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You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Mobility and Crowd Control - How Much is Too Much?
ArchivedUser
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Many MMO's have very different uses of Crowd Control. Some are so Crowd Control heavy that any character who has less than some X amount are basically considered trash.
So I was going to ask everyone, what do you think is a good medium for the amount of crowd control in a fight? How many skills should cancel or remove crowd control? To take an example from ArcheAge you could gain bondbreaker from battlerage, but battlerage had several CC abilities. F rom slowing upon your charge to shield bash or even bull rush combo to trip.
What do you feel is a way to optimize this?
So I was going to ask everyone, what do you think is a good medium for the amount of crowd control in a fight? How many skills should cancel or remove crowd control? To take an example from ArcheAge you could gain bondbreaker from battlerage, but battlerage had several CC abilities. F rom slowing upon your charge to shield bash or even bull rush combo to trip.
What do you feel is a way to optimize this?
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Comments
Do you like WoW's combat more so or ArcheAge's ratio of CC?
I ask because I remember several times playing WoW that when facing a druid my level with a Paladin we'd often never be able to kill each other. Instead we'd be able to tear through each other at a decent pace, but because healing in the game is setup to heal through massive raid bosses we were basically at a standstill.
ArcheAge did a bit better but ended up having serious problems with gear score making your heals exponentially better to the point that one hitpoint you had was worth almost 9 of another person with only a bit less gear score.
So in the end if you had a person with a strong healing mace: You could heal much larger numbers, which is fine having better gear is ok, but the problem came when people with massively enhanced armor could make each point they get healed act as if it was another 11 points of damage to go through due to massive resistances and skills using percentage enhancements of said massive numbers instead of flat rates.
On the other hand, I agree with others' comments about too much CC/anti-CC in Archeage. I like the idea of a limited amount of stun/slow types, maybe 4. In a balanced build, counters to two of them is reasonable, because the rest of the build actually "does" something. That could maybe be part of the healer progression. Either go pure healer, a healer/buffer, or healer/condition remover.
@Kurgan, unless you give everyone skills that can break CC, it becomes a lot harder to balance these things for large parties and armies. You can balance things for the solo play level, in which case you'll see massive chains of CC that leave players without the ability to fight back. Or you can balance things out to make that impossible, but that would make solo play CC much less impactful, possibly to the point of uselessness. My opinion is that you should balance for individual and small party play, and let large battles be the chaos they're suppose to be.
I agree and understand this point, however I was not specced as a healer on my paladin. In fact no matter what spec and combination of duel we used we were simply unable to kill each other off. With two good players fighting against each other and CC combos that can not do enough damage to burst through HoT which were kept active at almost times on top of the long skill cooldowns that could give an upperhand that went back and forth it simply caused a draw consistently.
I doubt this will end up happening on such a grand scale as that, but it is something that should be tested consistently.
That being the healing power vs dungeon pulls/bosses and the healing power in actual PvP combat both solo/group.
I understand the need in PvE in order to take on a large amount of targets.. but still not a fan.
I understand the need in PvE in order to take on a large amount of targets.. but still not a fan.
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I agree with this completely. Also, in the dev interview with mmorpg.com they mentioned the combat would be tab-target with high mobility. I think that would make any potential CC even more impactful in a negative way. Instead of having crowd control make the skills instead deal with movement and evasion so that if you can't catch someone it's because they're dodging you rather than the fact that you're stuck and sitting on a timer.
that said id personally prefer if they added it,it can give you some form of defense versus multiple opponents with like a max stun of the time it takes to drop 2 instants or one cast time, and the longest stuns in the form of knockdown. but add dodges and a charge ability an imation or some form of giveway to give the headsup so you atleast have a chance to avoid it.
as far as healing goes, i feel it should be able to out heal most attacks but not enough to outheal a nuke. i love hybrids, but most of them in games are too easy or to hard, heals and damages should both have a time to use and a time to do the opposite.
AoC (age of conan) had something i loved... long term regens, however they had minimal bulk heals, and people cried that they could damage even though they had half the hp of other classess, so in the end they got hit pretty hard
PvP CC is bad for any game IMO, as it reduces the fun factor in a fight. Oh look I can’t do anything at the moment. Great.
I understand the need in PvE in order to take on a large amount of targets.. but still not a fan.
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I agree with this completely. Also, in the dev interview with mmorpg.com they mentioned the combat would be tab-target with high mobility. I think that would make any potential CC even more impactful in a negative way. Instead of having crowd control make the skills instead deal with movement and evasion so that if you can’t catch someone it’s because they’re dodging you rather than the fact that you’re stuck and sitting on a timer.
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I do not agree.
I'll try to describe, explain how the mechanic is supposed to work in general in my opinion.
The way CC is supposed to be is for in-fight strategy purpose, so if you have no CC then the only thing that remains to make difference and win a fight is big d*ck DpS/Burst... Interesting? Personaly, freaking boring, and imo the game would stay ash forever...
