Monster Champion Feedback

[EllisDee37]

You said level 2, now the playing field shifts... << >>

Okay, let me shift it to the heart of the matter:

You are arguing to make ELITE an entry level difficult for brand new players who do not know anything about builds, tactics or gear.

I am arguing that your position is deeply flawed, and would be extremely harmful to the game. In a perfect world, the new player you describe should absolutely get destroyed in elite content. No question. Elite should be so hard that they don't even think about trying it until they learn something -- anything! -- about the game.

Otherwise, once they do learn the game and get good, elite for them will be the same boring snoozefest the anti-champion crowd are citing as the reason that they simply cannot play normal. Playing normal, they argue, is so boring that they'd rather find a different game.

That's what you're arguing for the game to be. Once you get good at it, it should be so boring that you'd rather play a different game.



Regarding the specifics of our little debate about whether or not level 2 sorcerers are more powerful now than they were three years ago, I find your position unreasonable and wholly without merit.

[schelsullivan]

All these complaints about how the hypothetical new players are going to react are a bit overboard. New players SHOULD get their a**es handed to them when first starting an MMORPG. Did you quit when you got whipped by a rat or a spider in korthos? Probably not, or you wouldnt be here to respond. There is a setting for those people, its called casual. When your ready to move up to normal, you should get your a** handed to you again, same for moving up to hard and elite.

[EllisDee37]

I thought that this ^ was well said.

Give people just learning the game some space to do so.

They have it. It's called normal.

Making elite the game space for new players to learn the game means that the entire game is only a space for new players to learn. What difficulty are they supposed to play after they finish their learning?

[zorander6]

So I'd cut back my DDO time to real life issues and then champions were introduced. I'd been slowly getting bored with the game. Good thing, started looking for other games and am playing a different one now. Not super sold on it but have no desire to even try champion quests. Adding monsters harder than the boss does not appeal to me. It's been a fun run but time to move on. Had been debating buying points for the last couple packs I don't have but honestly don't see the point. I might check in occasionally but frankly I can't be bothered right now to play.

[EllisDee37]

And turn undead didn't work at all against the champions at level 3. It gave some damage, but did not do enough to waste it on them, since at level 3 I've only got a few turns (4 or 5), and some of those quests have a lot of undead.

Did you actually try to make it work, or did you just hit the turn undead button once and give up?

For example, did you cast the Seek Eternal Rest spell as one of your self-buffs along with nightshield and protection from evil? Maybe (and I know this is crazy) equip a sacred item?

[Livmo]

And turn undead didn't work at all against the champions at level 3. It gave some damage, but did not do enough to waste it on them, since at level 3 I've only got a few turns (4 or 5), and some of those quests have a lot of undead.

I played mostly Haunted Halls over the weekend, but did dabble with heroics. All in all the impact of Champions seems more adverse on heroic than epic. I ran a wide range of quests on my heroic toon to take a break from the Halls.

Some quests felt alright like Mired in Kobolds and some where just off the hook crazy. Even in epics some quests felt right and others did not. My point is the effects of Champions seem to vary allot per quest, and per heroic and epic. It seems to be a global one size fits all change to quests, but the outcome in certain quests varies greatly.

[Fluffib]

Okay, let me shift it to the heart of the matter:

You are arguing to make ELITE an entry level difficult for brand new players who do not know anything about builds, tactics or gear.

I am arguing that your position is deeply flawed, and would be extremely harmful to the game. In a perfect world, the new player you describe should absolutely get destroyed in elite content. No question. Elite should be so hard that they don't even think about trying it until they learn something -- anything! -- about the game.

Otherwise, once they do learn the game and get good, elite for them will be the same boring snoozefest the anti-champion crowd are citing as the reason that they simply cannot play normal. Playing normal, they argue, is so boring that they'd rather find a different game.

That's what you're arguing for the game to be. Once you get good at it, it should be so boring that you'd rather play a different game.



