Reevaluate the difficulty of the Eternal Championship

[DaddyAlduin]

The Eternal Championship is WAY overtuned. On a level 80 lightning sorc, on a build I am very experienced with, with a rank 50 Lana, the regular solo Eternal Championship is *way* too difficult. There have been numerous threads I have found highlighting this before, with nothing being done to remedy it. I do not know whether it is due to the way level scaling works and its issues, an update unintentionally whacking its difficulty up, or whatever; unless you play in the 100% most optimal way, it is nigh-impossible, and if it is planned to be a seasonal challenge again, this is something that needs to be looked at.

[Leoperaghost]

Agreed 100% 

BW/BS could have had something great with a boss rush type mission but the current tuning is atrocious say the least. 

[Strathkin]

Yes, this is mostly caused by Ability Pruning in 7.0 not to mention longer Cast Times many classes have.  *sigh*  

Still it's is slightly harder than prior to 7.0 despite you can finish; won't likely make 14:59 for Sprint Champion Achievement now!

Edited March 27 by Strathkin
Grammar

[VegaMist]

You may want to switch Lana for a ranged companion (anyone with 2 pistols or Z0-0M) and only bring Lana for the last fight (otherwise, there'll be a moment you'd have to set your ranged companion on passive to get them run to you and avoid getting killed).

As far as GS objective, doing it with someone else works just fine - doesn't have to be solo.

Edited March 26 by VegaMist

[DaddyAlduin]

2 hours ago, VegaMist said:

You may want to switch Lana for a ranged companion (anyone with 2 pistols or Z0-0M) and only bring Lana for the last fight (otherwise, there'll be a moment you'd have to set your ranged companion on passive to get them run to you and avoid getting killed).

I tried to use Vizla, but it made little noticeable difference, and I found Lana much easier to reliably keep alive for Doom Bot (likely due to the influence difference between the two giving Lana that lil bit of extra health) which was the final boss I was willing to attempt. I decided after almost 2 hours and a couple million creds in repairs on Doom Bot alone later that it just wasn't worth it. 

 

I had the idle command hotkeyed to my mouse, and despite micromanaging my companion to the best of my ability, a single mistake or missed idle command would be a death; which really speaks to how overturned the entire thing is!

Edited March 26 by DaddyAlduin
Elaboration

[Crystal_Mind]

Eternal Championship is fine. I and others have solo-cleared it this expansion on every combat style (though not every spec). In a game that is painfully easy in most regards, this completely optional solo quest asks you to know how to do dps, how to use your dcds, and how to play mechanics. And if you can't? It lets you group. /shrug

[VegaMist]

4 hours ago, DaddyAlduin said:

I tried to use Vizla, but it made little noticeable difference, and I found Lana much easier to reliably keep alive for Doom Bot (likely due to the influence difference between the two giving Lana that lil bit of extra health) which was the final boss I was willing to attempt. I decided after almost 2 hours and a couple million creds in repairs on Doom Bot alone later that it just wasn't worth it. 

 

I had the idle command hotkeyed to my mouse, and despite micromanaging my companion to the best of my ability, a single mistake or missed idle command would be a death; which really speaks to how overturned the entire thing is!

The companion definitely needs to be level 50. The championship itself got a bit easier after the last level bump - gearing in 340s vs previous 336s makes a significant difference (did it a few times recently and it's more manageable). I believe I used Sworista's guide to get through it for the first time, and there're others: https://youtu.be/JwCH0Whu4gg?si=zHQZ1CpGLBtj4ZDS The first toon I beat it on Solo was my trooper (I think I switched between Commando and Vanguard styles couple of times to finally get it - been a while).

Is it worth it? That depends. If you're doing it just for the Conquest points then it's easier to group up - definitely faster. Are you doing it to get Bowdar? Then you may just go as high as you can easily do it, exit, collect reward, and repeat until you get enough points with him. If you're doing it to test and improve your own skills - definitely worth it.

