Hah. I imagine, I can get carried away sometimes. ... Anyway I might be missing your original point. The reaction to the thread as whole is still somewhat on point I think.
All good, man. I just wanted to make sure to iron out any misunderstanding. Totally agree on your and @Azherae's points on available data that could be brought to bear in an analysis.
@Azherae - Which is exactly what the thread transitioned into. But I was responding directly to SunScript's complaint that no one properly argued Dreoh's OP. We did. It ran to ground. We moved on with the cc discussion.
Now, once someone has drawn an ideological line in the sand, you can absolutely continue to bring logical arguments to the table. I'm ok just moving on and discussing other things, you know?
Agreed, the issue (as my post just above points out) is that the two 'camps' are at a nonproductive stalemate, but this specific thread with all it's 'baggage', let's say, attracts new readers or returning readers to just revive it with repetitions of the points that surround the stalemate.
I consider this a situation where it would be massively beneficial to make a new thread. Two, in fact. We don't have the level of 'magic' required to separate them cleanly though. To 'sort' people into 'people who want to discuss how Stun is not needed and their concepts of the gameplay' and 'people who want to discuss why Stun is needed in their concept of the gameplay'.
But we should probably try, because without at least trying, no one's going to seriously talk about gameplay.
I'll leave that to OP though, if @Dreoh considers that worth it. There's enough data in here to do it with. If a Compilation is needed, I can be summoned for that too.
Nearly every response in this thread that isn't part of the 'tug of war at the stalemate point' is a person's neatly encapsulated opinion, so a splice is easy, and a scrape-splice is easier.
Honestly yea that would probably be better, because even though I felt I covered all the bases of the why stuns are unnecessary in the original post, people have just been cherry-picking parts of the argument and ignoring the other parts that counter it that I had already presented in the OP or in follow-up comments lol
I'm telling you, I keep genuinely waiting for people to actually start arguing about this properly...
Clearly not, otherwise you would have noticed this argument fell apart 5 pages ago. When someone has a fundamental belief about x, there is no logical argument about x, there's just venting. Hard CC exists for the very reason Dreoh hates it - it completely removes the opponent's agency. It's like arguing that ice is terrible because you hate anything frozen.
Yep, the argument became meaningless quite some pages ago, the people arguing against Stun and Hard CC, are doing so through a personal preference viewpoint saying what they believe it should do, be, what they like or dislike and throwing ambiguous words around like "it's bad", "lazy design", "lack of agency"(neglecting hard-CC counters) or "Frustrating"
Then let me ask this. If the argument was meaningless, and by minor implication 'lost by definition' on the Anti-Stun side.
If Dreoh made a different thread 'Suggestions for CC implementations that exclude stuns', would you simply have no reason to post in it? Would you not feel the need to 'enter the thread to try to tear down the idea that CC Implementations should exist without Stuns'? Since it would have no basis, just a fantasy from people with a personal dislike of a concept.
What if you made a different thread 'Why CC implementations should include Stuns', and somehow, magically, no one who opposed Stuns posted in that thread, everything would be fine, right? Because 'the game has stuns, and Intrepid won't remove them because of our preference'. Also, surely, the strong points brought by the second thread would counter any chance of that anyway.
"If Dreoh made a different thread 'Suggestions for CC implementations that exclude stuns', would you simply have no reason to post in it?"
This title would still require an excellent, logical and techinical non-biased reason for the exclusion of Stuns(Or Hard CC in general even tho he considers Knockdowns not as bad as stuns because of some visual reason???)
"Would you not feel the need to 'enter the thread to try to tear down the idea that CC Implementations should exist without Stuns'?"
I didn't felt any of that "need" you are saying there mate, i only tried to find the excelent reason for the Anti-Stun Ideal, sadly what i most found was personal preferences, ambiguous language and pseudo-equivalency arguments.
"What if you made a different thread 'Why CC implementations should include Stuns', and somehow, magically, no one who opposed Stuns posted in that thread, everything would be fine, right?"
Such thread wouldn't even make sense to be made in the first place, as it isn't a "appeal for change" (which requires an argument for such a change), but a reinforcement for something already well established.
