Monster Champion Feedback

[Systern]

Having played some more...

1) The game does not have the technology to properly convey champions. Target -> Examine -> Mouseover is fine for communicating detail, but can not tell a player anything rapidly in the real-time adventure of DDO. There's a reason that we see the "True seeing" or "Freedom of Movement" icon on cast, why "blur" has a model effect, why Jariliths show they're activating Power Attack... (Corollary to this: the Epic Ward icon hovering is meaningless now, and is too easily confused with Death Ward.)
Players learn from the environment, determine patterns, and calculate strategies on the fly. They learn how to deal with "casters" and "melees" and "archers" through play. Giving buffs and debuffs that drastically alter the way a player handles an encounter, outside of their expectations, is not 'fun'. To cite the Extra Credits video posted earlier in the thread: You're breaking your own rules.
Since Champions are more common than the uptime on my CC abilities, I'll either waste time, not playing, not having fun, waiting to research the critical information you have failed to convey, or I'll just hope for the best and keep playing.


2) On-Hit effects are broken. They are indiscriminate. They seem to just hook onto the hit-proc, without determining whether that function would do damage. I've encountered Water Elementals that had On-Hit: Lightning effects, and dealt 200 damage a tick because their "Freezing Spray" debuff kept "hitting" me. Also, these effects seem to be X damage of random damage type, and the list includes Light, Poison, and Force damage. These types are irresistible. While the Lighting proc may (though I'm skeptical they actually do) be mitigated by MRR, taking the full X damage as Poison is excessively harsh. While I'm really only checking the champions that hurt real bad or kill me now (so I can't say for certain that I'm not ever getting, say, On-Hit: Fire that raises an eyebrow), it feels like this is like the inverse of the Celestia DR issue... When giving celestia +1 or +[w] forces its damage to go through the DR engine, it feels like these On-Hit effects force the mobs' hits to bypass the DR engine.


3) True Seeing is far too common and penalizing for lightly armored character types. Light Armor gives very low PRR. Bucklers give no PRR and no MRR. Arbitrarily negating half of my defenses, compounded by the On-Hit effects bypassing another major aspect of my defense: saves, just makes for a highly punishing play experience. The result is that "squishies" are penalized more than the "tanks", who still have their AC and PRR to protect them. (How soon would the lynch mob arrive if True Seeing cut PRR by 50%?)

4) Epic Ward still sucks. CC is more important to deal with the new champions, but Epic Ward limits charms. If you want me to use more of the tools at my disposal, don't nerf them. Inducing Helplessness via stat drain should be a viable tactic to deal with the mountains of hp Champions. Etc, Etc...

5) This implementation is all stick, no carrot. I "get" that it's supposed to be an adjustment to difficulty. Chests only from Orange names, containing only vendor-loot, is not rewarding. The following suggestion is probably too deep into "overhaul" territory to get implemented, but, here is my "carrot":
Each Champion kill adds an amount of Base XP.
First Run of the Day bonus remains.
First Time difficulty Completion remains
Bravery Bonus remains, but probably should be adjusted downwards slightly.
Bravery Streak goes away.

For example, suppose the Base value xp was calculated as arbitraryBaseValue(=4) * qLvl(26) * difficultyModifier(=h2/e3) -> 312 xp per champion slain to the base XP awarded by the Quest... Then all modifiers (ship, VIP, tome of learning, pots, First Run, etc) scale it up.

This incentivizes the harder content. Allows a player to jump into a Normal raid no-harm-no-foul, complete the content they want at their own choosing (I love the Harbinger pack, but we usually skip In The Flesh instead of break streak... It'd be nice to drop down to hard for just that one quest...), facilitates grouping (no harm in joining a pug without the streak to maintain), doesn't promote TR over ER (grinding out ERs without streak gets tedious).

Net result can be an increase in difficulty/progression, but still gives players a reason to want to engage Champions.

[poltt48]

I like the idea of champion mobs but there are a lot of problems with how is now. First really hard to see what abilities the champions get should be telling u somehow what buff they have instead of having to look at examine on mob while it killing you. Second there is way to many ran about 50 quests now since update came out all on EE and for the most part every 1 in 4 mobs is a champion on EE. That is to many. Have done quests like the demon web where you fight waves of mobs and have had 10 to 15 in a single wave be champions makes the quests almost impossible at level. Really have to lower number of them in a quest. Third the rewards for killing champions are crappy or non existant. I don't mind killing harder mobs then before but much much harder to get though EE quests for no reward from what use to be.