If you have time and credits to invest, you will come out with a better understanding of your combat skills - as with anything, practice (a lot of it) makes perfect.

[DaddyAlduin]

1 hour ago, Crystal_Mind said:

Eternal Championship is fine. I and others have solo-cleared it this expansion on every combat style (though not every spec). In a game that is painfully easy in most regards, this completely optional solo quest asks you to know how to do dps, how to use your dcds, and how to play mechanics. And if you can't? It lets you group. /shrug

I have no issue with challenging but fair content! I personally deeply love, for example, Fromsoft's titles, having played through every title of theirs besides BB. But this isn't a git gud issue, this is a "This fights balancing is way outside of its original design" issue.

 

For context (numbers taken from https://forums.swtor.com/topic/919951-eternal-championship-unbalance/) the Player is roughly at 70% of the power level they would be at according to the original design of the Eternal Championship, with the bosses ranging anywhere from ~20% all the way to ~75% stronger. That is, to put it simply, not working as designed; its not a skill issue, it's not a git gud issue, it's a "This fight is broken compared to its original design." 

 

I'm impressed that you and others have been able to complete it! But that doesn't address my points. In a MMO, the design of an encounter plays an equal role to player-skill; and this is far outside of its initial design specs. As an example, look at AQ40 from Vanilla WOW; on release, the final boss was flat-out unkillable due to bugs resulting in the balance of the fight being outside of the intended specs; and a single day after those issues were fixed, the boss was cleared. The same situation affected Ouro, from the same raid; a bug resulted in the balance of the fight being higher than designed, resulting in the fight being unclearable until it was patched, after which it was cleared within a day!

[DaddyAlduin]

Or another example, again from WOW. M'uru was a boss that 5 guilds managed to kill; yet it STILL received a nerf because Blizzard realized that the difficulty was way outside the intended design! The design and specific balancing of a fight plays an equal role to player skill in an MMO my man

[Rohndogg]

20 minutes ago, DaddyAlduin said:

I have no issue with challenging but fair content! I personally deeply love, for example, Fromsoft's titles, having played through every title of theirs besides BB. But this isn't a git gud issue, this is a "This fights balancing is way outside of its original design" issue.

 

For context (numbers taken from https://forums.swtor.com/topic/919951-eternal-championship-unbalance/) the Player is roughly at 70% of the power level they would be at according to the original design of the Eternal Championship, with the bosses ranging anywhere from ~20% all the way to ~75% stronger. That is, to put it simply, not working as designed; its not a skill issue, it's not a git gud issue, it's a "This fight is broken compared to its original design." 

 

I'm impressed that you and others have been able to complete it! But that doesn't address my points. In a MMO, the design of an encounter plays an equal role to player-skill; and this is far outside of its initial design specs. As an example, look at AQ40 from Vanilla WOW; on release, the final boss was flat-out unkillable due to bugs resulting in the balance of the fight being outside of the intended specs; and a single day after those issues were fixed, the boss was cleared. The same situation affected Ouro, from the same raid; a bug resulted in the balance of the fight being higher than designed, resulting in the fight being unclearable until it was patched, after which it was cleared within a day!

Top tier reply. It doesn't matter if you can technically complete something by smashing your head against the wall enough times, but that doesn't mean it's working as intended. It's basically unachievable for the vast majority of the current players. I haven't touched it on most of my characters because it's not worth it.

[Leoperaghost]

4 minutes ago, Rohndogg said:

Top tier reply. It doesn't matter if you can technically complete something by smashing your head against the wall enough times, but that doesn't mean it's working as intended. It's basically unachievable for the vast majority of the current players. I haven't touched it on most of my characters because it's not worth it.

26 minutes ago, DaddyAlduin said:

I'm impressed that you and others have been able to complete it! But that doesn't address my points. In a MMO, the design of an encounter plays an equal role to player-skill; and this is far outside of its initial design specs.

