Monster Champion Feedback

[Cordovan]

UPDATE 12/16/14: We have reduced the number of Monster Champions that spawn, and also reduced the overall damage boost Champions get. The numbers are now:

• Hard normal monsters: The percentage chance for a Champion to spawn has been reduced from 12% to 6%.
• Elite normal monsters: The percentage chance for a Champion to spawn has been reduced from 12% to 9%.
• Hard Orange named monsters (mini-bosses) is now 33%.
• Elite Orange named monsters (mini-bosses) is now 66%.
• Champion Damage boost: Reduced by 25%.

Original Post: 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!

[DarthCaedus]

I am going to role-play in Neverwinter over the winter break instead of working on past lifes. I don't mind a difficulty ramp up, but getting one-shotted with 1000 hp isn't something I consider a challenge. This wasn't in Terminal Delirium.

I understand you want to encourage grouping, but certain times of day grouping is non-existant so I try to solo a few quests. Getting one-shotted with great gear, past lifes, etc. just sucks time out of my schedule because I need to release, get my hp and sp back and make my way to the quest.

I don't think the difficulty increase is that big of a deal except the one-shotting. That shouldn't happen even on EE except in raids.

[ddo.rsmo.pt]

On EE Palace of Stone, me (Pally S&B) and Sorc friend only had troubles when the random encounters had 3+ Champions. Most have the Quad Damage (or whatever) perk, which deal around 750-800 damage (tested with 200 PRR = 66% damage mitigation). This means one-strike on less prepared players, but giving the EE difficulty and that they're Champions, seems fair.


I feed that, given the cluster of monsters this particular quest had (seems the norm nowadays), 2 Champions per encounter should be the maximum, also to avoid trivializing Champions. Otherwise, I'm sure we'll see a new difficulty soon called "Epic Nightmare" where all monsters are Champions.


Suggestion: Although giving a chest per Champion would just be stupid, I would see fitting that Champions could give some bonus, some examples:
- Count double towards the conquest counter
- Each 5 Champions killed would increase the End Loot +1 (capped at +2)
- Each 5 Champions killed would increase the chance for named loot


Although not perfect, this mechanic seems OK, obviously based off Diablo.


P.S: I'm getting the feeling people are reporting that on EH they get a chest for each Champion...? Is this right? 'Cause on Epic Elite, we didn't get any chests, only 3 chest from Palace of Stone (2 from Optionals (which also were Champions), and 1 from End Quest).
P.S2: If Orange names already give chest (most of the quest, anyway), there's no benefit.
P.S3: Reposting here, since the other thread was nuked.


Carry on.

[Panzermeyer]

Suggestion: Although giving a chest per Champion would just be stupid, I would see fitting that Champions could give some bonus, some examples:
- Count double towards the conquest counter
- Each 5 Champions killed would increase the End Loot +1 (capped at +2)
- Each 5 Champions killed would increase the chance for named loot


Although not perfect, this mechanic seems OK, obviously based off Diablo.


P.S: I'm getting the feeling people are reporting that on EH they get a chest for each Champion...? Is this right? 'Cause on Epic Elite, we didn't get any chests, only 3 chest from Palace of Stone (2 from Optionals (which also were Champions), and 1 from End Quest).
P.S2: If Orange names already give chest (most of the quest, anyway), there's no benefit.
P.S3: Reposting here, since the other thread was nuked.


Carry on.

Chests seem to only come with red/oranged named champions.

I have run into a lot of champions now with no chests.
Last nite ran EH Palace of Stone and the named Stone Pile was a champion and produced an extra chest (whereas it was not and did not eariler in the day)
This morning ran an EE Lords of Dust and two of the red named Rhakshasa's were champions and both spawned extra chests. No other champions have spawned chests for me yet.

[cave_diver]

Love it! Don't change a thing.

Ran all the quests yesterday on EE + EE Haunted Halls, sure a few times some members died but over all love the champions......don't cave in to the charlie casuals there are lower difficulty settings the can choose

[jalont]

I like the change, and if anything, I don't think it goes far enough. Most of the champions aren't any different than a regular mob for all intents and purposes. The chance of getting one shotted is so small that people will still be easily soloing EEs, and they add no chance of failure for an EE group.

[Artrish]

don't cave in to the charlie casuals there are lower difficulty settings the can choose

This would be nice to do if those lower difficulties would progress the characters. The way the game is setup these days, you need to repeat a quest on normal 4-5 times to make up for a first time elite run. I have been on the server running multi lives where i had to repeat quests 10 times each to try level my characters, i cannot handle those days anymore as after the second life doing it, the mind goes numb and the game doesn't feel like a game, it just feels like a chore.

