Vip - rip

[myliftkk_v2]

Came back to the game from a 6 month hiatus (work related, not ragequit). Did two fresh TRs of capped toons, and have run one now on it's 3rd life thru level 5.

Champions are... meh, as far as risk goes, imo. More excitement sure, but hardly a real threat to a well-thought out toon (and nearly naked at that seeing as I don't keep hardly any low level gear below min lvl 5). It appears I missed the few glory days of Ch-ch-ch-ch-champions! (think Scooby Doo).

If you're failing Korthos w/ Champions, then rethink the build or tactics.

[Cathimon]

If you suck, try any of casual, norm, hard.

Or if you're stubborn or determinated, use your brain or team up. This game is actually easy, easier than it used to be even.

[Nestroy]

If you suck, try any of casual, norm, hard.

Or if you're stubborn or determinated, use your brain or team up. This game is actually easy, easier than it used to be even.

I think the main problem is one of perception. I have run with the OP in the past and he was a very competent player. He just happened to have missed the newest developments in DDO, and got unlucky enough to run into a few extra difficult champions in the first quest(s) - unprepared and not known in advance. I understand the anger, but it really is no case of "suck" or "stubborn". OP got negatively surprised unexpectedly and raged. Would have happened to me too...

Regarding Champions, the bandwidth between "harmless meatbags" or "utterly harmless" and "harming / damaging the whole quest" is too high. While champs certainly introduced a massively missing element of randomness and surprise, they sometimes are gamebreakingly unbalanced. I met a kobold shaman on Durks (lv. 2 Habor) today with 508 hp and shoting lightning bolts of 68 per (net damage after applying elemental resistance spell). On a veteran played lv. 4 toon with about 20 past lifes (completionist, enough barb and other lifes for extra hp, sp, dc...) this is no big deal. But on an unaware firstlifer VIP, this well could be motivation breaking. The bandwidth of possible champ builds is just too wide at the moment.

And the second problem with champs are the missing rewards. A chest there and then for yellow and orange minibosses is nice, but far from rewarding the risk. Furthermore these chest might be farmed en masse on quests where there are many minibosses (DA comes to my mind, and HH). A good champ reward would be a modest sum of guild renown and xp for each and every champ, wether miniboss or normal mob. And no chests. We get some 10 * quest level XP and some 5-15 additional guild renown for the champs and we would all say "hail the devs".

Personally, I am against the "checkbox" idea. Out of 2 reasons: 1st, who is to decide if there are champs or not? In groups? Second, what is the reward for checking the champs - at the moment there aren´t any. So nobody will, because champs cost time.

Finally, I wonder why there can´t be an automatic mechanic in quest/game that distributes champs based on the ammount of past lifes in a certain quest. So basically a player or group with only 1st-lifers would have no chance to spawn champs (or a marginal one), while a group full of completionists would have a very high chance. Problem solved for the 1st lifer VIPs. This really should not be a big problem to do.

[Bargol]

words

If game difficulty (Elite) is balanced for a first life newbie VIP players fresh from the grotto, then what is the point to TR, get gear, or build any character power?

Normal / casual should be balanced for new / first life players, hard for vets with some experience, and elite for geared veteran players. This way there is a difficulty for everyone.

If the devs must remove all extra xp boosts so everyone can just run the difficulty that is meant for them then do it.

Why must everyone feel they have to run everything on the hardest difficulty setting regardless of build, gear, playing skills, and preparedness?

[Chai]

The assumption that everyone who doesn't like champions does so "because they are to hard" isn't totally valid.

I am a veteran who has tr'd multiple times. I cancelled my VIP a couple of weeks ago.
I did so because I hate the whole champion concept. I am an older guy who played D and D pnp for years and a giant rat with more hit points than a boss, just did not seem right and i found it stupid to have to pound on something for 5 minutes longer and think "it's a challenge".
I am used to playing elite and hard, i have no difficulty playing these levels. I guess i could play normal to avoid champions, but chose not to. I choose to quit instead.

I seriously doubt DDO is getting the number of new players that people seem to think. It is a very old game.

If I was given the check box option that you suggested, I would not have left.
If that option is given now, I would re-up my VIP.