Spot on with these!!!!

[Crystal_Mind]

I'm afraid your specific comparisons to other games are meaningless to me, though I agree with the general point of content needing to be properly balanced. That said, the Eternal Championship post you reference is two years old, and the stats comparison has shifted a bit (ex. that post references 65-synced hp as being 70k, most players I see in the championship have 80-90k hp). Is it probably a bit harder than it was when first implemented? Maybe. But in my experience it's no harder in 7.4 than it was in 6.3. Moreover, not only is the championship clearable, but even Sprint Champion is perfectly achievable with practice. I watched a guildie solo this in 12:41 a few days ago on a gunslinger.

With regard to 'git gud' sentiment--it's not something I usually engage in. But in this case the challenge is both optional AND it has a group mode. So it is a little irritating when I see players go "too hard, please nerf" when a review of their actual strategy usually shows them doing something like fighting from range on Breaktown Brawler or just eating the Doom Droid's entire laser beam without a DCD or heal pot. I'll be the first to say it's easier on some specs than others, but the challenge is 99% mechanics.

But at the end of the day, I'm not a dev. They'll change it or they won't. Good luck to you.

Edited March 26 by Crystal_Mind
additional information

[DaddyAlduin]

22 minutes ago, Crystal_Mind said:

I'm afraid your specific comparisons to other games are meaningless to me, though I agree with the general point of content needing to be properly balanced. That said, the Eternal Championship post you reference is two years old, and the stats comparison has shifted a bit. Is it probably a bit harder than it was when first implemented? Maybe. But in my experience it's no harder in 7.4 than it was in 6.3. Moreover, not only is the championship clearable, but even Sprint Champion is perfectly achievable with practice. I watched a guildie solo this in 12:41 a few days ago on a gunslinger.

With regard to 'git gud' sentiment--it's not something I usually engage in. But in this case the challenge is both optional AND it has a group mode. So it is a little irritating when I see players go "too hard, please nerf" when a review of their actual strategy usually shows them doing something like fighting from range on Breaktown Brawler or just eating the Doom Droid's entire laser beam without a DCD or heal pot. I'll be the first to say it's easier on some specs than others, but the challenge is 99% mechanics.

But at the end of the day, I'm not a dev. They'll change it or they won't. Good luck to you.

I did a stat comparison to my own numbers, which is where I got the ~70% figure from. And again, I'm impressed that someone was able to solo it within 13 minutes! But again, that has nothing to do with my point.

And you're right, the challenge is 99% mechanics; mechanics that were designed with a specific balance in mind, a balance that is no longer applicable. For mechanics to be properly engaged with and managed, they are balanced in a specific way, and when that balance is thrown off, the mechanics either become too difficult or too easy, which is exactly what happened here.

 

You say you don't engage with the git gud mindset except for this situation, but you're not engaging in the git gud mindset; the git gud mindset is "Learn the boss, learn it's mechanics, overcome the adversity you are encountering; literally, get good" whilst this situation is "ignore that the balancing is messed up, that the fight isn't functioning as designed or intended, and smash your head against a wall until you are able to play flawlessly with no mistakes lest you're dead." I was avoiding the Doom Droid's laser, I was setting my companion to idle to avoid the suicide assault druids, I was burning down the ads that would appear for the pulse; but the fights were simply not designed to be this out of balance, and a single small mistake is an instant death.

 

I'm not doubting that they're doable; I was able to get the Doom Droid within 20k health away from death, and I obviously managed to overcome the prior 8 bosses! I'm saying that, as they are, they are extremely overtuned, and that the balancing of the fight needs to be looked at. Something being achievable to the most meta players =/= something being fair, balanced, and working as designed and intended. 

 

Edited March 26 by DaddyAlduin

[DaddyAlduin]

It doesn't matter if a select few are able to work around the balancing being broken; the balancing being broken is the only thing that matters.

