Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Crowd controll
Lord.Bachus
Member RarePosts: 9,686
I am a big fan of old fshioned crowd cntroll like EQ and DAoC had..
In favor of PvP the ammount of crowd control has been reduced to almost nothing since games like WoW came along..
There used to be 4 main classes (DPS/TANK/Healer/CC) now ther are just 3 with DPS comming in 2 flavors (range mellee)
So my question is... how can developers implemend crowd controll as a PvE addition to an MMO without making it overpowered in PvP....
The answer is simple and allready implemented in some games, make effects from crowd controll different for PC's and NPC's. The only challenge what is left hen is making the CC class viable for PvP without overpowering it for PvE.
So any old fashioned MMOérs left that really miss the CC in those new games.
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
Comments
I really, really, really hate CC. I hate it in PvP, and I hate "pure CC classes" in PvE.
PvP is a given; CC is frequently overpowered to the point of being almost game-breaking, especially when playing a melee class. My worst CC experience was with WAR just after launch, playing as a Witch Hunter. It was nigh impossible to get into melee range in large-scale combat due to the ridiculous amounts of CC.
PvE is a catch 22. Lots of CC encounters means that a CC class would be a mandatory group member, and building a capable group should never revolve around a single class. This is why I'm a supporter of class hybridization such as that offered by WoW. 4 x tank classes, 4 x healing classes, 10 x DPS classes. Each with a CC ability or two.
Best way, imo.
Playing: EVE, Final Fantasy 13, Uncharted 2, Need for Speed: Shift
Total disables are the problem. PVP needs to be about fun decision-making, but if you spend any significant chunk of time without being able to make decisions then it won't be fun.
So if you want both PVE and PVP in a game you have to remove the majority of total disables (remove them entirely if you want really fun PVP) and replace them with all sorts of partial disables. Partial disables are things like spell interrupts, where only a single facet of the enemy's capabilities gets prevented. Knockbacks and snares are other good examples, as the afflicted target still retains a good chunk of control even if they're being manipulated.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
You guys misunderstood my post...
My idea is to have PvE CC... that does not work on PC,s so its not viable against players ...
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
How would it work with squishy "glass canon" classes vs melee though? What chance would casters stand without CC?
Instead of using CC on your opponent, why not using a reverse form of CC on yourself, the caster? Instead of disabling the other player, which is annoying as hell, why not give the casters abilities that allow them to stay away from the melee? shorter cooldown "blinks", creation of "mirror" selfs, etc. All to confuse and disorient the opponent, without actually preventing him to fight back.
If you stand VERY still, and close your eyes, after a minute you can actually FEEL the universe revolving around PvP.
Nobody likes to get stunned locked by a rogue.
But stun locking is an art form that takes lots of practice. Should the rogue who practices stun locking every day until he gets it right be rewarded? And there are classes who if they aren't stun locked can easily kill a rogue.
A hunter's kiting of an opponent is also a practiced skill. People hate being kited. Should we eliminate the mecanic that allows kiting?
You can break stuns. You can trinket out. A mage's blink removes stuns for example. Many classes have talents that reduce the time of stuns.
I think stuns and kiting, when done right really add to pvp. Sure they piss you off when you don't know how to counter them, but as long as these techniques take practice and some skill, they are not overwhelming in a battle. Few know how to kite and stun lock effectively.
Well shave my back and call me an elf! -- Oghren
I think the best way would be for the tank to have the ability to block the mob's movement and also to grab the mob, to prevent him from getting to the healers. But then with that said, if the game has magic then what is the reasoning for not allowing magic to do the same thing?
In PvP crowd control can be an instant win button. First person to get Mez wins, since the other person can't do anything.
However, I think CC ads a lot to PvE. It's fun to play against multiple mobs, with a coordinated group that knows what they are supposed to do. Pull, CC, tank and spank. I think that's fun.
