a tripple heroic, epic and iconic completionist, have mad skills, somethimes 12 champions spawn right on top of you and kill you, somethimes a rare pops and does 6 times the damage of your max hp, no amount of heal amp or prr/mrr helps here, it's unballanced, it's a slog, it's a waste of time, that could have been spend fixing the quests, bugs or the barbarian class

As has been said many times: how is russian roulette equal to making the game more difficult? "You're dead" isn't harder, just more irritating.

[Daerius of the Blessed Blades]

On a lark I just jumped into Bringing In The Light and there were multiple gamblers (the guys that are neutral and you can't interact with, much less fight) that were champions. That seem... odd.

Ha! I saw that too! I just assumed they were the professional gamblers...

[Uska]

I now have something to hate more than I do the realms did,a,heroic Von IV and every other monster it seemed was a champion was ridiculous

[phillymiket]

My Champions!

/swoon

:-D

Way too easy to totally get around Champions if you have high enough DC.

BTW in this quest at the end fight i made the scorecard -

Red Name Boss -VS- A Single Random Trash Mob Champion Troll.

The winner?

Trash Mob by a knock-out!

Seriously? The trash mob guy took out the boss?

[Paladin20]

Champions are spawning at a higher rate than 10%.

I would suggest lowering the Rate on Hard to 5%

GO ahead and leave elite at 10%, but look at how you are figuring that 10% and really make it 10%. Because right now its 15-20%

Not to the big sticking point.

we have been encourage to run Elite as "norm" since this silly "Bravery Bonus" **** came out.

In order for Pugs to come back, It needs to go away. or at least be heavily modified so doing one quest not on elite doesnt mean the end of the world for the people who are impressed by their own big streak numbers.

What he said... If the intention of bringing in monster champions is to promote grouping then it's not working at all, matter of fact that's only going to make things worse for newer players if even a good portion of seasoned players with geared up and multiple TR characters are getting 1-2 shot killed. You're essentially locking out new players from Elite content and are making it annoying for people who are on multiple TR projects. Having monster champions the way they currently are will make it even less likely for folks to group together with unknowns because of the 10% xp bonus received for not dying.

Grouping has already been really scarce for a long time, and this mechanic is only exacerbating the problem. If the idea is to promote PUGs again then get rid of the Bravery Bonus while increasing the base+optional+bonus XP for Elite. If the intention is to make the game more challenging just for the hell of it, well, there are ways to do that without ****ing the **** out of half your player base. It's ridiculous when one room can spawn 3-4 trash mobs simultaneously that all hit harder than end bosses. I don't see how that makes anybody's gaming experience any better.

[Uska]

Devs,

Stick to your guns mostly. Finally attempting to bring back challenge to the game and us "few" that welcome challenge have arms wide open. Some players have had it too easy the last few years steamrolling/zerging quests even on elite. Some talk the talk but clearly it shows it was just that. The Champions need some tweaks and I still say they should be more rare, but dont nerf hammer them. I want this to work very much. I can see a positive domino affect happening from this and any other new challenges going forward.

My only real complaint is they do appear way to frequently

[Wipey]

Some champions came close - giant skeles at the end of TOR come to mind as being tougher than most, but no specific example... almost any orange named champion is immune to most CC and insta kills though...

Do you remember how we used to range the pillar thingies and pull the boss to the side in Tor ?
Now you can solo EE Tor at level easily, I did open to pugs many runs " EE Tor, quest done ,white only" on pally at level 24 or 25, or capped cleric farming for Optics for Palemaster.
The game got too easy, I don't think the damage is that high for the HIGHEST difficulty.

Anyway, Tor skellies can be Adrenalined, Anvil of Thundered, Shield Bashed + auto Bash stunned, Eartquaked, Balanced Attacks knocked down, Webbed, Cometed ( dunno if champs have higher saves but undead get knocked down super easily ), pretty sure you can Frozen Fury them, maybe even Mass Frog ?
Pin maybe ? Don't know about Shiradi.

[HAL]

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.

Yep, a lot of people trying to TR, especially the first few lives might be forced to play Normal which will then force a grind which will probably end up losing players. Those who can do Hard or better will still be losing XP because of the random idiotic one-shot deaths. And I expect Hirelings will be even more useless so many people will never be able to recover from that death and will have to restart the quest.

[Zzevel]

Just put in the lfm, easy.

Brilliant! TWO versions of each level of difficulty! that cuts the LFM possibilities in HALF again...
/SARCASM

Keep it as is, champions add flavor to HARD and ELITE because these levels are SUPPOSED to me more of a challenge. Because they were EASY in the past, doesn't mean they SHOULD always be easy.

If you do not like champions they do not spawn everywhere, they can be avoided by running the quest on either NORMAL or CASUAL (levels made easier for the people who don't like a challenge).

The game has to accommodate others besides you, me and our 27 past lives.

You don't know me, I don't have a single character past their third life, I just like the IDEA that everyone doesn't need a trophy for participating. This idea in NOT being shoved down everyones throat, other options ARE available to EVERYONE, some just do NOT want to use them because they are used to getting something more for little to no effort. This makes people need groups, need strategy and probaly some skill to get the MORE, that's all.