My argument has stayed the same on page 9 as it is on page 1. My logic has been sound throughout and I've only had to make one concession throughout this thread. No one has brought up any point refuting my claim that hadn't already been addressed, or couldn't be dismantled completely. And we've begun the customary recycling of arguments as new people come in and don't read through those already established arguments.
My argument has stayed the same on page 9 as it is on page 1. My logic has been sound throughout and I've only had to make one concession throughout this thread. No one has brought up any point refuting my claim that hadn't already been addressed, or couldn't be dismantled completely. And we've begun the customary recycling of arguments as new people come in and don't read through those already established arguments.
Come on man, Do you really consider that your original post is an argument at all? Like 60%-70% of it is just pretty much personal preference and personal opinion...
@Azherae - Which is exactly what the thread transitioned into. But I was responding directly to SunScript's complaint that no one properly argued Dreoh's OP. We did. It ran to ground. We moved on with the cc discussion.
Now, once someone has drawn an ideological line in the sand, you can absolutely continue to bring logical arguments to the table. I'm ok just moving on and discussing other things, you know?
Agreed, the issue (as my post just above points out) is that the two 'camps' are at a nonproductive stalemate, but this specific thread with all it's 'baggage', let's say, attracts new readers or returning readers to just revive it with repetitions of the points that surround the stalemate.
I consider this a situation where it would be massively beneficial to make a new thread. Two, in fact. We don't have the level of 'magic' required to separate them cleanly though. To 'sort' people into 'people who want to discuss how Stun is not needed and their concepts of the gameplay' and 'people who want to discuss why Stun is needed in their concept of the gameplay'.
But we should probably try, because without at least trying, no one's going to seriously talk about gameplay.
I'll leave that to OP though, if @Dreoh considers that worth it. There's enough data in here to do it with. If a Compilation is needed, I can be summoned for that too.
Nearly every response in this thread that isn't part of the 'tug of war at the stalemate point' is a person's neatly encapsulated opinion, so a splice is easy, and a scrape-splice is easier.
Honestly yea that would probably be better, because even though I felt I covered all the bases of the why stuns are unnecessary in the original post, people have just been cherry-picking parts of the argument and ignoring the other parts that counter it that I had already presented in the OP or in follow-up comments lol
I'm telling you, I keep genuinely waiting for people to actually start arguing about this properly...
Clearly not, otherwise you would have noticed this argument fell apart 5 pages ago. When someone has a fundamental belief about x, there is no logical argument about x, there's just venting. Hard CC exists for the very reason Dreoh hates it - it completely removes the opponent's agency. It's like arguing that ice is terrible because you hate anything frozen.
Yep, the argument became meaningless quite some pages ago, the people arguing against Stun and Hard CC, are doing so through a personal preference viewpoint saying what they believe it should do, be, what they like or dislike and throwing ambiguous words around like "it's bad", "lazy design", "lack of agency"(neglecting hard-CC counters) or "Frustrating"
Then let me ask this. If the argument was meaningless, and by minor implication 'lost by definition' on the Anti-Stun side.
If Dreoh made a different thread 'Suggestions for CC implementations that exclude stuns', would you simply have no reason to post in it? Would you not feel the need to 'enter the thread to try to tear down the idea that CC Implementations should exist without Stuns'? Since it would have no basis, just a fantasy from people with a personal dislike of a concept.
What if you made a different thread 'Why CC implementations should include Stuns', and somehow, magically, no one who opposed Stuns posted in that thread, everything would be fine, right? Because 'the game has stuns, and Intrepid won't remove them because of our preference'. Also, surely, the strong points brought by the second thread would counter any chance of that anyway.
"If Dreoh made a different thread 'Suggestions for CC implementations that exclude stuns', would you simply have no reason to post in it?"
This title would still require an excellent, logical and techinical non-biased reason for the exclusion of Stuns(Or Hard CC in general even tho he considers Knockdowns not as bad as stuns because of some visual reason???)
"Would you not feel the need to 'enter the thread to try to tear down the idea that CC Implementations should exist without Stuns'?"
