Monster Champion Feedback

[Impaqt]

That's the second time you said it isn't possible. Are the devs telling you privately that they are incapable of such a difficult programming miracle? Or are you just hoping they are incapable?

Actually, thats the first time I said it wasnt possible. This time I was just being funny because it had been asked for multiple times in this thread already and it obviously will never happen.

[Merfyn]

We don't expect brand new players to be playing Heroic Elite most of the time.

Then you are not paying attention to the reality of the game.

Ever since you introduced bravery bonus anyone that wants to run in a group has to run on elite.

Maybe your hope is champions will change this, but that is going to take some time and I suspect many new people will give up and leave before that time comes.

If new players are grinding favor for TP, or unlocking, they have to play Elite.

I didn't get one-shotted running a quest on Hard last night (over-level, mind you) but I did get killed twice because I didn't understand the change and had used my earlier BYOH methods... where I used to be able to kite and escape, I was toast in a matter of seconds as crowns suddenly appeared. Two of them definitely were harder hitting and armored than the red-named end boss.

As a slightly new (casual/spent-at-least-$100-over-time-on-this-free-game) player, I think it's a very good idea but needs refining. If I got that many show-stoppers on Hard I'm not sure I'll like the <really> mean content, or the cash I'll have to pony up to kit myself out effectively...

I'd probably have felt more positive if there had been a chest drop from any of the champs, particularly the something like eight champs at the quest's (Shaagh's helm) end. But true solo-ing? Using "found" and self-crafted gear (as I do)? Permadeath?!?! Out of the question for someone new & clumsy like myself.


P.S. for people here castigating "whiners" here and patting themselves on the back for not being n00bs, perhaps you failed to read the thread title. It's something companies do, particularly if they're marketing a long-past-end-of-life-cycle product to people like myself.

[doucefeuille]

I would assume they are capable of adding a checkbox. But impact thinks otherwise.

the thing it would impact is that the difficulty will not force players to group if CM are an option and some are affraid to return to a game without challenge because the only thing which make the group was the freak of the CM in elite. Right?

But not of all the toons are overpowered to face CM, and the elite difficulty with CM is HIGHER than an elite difficulty at DDO begining even in regard of the new power can have a 28pts-1st-life. CM is too high for them not fo soloing, to play, just to play.

There is a solution, a little bit difficult to implement : let the game became intelligent and adjust the CM power/rate in regard of the party which enter an elite quest.
Instance which can recognized party level and ajust the mob lvl in regard exist in other MMO, so it's possible to do. If the game himself choose the power of the buff and the number of the CM by counting in the party if there is only 1st-life, or completionist. So a team with first life would have a difficulty level balanced with their power, a completionist team too.

[Impaqt]

If new players are grinding favor for TP, or unlocking, they have to play Elite.

Thats actually not true at all. and dont get me wrong, I am an advocate of looking at the favor reward tiers and modifying them if necessary.

But, you dont "need" elite to accumulate enough favor to gain FREE turbine points. You can simply run MORE quests on Normal or hard. You dont need to run a single quest on elite to get your backpack spaces or bank slots. You just need to do more quests on Normal and hard.

if this slows down people running 200 favor on an alt server just to accumulate free turbine points, that totally not a problem to me.

[Fluffib]

This is where I see the problem in your logic.
It is Optional already, you may run the quests on Casual or Normal if you do not want to encounter Champions. Champions only appear on Hard or Elite Settings.

For this game, and beyond DDO, and video games, is it fair to ask people to endure such a cultural change without complaint? Is it more or less fair than saying "elite should only be for the elite"?

[Enoach]

First thing we as players need to consider is if Turbine ever intended for us to be able to ZERG through Elite be it Heroic or Epic.

Personally I'm glad Turbine is trying something...

Champions do need to be tweaked to better match what they were intended and to also make them special. In high level Epic Elite content I've seen large groups of Champions and while one champion can increase the challenge, six together can make it very difficult this I will agree.

Champions for me has effected how I quest be it solo or group.

Example: A group of 4 level in Breaking the Ranks on EE two 26s and two 28s (Paladin, Sorcerer, Monk and an Bard/Arti/Rog) we had two others join us during the Giants Wave. The quest took us 121 minutes to complete and we all had a blast. Previously this same group would have cracked this out in 20 minutes. Yes we spent time kiting mobs around since the bard was the most reliable Crowd Control. Because of this the Dragon bombardment and Wizard pot shots became dangerous to our group. Again we all had a blast.