[Neomarica]

1. ELITE - You have a good chance of getting a champion combination that will kill you "instantly". You now have to use more time and consumables to complete your adventure. THE ACTUAL DIFFICULTY HASN'T CHANGED.

Maybe, just MAYBE I've been ludicrously lucky so far, but champions that have the capability to kill me "instantly" or to deal ludicrous amounts of damage can't be all THAT common since I've yet to see one.

And if you have to use more resources to complete the quests and have a higher chance of failing to complete them(or at least, failing to complete them without dying), then that IS increase in "actual difficulty." Whether it's a GOOD way to increase the difficulty is another argument entirely, but it does increase the difficulty.

[Archangel666]

Because it will be a mechanic where noone will check the box and thus waste of dev time.
Keep it in ee, and we will learn to adapt to it

Also as many said
There already IS a checkbox. It's called normal/hard/elite difficulties.

Thank you. This leads us right back to my earlier statement.

I can't help but notice that the most common response to the suggestion that Champions be made optional with a checkbox seems to be that nobody would check the box and face the Champions.

Guys? If a system is designed in such a way that given the choice people will choose not to use it, then that system is a bad one.

A good system would be one where people want to use it, people don't need to be forced to use a good system.

[Yalinaa]

Just heard you can farm orange named champions for +5, +6 tomes, ppl already do it, so anyone could help me, where to go to farm? I don't want to miss such an opportunity, so any help would be great!

(Champions drop chest is WAI so it can't be an exploit I think.)

[EllisDee37]

Thank you. This leads us right back to my earlier statement.

Again, your conclusion is flawed.

Add a checkbox for traps and most people won't check it on most runs. That doesn't make traps a bad game mechanic.

[Archangel666]

Again, your conclusion is flawed.

Add a checkbox for traps and most people won't check it on most runs. That doesn't make traps a bad game mechanic.

I'm not sure I agree. Traps can be planned for in advance though builds. Not sure the same can be said about building for mobs that hit for 6000 damage. Traps also have set locations, they're not randomly placed throughout a quest.

Finally, can you think of a single good system in the game which is forced on players that even were it not forced, said players would choose to use anyway?

I can't.

I can think of a few good systems that are completely optional which people want to use though.

Greensteel Crafting for example. Completely optional. There's nothing in game that absolutely requires it, yet for years people have used the system and made Greensteel items. Because they want to.

[EllisDee37]

I'm not sure I agree. Traps can be planned for in advance though builds. Not sure the same can be said about building for mobs that hit for 6000 damage. Traps also have set locations, they're not randomly placed throughout a quest.

That's not the question. The question is, if there were a checkbox to have traps in quests, what percentage of quest runs would end up with that box checked? Outside of VON3 karma farms, I bet most of the time it would go unchecked.

I can think of a few good systems that are completely optional which people want to use though.

Greensteel Crafting for example. Completely optional. There's nothing in game that absolutely requires it, yet for years people have used the system and made Greensteel items. Because they want to.

This is a joke, right?

[Knobull]

Important point: vet =/= elitist

Some veterans are very nice, like to help new players and are here for fun and games, not to prove something.

[Archangel666]

That's not the question. The question is, if there were a checkbox to have traps in quests, what percentage of quest runs would end up with that box checked? Outside of VON3 karma farms, I bet most of the time it would go unchecked.

This is a joke, right?

No, it was a poor example, but laugh if you want, then, when you're done laughing, name me a good system that is currently forced on people that if it wasn't forced people would use anyway. Or for that matter, name me a good system, that was once forced on people but no longer is that people currently use.

Edit: If you want to go down the route of nobody would run with Traps given the option, personally I quite like having 30% more XP from having them disabled. How much xp does Monster Champions give again?

[Knobull]

so that +1(W) makes or breaks Paladins?

Not really sure, but when paladins got buffed I took mine of the shelf and had fun playing it. When holy sword got nerfed, I put her back on the shelf and am playing other characters now. I don't really see myself playing my paladin again when my other characters are much stronger.

[PNellesen]

Just heard you can farm orange named champions for +5, +6 tomes, ppl already do it, so anyone could help me, where to go to farm? I don't want to miss such an opportunity, so any help would be great!

