Monster Champion Feedback

[Propane]

As people think about champions – I ask people to take a step back and think about overall quest difficulty.

Before update 24, if rated the difficulty… on a scale of 1 (easy) to 10 (hard)
Normal 1
Hard 3
Elite 10

After the update and before the patch,
Normal 1
Hard 5
Elite 14

After the patch,
Normal 1
Hard 3.5
Elite 11

I would like to see Hard ½ way between Elite and Normal – Elite can be bumped up some, but hard needs to be closer to the mid-point.
There is such a “shock” for a lot of people when going from Hard to Elite they get discouraged…
Hard isn’t hard enough to train one for Elite-

Go back to pre-patch levels – limit the number of champions active at the same time (say 3 on hard and 5 on elite) and give it a try.

[Hoglum]

I'm glad they didn't make champions across the board harder or easier as far as dc based attacks, as this allows them some freedom to do interesting things like champions that are very difficult to trip/stun but normally affected by mind control, or vice versa.

Thanks for this.


This is related to what's been chewing on me about some of the development lately. Having 8 legs is what makes it hard to trip you. Thus, spiders are hard to trip. Without taking anything of the sort into consideration, the developers gave Bards an ability to knock anyone down who misses them without consideration for how well balanced they are. It doesn't matter what their dexterity is, saving throws, balance, nothing. A spider simply falls down.

Now, let's say they put a random buff on champions. Let's say this champ is immune to tripping. It probably won't matter what that enemy is, even if it's pogostick-man. I also notice the shield bash from Vanguard stuns things that are immune to stun. I've been a bit baffled by some of this for some time now.

I'm all for champs & some additional challenge in the game but it would be nice if some care were taken in developing it.

[Hafeal]

No - melee tactics got a bug where they're working at no-fail levels across all mobs, not just champions.

I love my no fail trips, but, this is why I say a slight uptick on EH is where to start. Let's see what EH looks like when it is not so easy to stun, sunder and trip.

[Impaqt]

Just got an anonymous email from a highly reliable source that this is going to be the new quest panel for Update 24 Patch 1



Please dont ask me for my source, I dont want to see anyone get fired....

[Kamode_Corebasher]

lol'd

Just got an anonymous email from a highly reliable source that this is going to be the new quest panel for Update 24 Patch 1



Please dont ask me for my source, I dont want to see anyone get fired....

[Qhualor]

Some people have said that champs are susceptible to CC attacks. If this is so, I vote to take that away from them. If I cast a hold monster on one I want it held legitimately, not because holds were made easy for whatever reason. I'm not saying make it more difficult than usual (unless that happens to be their champ buff), but I don't particularly like it being made easy.

If this is an attempt to make CC "viable" again, please stop. All your social engineering is doing is rubbing people the wrong way (except the ones you favor at any given time). I'm sure CC wizards will be happy but then people playing other caster types risk getting cast out. I understand balancing needs to occur sometimes but purposefully making threatening monsters have a particular weakness seems bad to me. All you accomplish with these efforts is playing whack a mole with the player base.

Instead, please focus on making a good Dungeons and Dragons game people can enjoy. If done right, people will enjoy it. Drop the "MMO101" **** and get back to what made D&D great in the first place - creative fantasy which makes some sense.

The Champions can be CC'd just as easily as any other mob. They just have a liitle more HP, they hit harder and have a random buff or two. The thing before the patch that got people talking about using CC tactics and how it became more important was because of how hard Champions hit. Now since the patch, CC tactics are still obviously viable but not as important.

[Kamode_Corebasher]

same experience for me on my eh characters and my ee characters.

After the initial introduction of champions I had a lot of mixed play between heroic elite levels and epic elite levels - and my impression of them both was immensely positive.

The first thing it did was slow things down. Players that ran ahead by themselves were by and by killed off pretty quickly, even the multiple TR'd excellently geared super-build types. And oh how that made me smile. It forced them to pace themselves with at least some of the group. Even that little amount of cooperation felt like a hugely positive thing, especially in DDO.

These days player power is so ramped up that it takes a lot of restraint -not- to blitz through everything, when it's the easiest way of going through most quests. Consequently most people play that way - and do so without thinking much of it. My feeling towards this is that it doesn't encourage group play in the least, other than to hasten the completion of quests.

On the first day of champions, where elite missions were populated with (it appeared to me) a 30ish% of crowned monsters, those quests we had ran maybe 100 times or more felt very different. We had to stop, make sure the group was together - sometimes making use of geometry to keep the number of champions hitting on you at a given moment down. My favorites were the archer-type monsters with damage boost. At one point in one of the drow quests we resorted to the old tactic of having a person in front shield block to take retaliatory fire, guarding the ranged player who would eventually take down the champion. That has -never- happened in a meaningful way in any quest I've played since the level cap was raised from level 16, years back. And it felt great.

