Monster Champion Feedback

[Angelic-council]

I have completed all 4 new quests on EE. It's pretty hard, especially terminal. But, terminal is marked as extreme challenge. I'm not going to argue with that one.

This whole new idea of monsters champion is wonderful. It's fantastic system because it's not exactly impossible. If you have CC and a healer in your party, you can easily pull it off. But, the key here is in sudden difficulty increase. I very much hope that turbine think this more carefully before they apply any changes.

In some quests, if you are not melee, you are screwed. I can't tell if this is a good or bad one. You can simply say "just bring CCer with you", but when you get one shotted regardless of your gear and preparation, people get p***ed off (no chance for healing also). So, all in all, let's leave monsters champion alone and talk about their damage dealing. And if 4k damage is really necessery. This should be discussed critically, and not because people are lazy and crying all the time..

[Knobull]

As i said alrdy, best thing you guys could do now is delete bravery bonus and change it to a bonus where you gain bonus xp for every party member that is alive at end of dungeon and scales with difficulty.

I say ditch the bravery bonus and streaks, and give an xp bonus for running quests under level. As it should have always been.

That said, I have not seen a champion yet because my current character is running quests on normal well under level so I get a chance to play content I have not played before.

I suspect that when I do encounter these one-shot death champions I will be as grossed out by them as every other "filthy" casual player. (The fact that term even exists should tell Turbine something.)

I find it interesting to note that all the threads in the general forum that were locked are largely negative feedback on this change, while the "official" thread is primarily positive feedback. I suspect that some of the posters on the subject in the general forum will never be back.

*edit: I just went back and reviewed the thread, and it seems the feedback in this thread is about 50:50 positive:negative. *tinfoil hat off*

[Qhualor]

hard to tell, but that looks like the Beholder area of Von3.

73 Champions would mean about an ~75% spawn rate as there are just over 100 mobs from the beginning to that quest.

Perhaps you exaggerate a bit?

and since there are no mini bosses in Von3 (all the named are Red, Not orange) there would not be any chests.

according to wiki red names are

Champion Deathblood troll

Grotkin beholder

Marut end boss

the rest are listed as orange. which beholder is in the pic?

[Aliekiller]

-snip-

I was going to post about it, but really, Rocke said it all. I'm kinda the same type of player, so it's to be expected most complaints will be the same.


Also, how exactly is being hit for 4k damage okay for an extreme challenge quest? It's as challenging as winning in a roulette game.

Most LFMs are either
1-> EN exp runs(simple, quick, just getting that over with)
2-> EE saga runs(which is now barred for most of the player base)
3-> HE bravery streak runs(which is now also barred for most of the player base)
4-> random stuff(casual dreaming dark for completions etc)

If new players aren't supposed to play Elite, are they supposed to just solo on normal for their first few lives, until they're tall enough to ride along on hard runs? To say nothing of Elite, where the bar is set that much higher?

I like the idea that something is done to improve variety, even though one of my favorite things about DDO is how reliable most stuff is(Dungeon layouts, for one).
Monster champions can be a good addition, but not applied universally like it is right now. Quite a few quests are so perfect, as if a dev's masterpiece inside the game, yet this random mechanic can take most, if not all, the fun away from each and every single one of them.

I was hoping to reach a conclusion by the end of this post, but now I'm not even sure. People had divergent opinions on Champions on Lamannia already, this should've set some red flags that the system need tweaking.

[redoubt]

Level 5 quests on elite. Group was fire/melee sorc, melee wizard, vanguard (all level 7). +0 to +2 pugs through out.

Crimson heart: 82 kills, 9 champions, 2 orange names, 0 chests

Sanguilne heart: 68, 11, 0, 0

Immortal heart: 28, 3, 0, 0

Burning heart: 73, 6, 0, 0

Lair of summoning: 25, 4, 0 , 0

Chamber of insanity: 33, 3, 2, 0

Archer point: 61, 11, 0, 0

Guard Duty: 44, 10, 1, 0

Stones run red: 30, 4, 0, 0

Brood of flame: 24, 2, 0, 0

[HAL]

From what I'm taking away most from here is that eh needs some added difficulty as well. Lots of people saying now EE is too hard but EH is too easy. This is something that the devs should look at. Clearly EH needs a difficulty boost.

No thanks. If I'm going to be forced to settle for EH favor, loot and XP I don't want pre-U24 EE difficulty.

[Albinosaurus]

I understand all to well the concern of the games health. But if folks are willing to quit on the 1st day of a change without even giving it time to get used to or whatever, then they were going to quit anyway due to this change or another. The only constant in an mmo is that it changes, if it doesn't it becomes a dinosaur.