Regarding the specifics of our little debate about whether or not level 2 sorcerers are more powerful now than they were three years ago, I find your position unreasonable and wholly without merit.

How are they going to learn if everyone they are learning from (actively teaching them, or passively learning by just trying to keep up) is playing on elite? I learned by emulating others.. as they played elite.. so that now I too am comfortable playing elite.

And even if we wanted to change the culture of "everyone plays on elite" - it's not something that can happen quickly and without lots of turnover, just like any other culture change. I don't know if that's something the game needs right now.

[Inoukchuk]

I thought that this ^ was well said.

Give people just learning the game some space to do so.

Also, while I agree that the game has become easier at all levels, especially when taking ship buffs into account, I honestly feel that the big leap in PC power comes in the 11-14 range.

/agreed on all points

I haven't run heroic hard, but I sincerely think that this setting should leave out champions or add them at a greatly reduced rate (0% through level 5, 1% at 6-10, 2% at 11-15, 3% at 15-20) and champions in general should be scaled back on all difficulties as the spawn rate is a little ridiculous. I'd recommend 1/2 the current rate for trash mobs and 1/4 the current rate on orange/red named mobs (down from 99% I think). Heroic hard should be viable for new players as they learn the game, and that's probably not the case as is.

Another poster also made a great suggestion, that they make it so the least powerful and most powerful combinations can't occur to avoid 1-shot kills or "champions" that are just extra hp.

And yes, the big leap is at level 12 IMO, when we get tier 5 abilities, a feat, a stat, usually a powerful class ability, etc. Especially true for TRs that get GS and sands equipment at 11-12.

[EllisDee37]

And certainly not in the forums. The vocal few who love it are vastly outnumbered by both those who hate it outright, and by those who think the execution is completely botched.

Do you have any evidence to support this claim?

[EllisDee37]

How are they going to learn if everyone they are learning from (actively teaching them, or passively learning by just trying to keep up) is playing on elite? I learned by emulating others.. as they played elite.. so that now I too am comfortable playing elite.

I learned playing on normal. I steadfastly maintain that there needs to be a difficulty more challenging than "learning" mode.

[Buddha5440]

So, running The Tide Turns and Bargain of Blood EH on Fri(trying to get Epic Chimera's Fang, which I did, yeah!)...champion spawn rate seemed about 30-40% or roughly 1/3 of EVERY group. I made it through but my hire fell 4 times (some due to AI).

Running the same quests Sunday and the spawn rate seemed to be closer to the 10% that was expected. If this turns out to be the norm, my biggest concern with Champions seems to have been fixed.

Nicely done Turbine! Not to say that there aren't other things that may need to be tweaked but as I saw it the spawn rate was BY FAR the biggest issue.

Granted I can see how many dislike Champions, and I may on some of my other toons (This toon had 1k+ Hp and 150+PRR 100+MRR), but as long as the spawn rate stays near 10% I think I'll manage with only minor tweaks to my playstyle.

[kafrielveddicus]

So I'd cut back my DDO time to real life issues and then champions were introduced. I'd been slowly getting bored with the game. Good thing, started looking for other games and am playing a different one now. Not super sold on it but have no desire to even try champion quests. Adding monsters harder than the boss does not appeal to me. It's been a fun run but time to move on. Had been debating buying points for the last couple packs I don't have but honestly don't see the point. I might check in occasionally but frankly I can't be bothered right now to play.

Actual post from General Board on our guild page:

"Based off this gaming change, you are playing at your own risk, hopefully the DEVs will allow an option button to turn champions off in heroic settings, please feel free to post about this on the actual DDO forums.
Unfortunately I will be online very little until this has changed, I will be getting Daily Dice and will upgrade peoples status as needed.
I do recommend any subscribed players cancel their subscription and for heavens sake do not spend another penny on the game!!!"