I didn't felt any of that "need" you are saying there mate, i only tried to find the excelent reason for the Anti-Stun Ideal, sadly what i most found was personal preferences, ambiguous language and pseudo-equivalency arguments.
"What if you made a different thread 'Why CC implementations should include Stuns', and somehow, magically, no one who opposed Stuns posted in that thread, everything would be fine, right?"
Such thread wouldn't even make sense to be made in the first place, as it isn't a "appeal for change" (which requires an argument for such a change), but a reinforcement for something already well established.
My argument has stayed the same on page 9 as it is on page 1. My logic has been sound throughout and I've only had to make one concession throughout this thread.
I'm somewhat curious.
A part of your argument essentially boils down to "stuns are frustrating", would you agree?
My answer to that is and has been that this is what they are supposed to be.
A game isnt supposed to be 100% fun. There is supposed to be hard time, bad times, frustrating times. These things make the good times even better, and so are a key aspect of any competitive situation.
When I was younger I played a specific team sport. The club I played for had a long history of success. We went actual years without losing a game, and it got to the point where winning wasnt even fun any more - it was just expected.
Then I moved to a different area, and played the same sport for a different club. That club was less successful, but still reasonable. We won about 60% of our games, but winning in that club was far more enjoyable. Even better still was winning against a club we lost against previously.
Now, the brigade of posters that like to cherry pick comments of mine and attempt to prove them inaccurate in isolation (I'm sure you know who I am talking about) will perhaps want to say something like "but you can still lose to someone and then beat them next time, so your point is moot".
You and I both know that this would be missing the point though, as the point I am making is that frustration in general is not a bad thing, but it is something that a game developer needs to manage.
So, the two specific questions for you are - do you agree that an amount of managed frustration is essential for a good game and if so, why cant stuns be a factor of that managed frustration?
This is a Lazy hypothetical not adding in more factors. "The stun, more health vs more damage THE END"
What about stat builds that can affect CC duration or effect? What about CC-breaks? What about Timing your own CC? Your teammates ability to either heal you, break you free, counter-CC, or just utilize the moment? Anyone who has seriously competed in rated large scale PvP knows that dealing with stuns and other hard CCs are the adrenaline pumping moments where as a team you have to react correctly to the situation. And seeing as AoC is being designed around group play, hard CC (including stuns) sounds like a plus from my experiences.
I'll tell you what's Lazy... not actually paying attention to the thread before making a post. I wonder how many times Dreoh has had to reiterate this thread isn't an anti-CC thread, but an anti-stun thread. I guess that's why people can't even form a complete argument for Stuns, when they can't even pay attention to the distinction.
I'm telling you, I keep genuinely waiting for people to actually start arguing about this properly so we can get a good back and forth like this forum and this topic deserves and all I ever see is arguments about how someone else should make the effort in the conversation because tradition or something. You're going to lose out like this, you know? Because at the end of the day, you don't have to convince us, right? You have to convince the devs and if you cannot even articulate why Stuns offer better adrenaline pumping moments and more teamplay opportunities than say a Root or a Silence and why it is that the tradition of Stuns in MMOs is so much more important than moving on with what we've learned from MMOs so far, then I don't even know what we're doing here.
Apparently you missed the part where I was listing the other factors that are used to deal with stuns which make stuns viable and a great part of competitive PvP. Instead of the previous quote of just saying a stun= stunned players health vs the stunners damage output, and that being all there is to it.
All my comment was stating is there are many more variables to determine whether or not stuns can be viable in a game design and even fun, I never said anything about people being anti-CC. So yea that's my argument, there are several factors "stat builds that can affect CC duration or effect? What about CC-breaks? What about Timing your own CC? Your teammates ability to either heal you, break you free, counter-CC, or just utilize the moment?" That make stuns viable and fun in organized PvP, thus they shouldn't be removed only because "They are frustrating".
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
I'm telling you, I keep genuinely waiting for people to actually start arguing about this properly so we can get a good back and forth like this forum and this topic deserves and all I ever see is arguments about how someone else should make the effort in the conversation because tradition or something. You're going to lose out like this, you know? Because at the end of the day, you don't have to convince us, right? You have to convince the devs and if you cannot even articulate why Stuns offer better adrenaline pumping moments and more teamplay opportunities than say a Root or a Silence and why it is that the tradition of Stuns in MMOs is so much more important than moving on with what we've learned from MMOs so far, then I don't even know what we're doing here.
