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How much crowd control in RvR/PvP do you want to see?
Sornin
Member Posts: 1,133
EA Mythic has stated numerous times that they do not like copious amounts of crowd control (CC) in PvP, as they do not like players being removed from battle so that they cannot fight back at all/well - it is often not fun, and it does not seem very "WARish". In fact, they have even pointed at Dark Age of Camelot as, in this aspect, a mistake, since DAoC had several classes who could take players out of combat for long periods of time quite easily.
I agree.
Of course, there has to be some CC, else combat will lack a whole dimension of tactics and the super damage classes would likely be a little too powerful; EA Mythic has even said there will be some, but has not given too much detail on what it will be.
Here are all the CC abilities I could think of off the top of my head, where CC is anything that impairs your movement or removes your ability to do something properly (loose definition, I know). I would be interested to hear people's reactions to them.
1.) Snare - Player moves at a reduced rate
2.) Root - Player cannot move at all
3.) Fear - Player runs around uncontrollably and cannot use normal abilities
4.) Stun - Player cannot move at all and cannot use normal abilities
5.) Sleep - Player cannot move at all and cannot use normal abilities, but any damage sustained will wake him
6.) Blind - Player cannot see (whole screen literally goes black/blurry)
7.) Silence - Player cannot use some or all abilities (applies to magic/melee classes in general)
8.) Berserk - Player enters a frenzy and loses control, attacking targets at random
9.) Knockdown - Player is knocked down and must get up (similar to stun, simply a visual)
10.) Knockback - Player is knocked back
11.) Charm - Player becomes controllable in some manner by an enemy
These are all I could think of off the top of my head. Note that these cover a lot more than one might think. Polymorph from WoW is simply Sleep, for instance (with a heal mechanic), Daze is just a Snare, etc.
Also, the method for which these might be used on a player and their specific mechanics is also somewhat irrelevant. It could be either a melee move (gouging someone's eyes to blind them, or hamstringing them to snare them), or a spell (magical binding chains to root someone, counterspell to silence someone).
The ones I personally would not like to see at all are Fear, Blind, Berserk, and Charm. Anything that makes me unable to see what is going on or makes me lose total control while I can be beaten on for an extended time is a no-no.
All the other ones I would not mind seeing in a limited capacity and with diminishing returns and with cooldowns (as appropriate). For example, a Sleep, to me, would not be horrible, if its duration was short and if I could not be slept again for a while. I have no specific desire for it to exist or not, but I would not mind it if it did.
Ones I hope to see for sure are Snare, Knockdown, Knockback, and short Stuns (I love knockback/knockdown as tank abilities, which helps them protect people, something tanks never seem to be able to do in PvP, which often makes them weak). Roots are all right, if they do not last long and can break early, especially with damage, and they might be necessary on some level, depending on how EA Mythic expects ranged damage dealers to deal with melee classes charging them down. Perhaps they expect their own team to protect them and so they will get little or nothing in the way of CC.
Also, I did not mention Interrupt, because it is not really CC, but I expect that may exist on some level. I doubt casters will be able to just cast and have no chance to be stopped. This is usually the counterbalance to them being able to snare/root you. If you get close your normal attacks make casting slower, if not interrupt it altogether, and special abilities such as shield bash interrupt them totally, maybe even stunning them.
Comments
Some good thoughts on Crown Control there.
As you said: Mythic did say in one of thier video's that they will be having Crowd Control that will get weaker the more times it is used on a player. This kind of reduction is a great idea i think: the player with the CC abilities has to actually think about what they are doing to kill the player before their CC runs out of power. It will add tension to the fights, rather than just make it really boring for the one caught in the traps.
I think they might go along the route of having a short period intense De-Buff. For example, a smoke powder grenade that temporarily reduces accuracy to 5% or something.
I like the use of Silence (#7) in games, it can really give the user an edge but they really have to be used skillfuly by the player; they have to know what they are up against. WAR could work really well with it in place.