Some games have an ability work differently in PvP than in PvE. For example, in many games Tanks have an aggro ability so mobs will attack them, and not the caster.
In PvP this is turned into an ability that breaks the targeting of an opponent, so they have to re target.
I"m not sure what you could do to CC to make it effective in PvE, but not an Iwin button in PvP.
I don't agree that CC means you HAVE to have a CC player in PvE. Most games let you be effective with multiple combinations of classes.
Giving everyone the same abilities is boring, IMO.
Well, in WOW as with most games, a capable group must have a tank, healer and DPS to fill in the rest. What's the difference really if you add in the need for CC? In a game like DAOC, there were mulitple classes who had CC as well, so you weren't stuck always finding just one class.
What you are saying is WOW split CC up among all the classes (more for PVP reasons I'll bet) but you still require some CC at times there just isn't a pure class for it.
While you support class hybridization, I prefer class specialization, makes people seem more unique and part of the world. WOW's approach leads to the point that you might as well have only one class, and let everyone do everything which seems boring to me. (some sandbox games fall into this trap in the name of player freedom)
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
All you have to do is imagine several CC players ,the other team of players or mobs would be completely nullified.I have never seen it done in any game and keep it from being dumb,there is only two ways to have it,you are either controlling them or you are not,there is no way to implement it and still call it crowd control.
There is already too much control in games utilizing sleep,aoe sleep,roots,Slow,lowering accuracy,if that is not enough,then the players are just plain bad players.When you realize all the control methods games already have,then remember you still have ranged melee and ranged magic,so you already have way too many mechanics to damage or kill enemies before they even get close to think about attacking.CC is just allowing those players that have not taken a single hit ,to have one more mechanic to EASILY finish off what the other mechanics did not already finish off.
What should be plenty is one single mechanic such as a single sleep or a single root,or a single mezz,no AOE/crowd junk,that is just way too easy mode.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
WoW used to have required CC up until The Wrath of the Litch King expansion.
People used to complain about dungeon runs requiring a CC class and it was not always easy to find a CC class.
So Blizz did away with the CC requirement.
I think CC does ad to the PvE game, but it was a pain trying to talk a mage, and mages are the best CC in WoW, to come along.
Well shave my back and call me an elf! -- Oghren
Well, in WOW as with most games, a capable group must have a tank, healer and DPS to fill in the rest. What's the difference really if you add in the need for CC? In a game like DAOC, there were mulitple classes who had CC as well, so you weren't stuck always finding just one class.
What you are saying is WOW split CC up among all the classes (more for PVP reasons I'll bet) but you still require some CC at times there just isn't a pure class for it.
While you support class hybridization, I prefer class specialization, makes people seem more unique and part of the world. WOW's approach leads to the point that you might as well have only one class, and let everyone do everything which seems boring to me. (some sandbox games fall into this trap in the name of player freedom)
I understand where you're coming from, but I don't share the same preference.
One of the thing I love about WoW is the green highlight; I enjoy grouping more now that I don't have to specifically look for a warrior tank, a priest healer and a mage to sheep. I've played a Warrior, Druid, Paladin and Death Knight at 80 (my preferred group role is tank) and each feels different. They're all tanks, but they're different kinds of tanks.
Playing: EVE, Final Fantasy 13, Uncharted 2, Need for Speed: Shift
Long duration crowd control is something that MUST have a counter. Very very few games comprehensively concentrate on counters. Guild Wars being one of the few.
Therefore what you have seen is games creating short duration crowd control only, because they do not want to make a comprehensive counter system. Also static class skill lists like EQ and its inheritors, rather than load-out based skill lists (but still class exclusive to some degree), make good counter systems close to impossible without having complete dependence on other classes and complete cookie cutter groups.
What you are seeing is the natural evolution of one feature without a commensurate evolution of another. These things should not be viewed as if they exist in a vaccum.