For now I just check the forums to see if any changes have been made to champions that would bring me back, if not, then I go back to playing Panzer Corps for now.

Sorry to all who are having lag issues now. I have none. Don't understand why you are having lag issues, have you checked your machine?

Oh hold on, I am not playing DDO, maybe that's why I am not having lag issues. just kidding. I talked with one of my former guildies yesterday, he was pretty upset. Hope they get it fixed.

He obviously was giving me **** when he told me they got had to back out the champions. Jerk. lol

But people keep throwing "new players" under the bus regarding their reasoning for why champions are bad in low level play. Im simply pointing out that 2 of the 4 difficulties, the ones new players should begin the learning curve on, do not have champions. I also conjectured that if they put in an xp bonus for choosing champions, most if not all would choose to deal with them, just like most play on elite because if the xp bonus associated with it.

[Lallajulia]

I think the main problem is one of perception. I have run with the OP in the past and he was a very competent player. He just happened to have missed the newest developments in DDO, and got unlucky enough to run into a few extra difficult champions in the first quest(s) - unprepared and not known in advance. I understand the anger, but it really is no case of "suck" or "stubborn". OP got negatively surprised unexpectedly and raged. Would have happened to me too...

Regarding Champions, the bandwidth between "harmless meatbags" or "utterly harmless" and "harming / damaging the whole quest" is too high. While champs certainly introduced a massively missing element of randomness and surprise, they sometimes are gamebreakingly unbalanced. I met a kobold shaman on Durks (lv. 2 Habor) today with 508 hp and shoting lightning bolts of 68 per (net damage after applying elemental resistance spell). On a veteran played lv. 4 toon with about 20 past lifes (completionist, enough barb and other lifes for extra hp, sp, dc...) this is no big deal. But on an unaware firstlifer VIP, this well could be motivation breaking. The bandwidth of possible champ builds is just too wide at the moment.

And the second problem with champs are the missing rewards. A chest there and then for yellow and orange minibosses is nice, but far from rewarding the risk. Furthermore these chest might be farmed en masse on quests where there are many minibosses (DA comes to my mind, and HH). A good champ reward would be a modest sum of guild renown and xp for each and every champ, wether miniboss or normal mob. And no chests. We get some 10 * quest level XP and some 5-15 additional guild renown for the champs and we would all say "hail the devs".

Personally, I am against the "checkbox" idea. Out of 2 reasons: 1st, who is to decide if there are champs or not? In groups? Second, what is the reward for checking the champs - at the moment there aren´t any. So nobody will, because champs cost time.

Finally, I wonder why there can´t be an automatic mechanic in quest/game that distributes champs based on the ammount of past lifes in a certain quest. So basically a player or group with only 1st-lifers would have no chance to spawn champs (or a marginal one), while a group full of completionists would have a very high chance. Problem solved for the 1st lifer VIPs. This really should not be a big problem to do.

there is no reason not to believe you, but! nothing op said, changed what was happened - player with unprepared, ungeared character expected easy win +2 levels dungeon. he failed. it is not so much about gear or resources, it is not about past lives, as others showed all can be done easy without much of stress. not character was weak, player behind character was mentally not prepared for challenge quest can suddenly give. it was not deadly challenge. it was not gamebreaking challenge.
again, so many times here repeated - on highest possible difficulty player two levels below quest level failed because of incompetence. that is not problem by itself. problem is that he wants, requests, demand... that game should become easier enough to be easy win-win even by incompetenet players with gimped toons on highest possible difficutly. option do same quest on casual, normal, hard to get more experience seems to be unacceptable for him.
it is very, very hard to understand such logic of player who actually could enjoy game later on. most satisfaction comes from "i did it! after all, i did it. solo, with group, i had to prepare, use tactic, used help, not used help, but i ... did it!" this is where satisfaction lies for gamers. we overcome virtual problems, resolve fights with sometimes impossible odds. "i did it". "finally, i did it". or. "i failed, what i should do next time? what i have to bring to the table to win this? seems impossible, but others did. i have to do this too. need to learn."
instead - aah, lower difficulty. pfff....