Actually I only think they said they are going to have a knockback, snare, disarm, and a few other ones for crowd control, I have no clue though.
I wonder if they are going to have abilities which can temporarily toggle off a targets skills or slow their refresh rate.
I do wonderif a Knight of the Blazing Sun can disarm an opponent. In effect taking the melee weapon of his foe (and associated skills with that weapon) out of combat for a period of time.
From the vids Ihave seen in PvP scenarios ths far, it seems like combat is fast. The death penalty of time seems a long enough crowd control tactic .
I defenitely agree that crowd control should be put to the minimum, especially in an RvR centric MMO. Not only does it piss the hell out of people, but it would take away from the WAR part of the game, just as you said. It's not the same now but I remember in WoW, sheeps, sap's, fear's, sleep's and probably more that I forgot would last 20+ seconds. That's ridiculous! How could you possibly have a war with CC's like that? So yea hopefully they stay true to their word and keep the CC's to a bare minimum.
"I think they might go along the route of having a short period intense De-Buff. For example, a smoke powder grenade that temporarily reduces accuracy to 5% or something."
That could be cool, for sure. The smoke grenade could be a Dwarf Engineer ability, for example (not sure how that meshes with the lore, but that came to my mind immediately). Things like this can be fun due to the mechanics between classes - the Engineer in this case could toss a grenade into the fray to provide help for the meleers.
"Actually I only think they said they are going to have a knockback, snare, disarm, and a few other ones for crowd control, I have no clue though."
Ah, thanks for mentioning Disarm - I totally forgot about that. I suppose it sort of does fit as CC, and it is a rather cool, often overlooked, ability.
"I wonder if they are going to have abilities which can temporarily toggle off a targets skills or slow their refresh rate."
I would not be surprised at all if there were Slows that worked upon people's skills. I am not sure how WAR's combat system works, but I'd imagine numerous abilties have cooldowns to prevent spamming, perhaps short ones, or induction times, unless they are going with an amazingly unique system. It remains to be seen how long a typical encounter takes, which would decide if this was useful or not. I have heard in a video that a single fight should take around 30s-60s, of course depending on many factors.
"From the vids Ihave seen in PvP scenarios ths far, it seems like combat is fast. The death penalty of time seems a long enough crowd control tactic .
"
I was actually considering putting "death" as a CC tactic - the most effective one.
It seems that too much CC with too high of a duration and too much loss of control is the mistake in many MMOGs, and developers eventually always regret/change it. I think this is a lesson EA Mythic knows well, after producing the game with perhaps the craziest CC, and I think they have learned.
I mean, no one likes to be taken out of battle and made a spectator for 30s, waiting to die. That is simply not fun.
I have to admit I do not like CC much, I think it should at most affect single targets and hold them not longer than a few seconds, enough to get an upper hand, in that sense they would more like rooting than CC.
Don't you worry little buddy. You're dealing with a man of honor. However, honor requires a higher percentage of profit
I think most CC in this game is snaring or knock backing from what I see from the abilities thread I see here and there.
personally, i would like to see fear/blind in the game. not in the manner that you lose control over your char, but say you get blinded, your screen becomes blurry for X amount of seconds rather than you sit there and walk in circles, or fear your attack speed/cast speed reduced minorly due to some sort of paranoia. And maybe each time you take effect by one of these abilities, it changes so you have to adapt to whats happening to you rather then it being the same thing every time.
What i mean by this post i would like to see the old forms of CC with a new and fun twist.
maybe adding reduced chance to hit while blind to make your player less effective, but not completely removing him from combat. same with fear or gouge or other CC abilities.
i think that would be a great add to the game
All ther cc i have seen are roots, snares, KNockbacks (a TON OF THESE), and a very few and short stuns. I have not seen fear blinds and other abilities other than stun that stop you from controling your character.
"Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one ..." - Thomas Paine
100% agreed.
1.) Snare - Player moves at a reduced rate - Good - If used with small time limits and diminishing returns.
2.) Root - Player cannot move at all - Good - if used with small time limits and diminishing returns.