This is an enormous fallacy.

I had no thoughts about quitting or cancelling my VIP until these champions came into the picture. I liked DDO how it was and understood/accepted that some game elements would be changed, others added, and still others removed. What I do NOT accept is lazy developer decisions that cheapen the player experience. The goal of any game developer should be to maximize the fun for the players while maintaining the health of the game (this in turn leads to profit, so they can make a living). Champions fail on both ends of this. They are not fun, they tax the player's time and resources while giving nothing in return, and they further fragment an already too small player base--which in turn leads to people quitting.

You see the problem here? It isn't about what day it happens. It's about what happens. If you truly understood the concerns of the game's health, you would oppose this change too.

[Vulkoorex]

OMG.

I actually had a pleasant L8 elite (effectively L10) solo quest with my L11 toon. I wasn't one-shot and the crownies only appeared one at a time per mob. My cleric hireling acted like a meat puppet while I ranged the crownies down then switch to melee when they came after me. And yes there was one crownie for every mob I faced. That's a bit much.

Unlike my previous elite solo quests where 3 crownies descend upon me and I have no where to run. Death is unavoidable.

[BDog77]

Lair of summoning: 25, 4, 0 , 0

Chamber of insanity: 33, 3, 2, 0

My Lair of summoning had 8 champs, and in my Chamber all orange names were champs (only 2 other champs).

[Skeen]

Great job with the Monster Champions!
U24 is pretty good in general (excluding barb stuff). It's nice seeing a challenge to quests and really funny hearing people freak out in party as they get beat down. I think some of the people I was partied with had not been killed in years. I seemed to have lucked out and didn't get killed by any of the champions, yet. It was fun seeing most of the party turned to stone in the new content while the barb was running around cleaving everything to pieces. The reaction to monster champions reminds me of when Miior was unleashed on us. Different tactics were needed, peoples feeling were hurt, hopes were crushed, etc. Good stuff. Next update please bring out random traps in dungeons! Oh yes, you know you want to.

[redoubt]

Have fun wherever the winds blows you to.

Try to solo end game raids in wow and report here how it goes

This, "we are better off without you" attitude is not going to help make our game better.

That is another player we don't get to run with to help fill the LFMs and revenue lost.

[Braegan]

This is an enormous fallacy.

I had no thoughts about quitting or cancelling my VIP until these champions came into the picture. I liked DDO how it was and understood/accepted that some game elements would be changed, others added, and still others removed. What I do NOT accept is lazy developer decisions that cheapen the player experience. The goal of any game developer should be to maximize the fun for the players while maintaining the health of the game (this in turn leads to profit, so they can make a living). Champions fail on both ends of this. They are not fun, they tax the player's time and resources while giving nothing in return, and they further fragment an already too small player base--which in turn leads to people quitting.

You see the problem here? It isn't about what day it happens. It's about what happens. If you truly understood the concerns of the game's health, you would oppose this change too.

No.

There are some that like the champs. They have been asking for a challenge to EE and they got it. The game needs to cater to a lot of different playstyles. Adding champs to hard and elite was the way to go to bring some challenge into the game as well as some element of randomness, while preserving norm and casual for more casual player types and new folks.

The devs made the right choice with adding champs instead of wasting time making some new mythic difficulty. Adding another difficulty would have yielded the same result with more time wasted. Some Ubers happy, some non ubers mad cause they can't run it.

They may not be fun for you, tax your resources and give nothing back. But I (and others) found them fun, not taxing on my resources and gave back a nice element of surprise and challenge.

I would agree to some tweaking but all in all it was a good move, IMO.

[Jaenar]

I ran Heroic Elite Through a Mirror Darkly last night with a guildmate, no hirelings. We counted 28 Champions throughout the quest. I didn't count the total number of mobs, however, 28 seems a bit on the high side for one quest.

The only real comments I have on the Champions themselves, is that 23 of those 28 had Deathward, that's not a few of them, I examined all of them as did my guildmate. About half of them had true seeing. The other buffs seemed to be mixed up decently.

Also, the absolutely toughest mob/fight in the entire quest, was a Champion caster, I believe it was an Arcanist. He was harder to kill than even the boss and mini-bosses. Mostly because of the spells he was throwing and how often. I don't feel that any champions should be as hard or more difficult than the final fight/boss of that quest. Kinda takes away the uniqueness of the boss of that quest completely.

I don't mind the champions, I kinda like them mostly. I do feel that there are too many spawning though. Running into a Champion should be a "oh hell!" type of run in, not a "oh look, there's 3 more champs in this hall/room/closet".