[Rohndogg]

23 minutes ago, Crystal_Mind said:

I'm afraid your specific comparisons to other games are meaningless to me, though I agree with the general point of content needing to be properly balanced. That said, the Eternal Championship post you reference is two years old, and the stats comparison has shifted a bit (ex. that post references 65-synced hp as being 70k, most players I see in the championship have 80-90k hp). Is it probably a bit harder than it was when first implemented? Maybe. But in my experience it's no harder in 7.4 than it was in 6.3. Moreover, not only is the championship clearable, but even Sprint Champion is perfectly achievable with practice. I watched a guildie solo this in 12:41 a few days ago on a gunslinger.

With regard to 'git gud' sentiment--it's not something I usually engage in. But in this case the challenge is both optional AND it has a group mode. So it is a little irritating when I see players go "too hard, please nerf" when a review of their actual strategy usually shows them doing something like fighting from range on Breaktown Brawler or just eating the Doom Droid's entire laser beam without a DCD or heal pot. I'll be the first to say it's easier on some specs than others, but the challenge is 99% mechanics.

But at the end of the day, I'm not a dev. They'll change it or they won't. Good luck to you.

The only thing I'd say to this is that regardless of the git gud sentiment, it's tuned differently than when it was originally designed and they never made a statement saying those differences are intentional. Therefore it remains an issue of being out of balance and that a scaling adjustment can bring it back into the intended range.

Like you said, it's optional. I'm not an achievement hunter, it literally doesn't affect me. I don't even care about getting Bowdar on most of my characters so I rarely engage with it at all. But I still agree it should be retuned to better match the original difficulty. I at least want it looked at lol.

One final note, because I'm guilty of this, but I expect you're also overestimating the mechanical skill and game knowledge of the average player. It's easy to forget we don't all have the same experience and skills. I think there's a percentage of roughly how many players should be able to complete this thing that's a target. With harder content completed by smaller percentages. I just think they're outside a range that I consider reasonable. And that's an opinion.

[xxSHOONYxx]

18 minutes ago, DaddyAlduin said:

It doesn't matter if a select few are able to work around the balancing being broken; the balancing being broken is the only thing that matters.

I got sprint champion both when it came out and the last time it i did it for galactic seasons when it was there just because i was bored of all the other quests. And it seems easier now than it was before. Took me some practice to get print champion on 4.0 when it came out and I got sprint champion on the run without trying for it, i just finished and got it. 
Despite the difficulty any content has, not every content should be doable by everyone taking the lowest denominator in regards of skill

[DaddyAlduin]

10 minutes ago, xxSHOONYxx said:

I got sprint champion both when it came out and the last time it i did it for galactic seasons when it was there just because i was bored of all the other quests. And it seems easier now than it was before. Took me some practice to get print champion on 4.0 when it came out and I got sprint champion on the run without trying for it, i just finished and got it. 
Despite the difficulty any content has, not every content should be doable by everyone taking the lowest denominator in regards of skill

Good job entirely missing the point lel

[xxSHOONYxx]

4 minutes ago, DaddyAlduin said:

Good job entirely missing the point lel

Not really, you are taking your skill level as the base of how it should be balanced. "If i can't do it then it needs fixing"
Not every content is catered to you or your skill level, you have more quests to choose from in galactic seasons if it's too hard for you

[DaddyAlduin]

9 minutes ago, xxSHOONYxx said:

Not really, you are taking your skill level as the base of how it should be balanced. "If i can't do it then it needs fixing"
Not every content is catered to you or your skill level, you have more quests to choose from in galactic seasons if it's too hard for you

So... you just didn't read any of my posts, did you? "I find it difficult" isn't the reason I'm critiquing the balance being broken. I was a mythic raider back when I played WOW; difficulty isnt my issue. My issue is that the fights simply are not balanced as designed or intended, and it's an issue. Now, are you planning to actually contribute something worthwhile, or are you gonna continue misconstruing my points in an attempt to belittle me?