Champions are a nice thought, and this whole adding in difficult options for people to have a challenge is nice. Those that do it often are out of touch with what a casual gamer goes thorugh. On the servers there is very little option other then to join elite groupings. For me it is fun to feel character progression, i don't want to spend 50 hours a week of gameplay to progress one or two levels when the character builds require 12-14 past lives to show progress in questing.

It is a mix of different issues that i describe in my post.

For me, the champions just put a block in my tr goals. I can get around it though i would be playing outside my class setup to do so. I tr'd one in to a sorc, so in the level 2 dungeons my sorcs acid spell kills the general mobs though when i hit a champion, it takes 5 casts to take one down and the incoming damage requires me to drink a potion every second hit which is a larger increase in time then the usual 2 hit and move on scenario i am used to. Too stressfull a style for me to play, though i can physically get through it, my body is too tense playing that wayand it isn't a fun experience for me.

I heard an option once to roll a new character, which is very disrespectfull to suggest as all my character have around a thousand hours time invested in them and to completely delete these to make room for new ones so i can roll characters to solo a normal difficulty life (not many would join my normal difficulty hosted runs, have tried it in past many many times).

As a casual gamer, my time is just as valuable to me as other gamers who are up for a difficult challenge. I am aware this is difficult to balance the environment to be enjoyable for all. At the moment, the balance is not in favor of the casual gamer and the options feel very degrading to enjoy the time on the game as such. As mentioned in another thread on this topic, i am choosing to have the weekend away from ddo instead of rolling up a first liver to solo normal quests 4 times each.

In short, listen to the guys that enjoy playing for a challenge as to how the champion mobs are going, just have some consideration for what the alternatives you are mentioning to the casual gamer that dont want to participate in difficult gameplay setups. All our time is valuable to us and we are all worthy to enjoy character progression, rewards and the feeling of advancing for our time spent here.

Have a fun time out there, take care.

[phillymiket]

Love it! Don't change a thing.

Ran all the quests yesterday on EE + EE Haunted Halls, sure a few times some members died but over all love the champions......don't cave in to the charlie casuals there are lower difficulty settings the can choose

Cool...

Except Charlie Casual keeps the lights on.

Tell me you are getting a shared bank or buying new packs anymore like New Guy might?

"New Guy" has more income potential then "Mr. Vet."

Deride the new player all you want.

If they stop playing we all go down.

you need to repeat a quest on normal 4-5 times to make up for a first time elite run. .

This is how it used to be.

Run Norm 4-5 times for each quest.

That was fine then.

But making people go back to that after running E for so long? It makes it feel much worse.

People who are getting their first PLs just had their work load doubled (perhaps).

Granted BB XP bonus should not have been inflated so high to start with. Half as much would still have been great.

But people don't like to go back.

If you want to make the game harder, make it more challenging then just remove the stupidly overpowered weapons and armor.

^^^Ding Ding! We have a winner!.^^^

"Hmmmm... Let's add 60 DR plus 50%++ damage reduction with PRR."

"Hey! Why is everyone having such an easy time in Elite anymore?"

Gee, I wonder...

[Springstring]

Love it! Don't change a thing.

Ran all the quests yesterday on EE + EE Haunted Halls, sure a few times some members died but over all love the champions......don't cave in to the charlie casuals there are lower difficulty settings the can choose

sure if you don't have a life and all you do is play DDO but for the more casual of use that play 5 champions in a mod encounter that can one shot 1200 hp something is not right

[Springstring]

Love it! Don't change a thing.

Ran all the quests yesterday on EE + EE Haunted Halls, sure a few times some members died but over all love the champions......don't cave in to the charlie casuals there are lower difficulty settings the can choose

On the other hand don't cave in on the EE player that have a stick up there bottom and all they want to do is talk about how good they are because they don't have a life other than DDO

[barecm]

Champions are a great addition to the game. I think this game has gotten way too easy lately. I do think they should only appear on Elite (Epic and Heroic) and Hard (Epic and Heroic), but not on normal or casual.

In order to make this more appealing, they should give a small amount of XP as well as a chest with a small chance of dropping named items (if the quest has them) and/or level appropriate unbound ingredients for random crafting systems. Greensteel, alchemical, thunderforged etc...

[SiliconScout]

I think that by and large Champions (in my limited experience granted) are fine more or less as is. I do have some recommendations, more like minor tweaks, though.

1. I have not seen a single Champ drop a chest yet. Not one, given the couple of dozen fought that doesn't make a lot of sense. Their Chests should have a higher drop rate.
2. The sometimes spawn on plot NPC's. Not that it matters really when they can't be killed anyway however it suggests the code is a little sloppy which brings me to ...
3. Their spawn should have some sort of cool down. Granted it's not common but it's not unusual to walk into a group that has 1 or 2 champs. My personal record is 4. At that point you start wondering if they aren't "normal" and the other mobs are actually gimps. The code could use a cool-down timer that say only allows a champ to spawn at maximum once every 6 or 10 seconds say. This would still allow for the occasional battle with 2+ champs but at least if the group (or solo player) takes it slow and steady they really shouldn't have to deal with more than one at a time.

