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Passive crowd control mechanics: diminishing returns and racials

I'd like to discuss passive anti-CC mechanics, sometimes referred to as ‘diminishing returns’ (DR).

I feel passive anti-CC mechanics are particularly important for games that plan on having large scale fights. Prolonged loss of control of characters is a frustrating experience and this is exacerbated when more players are involved. Examples of anti-CC mechanics that I thought were well implemented are:

World of Warcraft – CC durations are reduced for each subsequent application of a particular category of CC (to the same target) for 18 seconds. For example, first application of Polymorph is 8s, next is 4s, then 2s, then the target is immune to Polymorph.

Wildstar – Target is immune to the same type of CC for 10 seconds. For example, if you stun a target then they are immune to stuns for 10 seconds.

Both of these systems required a high level of coordination to keep players in CC. It also meant there was a reduction in periods of prolonged loss of control in larger scale battles. Crowd control removal (trinkets and abilities) also played a role in reducing crowd control. I hope Intrepid can implement a passive anti-CC system that mimics the benefits of the examples given without making CC meaningless.

Some games also implement passive anti-CC mechanics as passive racial or class traits. Whilst this creates variety between races and classes it usually results in players being pigeonholed into picking particular classes at 'high level' play. This is especially problematic to those who value their character's looks and may potentially reduce class diversity.

What are some examples of passive anti-CC mechanics that you liked? What do you think about racial passives having passive anti-CC benefits?

Comments

  • Totally agree. More CC = Less fun. For example in ArcheAge it works same as WoW, you are immune to the CC on the 4th hit. However there are still a lot of CCs that you don't have immunity to and even those existing immunities aren't enough. I am playing a Nightcloak and I can CC an archer for ~1 minute straight without even letting him do anything. But I cant do that to melees. What I'm trying to say is every class must have a CC-break skill to have a chance against every kind of class.

    Duels should take long time to end and both of the sides should have enough time/chance to show their skill during the fight. ArcheAge sucked at this. If you let a A Daggerspell (mage) come close to you for a milisecond, he would CC you to death in few seconds and you could just take your hands off of the keyboard and watch him.

    In large scale fights, ArcheAge was all about speccing a CC-heavy class, jumping into the blob and spamming your cancerous skills. No tactic was needed.
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