[xxSHOONYxx]

8 minutes ago, DaddyAlduin said:

So... you just didn't read any of my posts, did you? "I find it difficult" isn't the reason I'm critiquing the balance being broken. I was a mythic raider back when I played WOW; difficulty isnt my issue. My issue is that the fights simply are not balanced as designed or intended, and it's an issue. Now, are you planning to actually contribute something worthwhile, or are you gonna continue misconstruing my points in an attempt to belittle me?

If you did mythic in wow and can't do this, that's just hilarious. 
Balance is not broken if it's easier now than it was when it released, you can completely avoid mechanics now because of how high the dps is. There were no tacticals before now there are making some fights on some specs trivial. Juggernaut pt mara sniper they are all a walk in the park in "difficulty" on doing this especially if you use heroic moment and the skills. 
You don't even need to be good to be able to kill it solo. 
Not belittling you, it's a simple fact that not every content should be cleared by everyone if the content was supposed to be the challenge.
Eternal championship was the only "difficult content" that was released in 4.0 since there were no new ops, it's supposed to be hard, even if it's not.

[Leoperaghost]

35 minutes ago, xxSHOONYxx said:

I got sprint champion both when it came out and the last time it i did it for galactic seasons when it was there just because i was bored of all the other quests.

Genuine question, how did you know you got it if it was the second time? 
 

I’m asking because it’s that exact achievement that I’ve been struggling with and I’m not exactly the lowest denominator when it comes to this game’s harder content. I’m not saying I’m a top parser or anything but fairly good at my classes, not sandbagging my nim prog groups or anything like that .
 

Neither myself nor OP struggle with the mission itself, but what we’re saying is things feel out of balance to the current patch. I remember (post 7.0) looking for tutorials and runs on how to get “sprint champion”  and iirc in one they used to be able to one shot the first boss’s adds with heroic moment. Now it does no where near as much damage to take out the adds for you. I think this was back when the championship came out too or just after. I’ll check once I’m out work but it’s the balancing that’s the issue not us going  “weh weh this is 2 hard” 

[xxSHOONYxx]

Just now, Leoperaghost said:

Genuine question, how did you know you got it if it was the second time? 

Different server, i had characters on different servers since the beginning of the game. 
Did it on my main server on 4.0 and on another server in 7.0 

[xxSHOONYxx]

2 minutes ago, Leoperaghost said:

I’m asking because it’s that exact achievement that I’ve been struggling with and I’m not exactly the lowest denominator when it comes to this game’s harder content. I’m not saying I’m a top parser or anything but fairly good at my classes, not sandbagging my nim prog groups or anything like that .

What class are you using?

[Leoperaghost]

Just now, xxSHOONYxx said:

What class are you using?

I’ve used hatred, rage/vengance, and pt. Granted I’m a tank main first and foremost but I know the DPS classes for my tanks as well. 

[DaddyAlduin]

5 minutes ago, xxSHOONYxx said:

If you did mythic in wow and can't do this, that's just hilarious. 
Balance is not broken if it's easier now than it was when it released, you can completely avoid mechanics now because of how high the dps is. There were no tacticals before now there are making some fights on some specs trivial. Juggernaut pt mara sniper they are all a walk in the park in "difficulty" on doing this especially if you use heroic moment and the skills. 
You don't even need to be good to be able to kill it solo. 
Not belittling you, it's a simple fact that not every content should be cleared by everyone if the content was supposed to be the challenge.
Eternal championship was the only "difficult content" that was released in 4.0 since there were no new ops, it's supposed to be hard, even if it's not.

Again, you're just completely missing my point. The issue isn't "it's hard." The issue is "The balancing is broken" which is objectively verifiable. 

 

You can brag about being able to do it as much as you want; it has nothing to do with my point. I'm not complaining because I find it difficult; I'm critiquing the fact that the balance is broken and not working as designed.