Well, in WOW as with most games, a capable group must have a tank, healer and DPS to fill in the rest. What's the difference really if you add in the need for CC? In a game like DAOC, there were mulitple classes who had CC as well, so you weren't stuck always finding just one class.
What you are saying is WOW split CC up among all the classes (more for PVP reasons I'll bet) but you still require some CC at times there just isn't a pure class for it.
While you support class hybridization, I prefer class specialization, makes people seem more unique and part of the world. WOW's approach leads to the point that you might as well have only one class, and let everyone do everything which seems boring to me. (some sandbox games fall into this trap in the name of player freedom)
I understand where you're coming from, but I don't share the same preference.
One of the thing I love about WoW is the green highlight; I enjoy grouping more now that I don't have to specifically look for a warrior tank, a priest healer and a mage to sheep. I've played a Warrior, Druid, Paladin and Death Knight at 80 (my preferred group role is tank) and each feels different. They're all tanks, but they're different kinds of tanks.
DIKU group based MMOs that inherit the EQ model of grouping struggle with serious and problematic issue. Variety is the spice of life, but min/max will quash variety.
If you make a game with Tank/Heal/CC/DPS but most instances only need 3 of those. Then you have variety. You can have:
1/2/3, 1/2/4, 1/3/4, 2/3/4. Giving you four possibilities. But if you take all 4 you will probably do even better and if you make the instances require all four it may be more "challenging" for the best group makeup, but has not variety.
In the end this is the price you pay for having static class skill lists that never change. This issue is very different in Guild Wars, yet also very similar. The variety is far larger, yet there are still demands by min/maxers to have particular builds. But even with those demands the variety is so large that its considerably more than the variety of a DIKU style game.
But the major gain of a DIKU style game is that everyone is on the same page, they know what they need and they know what you are. The only open question is what you can do with it.
Anything worthwhile has min/maxing. The only way to remove min/maxing is to make a task trivially difficult, so that min/maxing doesn't matter -- at which point why bother with the task?
But to make min/maxing interesting you can create combat systems which are more dynamic and therefore reward the player for reacting on the fly. With balance comes variety (because decisions are balanced so that a min/maxer discovers that variety is the best path.)
Static ability lists are fine as long as combat is where the dynamic element comes into play. With non-static abilitysets it's honestly no different -- at least no different from a game like WOW where you're free to switch specs pretty frequently (which removes the bulk of obstacles to players creating solid groups amongst themselves.)
As for it being a "serious and problematic issue"? Well only in the sense that it needs to be a focus of the dev to work correctly. Apart from that, it's not an issue at all -- in fact it's the reason games are fun! The teamplay element of finding some random teammates who end up being random classes, and figuring out what strategies work best with a given composition is basically the thing I find most enjoyable about games involving teamplay.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Anything worthwhile has min/maxing. The only way to remove min/maxing is to make a task trivially difficult, so that min/maxing doesn't matter -- at which point why bother with the task?
But to make min/maxing interesting you can create combat systems which are more dynamic and therefore reward the player for reacting on the fly. With balance comes variety (because decisions are balanced so that a min/maxer discovers that variety is the best path.)
Static ability lists are fine as long as combat is where the dynamic element comes into play. With non-static abilitysets it's honestly no different -- at least no different from a game like WOW where you're free to switch specs pretty frequently (which removes the bulk of obstacles to players creating solid groups amongst themselves.)
As for it being a "serious and problematic issue"? Well only in the sense that it needs to be a focus of the dev to work correctly. Apart from that, it's not an issue at all -- in fact it's the reason games are fun! The teamplay element of finding some random teammates who end up being random classes, and figuring out what strategies work best with a given composition is basically the thing I find most enjoyable about games involving teamplay.
I am not arguing against min/max'ing I do it in every RPG I play. I am simply stating that it is the nature of the beast for that tension to exist.
It is a serious and problematic problem because variety is one of the best ways to alleviate things like grind and enhance fun and yet it is at tension with something equally necessary, challenge and the players ability to strive for quality (usually min/max'ing in RPGs).