The whole fun, in my mind, of having different classes and different trees of skills is to encourage the utilization of them in tandem with other, differing trees, to create and do things a single person/build couldn't. Can you imagine, for example, a television series consisting of a spy team, where there -wasn't- a specialty for each member? Actually, I can. And it would be a terrible show.

Veering slightly back to tangent, my feeling is that DDO has more and more been going in that direction. Everyone can heal, CC, do damage, tank - so why need anyone else?

I am not calling for a return of the ever-toted 'trinity' of MMOs - tank healer dps/crowd control. What I'm saying is that the introduction of champions is encouraging players to work together, if only in a minimal way. And I think the one thing that can make DDO even better is having to work and play together with your party-mates to accomplish big things. Shouldn't completing an epic elite quest at-level be a big thing?

Anyhow, I just logged off after a few hours of play, feeling out the new toned-down champion element. I'm very sad to say it's like they weren't even there. It was back to a zerg-fest through epic elite quests, that, the day before, were actually slower, more enjoyable, cooperative ventures. I didn't know how great DDO could feel until the last update - and now that's it back to what it was, the game is quickly losing its appeal.

My 2 cents.

[Monkey-Boy]

The Champions can be CC'd just as easily as any other mob. They just have a liitle more HP, they hit harder and have a random buff or two. The thing before the patch that got people talking about using CC tactics and how it became more important was because of how hard Champions hit. Now since the patch, CC tactics are still obviously viable but not as important.

I gotta ask, how much EE did you run while the champs were in crazy mode to test this stuff out?

[Kamode_Corebasher]

I really hope this is their (devs) agenda....to make the mobs have more and varied buffs, to reduce the HP's, and to make them more dangerous than the current iteration!!

I think the biggest mistake was to reduce their spawn rate AND their damage output. You either make them less frequent but lower the damage output only by a little (say 10% compared to 25%, so that we cannot get 1-shotted) or make them way more frequent and nerf their damage a lot more.

In both cases, their HP pool is just insane. Juju zombies in EE HH have 40k+ HP, immune to Elec, absorbing 3 types of damage at the time in most cases and pose no threath since they are super slow.
The ones in Mask of Deception have over 25k HP.

I can't see the HP number of the owlbears in the Dragon fight in Haunted Halls but I think they have like 80k HP. Same story for Earth Elementals, Helmed Horrors etc. The numbers are just insane.


My biggest disappointment with this system is that the variety of buffs is too small and in many cases useless. All we care about is the 'I Deal greater damage' and 'True Seeing'. The only time I ever examined a Champion was to check if they have Absorb Electric when Energy Burst was doing yellow numbers. The other times, I don't care. All I think is " ***, I shouldn't get closer to that champ or he will hurt me ". Where are the mobs that buff each other? Why are the Sorcerers not trying to dispel us? Why are they not casting Flesh to stone (Mass Hold can easily be prevented)? Why are there no fun buffs like 'This mob is running with Hasted speed' ?

Heck, why are you not using the Challenges buffs on them? Double Speed, INVINCIBILITY for some seconds, Life Replenish giving them super high regen, Invisibility (at the condition that it breaks when they attack). You can do better than just "OH I HIT LIKE A TRUCK".

[Doutrinador]

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!

The game is much harder, its boring to spend a lot of time to kill monsters with 10 K hp and a lot of DR/ fort. I think monsters should have reasonable HP. Its difficult to find LFG open, and when we find, most are EE. Maybe the xp on epic hard and heroic hard should increase. Another idea is to facilitate the BB in heroics (ex: elite lvl 9 quest giving BB in range 8-13, not 8-11).

[Hoglum]

Ooze champion ability:

Engulf - the ooze leaps onto the adventurer and wraps itself around them. In game, the ooze disappears and the character glows or something. The character proceeds to take damage over time which also damages his/her equipment in the process. This ends when the character has no gear on or dies at which time the ooze detaches. Either they get in their inventory and start taking it all off or it continues to damage the gear until it is destroyed. While taking armor off, concentration checks must be made in order to continue (for armor types that take time).

Guards can damage the ooze or area effect spells by targeting the victim. While under this effect, PVP rules are in effect against the person who is engulfed.

[Qhualor]

I gotta ask, how much EE did you run while the champs were in crazy mode to test this stuff out?

A lot.

[Kamode_Corebasher]

makes you wonder...how are the Devs currently keeping track of the feedback from this thread...are they methodically logging and charting or are they going by gut feeling? Also, what is their overall goal with adding Champions? My assumption on their goals: 1) make grouping the norm again, and 2) make the game just as fun or more fun while breathing a bit of new life into it. <--just my assumptions though...would love to hear them state their goal for this new Champions system.

First of all great job Devs/Team on introducing this new system and working so hard to make adjustments. I am sure you will get it where it needs to be.