On the whole I think it's a great change. I remember pre-MOTU when it took serious effort to build a toon that could run "EPIC", in a group, without getting planted. Especially if you weren't going to win/buy your heart but were running the EPIC's to get your tokens. It was BRUTAL and it was amazing fun. I remember my first toon that could sorta complete in a group with only a few deaths and finally earning his TR heart and it felt like an amazing accomplishment. Hell back then the number of people who could reliably solo EPICS (and not just the "easy" ones) could probably be counted on two hands for any given server.

This is NO WHERE near a return to those days, but it is a nice baby step back towards them. More difficulty will bring more enjoyable playing. I mean really who remembers that 247th run of Impossible Demands that wants smooth as clockwork? Nobody. Now who remembers that Shroud that was so close to a party wipe but managed to have one or two guys get just a little lucky and pull the run out of the fire? Everyone... every single person in that run does. ALL of the most fun times I have had from a questing perspective have been those messy, dirty, "what the hell is going on" type of runs. And in the old days many of those ended in wipes. You know what we did? We decided that we needed a "trapper" or a "Healer" or a different difficulty OR we sold, repaired, restocked and charged right back in to show that damned quest who's boss.

Today accomplishments are measured in "past lives" but it wasn't always so, they used to be measured in quest completions. That feeling you get when you finally finish off that 3rd Bard life, yeah we used to be able to get that feeling a couple times a night depending on the content we were running.

I greatly miss those moments as they are so very very rare now, with Champions we squeak a little more back to when it felt like you accomplished something by completing the quest.

[hit_fido]

I happen to be running my fighter currently. He was doing fine stunning and/or tripping most champions he ran across, no kiting or range attacks needed.

This is very good news. Personally I feel encouraged to add another dimension or two re: CC to my play style like the good old days instead of just relying on dps/aoe.

My feedback is from running ~20 low level quests having just TR'd.

I liked this idea when shared on Lamma forum, I still like it, although the implementation isn't what I expected. I expected champions to work something like random encounter orange/red names - maybe seeing 3-4 in an average instance (or more/less depending on quest size) and being scaled up at minimum to orange/red strength with some other interesting twists. The reality is there's almost never been a time in quest where I can't see at least one, if not two/three champions active.

Rate of champion spawn is higher than expected, but I'm not sure how I feel about it yet. If the 'champion characteristics' are scaled better then it may be more fun than my original expectation because of greater variety and more frequent change ups. But if the characteristics remain around the "one shot" magnitude being described by some I'd rather see much fewer spawn per quest.

The "fortification ignore" is the most egregious characteristic to me. If it's ok to bypass *all* fortification, then will it be ok to bypass all deathblock? What about champion caster mobs with "bypass all will saves"? Complete bypass seems wrong. It's also the characteristic that will most encourage the mentality of "all I can do is kite" because the consequence could be getting one shotted - I'd rather see powerful defensive characteristics combined with upgraded (but not one-shot territory) offense that give players time to understand the challenge posed by the champion then adapt.

Saw a non champion ooze split up and produce 3 champion spawns. That seems wrong.

Also prefer a more interesting reward than trash chest. If the only champions dropping them are champion orange named then at least make the chest like +1-2 levels higher than normal. Champion mob should drop champion chest.

Well it will be nigh impossible to design a system that pleases everyone but for my part as a more casual player, it's a good change, could be better, hopefully some tweaks will make it more fun for more players.

[Kaytis]

I spent years getting my toon to the level of power she is at. She has 2 TRs and 15 ERs. Epic hard was my difficulty level of choice. Overnight, I am getting ganked in EH quests. When running solo I have no possibility of recovery (I won't buy cakes). I had just started doing Epic Elites with a friend and was quite enjoying them. But that is off the table now.

This is how it should have been done: Champions should only have appeared either as an option, or as a new level of difficulty. Champions should have been worth extra xp and renown. A set and generous amount. Killing 30 champions in a quest should be 30,000 extra xp and 2000 guild reknown. XP and guild renown are the only true incentives left in this game and people would have stepped up.

Instead, you have taken away people's perceived level of ability, without any increase in reward (I stop looting chests when my inventory is full as it is). I think you have made a huge mistake. I can't emphasize that enough. You are going to lose accounts. It may be temporarily satisfying to say "ha ha, look how upset everyone is", but this is going to affect your job status down the road, and that won't be quite as satisfying.