In 1v1, the CC on one player will be for creating a room of pressure from the offensive player with damage input or by weakening the CCd opponent to create an advantage. So the goal of the opponent is of course to avoid that as much as he can.
In group fight, the offensive team will want the same goal as in 1v1 through a CC. On the defensive side, the team will try to reduce or at best to negate the pressure done on their CCd teammate by countering it with heal(s), resist buff(s), etc... or, if the CCd player can manage it, with "counter pressure" on enemies by focusing target(s) that may be vulnerable / that takes risks in the attack (a healer that is a bit too much apart, a DpS that could show a defense breach while attacking, etc...).
This is how I think CC is meant to act in a fight, a factor of decisions to take on the instant in front of the reactions of your opponent. The mobility will still have importance to be in range to land or avoid CCs and damage and etc...
So the goal of the devs here is to find the balance for CCs, CC breakers, DpS, Burst dmg, defensive abilities, supportive abillities and so on, between each one of the 64 class combinations and skill/ability customizations they want to give us. But if they work on such a huge project like AoC, hopefuly they have a clue on what they're doing.
As to PvE, the thing I hope and wish is that the AI won't have slowass reactions and won't be like **** punching balls, so you can say "Let's prepare to do some PvE" and be concentrated, not BOOM BOOM wreck everything and... "Yo, there actualy was mobs in here huh? Meh, whatever I got what I wanted". So the CC would have an impact, be useful in PvE.
Its a damage/heal blocker/resistor like a shield IMO.
As long as all status effects can be removed as easily as they are applied, and cost the same amount of resource, and there is an 'accessible' 1:1 counter for everything. Then I am fine with drawn out tactical play with delay tactics.
The main problem for me is ensuring stun are not broken in a mutiplayer context.
Where you can be permastunned or permarooted by a group.
And when there are so many status effects you need to take a degree on the subject making it impossible to remove any and all effects, with a limited skill toolbar.
K.I.S.S
For example in WoW you can be CC'd for a long long time. I just think all CC where you lose control of your character should share diminishing return. Also perma snare can be really annoying, especially if its applied by auto attacks (filthy rogue poisons!).
Regarding mobility I love high mobility classes. However it sucks when a high mobility class is on you and you can't get away (even with peels) and cast.
Good example: Elder Scrolls Online. (IF the CC break in that game worked properly, due to all the bugs in that game CC is a nightmare.)
In Dark Age of Camelot you can stay in CC for an entire fight and there's not a whole lot you can do about it. (Unless an armsman is
nearby or one of the enemies is dumb enough to hit you.) This isn't an issue of CC, but rather horrible balance and handling of the
CC mechanics.
In Elder Scrolls Online if you get CC'd you have the option to breakout of it so long as you have enough stamina to do so. It also has Diminishing Returns and CC Immunity. Diminishing Returns is something I'm sure everyone is aware of so I won't bother explaining it. Can't say I've seen CC-break in any other MMO though (not talking about using abilities or trinkets that have a 2min CD like in WoW) so I'll give a short run down:
A player is hit with an 8 second fear, however they have enough stamina to breakout of it and decide to do so (by clicking LMB and RMB simultaneously.) After breaking out of the CC, the player is now immune to any incoming CCs for the next 4-5 seconds.
I strongly believe CCs, peels, and snares absolutely have a place in PvP, and, depending on the MMO, adds a layer of skill as well as teamwork (eg; the armsman in Dark Age of Camelot can use an ability to break CC on all allies in a certain radius, priests in WoW can dispel CCs off their allies, mages in most MMOs can slow an enemy with a frostbolt which can help an ally get away, etc.)
Remove CC, peels, and snares and you're removing a part of the game that can require thought and skill (two things casuals hate.) How do you plan to balance ranged and casters if you remove their ability to kite? Give them more damage so they just kill you faster? Let you catch up to them so you can one-shot them? (which is why ranged and casters have the ability to kite, their defenses are nearly non-existent.) Give them a stronger damage shield that will inevitably make people demand it be nerfed? (Also spoiler alert: it'd be the exact same people who don't want CCs asking for those nerfs.)
So long as it's balanced correctly and has working mechanics that aren't bugged to hell (ESO) I see no reason why CCs should be removed from PvP.
As for PvE:
Guild Wars 2 has a neat little mechanic that requires CCs in PvE. Some bosses will have a "blue bar" which is a bar that must be broken before you can start damaging their health bar. The only way this bar can be broken is if you use CCs on the enemy. If you bring CCs to the encounter you're fine, if not ... well, it's not that big of a deal actually because Guild Wars 2 lets you change your abilities and spec whenever the hell you want which is kinda dumb. (Steven if you're reading this please don't add that mechanic to this game, make players think about their setup before they go out adventuring.)