My advice to other guilds/guild leaders is to make your impact in game, you can only show how displeased by this change by changing your financial contribution to the game, if the many regular players stick to their bones and speak up in this manner we will get the result which we are all hoping for in our playstyle.

[OzDrew]

Maze of Madness
Heroic hard - solo with hire
15 champions of 63 total kills = 24%
Encountered 10 champions in the first 21 kills
Every mini-boss a champion
End boss not a champion but had 2 with him
No extra chests (don't really care but I suppose relics could be handy if on the table)
Heroic hard so no real challenge just extra time. (level 16 character, 11th life)

Comments
Regardless of pros and cons of the idea the implementation is flawed.
I doubt (don't know) if the game mechanics are capable of ensuring champions are spread with some evenness throughout the map and on elite at level this would be significantly unbalanced.
24% - the fluctuation is too extreme, I have seen anything from this down to around 5% when I keep count.

[Albinosaurus]

Xp could be an issue.. but if your are "casual" or not geared enough for elite, are you really a powerleveler looking to gain XP as fast as possible?

Favor could always be gotten by going back over level and running the quest for favor. and in Epic content, people often already have max Favor from the heroic run they did.....

shinies? Sorry, there is no real difference in loot between hard and elite.

The fact that you believe this is a solution, or that anyone wants to play like that, just shows a complete lack of understanding of the player base and its motivations. These "solutions" are boring, cheap, and rely on players working the system rather than enjoying the game. Also, there actually is a difference between loot from normal to hard, and hard to elite, even if it is only a few points here and there. If they want to get rid of the normal/hard versions of gear and only have the elite version of it from quests, then maybe that would address one of the symptoms of people's outrage, but ultimately the core cause of the problem will still drive people away--it's just frustrating to play like this.

The entire "play an easier difficulty" argument simply doesn't hold up, because people are used to the game how it was, and suddenly changing it this radically simply feels like a different--and not fun--game. Try to justify it anyway you want, but players ARE already leaving because of this, while others are staying temporarily in the hopes that it is corrected, and will probably leave in the next week or two if it isn't. Trying to appease the "elitists" at the cost of everyone else means at the cost of everyone else.

[odium1031]

I think DDO needed this. Though I do think the frequency of Champions should be addressed. For the completionists/elitests out there the game was getting boring. This is not to say for the casual gamer, you don't stand a chance in quests. It means you need to think a bit more about how you go about questing and making sure you are prepared for the chance of getting stomped. When a game gets boring, people stop playing. The extra loot drops (allbeit with mostly lame loot) are a pleasant sight as well as the champions that make things a bit more challenging. It's like looting a mob's corpse to me. > It is an MMO after all and when you can run through dungeon after dungeon solo without any fear of consequences, I for one lose interest. I'm hoping they will start coming out with named drops for specific champion creature types instead of just using the random loot generator. It would make for an interesting turn of events to hunt down specific creatures to steal their precious loot as long as the return was worth the effort. Quests on elite SHOULD be difficult to solo at level. Just like in PnP when you find a mob of enemies, you don't know what you're getting into until the combat begins...this throws in a bit of danger and intrigue to the same ol dungeons we've been trampling through for years (some of us). Gives you a new perspective on each quest and makes you think twice about going it alone (also similar to PnP). In some cases, change is good.

[Impaqt]

First time quest on elite +80%
First run entering on elite +20%
Elite bravery bonus (up to) +50%
That's +150% to base exp (and base exp will be higher on elite than on normal).
Plus most vet players will have a +50% exp tome for a total of +200% bonus to base exp.
So +200% is actual triple, not double the base exp - that's why bravery bonus is so important to the TR grind...

SO your saying that no bonus ever apply to Hard difficulty? O.O

I believe your mistaken.


let me elaborate on my original comment.

Turbine has a multitude of XP boosters in this game

First things, I shouldn't have to point out that things like XP Tomes, XP Potions, Ship Buffs, Voice of the Master and VIP XP Bonus, and Daily run, apply equally to Normal, Hard and Elite difficulty.

There is also a bunch of in-quest boosts that also apply equally to ALL difficulty levels. things like Ransack,Conquest, Traps and secret doors.. Oh and Deaths.... and no re-entry.

That raises the effective base again.

Now lets consider Elite Specific boost. there are a few of them, but there are also Hard equivalents for most of them. Bravery bonus for example. If your are maxed, you get 50%. Hard gives +25%. for a Net 25% difference. You also have first time hard or elite netting an additional 10 or 20% for a net 10% gain. and last but not least, we get the first time ever bonus. 80% on elite! oh.. but there is still a 40% on hard... Net gain. 40%.

so thats a gain of 75% Not quite double.. but wait...Theres more....

when you add up all the universal bonus' we end up with a much different number....



so no. you dont get triple the XP on Elite than you do on Hard. You dont even get double.....

As you can see. Its actually about 11%













This increases the effective Base XP of a quest dramatically.

[nibel]

All these complaints about how the hypothetical new players are going to react are a bit overboard. New players SHOULD get their a**es handed to them when first starting an MMORPG. Did you quit when you got whipped by a rat or a spider in korthos? Probably not, or you wouldnt be here to respond. There is a setting for those people, its called casual. When your ready to move up to normal, you should get your a** handed to you again, same for moving up to hard and elite.

I remember back when building a dex-based rogue could make you need to try the starter quest two or three times until you could kill Jacoby Drexelhand, because rogues can not take weapon finess as their level 1 feat. . It was basically an easier and shorter version of The Collaborator. If you failed, you could not even leave the tavern to find something on the AH. Recover and try again.

Many people did not leave the game for failing that quest. They will not leave the game for failing elite Korthos. At least, not if they got interested in the game because of the Grotto narrative style.

About Normal being a snoozefest, every other MMO around is kinda like this. You get to a zone on your level range, kill the weak mobs around to get XP, maybe collect a thing or two, or kill a special mob here or there, and the game is basically a grindfest until you start raiding. DDO is one of the few MMOs I have ever tested that actually gives you a difficulty selector before endgame.

[silverm_22]

Just ran a PuG through the Kundarak lvl 5 elites and I wanted to say that champs made it..... Interesting. My party contained 3 toons most would consider 'leets' for these quests. Well, those leets carried my squishy rogue's soulstone through a lot of it due to a lot of 1's.... thanks d20 btw. In case the devs want to maybe throw me an easy button and give me a 2-21 die, that'd be awesome, cause I roll crit fails wayyyyy too often lol.

I do want to preface this by saying we did have 3 players at the top of their game in my experience, so that did skew my perceptions.

On a serious note, after running through these 6 or 7 quests, I'm gonna step out on a limb and say make these champs harder. Seriously. My group often had one guy running somewhere and mostly clearing it by himself before he maybe died but had zero deaths when we stuck together. This isn't to say that I don't want good teamplay to prevent deaths, that's exactly what I'm looking for; more than that I want poor teamplay to ensure a wipe. I may not be a nice person, but I'm not picking up your friggin stone when you ran down the right hallway when everyone else went left. They call us a party for a reason, and it isn't a party if you're off getting yourself turned into a weirdly shaped glowing blue rock thingy.

[brian14]

HH EE helmed horrors dropping chests. this shouldn't happen. sloppy programming, guys.

Vargouile already posted that "only mini-bosses drop chests" was a misstatement, or dev jargon slipped into official release. Any orange-letter champion can drop chests, including orange-letter trash mobs. Such as Helmed Horrors in Haunted Halls, or Dire Bears in Belly of the Beast.

[Nascoe]

HH EE helmed horrors dropping chests. this shouldn't happen. sloppy programming, guys.

Oops. Doom! can't get to my chests. Actually its funny, but yeah, should be fixed