Again I like the champions but think based on what I'm seeing is that the spawn rate does not match what I was expecting especially based on their power increases. I'm looking forward to the reward changes that was mentioned earlier. But I will echo that chests need to be a little better visible when they do drop.

I'm not sure the Check Box Opt out is the right way to go, I think it would be better to adjust the champions to make sure they supply the challenge the quest difficulty/level requires. But I'm not under any illusion that Elite should be for everyone or even ZERG'able.

[DragonMageT]

Some players love and some hate the champions.Could it be possible when entering a quest if there was a Champion check box for if you wanted them in the quest or not?

And at the same time, why don't the devs give some players the ability to run Norm while others run Hard and still others run Elite.

One big happy family all together in the same quest, Hooray!!!

[Merfyn]

Thats actually not true at all. and dont get me wrong, I am an advocate of looking at the favor reward tiers and modifying them if necessary.

But, you dont "need" elite to accumulate enough favor to gain FREE turbine points. You can simply run MORE quests on Normal or hard. You dont need to run a single quest on elite to get your backpack spaces or bank slots. You just need to do more quests on Normal and hard.

if this slows down people running 200 favor on an alt server just to accumulate free turbine points, that totally not a problem to me.

For you, okay - fine. For me? I manage maybe a couple of hours a week, or at best an hour a day plus a group or two. Hell, my highest toon is only lvl 12 and I've never TR'ed, yet I've got accounts on 6 servers working on the 'virgin' TP bonuses. I don't have so much uber stuff that I leave unclaimed loot in chests (I grind it for crafting). That's <why> Turbine needs my demographic - I've already dumped a lot of cash in this game, and all the people who are acting like the f2p types are lower than pond scum are missing the point: there's very likely not enough VIP money coming in to justify support.

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.

Quoted for truth.

[Impaqt]

For you, okay - fine. For me? I manage maybe a couple of hours a week, or at best an hour a day plus a group or two. Hell, my highest toon is only lvl 12 and I've never TR'ed, yet I've got accounts on 6 servers working on the 'virgin' TP bonuses. I don't have so much uber stuff that I leave unclaimed loot in chests (I grind it for crafting). That's <why> Turbine needs my demographic - I've already dumped a lot of cash in this game, and all the people who are acting like the f2p types are lower than pond scum are missing the point: there's very likely not enough VIP money coming in to justify support.


Quoted for truth.

sorry,While I certainly dont feel F2P players are "Pond Scum" by any means, I dont see how players that do everything in their power to NOT buy buy turbine points is a demographic Turbine needs.

What point am I missing? why would slowing down free TP farmers not be completely working as intended in this new system?

[hit_fido]

As I said before whole concept is a fail. The uber players wanted a challenge. Devs implemented something they thought it will provide some challenge. What happened? Like... targeting those ubers with a big, big stone, but that stone does zero damage on them, they recognize it ofc, like "what was that, a fly, or a mosquito?" - but the stone drops down and kills some casual players around... Yeah, demigods remain demigods, dear devs, but those poor first lifer and other non-uber guys... they got some nasty things in their face, haha. This is where the laziness leads you... Forget this champ stupidity, and give us a proper challenge via Mythic/Hardcore/Nightmare difficulty. If you want to mess with the noobs, it's ok, but give some challenge to the demigods as well. Still no end game hurts more, than this parody you are doing lately.

Nominate this player as lead designer on a redo of epic elite content.

Really would like to see Turbine pull this player, jalont, portalcat, and/or similar players for whom epic elite is trivial, get them on some lammania-like instance, and then incrementally dial up champions, more interesting combinations of mobs, more special attacks (why can't epic elite archers use dispelling shots and paralyzing shots, let alone manyshot), other buffs (why aren't all epic elite mobs wearing 30% speed and 15% alacrity by now? They live on the mountain where goatskin boots are made, for god sake let them wear a pair), area effects (how about blanket "ship buff ward" in epic elite content) until they're at just about a 60-75% fail rate. Then set that up as the new top target to aim for and give these players something to try and master again. Then revisit it periodically to keep the fail rates on pace with any new power creep.

If it's not possible Turbine might as well come out and admit they've exhausted their means to challenge the top x% within the structure afforded by this game engine and their own development budget. They probably already have but not admitting it lets them keep these players on the chain hoping for some exciting new personal experience that is never coming.

[Albinosaurus]

Here's the tl;dr of this entire thread:

Justify, defend, or tweak champions however you want, but you are losing players in an already too small player base, and will continue to for as long as it isn't optional. Nothing else anyone can say or do is even relevant against this fact.