Nice try, but I don't think this tactic will work as a means of getting them to remove Champions. +1 for the effort though

[MangLord]

There are players (a small, rather vocal minority, btw) who have maximized their stats & have the best available gear, and are now bored. Give them a nightmare mode to play, with more XP and more chances at the quest named loot (in the champion chests) as an inducement. Don't give them even better gear on nightmare level, as then the creep upwards will just continue, & they'll soon be bored again.

Personally I vote for scrapping the entire champion idea. At the very least, eliminate the champions from hard & elite so the majority of players can continue to enjoy the game. Saying that the rest of us can play on normal, when we all need the favor & XP, is frankly an obnoxious attitude. This is a major change to the game, and completely changes the playability of the game. It was not well designed, was badly implemented, and for most players makes the game an unpleasant slog. The post-U24 game is a very different game than what we had prior to U24, and the changes are not for the better. This will not attract new players, and it will drive many current players away.

I'm in full agreement with this. The entire dynamic of the game has changed for the worse, to appeal to a small minority of players. If Turbine would rather take money from a handful of elitists than the "unwashed masses", then that's their business decision.

I think it's incredibly arrogant for people to just say that if you don't like champions, play on Normal. For one, the favor system was designed with elite completions in mind. It's impossible to gather the necessary favor from the PDK to upgrade weapons and armor, for example, just running the current content on normal. The other thing is that non-pro players had two difficulty options, normal and hard, to choose from, and now it's limited to just mind-numbingly easy Normal if you like to solo or play at a time when your normal friends aren't online. I get bored of it after two quests.

I'm still shocked that the team released the champion system on live when it was problematic and not particularly well received on Lamm, and even more shocked that they just boxed up a half polished turd and let paying customers deal with it.

I just ETRed yesterday, and ran Small Problem this morning on EH. Literally 95% of the orange named elementals were champions. I noticed one fire elemental without a crown over its head. I actually laughed when two earth elementals in a row had a dodge buff. An animated pile of rocks was dodging my attacks. Seriously. At the end fight, which was a fairly tough one before, all four of the wolves were champions. Needless to say, I alternated between being hit with Otto's Irresistible Dance and a wolf's trip until I got hit for 300ish damage after getting 20 stacks of vulnerability put on me and died. I have a very strong character, too. I decided to quit for the day, came on here to complain about it, and I'm gonna find something to do outside of DDO until the champion mess is resolved. They make me hate the game.

[FestusHood]

How is that relevant to anything I've said or the specific post you quoted?

EDIT: But to answer your question, I don't run EE because I'm a casual player. The truth is that there are lower difficulties for a reason. I, as a casual player, am one of those reasons. I run EH because that's the difficulty designed for me. I do run heroic elite, which is mainly just a more difficult version of heroic hard. I do not run epic elite because it is essentially a different game altogether compared to epic hard. That different game on EE is one that I don't care for.

I asked because you have stated that you like these champions, and seem resistant to any idea of making them optional. What you describe here as the reason that you dislike epic elite is even more true of these new champions, in my opinion. At least as regards heroic elite.

[Kasiddy]

1) There are too many of them.
2) A champion implies something special. But these champions are not special.
-- a single good or unique but not overwhelming attack would be special
-- providing a buff of some sort to mobs around them (possibly AOE haste, +dodge, or similar) would be special
-- a champion that receives some buff(s) based on number of mobs around him could be special
-- a break-cc effect (AOE break 'hold' spells, or stuns, for example) would be special
-- They should not be as tough as bosses in the same quest. This makes the bosses not special.
-- some combination of any or all of the above would be special
-- Champions should be intelligent. Animals and mindless undead may have "brutes" or something similar, but not champions.
-- just adding on hp and melee damage is not special
3) It should be relatively easy for players to identify most of the effects the champion is having through graphics or dialogue. This does not necessarily mean there needs to be a lot of new graphics or dialogue introduced, but good use of existing resources.
4) Epic champions should possibly have epic destinies. An epic divine mob throwing down a consecrate, or an epic wiz spamming shiradi effects, or an epic druid shaping into a tree /*giggles*/ would not be inappropriate, I think, considering effects like this from mobs are generally much less powerful than equivalent effects used by players who have really invested in spell power.