The pro-Stun camp does not have to convince the devs to implement Stun. Ashes already has Stun.
Stun pumps more adrenaline specifically because, while you can still attack while Rooted or Silenced,
you can't attack while Stunned. For me, Stun is effectively the same as Fear or Knockdown - it's just a different flavor and adds variety to the gameplay. It's not much different than Frost damage v Fire damage.
With Stun, Fear and Knockdown...I'm going to be mashing buttons to try to dispel the effect as quickly as possible and to be ready to attack/defend as quickly as possible. The difference with Fear is that I'm also going to be desperately trying to prevent my avatar from running into more mobs or off the side of a cliff.
I don't know why MMORPGs should move on or what we have supposedly learned from other MMORPGs that indicate Stuns should not be included.
As far as I can tell, the anti-Stun camp just finds Stuns to be "boring". To me, that seems to be a personal attention span issue; not a game mechanics issue.
I doubt that will convince the devs to remove Stuns from Ashes.
If you don't like the effects of Disable attacks, build your character to have high Disable Defense.
As far as I can tell, the anti-Stun camp just finds Stuns to be "boring". To me, that seems to be a personal attention span issue; not a game mechanics issue.
I wouldn't focus on "anti-stun" as a thing. More like, pro counter play / outplay / pro mechanical skill in pvp. In addition when there is lack of counter play frustration happens. High accessibility simple to deploy stuns are one of the points in design which goes directly against counter play.
I doubt that will convince the devs to remove Stuns from Ashes.
I don't think that removal is a feasible solution. What I offered and some people seem to like it is stuns which require set up and effort on behalf of the player trying to apply it which also allows the receiving end to play around it or counter it. Flip coin / who blinks first is not a counter mechanic. But even more rng diluting Skill dimension in encounter and promoting cheap shots / ganking.
If you don't like the effects of Disable attacks, build your character to have high Disable Defense.
More passive stat checks the player has no control while in PvP encounter? Reminds me of wotlk dual specs. A band aid to bad design. Also fails to address the issues at their root.
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
edited August 2021
You probably won't find an MMORPG where PvP is well-developed because it's an RPG. That has nothing to do with genre being stale. RPGs were not designed for PvP combat. PvP will be better suited for other game genres that are not RPGs.
Pro-Stun camp v anti-Stun camp.
Building your character to have high Disable Defense is a key factor of counter-play in MMORPGs.
I think every one in this thread supports counter-play and out-play.
If "mechanical play" means player twitch skills...it's action combat, so we should expect player twitch skills to be a significant factor. I'm not aware of anyone who opposes that.
I also don't know what you mean by high accessibility. I'm not aware of anyone advocating high accessibility for Stun. Rather people are supporting the dev decision to include Stun(s). As opposed to not including Stun(s).
I don't really know why Stuns should require more "set up". When a boxer rings your clock, that is typically a surprise that does not require a lot of set up. And mostly what resists that stun is going to be how you prepped before the combat - as in how you built your character to be resistant to Stuns. Resisting a Stun isn't really about player twitch skills. Avoiding Stun with player twitch skills is about not getting hit in the first place.
I don't understand how the flip coin example is intended to be relevant to this topic. Is that supposed to be referencing RNG? Because flip coin / who blinks first is not how RNG works.
I also don't understand the sentence about cheap shots and ganking.
Passive stat checks means you have control of the outcome before the PvP encounter.
The first few weeks of Alpha One, I felt the Tanks were killing my Cleric way too quickly.
Once Passive Skills were implemented, I maxed my Disable Defense, my Crtical Hit Rate, my Health, my Health Regen, my Increased Healing and my Mana. I also maxed my Healing abilities.
Which made it so that the Tanks were inconsequential...they could not kill me while I was Snared.
Sure...one difference is that I was able to do stuff while Snared... but the other significant difference is that the Passives made it so that their Snares and damage attacks had a significantly reduced effect.