Personally I doubt there is a solution to this. Not all problems are solvable in a decent way.
Simple solution.
Single target. Short duration. No cool down, but some form of immunity timer. This would require a really active play style where you're constantly casting and recasting your CC. No long duration, AE CC like the old days. No long cool down timer crap like you see now.
Immunity timers which aren't player-instigated are a terrible mechanic. A game's combat quality is strongly based on the relationship between action and result.
WAR's immunity timers ruined its combat. They gave characters excessive CC (and AOE CC) and then tried to balance that with immunity timers. The result is that your amazing CC capabilities aren't really that amazing because half the time they don't do anything at all.
Combat is simply better when abilities consistently do what they say.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Immunity timers which aren't player-instigated are a terrible mechanic. A game's combat quality is strongly based on the relationship between action and result.
WAR's immunity timers ruined its combat. They gave characters excessive CC (and AOE CC) and then tried to balance that with immunity timers. The result is that your amazing CC capabilities aren't really that amazing because half the time they don't do anything at all.
Combat is simply better when abilities consistently do what they say.
Except that, with NO immunity timer, you have the potential for "mez lock" or "stun lock" or what ever you want to call it. At the least, you need an immunity timer that gives diminishing returns on effects when a target is hit over and over with the exact same spell.
I'd MUCH rather deal with an immunity than a cool down. Placing cool downs on your CC skills really sucks the skill out of a system. Sure, the skills are effective when they're up, but mostly you're just staring at a tiimer.
Immunity timers which aren't player-instigated are a terrible mechanic. A game's combat quality is strongly based on the relationship between action and result.
WAR's immunity timers ruined its combat. They gave characters excessive CC (and AOE CC) and then tried to balance that with immunity timers. The result is that your amazing CC capabilities aren't really that amazing because half the time they don't do anything at all.
Combat is simply better when abilities consistently do what they say.
Except that, with NO immunity timer, you have the potential for "mez lock" or "stun lock" or what ever you want to call it. At the least, you need an immunity timer that gives diminishing returns on effects when a target is hit over and over with the exact same spell.
I'd MUCH rather deal with an immunity than a cool down. Placing cool downs on your CC skills really sucks the skill out of a system. Sure, the skills are effective when they're up, but mostly you're just staring at a tiimer.
They are both bad. That is why its best to have some sort of counter and tradeoff system. Timers are brainless and limiting. CC with no counter has well known problems. You cannot allow CC to go unchecked or it makes gameplay crap for many people. But you also need to make countering CC for the defender both a mindful process and something that has a tradeoff in the tacitcal situation.
imo you need one of two types of systems to build a good CC systems;
1) Have an extremely complex CC/counter system, which favors solo play.
2) Have hard interputs for ranged combat, ala DAoC, giving leeway to a less complex CC/counter system, since the interupt's are already a form of CC, (DAoC could've used slighly shorter long duration AoE CC and an additional counter for every class besides RA's) and promoting grouping, but no developers want to go this route anymore, why?...who knows.
#2 would definitly be the option if you wanted to spend less time on CC developing and more time on other area's with a higher chance of it being a successful system imo
Counters sound great, but how exactly do you do that in a balanced, skilled way? Giving every class a counter would make CC a waste of time. Giving one class a counter would put way too much importance on that one class. Not sayiing it can't be done, just that I don't think any one has nailed it yet. Most often, CC is either way too powerful, or really crappy.
Of course, this isn't really an issue with PvE, only PvP. And, if we're being honest here, PvP "balance" generally means that combat is reduced to it's most basic form of who can spam DPS the fastest...
I believe that most developer's simply lack the initial foresight and gumption to do so. Arena Net made their combat system a combined counter/interrupt system from the ground up. Every skill that was made or is made is classified by a particular type and with particular counters or interrupts in mind.