5) Examples:
5a) an orthon with a modified repeater and/or AOE cleave attack that actually does real damage in the AOE or does knockdown.
5b) A mob captain with very high DR or PRR (at least 100 to start) that goes down as the number of mobs around him decreases
5c) high-level assassins that use the "teleport" ability of low-level bugbear assassins to actually attempt an assassinate
5d) a champion beholder with useful DR and a "slow" main eye rather than anti-magic
5e) epic casters that occasionally cast disjunction.
5f) a champion troll or troglodyte with an overwhelming stench and little green cloud (cloudkill effect with poison replacing acid) that follows it around
5g) just about anything else that involves using imagination instead of, or in addition to, +hp and/or +dmg.

[gypsythief]

So I've been away for 10 months, playing a few other games. Came back just before update 24 hit, and had a blast finishing my wizard off to level 20 to TR, just as u24 landed.

Since then I've just died and died and died.

I've been playing this game for 4 years, and our guild is at level 57. We have never had any ship buffs, partly from principle, and partly because we've never needed them. Until now. It's been about the only way to mitigate some of the constant dying, but it certainly hasn't stopped it. I would sincerely hope that the game is not going to be balanced on the assumption that you have ship buffs, because surely a lot of newbies won't have them.

As an example of this idiocy, just now we started on Venn's Trail, (the third of the Waterworks chain.) Two of us at level 6 running the quest on elite. We cleared both sides to unlock the central shaft; I dropped over the edge into the shaft, came out the bottom and floated towards one of the walkways. As soon as I land:

Kobold Shaman's niac's cold ray hit you for a total of 93 points of cold damage after 29 were blocked by energy resistance.

And as I only have 98 HP as a level 6 Bard, and I was down a few from engaging a couple of melee's when I landed:

(Combat): Kobold Warrior hit you for 8 points of pierce damage.
(Combat): You were killed by Kobold Warrior.

All in around a second, and far faster than I could cast any sort of heal.

It's gone waaaay beyond funny, and as the title says, I'm sick of it.

---Edit---

And now, merely 20 minutes later, Black Wolf hit me for 63 pierce damage, and a second later 63 slash damage. And dead. Again. Arggghhh!!!

[MangLord]

Important point: vet =/= elitist

Some veterans are very nice, like to help new players and are here for fun and games, not to prove something.

I'm definitely a veteran player, and I'm definitely not elitist. I will happily play with a jaded EE PUG or teach someone the finer points of evasion and how to boost reflex saves, sometimes on the same day. There are a lot of vets more than willing to assist new players. The problem, at least for me, is that I don't meet new players all the time. I tend to play by myself during odd hours or hang with my existing circle of friends. Sometimes a new person is introduced, and we're all more than happy to welcome them in.

[Blackheartox]

Not really sure, but when paladins got buffed I took mine of the shelf and had fun playing it. When holy sword got nerfed, I put her back on the shelf and am playing other characters now. I don't really see myself playing my paladin again when my other characters are much stronger.

First of all, paladins implementation of holy sword was gamebreaking and strong.
2nd, they only lose 1 w and 1 enchantment, but.
Heres the thing, but they have fixed smites so you can include those 10 melle power after smite, and they get the most benefit from healing amp change.

People who put their palies to shelfs dont even get that palies got a bigger buff then nerf this update.

Its kinda sad when you need to explain those things to people.

Palie is still top tier nonploit melle.
And best nonploit melle in game.

[Nascoe]

I asked because you have stated that you like these champions, and seem resistant to any idea of making them optional. What you describe here as the reason that you dislike epic elite is even more true of these new champions, in my opinion. At least as regards heroic elite.

Really I don't see the huge issue you have with champions and adding difficulty. To me it looked like just about everyone who could (i.e. people who signed up for VIP, TRs or people who grouped to get someone to open on elite) did just about every quest on heroic elite only. For more XP including the BB, for max favor, and because running them on normal or hard seemed to be just a wast of time and boring.

In my view this took away a lot of the flexibility, effectively we used just one of the 3-4 difficulties (apart from REAL new players who have no way to even open elite on their first go).

I admit that i regularly run things on Normal or Hard, especially when I am questing with my friends. We just do not care about getting higher lvl ASAP and we really like how the champions make even quests that we have already done very often a tad more interesting on the higher difficulties. So far I have not seen any crazily dangerous Champs at all, although champ oozes are quite annoying to beat down (good thing though, I had stopped even pulling out my muckbane for them as it just was not needed anymore).

Yes, the droprate does seem to be odd/off - it sure seems to be a lot higher than 10% for the regular guys, closer to 20% and oranges seem to be about 80% champions, although I think that is fine, at least they are not killed without giving it any thought anymore.

