Monster Champion Feedback

[Nestroy]

Ok so if I read correctly you have less of a problem with champs and more of a problem with how wide the variety can be with how tough/challenging they are/can be? If that is the case I can be on board with recommending other buffs that would still present some challenge while not dwarfing the power of bosses.

Of course this is difficult to gauge because characters handle obstacles differently. My fighter can deal with a champ with great saves and just stand toe to toe and duke it out. My DC casters struggle more in that same scenario. Now replace that higher saves with higher damage output and my Fighter can be in trouble whereas my DC casters will just insta kill them and never come into range where damage output is a concern. It's hard to balance the whole of the game when the game allows so many types of playstyle. Not saying it shouldn't be an effort, just understanding that the struggle is real.

You are perfectly right when mentioning that different champs are an obstacle to different playstyles. I do fully understand that.

Let´s say we have 4 major play styles in game these days (not counting variants and orchid builds). This is melee, DC casting, DPS casting and ranged. So if all champs would be powerpacks and be geared towards thwarthing one of these 4 basic play styles, I would fully expect to get into troubles with 1/4 of all champs I find. Once a little more, once a little less, but in average I would face 1 out of 4 champs on any given build to be a challenge. If we have more differenciation, we get 8 champ sets, so I would face 1 out of 8 champs to be from hell.

I currently get one out of perhaps 500 champs to be from hell. Most of the time, the champs are just bloated meat bags that last a few seconds longer than the rest. Depending on saves, even not the last mob standing.

What I do not like is the fact that champs in their broad mass do not pose a real challenge. Most of the time they are not even annoying. Except on a caster - because they need more SP. There are even champs beeing much easier to kill than their ordinary mob counterparts. If the broad mass of champs would pose a bigger challenge, but there would not be any possibility for the one champ from hell, it would be fine. Randomness is a good thing to have. But only if it runs within a certain bandwidth.

[AbsynthMinded]

The spawn rate, lack of rewards, and deadliness of their buffs. I hate champions. They add nothing to my game. They ruin my fun, with abnormal speeds. Soul of Cruelty wipes me dead so often it is insulting at the speed to which that particular version can cut anyone down in seconds. It fills me with rage and disgust.

I hate them all, I think they are pathetic, posing as added content and challenge. The game would be no different without them. We do not need champions and Reaper difficulty. Champions have no worthy added rewards. Their random drop chest drop so rarely as to not drop at all. The random loot is trash 99% of the time. They would not need to exist if DDO had not broken the loot tables with power creep.

I want an option to play DDO as it was without them. The developers can not make them balanced.

[neain2008]

My issue with the champion system is that as its implemented now, I can go through champs all day and its only the ones who can attack multiple times for each animation (whether its multiple swings, or Magic Missile, or even a water ele casting frost lace) and get extra damage to each attack that kills me, and most parties I am with. but overall... the champs do nothing for my game experience except for the occasional death to a champ who spams magic missile at me. thats not a fun game system, thats a really annoying one. I dont look at most champs effects because They. Don't. Matter. until they can cast magic missile. most encounters with champs... take longer because they have more hp, but thats about it. no fun, no excitement, just... 'oh joy, gonna take a few more seconds to get through this pack of trash mobs'. and then hidden in amongst the mostly harmless champs are the ones that suddenly and with no warning, kill 1-5 party members.

again and a little more concise, champs are not fun because they dont add anything to my experience except for random deaths. why not just add a debuff to every quest that will randomly decide to kill a player with no save?

[Cantor]

My issue with the champion system is that as its implemented now, I can go through champs all day and its only the ones who can attack multiple times for each animation (whether its multiple swings, or Magic Missile, or even a water ele casting frost lace) and get extra damage to each attack that kills me, and most parties I am with. but overall... the champs do nothing for my game experience except for the occasional death to a champ who spams magic missile at me. thats not a fun game system, thats a really annoying one. I dont look at most champs effects because They. Don't. Matter. until they can cast magic missile. most encounters with champs... take longer because they have more hp, but thats about it. no fun, no excitement, just... 'oh joy, gonna take a few more seconds to get through this pack of trash mobs'. and then hidden in amongst the mostly harmless champs are the ones that suddenly and with no warning, kill 1-5 party members.

again and a little more concise, champs are not fun because they dont add anything to my experience except for random deaths. why not just add a debuff to every quest that will randomly decide to kill a player with no save?

I disagree that they don't add some challenge and (good) randomness, I do agree however that you should only get one DoT stack from a single spell cast.

hooray for necro!

[Arch-Necromancer]

We should get an option to play without champions on hard and elite, but then also get an option to play with champions on normal too.

That would be the most flexible and satisfying for all players solution.

[whoolsey]

We should get an option to play without champions on hard and elite, but then also get an option to play with champions on normal too.

That would be the most flexible and satisfying for all players solution.

This would be an awesome solution, make this happen dev's

[Hobgoblin]

We should get an option to play without champions on hard and elite, but then also get an option to play with champions on normal too.

That would be the most flexible and satisfying for all players solution.

no.

just no.

if you do not want the champs there are already two boxes for that.

play those.

que all the people who "i wanted a quick run and someone clicked the champ button!" or the opposite - i want rems so i clicked the champ button

[whoolsey]

no.

just no.

if you do not want the champs there are already two boxes for that.

play those.

que all the people who "i wanted a quick run and someone clicked the champ button!" or the opposite - i want rems so i clicked the champ button

you people have your challenge in reaper mode, we want our balanced content back.

[Hobgoblin]

you people have your challenge in reaper mode, we want our balanced content back.

it is balanced

if you dont have the gear or the past lives - use tactics and get a group

[psykopeta]

I disagree that they don't add some challenge and (good) randomness, I do agree however that you should only get one DoT stack from a single spell cast.

hooray for necro!

yay same for shiradi pls, 1 proc for each spell

for me champs were like mini ED mobs xD

[Annex]

no.

just no.

if you do not want the champs there are already two boxes for that.

play those.

que all the people who "i wanted a quick run and someone clicked the champ button!" or the opposite - i want rems so i clicked the champ button

Casual and Normal quickly become too easy. Hard Difficulty includes Champions that inflict thousands of points of damage in moments. Many of us desire a difficulty in between. We need a compromise solution that maximizes enjoyment for the greatest number of players, thus increasing player population, revenue, and game longevity. Risk Tolerant people who do not care about character death received ten new difficulty levels. Yay for them. Risk Averse people who play for survival now need proper difficulty settings for their mode of play.

I have seen the following suggestions addressing this issue:
1) Include a toggle to remove Champions from Hard and Elite difficulty.
2) Fix Champions that deliver high damage attacks in large quantity in a very short amounts of time.
3) Fix the bug allowing Class II and Class III Champions in Hard Difficulty. It is not working as intended.
4) Fix the bug allowing Class III Champions in Elite Difficulty. It is not working as intended.

I personally think they all require IMMEDIATE ATTENTION.

[Arch-Necromancer]

no.

just no.

if you do not want the champs there are already two boxes for that.

play those.

que all the people who "i wanted a quick run and someone clicked the champ button!" or the opposite - i want rems so i clicked the champ button

I also suggested to include a champion choice in normal so if someone wants a bigger challenge with normal monster stats and traps DCs they have a choice for that too.

You missed that one.

Problem with your "choice" is that normal has no choice for mob/trap stats from hard and elite. And no choice for champions although it could have.


If you are afraid of easy runs, I think that disabling Mythic bonus on items when playing without champions would make it undesirable enough for using it as an easy button, at least for easy item farming. Easier runs are the point of it, so it is not a problem by itself.

[spiritor]

We should get an option to play without champions on hard and elite, but then also get an option to play with champions on normal too.

That would be the most flexible and satisfying for all players solution.

this please, or at the very least remove them from hard setting.

[count_spicoli]

For Real? People are still complaining about this 3 years later. Jeez people.

Ps just play a warlock. Everything is trivial.

[odheon]

you people have your challenge in reaper mode, new players need balanced content back.

[Hilltrot]

Casual and Normal quickly become too easy. Hard Difficulty includes Champions that inflict thousands of points of damage in moments. Many of us desire a difficulty in between. We need a compromise solution that maximizes enjoyment for the greatest number of players, thus increasing player population, revenue, and game longevity. Risk Tolerant people who do not care about character death received ten new difficulty levels. Yay for them. Risk Averse people who play for survival now need proper difficulty settings for their mode of play.

I have seen the following suggestions addressing this issue:
1) Include a toggle to remove Champions from Hard and Elite difficulty.
2) Fix Champions that deliver high damage attacks in large quantity in a very short amounts of time.
3) Fix the bug allowing Class II and Class III Champions in Hard Difficulty. It is not working as intended.
4) Fix the bug allowing Class III Champions in Elite Difficulty. It is not working as intended.

I personally think they all require IMMEDIATE ATTENTION.

I have never been a fan of he champion system, but hard is fine. I haven’t had much problems with hard champions.

The elite champions suck in that elite is so much more difficult than hard to begin with. You occasinally get this death dealing champion out of the blue.

[majikpaul]

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!

Maybe I missed it somewhere in this thread, but I have a question on how the champion buffs work in regards to the different tiers of champs. I was recently looking at the chart on the DDOWiki http://ddowiki.com/page/Monster_Champion - my question is if a champ has deathblock at T2 does it also have it at T3? For example Flame Born has deathblock at T2, and fireDOT and TS at T3. Do the buffs at lower tiers carry over to higher tiers?

[Starla70]

Recently our group has had issues with the amount of champions that spawn. We have also learned if you re start it pretty much fixes it. There are some quests, that spawn say 90% champions, but the next time less then 20%. (Grim and barrett is a great example of that.) Not sure why the huge difference from quest to quest.

[Cantor]

Maybe I missed it somewhere in this thread, but I have a question on how the champion buffs work in regards to the different tiers of champs. I was recently looking at the chart on the DDOWiki http://ddowiki.com/page/Monster_Champion - my question is if a champ has deathblock at T2 does it also have it at T3? For example Flame Born has deathblock at T2, and fireDOT and TS at T3. Do the buffs at lower tiers carry over to higher tiers?

Yes, they are cumulative. Higher tiers have all the lower buffs too.

you people have your challenge in reaper mode, we want our balanced content back.

Sure: don't spend any AP, use any gear from the last 5 years, or get BB and you could have balanced hard/elite content back.

[Annex]

Sure: don't spend any AP, use any gear from the last 5 years, or get BB and you could have balanced hard/elite content back.

This ship already sailed but in fairness to whoolsey, even with class passes and better equipment, at a given difficulty level, not every class/build performs better today than 5 years ago. I would _love_ to play my avatar, a Rogue Assassin, in 2013 mode, before Super Monster Champions and broken Stealth. For the few of us left who still care about survival, when playing some class/builds, the game remains (much) harder today than 5 years ago. If you wanted that additional difficulty, are not fixated on a specific archetype, and find death irrelevant, yay for you! Truly! For those of us who enjoyed the way things were, the last 4 years have kinda (extremely) sucked. Anyway, I am finally over the Champion difficulty hump and I hope whoolsey gets over it, too.

Also, thank you to the developers for addressing the issue regarding Champions and Damage Over Time effects. I have not suffered a one-shot since that change. I probably just jinxed myself