[Chai]

I will catch flak for this, but I have switched to normal for the vast majority of my ER runs. It's not about challenge for me, it's about time. Champions don't introduce the possibility of defeat for my strongest toons -they only slow things down. With 10s of millions of XP needed to get a decent stable of past lives, I need to get XP as fast as possible. Even before champions this was often done by running normal. Now with champions this is almost always the difficulty of choice.

The only quest I routinely do on EH is Two-Toed Tobias. But there is an incentive to do so beyond XP in that one particular quest so it doesn't count. If XP were increased by 20% using a "with champions" option, I would still have to evaluate the additional time it would take. The percent increase in total XP would have to equal or exceed the percent increase in time spent for it to be worth it.

Don't get me wrong -I would rather be running for loot drops (e.g. TTT), but the end-game as I see it is ER. Until it's not, normal it is.

I wont give you flak for that, and in fact, I support what you are doing. Normal has always been the best option for xp/minute in epics because the XP differential between normal and elite is not enough to account for the time differential extra difficulty causes. You are actually using normal difficulty for what a vet should be using it for.

In heroics however, elite is the difficulty many insist on being able to run sans failure due to the higher BB induced XP totals. If they gave a 20% Xp bonus for choosing to deal with champions, Im betting the argumentation would switch from "we don't want to deal with it" to "everyone should be able to complete with champions with no failure chance". These are the same arguments we have seen for elite difficulty in heroics.

Elite difficulty in heroics has been eroded over years of time. Epic elite has been eroded, but not nearly as much as heroic elite has. People do not insist on being able to complete EE as much as they insist on being able to complete HE. People were arguing that champions don't belong on korthos, and I made the point that the same argumentation would occur if there was an XP bonus associated with dealing with them in that context. This is already happening actually, because people used to elite being easy in heroics and want it to remain so are arguing for removal of champions, or making them optional. I believe with an XP incentive, this argumentation would change from supporting removal, to supporting trivialization - similar to how HE was trivialized with scaling etc....all due to responses to feedback that the game needs to be soloable.

[Keladon]

there is no reason not to believe you, but! nothing op said, changed what was happened - player with unprepared, ungeared character expected easy win +2 levels dungeon. he failed. it is not so much about gear or resources, it is not about past lives, as others showed all can be done easy without much of stress. not character was weak, player behind character was mentally not prepared for challenge quest can suddenly give. it was not deadly challenge. it was not gamebreaking challenge.
again, so many times here repeated - on highest possible difficulty player two levels below quest level failed because of incompetence. that is not problem by itself. probles is that he wants, requests, demand... that game should become easier enough to be easy win-win even by incompetenet players with gimped toons on highest possible difficutly. option do same quest on casual, normal, hard to get more experience seems to be unacceptable for him.
it is very, very hard to understand such logic of player who actually could enjoy game later on. most satisfaction comes from "i did it! after all, i did it. solo, with group, i had to prepare, use tactic, used help, not used help, but i ... did it!" this is where satisfaction lies for gamers. we overcome virtual problems, resolve fights with sometimes impossible odds. "i did it". "finally, i did it". or. "i failed, what i should do next time? what i have to bring to the table to win this? seems impossible, but others did. i have to do this too. need to learn."
instead - aah, lower difficulty. pfff....

So you know how all gamers think and they all think the same way?

It's a nice story, but it's full of assumptions, not facts.

[slarden]

To all those who adviced until page 10 (and probably will continue to advice on future pages by just quoting one of my initial postings) to do this quest on hn/hh - I managed to do it on he alone with the "weakest class", build to be a wizard, thanks to the hint with the barb hire and some positioning attempts.

To all those who supported (not necessarily me but) the rant: thank you. There is absolutely no reason for champions in low level quests (except of vitalizing the forums with threads about it) that are meant to introduce new players to the game mechanics.

To all those who just throw more or less elaborated l2p's around - thank you so much for your greatness, shinyness and all the other -nesses you think to represent. But please, go and pose elsewhere.