That's very similar to equipping gear to reduce the effects of damage.
Just because you hit me with a weapon, doesn't mean I will take full damage. Just because you hit me with a Stun, doesn't mean you will be able to do as much damage as you'd like while I am Stunned...I might have more Health than you expected and I might recover from the Stun more quickly than you expected. Stun means you should not actively be able to undo the Stun... similar to Knockdown. Might be that someone else on your team can effectively place smelling salts under your nose.
That could be a Cleric... could be a Bard...would be fascinating if that could be a Summoner.
Seems like Stun should be similar to Knockdown, Fear and Blind...
Shouldn't require set-up or effort to execute once. They should probably be on fairly long cool-downs.
The duration of a Stun should not be so long that a reasonable person has time to be bored.
The game should have counters to Stun... everyone supporting the inclusion of Stun agrees with that.
(Don't you consent to being Stunned the moment you log into the game.)
I agree 100%, stuns really are not enjoyable in any game. It's a do everything cc and has no counterplay. It also completely removes any type of decision making or strategy in terms of who uses cc for what and when. Limiting hard cc and having built-in cc reduction/resistances is essential to avoid cc lock anti-fun gameplay.
You probably won't find an MMORPG where PvP is well-developed because it's an RPG. That has nothing to do with genre being stale. RPGs were not designed for PvP combat. PvP will be better suited for other game genres that are not RPGs.
One of core pillars of RPG game is that your "build" matters more than the execution of said build. That's a solid point to make in theory. However I have to question how it pans out in PvP settings. Regardless of how you want to treat it in retrospect or theorycrafting. People take PvP as an instance, player vs player showdown. Not the totality of their gameplay leading to predetermined outcomes of previously made decisions. So you can be correct, right, or whatever how you want to frame it, or to be effective. The first demands removal or strict mediation on how PvP is handled though.
If "mechanical play" means player twitch skills...it's action combat, so we should expect player twitch skills to be a significant factor. I'm not aware of anyone who opposes that.
Depends on how defense vs offense is balanced. Generally "tank meta" is more about for-sight, planning and execution of set predictions rather than twitch. The time windows increased survivability grants player provides enough room to think. It's funny, because a lot of MMO PvP'ers fail past their opening "rotation" which is tightly related to your mentioned "twitch muscles".
I also don't know what you mean by high accessibility.
Meaning that it costs offensive side very little effort to enact something which prevents any huge effort on other players side to come to fruition. Which is part of why frustration happens. You have given an advantage by a system to counter great plays with a easy point and click of a button. That's utter bs. And why people feel that the fight was unfair and "gamed" by the system. Or "stat checked" with no obvious reason why game systems favors side A over B.
I don't really know why Stuns should require more "set up". When a boxer rings your clock, that is typically a surprise that does not require a lot of set up. And mostly what resists that stun is going to be how you prepped before the combat - as in how you built your character to be resistant to Stuns. Resisting a Stun isn't really about player twitch skills. Avoiding Stun with player twitch skills is about not getting hit in the first place.
I'm specifically proposing mechanics to avoid any "twitch skills". Point and click stuns are a twitch skill favoring one side for no obvious reason other than specific spec has it in it's inventory. You're and many others are just arguing that that "twitch" thing should be fair to the side of the applier yet not to the one who defends against it.
I'm still trying to figure out how this is not obvious.
I don't understand how the flip coin example is intended to be relevant to this topic. Is that supposed to be referencing RNG? Because flip coin / who blinks first is not how RNG works.
I also don't understand the sentence about cheap shots and ganking.
It works as coin flip if one spec has point and click stun as a mechanic. And other spec has point and click mechanic as a defense vs stun. This set up heavily favors the offending side as it's pre-determined decision on the offending side to deploy, yet other guess work, jack pot machine on the defending side (grounding totem in WoW Shaman spec is a good example of such mechanic). Resulting in a coin flip type of thing.
It favors ganking, because you can always reliably set stun on someone who is not expecting it. Premediated 'set up' stuns gives enough time / space for assualted player to react to a trap. Making it more about outplay, less about surprise - coin flip / who blinks first.