[BD_]

Do you remember how we used to range the pillar thingies and pull the boss to the side in Tor ?
Now you can solo EE Tor at level easily, I did open to pugs many runs " EE Tor, quest done ,white only" on pally at level 24 or 25, or capped cleric farming for Optics for Palemaster.
The game got too easy, I don't think the damage is that high for the HIGHEST difficulty.

Anyway, Tor skellies can be Adrenalined, Anvil of Thundered, Shield Bashed + auto Bash stunned, Eartquaked, Balanced Attacks knocked down, Webbed, Cometed ( dunno if champs have higher saves but undead get knocked down super easily ), pretty sure you can Frozen Fury them, maybe even Mass Frog ?
Pin maybe ? Don't know about Shiradi.

I never said they were immune to everything... I also specifically said that I personally don't find them too hard, but do find them to be not fun.

I'll reiterate once again Random (trash) mobs should not be harder than the hardest bosses and raid bosses.

[mna]

Brand new players may do elites, but its because of player expectations, not dev expectations. Or peer pressure, to use another term.

As of now, elite bravery streak is still the norm.

And actually, skilled veteran players (multi-TR and such) can usually still pull it off, it seems. So, they do.

First-lifers and new players (new to the server with prior DDO experience included) probably can no longer survive in that, much less pull their weight. So, no grouping with the veterans.


This means that the player base is fragmented even more, the bravery streakers not even trying to include newbies any more... I thought that was already a problem? It's an even bigger problem now.

[Sam1313]

So after killing 73 Champions in this quest up to this point. NO CHESTS! And now my own death AFTER BEING ONE SHOTTED that has costed me -10% to my xp.
THIS IS BS FIX IT NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!

[BD_]

My Champions!

/swoon

:-D

Way too easy to totally get around Champions if you have high enough DC.

BTW in this quest at the end fight i made the scorecard -

Red Name Boss -VS- A Single Random Trash Mob Champion Troll.

The winner?

Trash Mob by a knock-out!

Seriously? The trash mob guy took out the boss?

Exactly my point: Boss mobs are boss mobs for a reason... Random (trash mobs) shouldn't be harder than them.

I'm all for increasing difficulty- if done "correctly" - the current implementation of champions is not done "correctly"

[Kamode_Corebasher]

Nicely done!!

My Champions!

/swoon

:-D

Way too easy to totally get around Champions if you have high enough DC.

BTW in this quest at the end fight i made the scorecard -

Red Name Boss -VS- A Single Random Trash Mob Champion Troll.

The winner?

Trash Mob by a knock-out!

Seriously? The trash mob guy took out the boss?

[phillymiket]

Because they were EASY in the past, doesn't mean they SHOULD always be easy.

Yes, yes. You are true.

But that doesn't make it stink less for those effected.

How about something that would effect you personally...

Player power way over-powered. i hope we can agree there.

How would you feel if you logged in tomorrow and all your gear got nerfed along with PRR and twists and destinies etc.

Then i say, "Just because players were over-powered in the past doesn't mean they should always be over-powered"

Feel better about it?

Not really, I bet.

The level of gear possibilities and power boosts available in the past, while fine then, would feel crippling if brought back now simply because you are used to the good life at this point.

Being "reduced" to Normal might just feel like that.

I wouldn't know but we should be mindful of the possibility.

[mna]

Ha! I saw that too! I just assumed they were the professional gamblers...

I had some of those as well.

Also, Cellimas had managed to find herself a crown during Misery's Peak (hard). I'm sure she didn't have one in the start room, certainly had it in the end room...
Oh, and there were a few all-champion zombie mob groups spawned from those ice statues.


Was worried about the champion acolyte that was summoning the ice flenser. Didn't have time to check for deathblock, he died just fine during the summoning though, but that does worry me a bit.

[Wipey]

I'll reiterate once again Random (trash) mobs should not be harder than the hardest bosses and raid bosses.

Maybe they are "bosses" because of their blue blood, people skills or charming personality instead of combat prowess ?.
Nothing wrong that trash mob that fights and kills adventurers every day shouldn't be better

[Kristii]

Great idea. Only thing seems to be these:

Spawn rate seems a bit bugged. Around 30% of mobs look to be champions. I think it should be 10% on hard and 20% on elite difficulty.

I personally think it's a little silly to have a random trash mob be tougher than the boss of a dungeon. Story-line wise, wouldn't the champion have overthrown the boss if it was that tough? Champions are great, but I think they should be on par with the boss of any given dungeon, not tougher.

HOWEVER, this adds spice and danger to questing, which is awesome!

[Saekee]

Archangel666 joked with me that a champion trap is possible in Wheloon if one considers the animated ones...And here one is!
(BTW bottled tornados in hotbar were made legally and I have never used them)



This is from a stealth run of TaMD

[phillymiket]

Maybe they are "bosses" because of their blue blood, people skills or charming personality instead of combat prowess ?.
Nothing wrong that trash mob that fights and kills adventurers every day shouldn't be better