You have different audiences to cater to. Some are very vocal on the forums. But there are many many quiet ones who are not. Sure everyone pays the bills, but when a sizeable measure of everyone gets frustrated and leaves it's going to hurt. Be very very careful how you handle this.

[Catteras]

I spent years getting my toon to the level of power she is at. She has 2 TRs and 15 ERs. Epic hard was my difficulty level of choice. Overnight, I am getting ganked in EH quests. When running solo I have no possibility of recovery (I won't buy cakes). I had just started doing Epic Elites with a friend and was quite enjoying them. But that is off the table now.

This is how it should have been done: Champions should only have appeared either as an option, or as a new level of difficulty. Champions should have been worth extra xp and renown. A set and generous amount. Killing 30 champions in a quest should be 30,000 extra xp and 2000 guild reknown. XP and guild renown are the only true incentives left in this game and people would have stepped up.

Instead, you have taken away people's perceived level of ability, without any increase in reward (I stop looting chests when my inventory is full as it is). I think you have made a huge mistake. I can't emphasize that enough. You are going to lose accounts. It may be temporarily satisfying to say "ha ha, look how upset everyone is", but this is going to affect your job status down the road, and that won't be quite as satisfying.

You have different audiences to cater to. Some are very vocal on the forums. But there are many many quiet ones who are not. Sure everyone pays the bills, but when a sizeable measure of everyone gets frustrated and leaves it's going to hurt. Be very very careful how you handle this.

I'll second this. Lots of the forumites may say they like Champeons, but there are probably a lot of "ordinary" players out there (I'm one of them) who may not enjoy the crazy ramp in difficulty. And these folks generally tend not to be as vocal on the forums.

I was just in a three-man group and we got torn apart in EH VON 3. It was embarrassing. The other two guys were dying left and right, and only my 900 hps, regenerating lay on hands, displacement clickies, and crazy paladin sword and board PRR and MRR helped keep me going as long as I did. But it became obvious before we got 1/4 in that we would never be able to complete.

[lexinator]

On EE Palace of Stone, me (Pally S&B) and Sorc friend only had troubles when the random encounters had 3+ Champions. Most have the Quad Damage (or whatever) perk, which deal around 750-800 damage (tested with 200 PRR = 66% damage mitigation). This means one-strike on less prepared players, but giving the EE difficulty and that they're Champions, seems fair.


I feed that, given the cluster of monsters this particular quest had (seems the norm nowadays), 2 Champions per encounter should be the maximum, also to avoid trivializing Champions.

Well said, and +1.

I gave the same suggestion and reasoning in one of the now locked threads. May as well echo it in the "official" thread as well.

[Lonnbeimnech]

No longer sleep walking through EE, this actually introduced some challenge to the game and reminded me of what it was like when I first started the game, fun.

Love it!



edit: 1 thing, I would like it if the crown over their head was a little more prominent, or if it was easier to identify in some other way (slightly larger, maybe have their name actually include the word champion, bold text for the name, something). It can be difficult to locate which one of the mobs just hit for 800 damage when all 6 look identical.

[bsquishwizzy]

My limited exposure to them, here's my thoughts:

There is a spawn-rate problem. They seemed to spawn in every group of 4 or more mobs. If you're going to make something like this, you should have a drop rate of about 1 to 20 mobs.

That and the fact that people are soiling themselves that they no longer cannot solo EE with stacks and stacks of cake and pots makes me think they are just about PERFECT!!!!

Keep it up!

[gwonbush]

I decided to look at champions more from the perspective of a relatively new player. Rolled up a barbarian at level 4, ran the harbor at h/e. Since Blood Tribute gave me as many temp hp as I could ask for, I was able to get a feel for where the damage totals were at. Defenses were 37 PRR, 30 MRR, 5 resists.

Ordinary kobolds champions were not particularly dangerous, having around 130 hp and hitting for 10 max with a slow attack rate. Kobold champion warriors were worse, doing around 10-18 damage a hit on elite at a faster rate with around 200 hp. They were basically mini Bloodknuckles that sometimes came in packs. What was really nasty were the shamans. Scorching Ray on Hard was hitting me for 34 (45 without defenses). Elite shaman champions were hitting for 55 damage lightning bolts (22 on save, 70 without MRR on failed save) that could hit you twice.

Overall, the worst monster I fought was a shaman champion on a high platform in Hard Hazadil's Warehouse's end room, potshotting me for a total of around 180 damage while I climbed my way to him.

In the end, I decided that the damage from "I hit harder!" is a bit too high and should be scaled back from its current 3x damage (or so it feels like) to 2x damage, at least on hard.

[Seikojin]

...snip...

In the end, I decided that the damage from "I hit harder!" is a bit too high and should be scaled back from its current 3x damage (or so it feels like) to 2x damage, at least on hard.

I like this assessment.