Why did I start this thread? Because quests on Korthos never have been mortal in the past, regardless what difficulty, at least not for the player (for npcs to be protected yes, but at least not the village quests), no matter what initial class. And this was a good decision, to not frustrate new players/vips/returners at the beginning. I do not talk about lvl 16+ elites, or even epics, but the actual very second quest in the starter area for level 1 characters. This simply was and is not fun. I don't have anything against hard puzzles or enemies-at-level. As long as I have the tools, spells, and skills available to try another tactic. But one-shot-abilities, random "doom or cakewalk" mechanics don't make the game more challenging, they just make it unpredictable. But I want to play a D&D dice game and not a game of chance. Since I experienced this, I did not login anymore. Though I'm still here (and my vip sub is still running). And I'd appreciate an answer from one or more of the developers, what their intention for this deterring design was.

This is a good summary of this thread. The middle ground seems so hard for some to find. The champion system is a good idea, but the flaws need to be worked out.

[Cathimon]

duh, then mythic will be the default difficulty that everyone has to do and the whining will continue.

People will always be whining. Guys on welfare want to be as rich as George Soros. And a lot of players on DDO and other games, wants to get to have everything without putting in any effort. It's up to the devs to chose to catter to those people or actually make their game great.

I think it's more likely players leave due to the game offering no challenge anymore than people leaving because they can't play the most difficult difficulty with their gimp character and using no tactic. I think a lot of those newbies and casual players just bark but don't bite. While I think a lot of people who whine about the lack of challenge and the game being too easy actually leave DDO. I mean that's the thing, its too difficult on elite for you, you still got options and you can hope to one day be good enough. If you completly crush the hardest diff, there's nothing left but for you to leave DDO or if you're stubborn you stay and you're frustrated. Like me. My best friend left though, sadly.

[Lallajulia]

So you know how all gamers think and they all think the same way?

It's a nice story, but it's full of assumptions, not facts.

not all, but by far most as far as i know. 15 years i play various of games. that became one of my hobbies, besides foreign languages, history and geography. same pattern goes in many ways - or it is civilization on deity or ddo solo endgame, some say - no it is impossible, but there are others. they say to themselves - wow! i want do like this too. i want win. they beat me so easy. how to fight? show me! and gamers mostly are helpful people, they share experience. this post was share or experienced player. not only he explained, he did it by himself and showed - here, take my knowledge, use it. reaction was? it was not good. instead of "thank you, i have to go and use it and learn what you gave me", was endless bla bla.
gamers who i knew in my life loved hardcore, deity, legendary difficulties. why? because that gives satisfaction in the end. all games are virtual, we do not accomplish anything for real, but! we accomplish something personal. that is why many gamers look for challenge. champions were very good step in right direction. and developers actually know that.

[Keladon]

not all, but by far most as far as i know. 15 years i play various of games. that became one of my hobbies, besides foreign languages, history and geography. same pattern goes in many ways - or it is civilization on deity or ddo solo endgame, some say - no it is impossible, but there are others. they say to themselves - wow! i want do like this too. i want win. they beat me so easy. how to fight? show me! and gamers mostly are helpful people, they share experience. this post was share or experienced player. not only he explained, he did it by himself and showed - here, take my knowledge, use it. reaction was? it was not good. instead of "thank you, i have to go and use it and learn what you gave me", was endless bla bla.
gamers who i knew in my life loved hardcore, deity, legendary difficulties. why? because that gives satisfaction in the end. all games are virtual, we do not accomplish anything for real, but! we accomplish something personal. that is why many gamers look for challenge. champions were very good step in right direction. and developers actually know that.

You're doing the exact same thing again..

"Gamers who i knew in my life", how many is that? 1, 5 ,10, 100? 0.0000000001% of all gamers out there?
The wants and needs of some are not the wants and needs of everyone.

And you seem to know what the developers think.
For all we know the devs regret implementing champions but are convinced it's too late to remove them now.
For all we know they toned them down after only a few days because of a wave of cancelled subs.

[Lallajulia]

You're doing the exact same thing again..

"Gamers who i knew in my life", how many is that? 1, 5 ,10, 100? 0.0000000001% of all gamers out there?
The wants and needs of some are not the wants and needs of everyone.