I understand a thread is easy to throw up and it did provide some very good feedback.

I think a survey would be good at some point for some final validation/tweaking. It's probably hard for the devs and some of the players to understand the frustration of coming here and providing your honest feedback only to get ripped apart by others that disagree.

I am sure these divisive topics bring in some people that wouldn't normally post and then the negative experience makes them never want to come back again. For some people the forum seems to be a mini-game and it's about winning and losing rather than what's best for the game.

At this point for final tweaking I don't think you need to hear any more "there is a difficulty setting for you called casual" or "because you don't know how to use simple tactics" or "because you elitists should get a job and move away from your mom's".

Please consider adding a survey at some point (like the balance survey) to get more opinions and to shelter people from criticism for their opinions.

I also posted this suggestion in the general discussion - not to spam the idea - but because I think it can be buried in this very contentious thread.

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...79#post5497479

[Monkey-Boy]

makes you wonder...how are the Devs currently keeping track of the feedback from this thread...are they methodically logging and charting or are they going by gut feeling? Also, what is their overall goal with adding Champions? My assumption on their goals: 1) make grouping the norm again, and 2) make the game just as fun or more fun while breathing a bit of new life into it. <--just my assumptions though...would love to hear them state their goal for this new Champions system.

They're probably monitoring actual game data instead of our banter.

[brian14]

Ran Delera chain elite last night. Not many champions, and not a single champion chest.

Not that I care much, as these chests had only junk (okay, they had Festivult coins), but now champions seem even more pointless.

I would prefer some xp bonus for each champion.

[Wipey]

I gotta ask, how much EE did you run while the champs were in crazy mode to test this stuff out?

Levelled to 27, so EVERYTHING EE except Stormhorns and 3 bc.
Often duo, Gianthold and such. Belly at level ( every Blademaster champ ), Whelon underlevel.

Did Stormhorns twice before etr last week, both pug on pally with your bard guildie and shortman on tempest.
"One shot kills " is a big pile of turd exaggeration.

So quite quick etr for me, you know why ?
Because I had a blast in every "old boring quest". So much excitement and danger where you wouldn't expect it anymore ( well hello four madstone skelly champions ).

Back to boring zerg while munching potato chips.

[Seikojin]

Just an FYI: Trips and stuns are bugged; adding character level to the DC, in addition to everything else. It will be fixed in patch 1. So enjoy it while it lasts.

I think the spawn rate for elite should be bumped up to 10%.

[LupusVai]

They just have a liitle more HP, .

You keep saying this and it just isn't true. They have at least 200% more hps as a non crown and some of them have way more than 200% extra hps. Stop trying to spread misinformation to further your agenda.

[MangLord]

I'd honestly like to see orange names reduced to 25% champion status. Some quests are fairly heavy on orange names (Belly of the beast with those awful blademasters to name one I ran today), and it can make an already difficult quest/fight incredibly challenging. Dropping the rate to 40% would still ensure that nearly half of the orange names will be champions, and thus much more dangerous than a red named boss.

"Upgrading" certain enemies to red name from orange status seems like a good idea. Portals, pillars and other construct non-combatants that you have to take out while dealing with trash waves were already designed to be very durable without lucking out on extra champion HP. Similarly, a lot of existing orange names, particularly gatekeeper bosses like the giant in Tracker's Trap, already had highly inflated HP.

The deathblock effect really breaks a lot of abilities for various classes. Somehow, deathblock negates paralyzing arrows from AA tree. It also protects the enemy from assassination, coup de grace and caster level drain and death spells, all of which are usually ace-in-the-hole abilities for the respective classes. I'm noticing it being used more and more liberally for enemies, as a way to curb our abilities, but it seems really hamfisted. How is paralysis a death effect? If I could dispel it like many of our foes can, that would be really nice. Being able to bypass a portion of deathward with precision feat would be nice, but it would only be a matter of time before enemies would be able to use that against us.

[Aletys]

agree!

The scaling of the heroic contend was just fine before the update.
Now after the recent changes ist's ok for me and add a element of uncertainty, but it also drives me to skip some quest, because I just don't want to find out where the champs this time will spawn.

every quest with a high possibility of getting champion Ice Flensers which will one shot you - no thanks
Tomb of the Tormented - no thanks
Enter the Kobold - no thanks

Agree completely. I forgot to mention in my last report that while we were able to complete Foundation of Discord successfully, we skipped the optionals because nobody wanted to deal with any more champions than absolutely necessary.

So what you'll be seeing is more of what the uber zergers already do in much EE content: Jump into the quest, find a way to do the essentials as quickly as possible, & get out. Except now you'll see it at all levels where there's a champion.

Many of the folks complaining there is no challenge in EE were skipping most of the quest to begin with. So who's fault is it that they're not challenged. I could list a number of quests where this is common in EE pugs. The rationale? They get more xp/minute doing it that way.