I don't know how it was like passed trials of Atlantis as I stopped playing when catacombs came out and a lot of the private servers were straight vanilla but from my knowledge after you got CCed in any form, you would be immune longer than the cc lasted.
There were also the realm abilities you had which were free use, but long cool downs would let you break out of a cc. Other realm abilities decreased the potential as well. I believe the healers had abilities that helped also prevent them.
If they would do away stuns, or at least have them be 5 seconds max, cc would be great.
As for the PvE side of things I think the need to CC in dungeons and raids is nice making trash seem like it requires strategy not just fodder between bosses CC and trash mechanics to make the whole dungeon interesting. I point to current WoW where dungeon trash on anything below a mythic plus 17 or higher can just all be gathered and nuked down without any real strategy and planning
As for the PvE side of things I think the need to CC in dungeons and raids is nice making trash seem like it requires strategy not just fodder between bosses CC and trash mechanics to make the whole dungeon interesting. I point to current WoW where dungeon trash on anything below a mythic plus 17 or higher can just all be gathered and nuked down without any real strategy and planning
For mobility it should be a good mix some classes should have allot of mobility or gap closers others should be restricted I think that there should be a way for melee to get into range on the ranged to avoid being permanently kited but the ranged should also have escapes available so there is the strategy in PvP and in a PvE sense melee would want some form of mobility to escape radiant or aoe damage where ranged should have the ability to escape and kite around adds that they may have picked up in the course of a fight
Among equally geared players in BDO, 1v1 basically becomes a game of whoever first lands CC then 2 or 3-shots their opponent. Most larger or boss mobs are immune to CC. What purpose, then, does CC serve?
Mobility in BDO is ridiculous, with certain classes zipping all over the place so much I don't think they ever actually just run anywhere. This leads to a situation where in a party your class is "good" if you can keep up and "bad" if it can't. It's seriously just too much. It's stupid.
Blinking, teleporting, shadowstepping, charging and the like should be available to all classes and balanced so a group can move together as a party and not leave anyone behind.
Players should be able to resist or break CC and subsequent CC attempts against a player should have diminishing returns.
While I do agree that having too much CC is an issue, I believe it is completely necessary to have in an instanced PvP environment. Of course, it is not necessary in a game where you zerg to a castle and pile on AoE on the enemy team until your side wins by sheer numbers. The devs have said there will be some form of smaller scale PvP and CC is entirely necessary for the smaller scale.
CC is important, but it can also be a negative thing if there is too much. I think that every class should have some form of a "CC-breaker" and CCs should have limits on them, in the form of diminishing returns or a "timed" mechanic that prevents a player from being CC'd for a certain number of seconds after reaching the cap on stuns, in order to prevent stun-locks. CCs need to be effective, but also not powerful enough to make it the only deciding factor when it comes to PvP. It should serve as a tool to add another layer of skill onto the game and not something that only makes players aggravated that they were stun-locked and killed before having time to even react.
So my first thought is that we hopefully see a combat that streches a little in time and naturally goes on for longer than 5 secounds. As long as that is the case CC abilities naturally fit in in my opinion. It adds a lot of depth into it, trying to bait out the cc so you can cast that one spell without worry, encouraging to learn other classes more than you might would otherwise.
There should be a way to counter CC, not necesserily for everyone, but at least in groupplay you can dimish the impact of cc.
Like if a game is stat heavy then there should be a stat to reduce the duration or even the chance of the CC working. If a game is more action oriented there need to be CC breakers to keep the action rolling. Something I would like to see in a game is a counter CC mechanic that if a player knows they are about to be CCed, it can be used preemptively to punish anyone trying to CC them.
So I think CC is needed, but counters to it is just as important.
for example: if 3 players hit you with a cc your resolve bar will jump to full and you can break out of the CC. which would then force players to play with skill, not just spam abilities on top of abilities. now in smaller scale situations like 1v1, 3v3 types of scenarios if a cc chain is executed perfectly and the player hit with them had a 0 resolve resource the CC chain could last up to 5s, this in pvp situations would rarely be the case though. after a player's resolve bar has been filled and they use it to break out of a CC they become immune to CC for 10sish, ya know 8-12s or something fairly worthwhile. a system such as this would create a much higher skill cap in pvp scenarios as just willy nilly buttom smashers would never be able to properly CC chain anyone with any effectiveness.
this is kind of a mix between several pvp/rvr mmos i have played in the past and feel it would work the best.
oh 1 more. for long duration CCs like old school EQ coercer types...say they got a 30s mez, that can still hit a player and last the full 30s if no enemy touches them....but...to be broken out of such a state a heal/mage type could cast a cure on said person. this would create some decisions and choices regarding group compositions for pvp scenarios. can't every be a high dmg rogue in pvp...or get rekt by CC
but...game is long way out still, no idea what they got planned for class skills and advancement. this is just my general overall opinion on the topic of crowd control after 100ish of mmos played ever the past 18 years from every corner of the globe.