And you seem to know what the developers think.
For all we know the devs regret implementing champions but are convinced it's too late to remove them now.
For all we know they toned them down after only a few days because of a wave of cancelled subs.

yes, you have reason behind your words. i accept that. i do not have overall statistic, only my own. but take as example any game you know, where are difficulty levels and see what people talk most about. and you will see, that people mostly share knowledge how to beat most difficult things in games, bosses, traps, ambushes and not on "normal" setting. on hardest settings they can find. rarely, except learning phase, players share their knowledge about hard things. why? why this happen? why dragon age, skyrim, civ...other such games have this hardcore setting and why most talks is about how to beat this setting? because what i said before - challenge. and satisfaction later, when player done this.
other example are mmorpg. raids are The Endgame for many. most certainly for gamers. casuals? they enjoy many things. good. but raids is what attract people. you have to prepare, you have to know, you have to learn. again, why so many gamers do this, what seems to be like a pain? answer is that it is not a pain but pleasure, in the end. you learn, you fight, you win = fun.

[Qhualor]

For all we know they toned them down after only a few days because of a wave of cancelled subs.

whats your theory of no end game and casualization complaints that resulted in cancelled subs? what do you think the devs did to comply to those players?

I don't disagree though that after just a few days of viewing Champions and the amount of "feedback" given during that time most likely contributed to the Champion nerf. the hasty response to that "feedback" didnt look good and wasnt hard to make an educational guess as to the reasoning behind it.

[Keladon]

whats your theory of no end game and casualization complaints that resulted in cancelled subs? what do you think the devs did to comply to those players?

I don't disagree though that after just a few days of viewing Champions and the amount of "feedback" given during that time most likely contributed to the Champion nerf. the hasty response to that "feedback" didnt look good and wasnt hard to make an educational guess as to the reasoning behind it.

Who says no 'casualization' would have meant that we would have had more players now? Again, for all we know we the playerbase could have been a lot smaller by now without 'casualization'.
Maybe they didn't comply to those players because no 'casualization' could have meant the game wouldn't even be here now?
Maybe there weren't even that many cancelled subs for them to notice.

[Nestroy]

...

3 words to counter your arguments here: Bonus Streak (2); Favor (1). Alas - the game is leaned to make running the highest difficulties a necessety. And this had been done on purpose, I am sure. Because this is one of the driving factors of microtransaction sales in the game. And I do not even mention grinding for gear now. Ofc it would be perfect world if the game was instead built for supporting play styles. But as it is now it supports running the highest possible level, not the right level of difficulty. And no, this will not change any time soon, or it would already have been - we bring up the same arguments now for since the devs introduced the bravery streaks.

...

Again, it is a question of what to expect and what the OP got. Returning vet players do have a hard time re-adapting - because they THINK they know the game, but the game CHANGED significantly. So it is a question of perception.

By the way, I support the argument that champions on low levels sporting ED like abilities are way out of whack. Better not to have champions until lv. 4 quests and even then there should be a separate heroics and epics table for champ feats and buffs. I support the move to keep epic past live feats out of heroic content too - this is OP as much as some champs are. Therefore - take away the OP-ness of the player toons, at the same time, take away the OP-ness of the champs in HEROIC content (again, EPIC they are perfectly Ok atm!!!) and we all will life more happily ever there after. The gap between 1st-lifers and completionists already is way too big.

...

...

...

...

Guys, it does not help if you quarrel about basically nothing. There always will be power gamers and from the lv. 28 eTR train Olymp champs seem like a nice addition. For the 45 past lifes vet heroic champs are just a fresh breeze. The game, after all, lives from new players and vets alike, so it has to cater to both needs. A checkbox enabling or disabling champs would solve the problem, perhaps. Better would be acheckbox enabling champs with epic buffs in heroics, and else these are barred. This already would go a long distance to fix the rift we see atm between new (or returning) 1st lifers and grizzled vets.

[bartharok]

But people keep throwing "new players" under the bus regarding their reasoning for why champions are bad in low level play. Im simply pointing out that 2 of the 4 difficulties, the ones new players should begin the learning curve on, do not have champions. I also conjectured that if they put in an xp bonus for choosing champions, most if not all would choose to deal with them, just like most play on elite because if the xp bonus associated with it.