3.) Fear - Player runs around uncontrollably and cannot use normal abilities - Bad - Do not like abilities that null character abilities. It is not necessary and is not tactical. Unless its used for something other than your description (i.e. reduces casting/attack speed or make it like a root.
4.) Stun - Player cannot move at all and cannot use normal abilities - Bad - could be good if the stun timer is extremely low. Used more just to interrupt.
5.) Sleep - Player cannot move at all and cannot use normal abilities, but any damage sustained will wake him - Bad - SAY NO TO MEZ
6.) Blind - Player cannot see (whole screen literally goes black/blurry) - Bad - might be fun until people start getting blind spammed. Blind used as a hit deduction debuff might be neat.
7.) Silence - Player cannot use some or all abilities (applies to magic/melee classes in general) - OK - if maybe used like a counter spell between casters, forces the victim of silence to restart casting. Again small interrupt.
8.) Berserk - Player enters a frenzy and loses control, attacking targets at random - Bad - sounds fun though, but more cc that takes away character control = lots of upset people who don't want to fight for 1 minute, and watch the screen for 3 while they die.
9.) Knockdown - Player is knocked down and must get up (similar to stun, simply a visual) - Good - If stun is short like knockdown then stun is good too.
10.) Knockback - Player is knocked back - OK - a neat idea perhaps to reposition people blocking casters.
11.) Charm - Player becomes controllable in some manner by an enemy - Bad - Less control of character .. you know the rest.
CC is double-edged. The more variations implemented, the more often the battles will be reduced to mez, fear, stun, charm battles etc.
War is about constant ebb-and-flow battles that are chaotic. Take for example any war movie, the fights are intense with action and blood baths filled to the rim. This is what War is trying to achieve, that feel. I know this is a fantasy game too, but you can't add too many CCs in my opinion without killing that mood. Eventually mass amounts of CC waters down the chaos.
All these CCs would be alright in PvE though.
Here are my stipulations for CC. first i am not counting silence and disarm as CC. I have no problems with those things in the game. Lower attack damage and lower magic damage I have no problems with either.
Mythic would never put something as silly in the game as fear and blind and sheep.
So your just left with mez root and stun.
Imo, if you have a mez/sleep it should be long casting time and only belong to classes with limited offense.
There was not much of a problem with a daoc healer mezing you because all they could do was heal and run away, the same went for the bard who all he did was mez and play a drum and run away. The imbalances come when you get classes like Sorc that can mez 5 people and then has enough firepoower to nuke each one down seperately. Or like the warlock in wow that can fear and nuke you to death before it breaks.
Im going to guess alll the melee classes will have snares, and a few of them like black ork have root. and others will have knock down. but so far i have seen no sleep/mez spells. or any spell that takes action away from the player for long periods of time.
I actually feel CC if used right is ok, just as long as its not instant and not long duration. because its tactical.
From thinking about Knockback, I can see quite a few fights playing out like an American Football game.
You've got your little quick guys with the ball/objective/whatever, and the big fat beefy guys trying to stop their beefy fat guys getting to your little guys.
The big guys block and get knocked about loads, and knocked out of the way in order for everyone else to get at the little guys, and visa versa
These fights will be extremely tactical, and Knockback will really make the fights frantic and exciting.
Some good thoughts on CC are mentioned.
Personally I feel it is a necessary evil of course it must be kept to a minimum otherwise it comes down to who has more CC & that's just not fun.
I hope crowd control will be kept to a minimum and that it will be "counterable" and subject to diminishing returns.
It has always seemed to me that crowd control is the antithesis of combat -- it is "anti-combat."
What I prefer is to give players methods to "escape" rather than methods to "incapacitate." I say this only due to PvP experience where one or two hits could kill an enemy, which felt a lot more like ganking than combat.
If an enemy is hard to kill, this usually gives some amount of time to think of and use strategies and tactics during the length of the combat.
~ Ancient Membership ~
maybe 100vs100