And the list of what buffs go on what monsters does need some tweaking. Monsters that are immune to damage from somethign shouldn't get vunerable to that same damage (because it doesn't affect them) and combining a fire elemental taking less damage from cold and things like that. I think I also saw one or 2 that had both vulnerability to and DR from a damage type yesterday (I think it was piercing).
Agree that the sheer amount of them having true seeing hurts stealth tactics and light armor characters quite a lot, this should not be as common as it seems to be, especially oranges seemed to have it in 3/4th of the cases.

[Albinosaurus]

Incorrect, proper vets that played this game for a challenge quit when motu was released.
Or shortly after that.
If we want those players back we need to make the game appealing.
Also new players that play ddo, will realize from talk with any vet that this game has no future in current implementation since the hunt for power is not needed due to how they control what they invent.
Heroic past lifes??
Not needed
Epic past lifes?
Not needed

Nobody cares about the ones that left with MotU. We are talking about the people playing/quitting because of U24. As for the "future" of the game, by your definition, it doesn't matter. WoW has no future yet plenty of people still play it. It's 1/4 the game it used to be, but still has one of the biggest player bases of all MMOs (if not the actual biggest one), so while its fire is dwindling it doesn't need to worry about going out for quite some time yet. That isn't the case for DDO. They need to hang on to all the players they can, but newer players are much more plentiful and spend much more money on the game than vets do.

I got all stacked, but you dont need them.
You are ok by being a third lifer for increased points and thats about it.
Any sort of reason to seek progress in this game is not needed since you can do exactly the same with and without past lifes.
I was the same sorc player 30 epic past lifes ago, and 30 heroic past lifes ago.
Absolutely nothing chaned and there was no real reason to collect those beside forcing yourself to sink time in ddo in hope they make some promised endgame.

Imo the people who cant see that, arent looking forward enough.
A smart company tries to keep its whole player base and not just this or that.
They can tweak this champ idea and get the best of it for vets and new players.
IF you erase the idea new players will maybe stay, but vets will go away.
IF you dont tweak it, vets will stay but there will be no new players.

It doesn't matter if those things are needed, players want them. They are goals for people to shoot for, and they give people something fun to do. Most of the vets I talk to and play with only really play any more for completionist. What you don't seem to understand here is that the game is trying to balance somewhere between not needed them and offering a benefit for having them, and that TRing has kept the game alive for a lot longer than it otherwise would have.

Understand that?
You cant just dismiss vets for the sake of new players.
You need to help both sides.
Since most new players wont ever spend a single $ anyways.
But that monthly vip from vets is income you can count on.

Im not gonna talk what player base is better.
Imo both are good and both need to have a reason to play.
Currently vets dont have, new players dont have.
Tweak champs and both will have.
Erase champs vets wont have.
See my point?

Trying to say that most players won't spend money on this game is absurd, and shows how narrow your view really is. This game could not have become what it is if that were true, and subscriptions alone wouldn't cut it. Furthermore, I've talked hundreds (thousands?) of people about it during my experience in-game, and the number of them who never spent any money on it can be counted on one hand. This game may appear to have a f2p model, but it is anything but.

However, I already discussed how you can make the vets happy while keeping new players in the game earlier in this thread. You can read the actual post on pg 7 if you want the why of it, but here are a few things I suggested to make them tolerable if they must stay:

-Every champion that can't drop a chest always grants some exp (I'm thinking about 2% quest base) and guild renown. Some plat would be nice too.
-LittleLexi has a collector NPC idea I think could help.
-Reduce their spawn rate by at least 1/5 of what it currently is and/or put a hard cap on how many can spawn in a quest. Internal timers to keep several from spawning at the same time could also be a good solution.
-Tone down their actual stat increases and instead give them interesting abilities (but nothing too ridiculous like Finger of Death, Flesh to Stone, or any other gimmicky one-shotters). For example, a champion rat around CL 15/16 could potentially use Stinking Cloud or something related to its creature type. Be creative.
-Make champions that don't normally drop chests have a small chance to anyway (5% seems legit; rolling a 20).

To be clear, I agree we want to keep as many players as possible, but if we have to let go of one group or the other, we can afford to lose vets. We can't afford to lose new players. And it could be a false dichotomy anyway. Vets quitting over champs not staying? Doubtful. It's probably more bark than bite. On the other hand, new players quitting--or simply not staying--because of this is a reality.