Most other developers do it in the reverse. They make a bunch of skills and then add in counters or dispels etc and they only add a few. The have no overall comprehensive strategy in mind. They then have a complete nightmare balancing things because they did things in the wrong order and got a gigantic tangled ball of string (basically the design version of spaghetti code).
DAOC had hard interupts, but Mythic had a horrible time balancing the stuff together. So they continued on with the same design philosophy and threw out or vastly mitigated what was giving them trouble. It would be a gigantic pain to change up their design process and foresight and elegance actually takes quite a bit of deep hard thinking than many people simply avoid or are not good at. I do not believe they fully believe a move/countermove type of comprehensive systematic design is really necessary. They already believe they are doing it and they are but they are building the roof and then the foundation.
Combat and tactical games from time immemorial have been about move/countermove. Go to any combat/martials arts/wrestling class and they always teach a move and its counter. Same thing in chess it about move/countermove and anticipating the opponent. Its is the foundation of all these things. But they do not design it as a foundation and the games that do are much much better, notable examples are Guild Wars and EvE.
They have been balancing and creating CC skills for PvP as if they are for PvE. Just tweak this and that so that it disables X amount of mobs for Y amount of time and make sure other skills either affect different stuff or don't stack. Bada bing done.
In the case of DAOC they basically followed an EQ style of things and then added in some interrupt stuff but the mechanics of one versus the other and the various CC's of various classes strechted across 3 realms you change one interrupt its affects across all CC can vary wildly and then PvP groups just adapt to that balance and start bringing whoever deals with that threat best.
Immunity timers which aren't player-instigated are a terrible mechanic. A game's combat quality is strongly based on the relationship between action and result.
WAR's immunity timers ruined its combat. They gave characters excessive CC (and AOE CC) and then tried to balance that with immunity timers. The result is that your amazing CC capabilities aren't really that amazing because half the time they don't do anything at all.
Combat is simply better when abilities consistently do what they say.
Except that, with NO immunity timer, you have the potential for "mez lock" or "stun lock" or what ever you want to call it. At the least, you need an immunity timer that gives diminishing returns on effects when a target is hit over and over with the exact same spell.
I'd MUCH rather deal with an immunity than a cool down. Placing cool downs on your CC skills really sucks the skill out of a system. Sure, the skills are effective when they're up, but mostly you're just staring at a tiimer.
You're assuming a badly-designed game with excessive CC lengths.
In WAR I calculated my ironbreaker to be capable of 24 different CC effects in a 20-second period of time (assuming 6 enemies near melee PBAOE). In a game like that without immunities, nobody would ever control their character and it'd be the worst game ever.
But if we're talking a 6/60 CC (6 sec duration, 60 sec cooldown) then it's going to take ten players focusing you to lock you down for 60 seconds. (Meanwhile in a fair 10v10 fight your allies have timed their CC cooldowns better, on more appropriate targets, and won the fight.)
It's this value -- the "10% uptime for CC" -- that determines how dominated by CC a game is. In WAR, the uptime for my ironbreaker was over 100% (I forget the exact duration of each of those 24 CC effects in the 20-sec span.)
As for cooldowns sucking skill out of a system? Uh, right. Because efficient use of finite resources (in this case: Abilities) takes zero skill right? There are games where your character's capabilities are dynamic enough that repeatedly using the one ability remains skill-deep (like learning to lead Rockets in TF2) but in most MMORPGs the abilities aren't that dynamic; and without cooldowns things degenerate into mindless spam faster than normal.
It's partially a function of combat flow between fights too. If a CC spell drains 75% of the mage's mana it just ruins the game's flow on the occasion where the spell is needed, and then the mage needs to spend a bunch of boring downtime recovering -- when the same "I only use this ability in rare emergencies" gameplay emerges from a cooldown-based CC ability (except without the excessive downtime.) So you get the same interesting decisionmaking and skill depth without forcing boring downtime. Win/win.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver