CC in DAoC was pretty OP. I remember standing there without being able to do a single thing while the opposing group who got their CC off just a split second sooner killed us one at a time. That is too much. You should never be able to be killed without having a chance to fight back unless it is 4 vs 1 or worse.
On the other hand, Rift has extremely watered down CC. You have multiple forms of CC, but anytime you are CC'd a single time you are then immune for a period of time, making it very difficult to really even use CC as part of a strategy, since when you use it they immediately use their ability to break it and are then immune. On the plus side you can never really be locked down. Something in the middle would be a little better, I think.
Currently playing: Rift Played: SWToR, Aion,EQ, Dark Age of Camelot World of Warcraft, AoC
I mentionned it before, but i'll do it again pretty quick
Randomness in CC !!
instead of specific amount of time, make it a bit more random. Not as much as i.e. between 5 seconds and 1 minute, but maybe something like a specific amount at first with a +/- 20-25% (i.e. start at 30 seconds for a level X mez, but with those % it would vary between 22 and 38 seconds ....#FP#8 ...CHAOS ! RANDOMNESS !
Bowbow (kob hunter) Infecto (kob cave shammy) and Thurka (troll warrior) on Merlin/Midgard DAoC Thurka on WAR
While this thread topic is interesting and I personally would like a modified cc system that is somewhat toned down from DAoC (shorter duration, more reasonable immunity timers), I do not think we can really discuss this intelligently until we know what the interupt system is going to be like. The ability (or inability) to interupt casting will dictate if and how much cc is needed. Damage output will also dictate the extent of cc needed to balance out the system.
- Stuns should be reserved for melee, and then only long enough to allow the stunner to move for one positional attack (means roughly 3 seconds). Finding the right immunity timer is important in this regard. No AE or long-range stuns. Stuns should also have a reactional or positional opener to make it more difficult. Shield-bash felt a bit powerful for a anytime style.
- Mez should be single target and limited to low-dps classes like healers, should not last longer than 20 seconds which is enough to give an advantage yet the one mezzed doesn't feel like a price bull about to be slaughtered.
- Roots/snares should have similar timers as mezzes, but since people retain some control over their characters AE could be ok. Giving melee classes some abilites that can be utilized to help group while being snared would be helpful.
- Nearsight was a pain in the arse since it was not disspellable, and wasting Purge on it was not an option when soloing.
What people needs to recognize is that while perfectly tuned classes and groups had little problems with CC, it had a huge impact upon the players who had low-RR and or PUGs, and few things are more of a turn-off than being butchered repeatedly. A game's longevity depends upon the number of people playing, and when people feel powerless they tend to find other things to do.
The key is to design a game so people feel competitive even if they are at a severe disadvantage. A complicated system of checks and balances only drives away casual players, and casual players form the majority of players in most games. As a game loses players, it loses appeal to everyone else as well.
While I agree with the sentiment of this, it only lends itself to make it feel like there's little to no progression. If I'm high RR and fighting someone low RR I'll have tons of get out of jail cards, resistances, etc... I can think of a few changes for this, that address a lot of concerns for the systems in general.
Having slotted abilities. The ability to customize your abilities and their affects based on your environment. This could do exactly what some people want; having completely different builds for pve/pvp. This also gives you some horizontal progression lines that do what you're speaking of, give power while having to make sacrifices.
Just because every car has similar features doesn't mean that Ferraris are copies of Model Ts. Progress requires failure and refining.
CC for PVP and CC for PVE need to be different mechanics.
Ie Stun in PVE, stuns the mobs rendering it useless.
In PVP, Stun should do something like change up your movement keys.
Blinds should black you screen.
Mez should blur your screen
Snares are good as are slowing movement.
Roots are also fine, as is.
Other things could block out specific types of abilities...like hemmorhage ability that stops healing...weaken lowers you damage etc....
It's a terrible idea to blur the screen for a spell, there are people like myself that would risk having a seizure everytime it did that, so I wouldn't be able to play the game.
Btw...I think stun is overpowered no matter what game it's in. It's usually a stealther opening up on you from complete invisibility, takes over half your life, stuns you and you wait a few seconds til your dead, no chance of fighting back. It's rediculous, and yes I've done that with my shadowblade long ago before the LA nerf, with my Nightshade, and infiltrator, and the Rogue in Wow...Stun along with stealth or by itself is just a cheap I win.
Which 4 letter word would you like to use to describe crowd control?
I can think of a few:
good
need
must
Can we use 4 letter acronyms too?
AMHI - absolutely must have it
I still can't understand that after over 10 years of playing DAOC how someone can think that CC was bad. Ok, so the first forms of CC, like waaaaaaay back when there were no immunities and you could be infinitely mezzed, that was stupid. Anything after that was it was absolutely fantastic. If you still weren’t happy with immunity timers, then you had even more to look forward to when they added in SOS, determination, stoicism and group purge. If you were in one of those groups where your entire group ate a full mezz and you all died one by one then you're either didn't understand how the game worked or totally just got caught at the wrong time. Unfortunately you can't really correct either of those because we all know you can't cheat fate and you can't fix stupid.
All realms had access to all forms of CC. It was perfect. Even the most debated CC, stun, was great. The dead horse named Stunnukenuke was one of the worst arguments ever. I was a Hib caster that changed to Midgard just so that I could have long duration CC on my caster. Having root was so much more useful.
Which 4 letter word would you like to use to describe crowd control?
I can think of a few:
good
need
must
Can we use 4 letter acronyms too?
AMHI - absolutely must have it
I still can't understand that after over 10 years of playing DAOC how someone can think that CC was bad. Ok, so the first forms of CC, like waaaaaaay back when there were no immunities and you could be infinitely mezzed, that was stupid. Anything after that was it was absolutely fantastic. If you still weren’t happy with immunity timers, then you had even more to look forward to when they added in SOS, determination, stoicism and group purge. If you were in one of those groups where your entire group ate a full mezz and you all died one by one then you're either didn't understand how the game worked or totally just got caught at the wrong time. Unfortunately you can't really correct either of those because we all know you can't cheat fate and you can't fix stupid.
All realms had access to all forms of CC. It was perfect. Even the most debated CC, stun, was great. The dead horse named Stunnukenuke was one of the worst arguments ever. I was a Hib caster that changed to Midgard just so that I could have long duration CC on my caster. Having root was so much more useful.
Yes and no. The pendulum swung to both sides for CC balance. (Although parts of that was always related to -other- balance issues - CC doesn't exist in a vacuum)
Yes however, CC is very important. Almost as important as getting it right.
While overall I'd say CC - the idea of it - was fine. If you're going to go and say there weren't problems (perceived or otherwise), you weren't paying attention.
Someone commented on the taunt/detaunt system in WAR. I actually loved that mechanic. Simple but effective.
I still can't understand that after over 10 years of playing DAOC how someone can think that CC was bad. Ok, so the first forms of CC, like waaaaaaay back when there were no immunities and you could be infinitely mezzed, that was stupid. Anything after that was it was absolutely fantastic. If you still weren’t happy with immunity timers, then you had even more to look forward to when they added in SOS, determination, stoicism and group purge. If you were in one of those groups where your entire group ate a full mezz and you all died one by one then you're either didn't understand how the game worked or totally just got caught at the wrong time. Unfortunately you can't really correct either of those because we all know you can't cheat fate and you can't fix stupid.
All realms had access to all forms of CC. It was perfect. Even the most debated CC, stun, was great. The dead horse named Stunnukenuke was one of the worst arguments ever. I was a Hib caster that changed to Midgard just so that I could have long duration CC on my caster. Having root was so much more useful.
and thats why nothing should ever be balanced towards casual gameplay or zerging
casuals are normaly not able to use abiltys, or even understand mechanics to 100% and thats why they cry that abilitys are op just to cover theire lack of skill, or because they simply dont understand what they did wrong and never think about ways to evade bad situations, or even turn these into the best possible situation wich could happen (getting a full mezz into your group was AWESOME just imagine having 1min mezz imunity for your whole group for 1 min it was like the other group wanted to lose all you needed against that was a good demezzer)
and the zerg never cares about 90% of any mechanics-> having the enemy zerg in a full mezz ? wait for ae stun ? nope just throw every little lvl 10 ae you got into em doesnt matter anyway ... the only thing wich matter for the zerg in a zerg fight are numbers
and this stun nuke nuke ... get a good healer and he outheals this dmg and after that you got 1min stun immunity you got way more freedom to position yourself handle the enemy tanks and do what ever you want to espacially against most "not so grp orientated" hib caster wich kicked stun every time they nuked something often even without assist or enemy healers in rupt so they just wasted the immunity (btw alb and mid could do that too you just needed an assisting healer/cler to get ranged stuns or your def tank being good with slaming the right targets at the right time) having a root or mezz on a caster was in grp terms way better-> thats the reason why the enchanter got a root a few patches ago ... because they lacked cc with a cast stun only
this is why a company has to balance everything for the highest skill cap, because only ppl playing with high skill realy use the mechanics and by this show how to use em to others (via vids or even by killing enemys you can learn smth by watching your enemy ...), and not for the lowest because this would result into no fun pewpewpew but nothing more gameplay
For every CC ability there should be a corresponding ability to remove that CC. If there is an AE mez, there should be a an AE demez. Not a group demez, that way more skill would have to be employed by the demezzer because he would have to determine where the AE was centered to completely counter it.
CC should be broken by the smallest amount of damage AND the first hit on a CCed character should have its damage reduced.
CC should clear the target's universal cooldown.
Abilities should be queue-able (just 1) so that the instant a CCed character with an ability queued up and targeted has their CC broken (removed, dispelled, or whatever), the ability would begin casting. This way, the CC is good as long as the enemy carefully avoids touching you, but once they do you are instantly back in the fight. This would reduce the effectiveness of self-purges since that would be the ability you were using, but it would make a self-purge more palatable as a high level RR ability.
Finally, (although some of my preceding ideas mitigate this by themselves) there can be no class for which their CC = an "I win" button. Stuns, mezzes, and knockdowns belong on the low dps classes. I don't mind tanks having a knockdown that totally disables you (sorta makes sense actually), but stun + stealth + high dps, or ranged stun + nuke on the same class is just too powerful. OTOH, this could be mitigated by the fact that not even "high" dps classes can kill in two or three hits. (If there is one-hit death for characters anywhere near equal level that game is D.O.A. in my book).
All that said, I look forward to the rock, paper, scissors style of 1v1 combat where a tank can expect to lose against a mage, a mage would expect to lose to a melee dps (that is able to close), and a melee dps would expect to lose to a tank 90% of the time (equal levels of course).
- Stuns should be reserved for melee, and then only long enough to allow the stunner to move for one positional attack (means roughly 3 seconds). Finding the right immunity timer is important in this regard. No AE or long-range stuns. Stuns should also have a reactional or positional opener to make it more difficult. Shield-bash felt a bit powerful for a anytime style.
....
What people needs to recognize is that while perfectly tuned classes and groups had little problems with CC, it had a huge impact upon the players who had low-RR and or PUGs, and few things are more of a turn-off than being butchered repeatedly. A game's longevity depends upon the number of people playing, and when people feel powerless they tend to find other things to do.
.....
I agree with you on these points 100%. Easy to trigger/cast long duration stuns just aren't needed in RvR. As players gained RR and support players understood the need to purge and demezz the impact of CC was very dampened in organized group play.
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in
the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
I still can't understand that after over 10 years of playing DAOC how someone can think that CC was bad. Ok, so the first forms of CC, like waaaaaaay back when there were no immunities and you could be infinitely mezzed, that was stupid. Anything after that was it was absolutely fantastic. If you still weren’t happy with immunity timers, then you had even more to look forward to when they added in SOS, determination, stoicism and group purge. If you were in one of those groups where your entire group ate a full mezz and you all died one by one then you're either didn't understand how the game worked or totally just got caught at the wrong time. Unfortunately you can't really correct either of those because we all know you can't cheat fate and you can't fix stupid.
All realms had access to all forms of CC. It was perfect. Even the most debated CC, stun, was great. The dead horse named Stunnukenuke was one of the worst arguments ever. I was a Hib caster that changed to Midgard just so that I could have long duration CC on my caster. Having root was so much more useful.
and thats why nothing should ever be balanced towards casual gameplay or zerging
casuals are normaly not able to use abiltys, or even understand mechanics to 100% and thats why they cry that abilitys are op just to cover theire lack of skill, or because they simply dont understand what they did wrong and never think about ways to evade bad situations, or even turn these into the best possible situation wich could happen (getting a full mezz into your group was AWESOME just imagine having 1min mezz imunity for your whole group for 1 min it was like the other group wanted to lose all you needed against that was a good demezzer)
and the zerg never cares about 90% of any mechanics-> having the enemy zerg in a full mezz ? wait for ae stun ? nope just throw every little lvl 10 ae you got into em doesnt matter anyway ... the only thing wich matter for the zerg in a zerg fight are numbers
and this stun nuke nuke ... get a good healer and he outheals this dmg and after that you got 1min stun immunity you got way more freedom to position yourself handle the enemy tanks and do what ever you want to espacially against most "not so grp orientated" hib caster wich kicked stun every time they nuked something often even without assist or enemy healers in rupt so they just wasted the immunity (btw alb and mid could do that too you just needed an assisting healer/cler to get ranged stuns or your def tank being good with slaming the right targets at the right time) having a root or mezz on a caster was in grp terms way better-> thats the reason why the enchanter got a root a few patches ago ... because they lacked cc with a cast stun only
this is why a company has to balance everything for the highest skill cap, because only ppl playing with high skill realy use the mechanics and by this show how to use em to others (via vids or even by killing enemys you can learn smth by watching your enemy ...), and not for the lowest because this would result into no fun pewpewpew but nothing more gameplay
I hate the argument that people who complain about CC are unskilled. While I never ran with a 8-man I played the game, both as a pac-healer and hunter (and casually berserker, shaman, and dark-RM), so I dare say I have a good understanding of the mechanics. The problem is that getting many of the RAs needed to get CC to a acceptable level required a decent RR. For a RR10/11 running with a perfectly tuned group, CC might not be a problem, but for a PUG or soloer it was hell. As a solo hunter at a siege even the 5-min recycle on Purge III was a long time, and joining a group was often not possible.
As for the "get a good healer" argument, it was not always easy to find a healer. Many groups ran with one healer because a second one was not possible to find. I remember once running with only a shaman as the groups healer, and we knew that if we ran into a group with a druid or cleric we would lose. Still, we roamed Emain in search of enemies to fight.
If CU wants to build realm pride, as opposed to guild/group pride, players must realize that the game has to be open for others than the so-called elite. If not, we might as well play Counterstrike or Black Ops.
Purge will be a basic ability of all characters. It will remove all CC effects with a 2-5 minute cooldown and will give you the appropriate immunity timer for each type of CC cleared.
Mezz (unable to use any abilities except Purge or to move; breaks on damage) will have a maximum duration of around 20 seconds. There will be a small chance for a critical mezz that adds a random small additional # of seconds. Mezz duration will be reduced by magic resistance. After your mezz wears off, is cleared, or you Purge, you will get a 5 minute immunity to mezz.
Root (can't move but can use abilities; breaks on damage) will have a maximum duration of around 30 seconds. There will be a small chance for a critical root that adds a random small additional # of seconds. Root duration will be reduced by magic resistance. After your root wears off, is cleared, or you Purge, you will get a 1 minute immunity to root.
Stun (unable to use any abilities except Purge or to move; doesn't break on damage) will have a maximum duration of 4-5 seconds. The duration of magical stuns will be reduced by magic resistance. Melee stuns' duration will be reduced by physical resistance. There will be no AE stun. No ranged damage dealer will have a ranged stun. After stun wears off or you Purge it, you will get a 2 minute stun immunity.
Snare (slows movement speed; breaks on damage) will have a maximum duration of 15-20 seconds. The duration of snare will be reduced by magic or physical resistance depending on what class inflicted it. After your snare wears off, you will get a 1 minute immunity to snare.
Nearsight (range debuff) will have a maximum duration of 15-20 seconds. After nearsight wears off, is cured, or you Purge it, you will get a 1 minute nearsight immunity.
Knockbacks and AE knockbacks will be available. The distance on knockbacks will be less than maximum spell range and maximum leap range. There will be a 30 second immunity to knockbacks after you are knocked back.
Various classes will get spells that can cure realm mates of different types of CC. I don't care whether it's one class that gets one spell that removes all CC or multiple classes each of which gets a spell that removes a single type of CC (healer cures root and nearsight, caster cures mezz, etc.).
Tanks will have access to various abilities similar to Charge or Leap that allow them to close in melee in the face of CC. I don't care whether these abilities are basic class abilities or realm abilities. The cooldown on these abilities could be reduced by realm abilities.
CC will only interrupt your casting if you are not immune to it. There could perhaps be a casting speed debuff for CC that you are not immune to but not a hard interrupt.
At first I was thinking there should be no AE dropoff or maximum # of characters on AE CC, but I realized I don't really care whether those are in or not. What's crucial to me is that CC be reliable but not too long and not something that can be done to you over and over in a short time.
Obviously the exact duration of various types of CC and immunity timers could change as a result of testing. I have given CC that most restricts your ability to play your toon or threatens you with death (mezz & stun) higher immunity timers.
My ideas would make tanks more able to be CCed than in DAOC. I think this is balanced by having other classes get spells to cure root and snare which DAOC doesn't have and by a shorter cooldown on Purge.
I'm probably leaving out some less common types of CC so use your imagination to extrapolate what I would want for them.
Those durations are far too short and immunity too long.
Don't forget 2 things :
1 MJ wants the fights to last, to allow players to rely more on their strategic skill than reflex. You won't die in 10 or even 30 sec unless you have a lot of enemies on you at the same time.
2 The use of CC was to let groups have a chance against bigger groups as to not have the dominant realm just zerg everything. If your CC just last 20 second you will be able to kill 3 or 4 guy in DAoC, so i'm nut sure you could kill even 1 in CU, won't be of much help if you get against 2 fg, not even talking about a zerg.
It's no use to talk about CC now anyway, the combat mechanics will be discussed in the backers forum.
Good posts here, my 2 pence wants long CC, it made RvR in daoc, let people get their rewards for using it well.
I'm hoping this niche of gamers wants a harder/skilled game with a steep learning curve... I was young when i played daoc and had no idea of what RvR was when i first got my healer to 50, and then learning there were all these gaming "absolutes" that you had to adhere to in order to be successfull gave the game depth (my red pom was scourned..). The game should make you cater to its systems and by having daoc style longer CC with limited counter moves it will be frustrating, but that will just to the satisfaction of winning? As well as requiring groups to act like teams, something which I feel WAR lacked.
Never played as hibs, but i suffered from their stun nuke mechanics. Somehow i didn't feel that running in a 8man with casters and a decent assist train was over powered, just required what the game needs in decent/fun game play. Team work and strategy that is vunerable yet viable. Stun nuke nuke should be a tactic employed, just have the roles spread out, with a stunner timing with a couple of nukers for simple 3 free casters beats 1 unlucky, unprotected soul..
For anyone calling me a cc hater you are sorely mistaken. While my primary 8v8 toons were warrior and their gist(interrupts win fights!), I also played sorc/pac healer/bard, and even a mentalist on mordred ;/
I think it's way too early to talk specific durations due to lack of ttk information, but meddyck's post was solid. That's the sort of feedback we need IMO.
Specifically no ae dropoff, at the cost of lower durations - this frightens me at first but makes CC more reliable IMO.
Re: omg whiners cc os fine....If CC were fine for the majority it wouldn't have been rebalanced so many times. Let's find a system that is powerful, tactical - and fun.
Even simple things like making purge a base skill ( if there is an RA everyone has to absolutely buy I feel there's a balance issue somewhere)
You could vary it's impact/reuse per class, and not "needing" it gives people more ras ("skills") to pick and customize their character.
If you can query the db and find any collection of skills on over 70% of a class, or on the case of purge on over probably 95% of all characters... May be worth a second look.
Originally posted by belatucadros For anyone calling me a cc hater you are sorely mistaken. While my primary 8v8 toons were warrior and their gist(interrupts win fights!), I also played sorc/pac healer/bard, and even a mentalist on mordred ;/
I think it's way too early to talk specific durations due to lack of ttk information, but meddyck's post was solid. That's the sort of feedback we need IMO.
Specifically no ae dropoff, at the cost of lower durations - this frightens me at first but makes CC more reliable IMO.
Re: omg whiners cc os fine....If CC were fine for the majority it wouldn't have been rebalanced so many times. Let's find a system that is powerful, tactical - and fun.
Even simple things like making purge a base skill ( if there is an RA everyone has to absolutely buy I feel there's a balance issue somewhere)
You could vary it's impact/reuse per class, and not "needing" it gives people more ras ("skills") to pick and customize their character.
If you can query the db and find any collection of skills on over 70% of a class, or on the case of purge on over probably 95% of all characters... May be worth a second look.
I haven't gotten too involved in the discussion myself because of the point you make about time to kill. Without that down, it's difficult to say what is good or bad as far as CC durations. I do remember Mark making one comment that relates to TTK in that he said he thought it was better off that people have a larger health pool but that it wasn't something that regenerated at a fast rate - this meant they could fight for a good amount of time but that after a battle, without healing, they would not naturally regenerate at a rapid pace we have seen in other mmos and they would either have to decide whether to sit it out, find a source of healing, or go into battle with diminished HPs. This leads me to believe that TTK will be longer. That being said, I'm guessing longer CC's would follow suit, but it's all just a guess.
Those durations are far too short and immunity too long.
Don't forget 2 things :
1 MJ wants the fights to last, to allow players to rely more on their strategic skill than reflex. You won't die in 10 or even 30 sec unless you have a lot of enemies on you at the same time.
2 The use of CC was to let groups have a chance against bigger groups as to not have the dominant realm just zerg everything. If your CC just last 20 second you will be able to kill 3 or 4 guy in DAoC, so i'm nut sure you could kill even 1 in CU, won't be of much help if you get against 2 fg, not even talking about a zerg.
It's no use to talk about CC now anyway, the combat mechanics will be discussed in the backers forum.
CC often was the reason battles lasted very short times, specifically mezz. Party A gets mezzed, party B kills the healers w/assist then the others go in short order.
Comments
CC in DAoC was pretty OP. I remember standing there without being able to do a single thing while the opposing group who got their CC off just a split second sooner killed us one at a time. That is too much. You should never be able to be killed without having a chance to fight back unless it is 4 vs 1 or worse.
On the other hand, Rift has extremely watered down CC. You have multiple forms of CC, but anytime you are CC'd a single time you are then immune for a period of time, making it very difficult to really even use CC as part of a strategy, since when you use it they immediately use their ability to break it and are then immune. On the plus side you can never really be locked down. Something in the middle would be a little better, I think.
Currently playing:
Rift
Played:
SWToR, Aion,EQ, Dark Age of Camelot
World of Warcraft, AoC
I mentionned it before, but i'll do it again pretty quick
Randomness in CC !!
instead of specific amount of time, make it a bit more random. Not as much as i.e. between 5 seconds and 1 minute, but maybe something like a specific amount at first with a +/- 20-25% (i.e. start at 30 seconds for a level X mez, but with those % it would vary between 22 and 38 seconds ....#FP#8 ...CHAOS ! RANDOMNESS !
Bowbow (kob hunter) Infecto (kob cave shammy) and Thurka (troll warrior) on Merlin/Midgard DAoC
Thurka on WAR
While I agree with the sentiment of this, it only lends itself to make it feel like there's little to no progression. If I'm high RR and fighting someone low RR I'll have tons of get out of jail cards, resistances, etc... I can think of a few changes for this, that address a lot of concerns for the systems in general.
Having slotted abilities. The ability to customize your abilities and their affects based on your environment. This could do exactly what some people want; having completely different builds for pve/pvp. This also gives you some horizontal progression lines that do what you're speaking of, give power while having to make sacrifices.
Just because every car has similar features doesn't mean that Ferraris are copies of Model Ts. Progress requires failure and refining.
It's a terrible idea to blur the screen for a spell, there are people like myself that would risk having a seizure everytime it did that, so I wouldn't be able to play the game.
Btw...I think stun is overpowered no matter what game it's in. It's usually a stealther opening up on you from complete invisibility, takes over half your life, stuns you and you wait a few seconds til your dead, no chance of fighting back. It's rediculous, and yes I've done that with my shadowblade long ago before the LA nerf, with my Nightshade, and infiltrator, and the Rogue in Wow...Stun along with stealth or by itself is just a cheap I win.
What happens when you log off your characters????.....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFQhfhnjYMk
Dark Age of Camelot
Which 4 letter word would you like to use to describe crowd control?
I can think of a few:
good
need
must
Can we use 4 letter acronyms too?
AMHI - absolutely must have it
I still can't understand that after over 10 years of playing DAOC how someone can think that CC was bad. Ok, so the first forms of CC, like waaaaaaay back when there were no immunities and you could be infinitely mezzed, that was stupid. Anything after that was it was absolutely fantastic. If you still weren’t happy with immunity timers, then you had even more to look forward to when they added in SOS, determination, stoicism and group purge. If you were in one of those groups where your entire group ate a full mezz and you all died one by one then you're either didn't understand how the game worked or totally just got caught at the wrong time. Unfortunately you can't really correct either of those because we all know you can't cheat fate and you can't fix stupid.
All realms had access to all forms of CC. It was perfect. Even the most debated CC, stun, was great. The dead horse named Stunnukenuke was one of the worst arguments ever. I was a Hib caster that changed to Midgard just so that I could have long duration CC on my caster. Having root was so much more useful.
Yes and no. The pendulum swung to both sides for CC balance. (Although parts of that was always related to -other- balance issues - CC doesn't exist in a vacuum)
Yes however, CC is very important. Almost as important as getting it right.
While overall I'd say CC - the idea of it - was fine. If you're going to go and say there weren't problems (perceived or otherwise), you weren't paying attention.
Someone commented on the taunt/detaunt system in WAR. I actually loved that mechanic. Simple but effective.
and thats why nothing should ever be balanced towards casual gameplay or zerging
casuals are normaly not able to use abiltys, or even understand mechanics to 100% and thats why they cry that abilitys are op just to cover theire lack of skill, or because they simply dont understand what they did wrong and never think about ways to evade bad situations, or even turn these into the best possible situation wich could happen (getting a full mezz into your group was AWESOME just imagine having 1min mezz imunity for your whole group for 1 min it was like the other group wanted to lose all you needed against that was a good demezzer)
and the zerg never cares about 90% of any mechanics-> having the enemy zerg in a full mezz ? wait for ae stun ? nope just throw every little lvl 10 ae you got into em doesnt matter anyway ... the only thing wich matter for the zerg in a zerg fight are numbers
and this stun nuke nuke ... get a good healer and he outheals this dmg and after that you got 1min stun immunity you got way more freedom to position yourself handle the enemy tanks and do what ever you want to espacially against most "not so grp orientated" hib caster wich kicked stun every time they nuked something often even without assist or enemy healers in rupt so they just wasted the immunity (btw alb and mid could do that too you just needed an assisting healer/cler to get ranged stuns or your def tank being good with slaming the right targets at the right time) having a root or mezz on a caster was in grp terms way better-> thats the reason why the enchanter got a root a few patches ago ... because they lacked cc with a cast stun only
this is why a company has to balance everything for the highest skill cap, because only ppl playing with high skill realy use the mechanics and by this show how to use em to others (via vids or even by killing enemys you can learn smth by watching your enemy ...), and not for the lowest because this would result into no fun pewpewpew but nothing more gameplay
How about after any type of cc the types below have immunity timer?
I'm on the must have CC side, but ...
For every CC ability there should be a corresponding ability to remove that CC. If there is an AE mez, there should be a an AE demez. Not a group demez, that way more skill would have to be employed by the demezzer because he would have to determine where the AE was centered to completely counter it.
CC should be broken by the smallest amount of damage AND the first hit on a CCed character should have its damage reduced.
CC should clear the target's universal cooldown.
Abilities should be queue-able (just 1) so that the instant a CCed character with an ability queued up and targeted has their CC broken (removed, dispelled, or whatever), the ability would begin casting. This way, the CC is good as long as the enemy carefully avoids touching you, but once they do you are instantly back in the fight. This would reduce the effectiveness of self-purges since that would be the ability you were using, but it would make a self-purge more palatable as a high level RR ability.
Finally, (although some of my preceding ideas mitigate this by themselves) there can be no class for which their CC = an "I win" button. Stuns, mezzes, and knockdowns belong on the low dps classes. I don't mind tanks having a knockdown that totally disables you (sorta makes sense actually), but stun + stealth + high dps, or ranged stun + nuke on the same class is just too powerful. OTOH, this could be mitigated by the fact that not even "high" dps classes can kill in two or three hits. (If there is one-hit death for characters anywhere near equal level that game is D.O.A. in my book).
All that said, I look forward to the rock, paper, scissors style of 1v1 combat where a tank can expect to lose against a mage, a mage would expect to lose to a melee dps (that is able to close), and a melee dps would expect to lose to a tank 90% of the time (equal levels of course).
Lawtoween
Oh, absolutely.
Now, on to that discussion. In DAOC it was a solid minute, regardless of rhyme or reason.
Does that appeal to people? Or do we modify it some way. Following the pyramid, greater immunities for higher tier CC? based on duration? etc.
edit: can't believe I forgot knockdowns, although that's really a 'stun'
Immunity should probably be on order of 15 to 20 seconds....TO START.
this can be augmented with abilities of the players choosing, as the cc duration lasting on them....pick your poison.
maybe at the cost of armor/damage etc.
Jesus was the ultimate cleric!
Can I also say...it would be interesting if under x% health certain CC wouldn't take effect or was diminished.
I mean, how 'mesmerized' are you going to be if you just got nuked in the face? I bet you'd be pretty dialed in at that point.
yes/no? bad idea?
I would have that. It's just another CC hater trying to fix the thing they really don't want in the game.
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Another scheme that may work to tone down CC.
shared immunity timers
mezz, stun
snare, root
nearsight, amnesia,cconfusion
you get the idea
I hate the argument that people who complain about CC are unskilled. While I never ran with a 8-man I played the game, both as a pac-healer and hunter (and casually berserker, shaman, and dark-RM), so I dare say I have a good understanding of the mechanics. The problem is that getting many of the RAs needed to get CC to a acceptable level required a decent RR. For a RR10/11 running with a perfectly tuned group, CC might not be a problem, but for a PUG or soloer it was hell. As a solo hunter at a siege even the 5-min recycle on Purge III was a long time, and joining a group was often not possible.
As for the "get a good healer" argument, it was not always easy to find a healer. Many groups ran with one healer because a second one was not possible to find. I remember once running with only a shaman as the groups healer, and we knew that if we ran into a group with a druid or cleric we would lose. Still, we roamed Emain in search of enemies to fight.
If CU wants to build realm pride, as opposed to guild/group pride, players must realize that the game has to be open for others than the so-called elite. If not, we might as well play Counterstrike or Black Ops.
Here's what I'd like to see for CC:
DAOC Live (inactive): R11 Cleric R11 Druid R11 Minstrel R9 Eldritch R6 Sorc R6 Scout R6 Healer
Those durations are far too short and immunity too long.
Don't forget 2 things :
1 MJ wants the fights to last, to allow players to rely more on their strategic skill than reflex. You won't die in 10 or even 30 sec unless you have a lot of enemies on you at the same time.
2 The use of CC was to let groups have a chance against bigger groups as to not have the dominant realm just zerg everything. If your CC just last 20 second you will be able to kill 3 or 4 guy in DAoC, so i'm nut sure you could kill even 1 in CU, won't be of much help if you get against 2 fg, not even talking about a zerg.
It's no use to talk about CC now anyway, the combat mechanics will be discussed in the backers forum.
Good posts here, my 2 pence wants long CC, it made RvR in daoc, let people get their rewards for using it well.
I'm hoping this niche of gamers wants a harder/skilled game with a steep learning curve... I was young when i played daoc and had no idea of what RvR was when i first got my healer to 50, and then learning there were all these gaming "absolutes" that you had to adhere to in order to be successfull gave the game depth (my red pom was scourned..). The game should make you cater to its systems and by having daoc style longer CC with limited counter moves it will be frustrating, but that will just to the satisfaction of winning? As well as requiring groups to act like teams, something which I feel WAR lacked.
Never played as hibs, but i suffered from their stun nuke mechanics. Somehow i didn't feel that running in a 8man with casters and a decent assist train was over powered, just required what the game needs in decent/fun game play. Team work and strategy that is vunerable yet viable. Stun nuke nuke should be a tactic employed, just have the roles spread out, with a stunner timing with a couple of nukers for simple 3 free casters beats 1 unlucky, unprotected soul..
/anon
I think it's way too early to talk specific durations due to lack of ttk information, but meddyck's post was solid. That's the sort of feedback we need IMO.
Specifically no ae dropoff, at the cost of lower durations - this frightens me at first but makes CC more reliable IMO.
Re: omg whiners cc os fine....If CC were fine for the majority it wouldn't have been rebalanced so many times. Let's find a system that is powerful, tactical - and fun.
Even simple things like making purge a base skill ( if there is an RA everyone has to absolutely buy I feel there's a balance issue somewhere)
You could vary it's impact/reuse per class, and not "needing" it gives people more ras ("skills") to pick and customize their character.
If you can query the db and find any collection of skills on over 70% of a class, or on the case of purge on over probably 95% of all characters... May be worth a second look.
I haven't gotten too involved in the discussion myself because of the point you make about time to kill. Without that down, it's difficult to say what is good or bad as far as CC durations. I do remember Mark making one comment that relates to TTK in that he said he thought it was better off that people have a larger health pool but that it wasn't something that regenerated at a fast rate - this meant they could fight for a good amount of time but that after a battle, without healing, they would not naturally regenerate at a rapid pace we have seen in other mmos and they would either have to decide whether to sit it out, find a source of healing, or go into battle with diminished HPs. This leads me to believe that TTK will be longer. That being said, I'm guessing longer CC's would follow suit, but it's all just a guess.
This to me means downtime may be significant, I mean...why wouldn't we just heal up to full? Is mama regen that slow, or heals that costly? Etc.
Frightens me a bit.
However, a decent CCer could save your group in the event of not fully resting before combat
CC often was the reason battles lasted very short times, specifically mezz. Party A gets mezzed, party B kills the healers w/assist then the others go in short order.