Ture. I rarely bother keeping up an elite streak on a firstlifer, since i can easily get to cap on hard (or even norm, if i have a really weird build i want to try out). So it shouldnt be a problem for a NEW player to get to cap on norm either, especially if they buy VIP around 10. Its the returning and older players that might have a problem, not because they cant handle it, but because it slows them down.

[Vint]

There are two sides to this story. Let's look at both.

A power gamer has a great build and can solo elite just fine. One day Turbine "changes things" and now he is no longer able to solo elite. He comes here to complain and is told...

1. Run hard or normal.
2. Group up with people.
3. Quit the game crybaby.

Now we look at the casual guy who can solo elite and Turbine "changes things" and now he is unable to solo elite. He is also met with the same answers that the power gamer was.


The only difference in the stories is that in one instance Turbine nerfed a build and in the other instance is that Turbine introduced champions.

I won't go on, but this is almost poetic justice for those that demanded nerfs to the ubers who had the good build. Maybe I would be more sympathetic to the casuals of they had not gone out of their way asking Turbine to "change things" for zergers.

[bartharok]

There are two sides to this story. Let's look at both.

A power gamer has a great build and can solo elite just fine. One day Turbine "changes things" and now he is no longer able to solo elite. He comes here to complain and is told...

1. Run hard or normal.
2. Group up with people.
3. Quit the game crybaby.

Now we look at the casual guy who can solo elite and Turbine "changes things" and now he is unable to solo elite. He is also met with the same answers that the power gamer was.


The only difference in the stories is that in one instance Turbine nerfed a build and in the other instance is that Turbine introduced champions.

I won't go on, but this is almost poetic justice for those that demanded nerfs to the ubers who had the good build. Maybe I would be more sympathetic to the casuals of they had not gone out of their way asking Turbine to "change things" for zergers.

I dont th.ink that soloing elite has been made impossible. Not in heroics, at least. What it has done is introduce a smallish chance of failure,which is what people protest against

[Nestroy]

There are two sides to this story. Let's look at both.

A power gamer has a great build and can solo elite just fine. One day Turbine "changes things" and now he is no longer able to solo elite. He comes here to complain and is told...

1. Run hard or normal.
2. Group up with people.
3. Quit the game crybaby.

Now we look at the casual guy who can solo elite and Turbine "changes things" and now he is unable to solo elite. He is also met with the same answers that the power gamer was.


The only difference in the stories is that in one instance Turbine nerfed a build and in the other instance is that Turbine introduced champions.

I won't go on, but this is almost poetic justice for those that demanded nerfs to the ubers who had the good build. Maybe I would be more sympathetic to the casuals of they had not gone out of their way asking Turbine to "change things" for zergers.

I dont th.ink that soloing elite has been made impossible. Not in heroics, at least. What it has done is introduce a smallish chance of failure,which is what people protest against

Actually, Heroic Elite is far from impossible to solo. I did it with a lv. 1 Barb and a lv. 1 Sorc. But...

1.) It gives Hires a new purpose. On Korthos the Barbarian (alternatively Cleric) are not optional now.
2.) Even the best build and the best player just can get unlucky and meet the one champion from hell that destroys the Cannith Crystall or Heyton with one single shot before you may be able to draw aggro or anything - random quest failure.
3.) Do not try Korthos Snowy Side on elite. Go to Habor, get yourself at least some gear (and ship buffs, if possible - find yourself a guild) and try again - it really helps a long way.

Korthos is supposed to be a Tutorial Area. If any quests are supposed to be doable even on elite any time, it´s there. So basically introducing champions in quests like The Cannith Crystall or Redemption is just a bad idea. I would suggest for the devs to keep champions out of either Korthos quests or lv. 1 quests all together, to introduce champions on elite lv. 2 quests and have all lv. 3+ quests sprt champions the way they are currently applied, except for giving at least some token reward (minor XP and renown) for slaying them. I feel mostly annoyed by them because they make me run quests longer than expected. They do not provide any challenge for the prepared vet. They just slow things down.