[Keladon]

sorry,While I certainly dont feel F2P players are "Pond Scum" by any means, I dont see how players that do everything in their power to NOT buy buy turbine points is a demographic Turbine needs.

What point am I missing? why would slowing down free TP farmers not be completely working as intended in this new system?

Players are leaving because.. players have left and the population is decreasing.
Having more players to group with is always a good thing, just look at all the threads complaining about the low number of lfg's.

Players attract players. It doesn't matter if some of those don't buy turbine points, they benefit from having them around in other ways.

[patang01]

This is where I see the problem in your logic.
It is Optional already, you may run the quests on Casual or Normal if you do not want to encounter Champions. Champions only appear on Hard or Elite Settings.

As of update 24 yes. Whats's the big deal about making champions optional? Provide a good reason to include them and make it optional. The whole 'there's casual and normal' is such a corny fallacy argument.

[Keladon]

As of update 24 yes. Whats's the big deal about making champions optional? Provide a good reason to include them and make it optional. The whole 'there's casual and normal' is such a corny fallacy argument.

But .. but.. it's the only argument they have. You can't take that away from them!

[Vulkoorex]

So if the intent is to make players group together, the *** are the players of Wayfinder going to do???

The times I've hosted a LFM, I get max 1 other player. The max LFM party I've been to was just 3 players. Does that mean we're SOL if we want to play elite at level? Or we just have to be over leveled for the "recommended" content?

I like Wayfinder Cuz I get no lag monster but now I won't be able to play at level Heroic Elite quests. Or have a server merge and get the lag monster.

I get screwed either way.

[Darthbadger]

I was hesitant at first but now I'm a convert: champions are super cool with a couple tweeks. Been having more fun in last week than in years.

1) Spawn rate seems higher than 10%, more like 20-30, particularly in heavy red/orange trash mob places. Either tone it down or have some sort of mechanic where more than 3 can't spawn at the same time. If you do this I'd keep the damage heavy. It's when 5-6 spawn at once that the excessive damage is intolerable. Just death. Did an EE DA and first wave was about 50% crowned. Was brutal. Kinda fun, but in a masochistic kind of way. And combined with your "red alert as game mechanic" thing it becomes stupid in places like friends in low places.

2) Since they do so much damage (which I'd keep so they are scary) I see no need for them being such massive HP bags. Maybe double HP, but the 3-4 times seems silly.

3) Do Not give them a cc immunity ward. They are fun now because you CAN cc them so tactics have taken control again. At a minimum if you do change the cc status, always leave at least one weak save: fighters can have high fort saves, but keep their will saves low. Or wizards high will/low fort. Or bards low fort/high reflex...etc.

4) Remove them completely from "keep the NPC alive" quests. Brawnpits died instantaneously when 5 crowned named dogs at the end fight just slaughtered him. Boom. Dead. I imagine the quest in Red Fens has the same problem. I just don't think champions will work in these types of quests.

5) Rewards rewards rewards. Need something interesting from these things.

My comments are restricted to EE stuff. So I don't know how they are working in heroic. I'm pretty neutral on them being in EH. Could see them stay or go either way...I do feel bad for permadeath folks. This will be a bit rough on them at low levels.

Anyway, count me pleased after some annoyance in first few days. I think this is a good direction. Just needs some tweaks.

[Thlargir]

I have played a while but as anyone that has run with me will attest I am far from uber.

Two suggestions:

1) Checkbox for Champions on/off. If off, no champions and no bravery bonus.
New folks don't need the bonus to cap one and done heroic hard.


2) Store item - White Feather, allows you to select on for Champions but none show up close to you.
Financial support for the game.

[Impaqt]

Players are leaving because.. players have left and the population is decreasing.
Having more players to group with is always a good thing, just look at all the threads complaining about the low number of lfg's.

Players attract players. It doesn't matter if some of those don't buy turbine points, they benefit from having them around in other ways.

Players have been leaving for years.

Turbine has been making the game easier every update for years.

A popular definition of insanity goes something like this.

Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Im all for trying something different at this point. Making the game easier has not increased the population.

[Keladon]

Players have been leaving for years.

Turbine has been making the game easier every update for years.

A popular definition of insanity goes something like this.

Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Im all for trying something different at this point. Making the game easier has not increased the population.

Totally besides the point.
You asked why Turbine would even want players who don't pay, I gave you a valid answer.

[Impaqt]

Totally besides the point.

Why? Because i used your own argument to disprove your theory?