As far as chests go, we only got one drop and that was a named orange champion, from let sleeping dust lie. Have yet to see a chest off any random champions.

[redoubt]

I think this is far more correct:

Bad sample - people willing to join EE quests nowadays are the multi PL mulit ETR fully kitted type so they - as I and others have said will barely notice this difference. I don't take my non-optimal characters into EE - I only have one of those doing more than that takes way too much time. I expect most others are the same - and when they aren't then they usually lead the death count even before this change.

Roll a new character and take him out for a spin without twinking his butt off. See how it runs. If you have a non-maxed out character try him out in some EH content - load in some hires and lock em at the door - swap to a bad destiny then try it again and report back. I have played both ways in the past day - my main had it easy soloing - my other pass through was in a group of non-twinked characters didn't go so well.

That said - I think it is close to being ok but they need to tweek it SOON(tm). Many of the suggestions in this thread are viable from remove from EH to putting timers on spawn to maxing the I Hit harder at 2x etc....as well as double checking the spawn rate as anecdotally it seems too high.

Than this:

That isnt that correct.
When i pug in mornings, i would either solo or put lfm, and i almost never get fully maxed dudes since they dont like playing with me.
What i get are new players, and i usually have no issues explaining what they need to do to be effective i epics.
Im a scumbag but only towards those that deserve it.
Usually im a quite nice person

It differs from time zone, quests to the description in lfm

I do not join EE pugs unless I'm on an A toon in my primary destiny. When I put up EE pugs, I don't get people joining in off destinies and crappy gear. My experience is that people are coming prepared to EE pugs.

EH pugs I get all sorts of randomness. Its okay there.

Heroic elite, well we get all types. I actually do see a lot of new players join who are way over there heads. But once we go in progress (as seen by the time in quest counter starting) we don't get new players joining any more.

[Garothe]

No.

There are some that like the champs. They have been asking for a challenge to EE and they got it. The game needs to cater to a lot of different playstyles. Adding champs to hard and elite was the way to go to bring some challenge into the game as well as some element of randomness, while preserving norm and casual for more casual player types and new folks.

So those asking for more of a challenge on EE means the rest of us running heroic get screwed?

[bennyson]

I like the Champion system as it adds:

1. Monster randomness

2. Challenge

3. A wake up call to those grind robots


Although I do agree that they could use some tweaking, but I am in the crowd that likes them and if "newbies" or casual players cant take the heat, they should play on a lower difficulty and improve their toon and/or playstyle.

Overall, please, Turbine Developers, keep up the good work.

[bennyson]

So those asking for more of a challenge on EE means the rest of us running heroic get screwed?

Champions on HE aren't that bad, I was able to solo a level 6 quest on Elite on a level 7 pure Drow Monk. No less than 149 HP and ZERO PRR/MRR.

[Garothe]

Champions on HE aren't that bad, I was able to solo a level 6 quest on Elite on a level 7 pure Drow Monk. No less than 149 HP and ZERO PRR/MRR.

Yes, so me as a 14 sorc running elite sands and getting instant killed 3 times in 2 different dungeons, maybe you should read the whole thread before throwing in your 2 cents worth. Like about WW kobolds lightning bolting people for 850.

[Firewall]

I think this whole champion idea is really bad. If they gave additional XP like all the other named optional bosses i could see a sense but the way this is working is utter garbage.

Played EE Haunted Halls yesterday with 4 friends. At least 50% of the mobs were champions if not more. This is really insane with the Helmed Horrors but it is even worse in the boss fights where you are locked in a room with respawning skeletons (Mummy), respawning ghosts (skeleton giant) or with the tons of respawning zombies with the necromancers. No fun at all! I don't want to imagine how EE What Goes Up or EE Breaking the Ranks will play now or any other quests with masses of (respawning) monsters (Elite Kobold Assault anyone?).

I wouldn't even think of going in there with a random PUG. Anyone want to meet the oranged named giant in EE Tracker's Trap as a champion? It already takes long enough to take that one down.

Some chests flying in the air after the fights with useless random loot most of which you cannot even pick up for selling because of inventory space. If you don't want to give extra XP for killing them let them give 1000 guild renown each and tone down the chances of meeting a champion by A LOT!


Bad idea Devs! Really bad idea!

[Vulkoorex]

Champions on HE aren't that bad, I was able to solo a level 6 quest on Elite on a level 7 pure Drow Monk. No less than 149 HP and ZERO PRR/MRR.

It's not bad if facing one crownie at a time with mob while soloing. It's bad when facing 3 crownies all at once along with other mobs means certain death if you can't run away.