Passive stat checks means you have control of the outcome before the PvP encounter.
Yes. Sadly they are not perceived or felt that way in PvP instance. You can be correct about this, but it's irrelevant if it's not effective in winning 'emotions' of the players with who you want to keep playing with.
Seems like Stun should be similar to Knockdown, Fear and Blind...
Shouldn't require set-up or effort to execute once. They should probably be on fairly long cool-downs.
The duration of a Stun should not be so long that a reasonable person has time to be bored.
The game should have counters to Stun... everyone supporting the inclusion of Stun agrees with that.
It's not about being bored. It's about being able to counter-play the actions of other human player. Like it or not, we do regard ourselves as human beings who are entitled to fair play. No amount of time sinked into the game eradicates it.
Other bs mechanic than stun, just to give an example at what I'm getting at here (not stuns to be specific, although they are expression of same problem) is not mediated / reduced to the mean crits. When one player gets 3 crits in the row out of RNG even though it has 5% chance. Other player failing all of them.
At that instance it matters not how much you've built for that chance. The instance will be perceived as unfair. And thus will taint the experience of PvP.
For any PvP focused game it's awful.
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
However I have to question how it pans out in PvP settings. Regardless of how you want to treat it in retrospect or theorycrafting. People take PvP as an instance, player vs player showdown. Not the totality of their gameplay leading to predetermined outcomes of previously made decisions. So you can be correct, right, or whatever how you want to frame it, or to be effective. The first demands removal or strict mediation on how PvP is handled though.
I'm also not sure what you're trying to convey here.
I especially don't know what you mean by "predetermined outcomes".
Depends on how defense vs offense is balanced. Generally "tank meta" is more about for-sight, planning and execution of set predictions rather than twitch. The time windows increased survivability grants player provides enough room to think. It's funny, because a lot of MMO PvP'ers fail past their opening "rotation" which is tightly related to your mentioned "twitch muscles".
Tank meta is still going to have to react and adjust to opponents using Action Combat.
Action Combat tends to be less predictable. And I doubt an individual Tank is going to be able to predict all the class and gear and non-class augments they might face. Rotation probably is not the same thing as twitch since rotation is on cooldown timers. Twitch skills are more about movement and dodge/roll/blink/block and, probably, Weapon combos.
And I think this thread is really about having the freedom to avoid movements and actions from being cancelled - Stun. Obviously Stun prevents action for some duration.
(High accessibility means) that it costs offensive side very little effort to enact something which prevents any huge effort on other players side to come to fruition. Which is part of why frustration happens. You have given an advantage by a system to counter great plays with a easy point and click of a button. That's utter bs. And why people feel that the fight was unfair and "gamed" by the system. Or "stat checked" with no obvious reason why game systems favors side A over B.
That's why you build your character(s) to be resistant to Stuns if you don't like being Stunned.
People can "feel" all kinds of stuff. Doesn't make it true.
I'm specifically proposing mechanics to avoid any "twitch skills". Point and click stuns are a twitch skill favoring one side for no obvious reason other than specific spec has it in it's inventory. You're and many others are just arguing that that "twitch" thing should be fair to the side of the applier yet not to the one who defends against it. I'm still trying to figure out how this is not obvious.
Again...I don't really understand anything you wrote here.
I don't agree that Stun is a twitch skill.
Stuns are fair to the defender.
Chained Stun Locks are not fair to the defender. I think the vast a majority of people here agree with that.
If you don't want to be Stunned, build your character to be highly Stun resistant. Ashes is an RPG.
It works as coin flip if one spec has point and click stun as a mechanic. And other spec has point and click mechanic as a defense vs stun. This set up heavily favors the offending side as it's pre-determined decision on the offending side to deploy, yet other guess work, jack pot machine on the defending side (grounding totem in WoW Shaman spec is a good example of such mechanic). Resulting in a coin flip type of thing.
No. Because the defender can have gear and Passive Skills and stats that put the RNG in their favor to resist Stuns. Just because the defender is hit with a Stun, does not mean the Stun will be effective.
That's not as simple as a coin flip.
It favors ganking, because you can always reliably set stun on someone who is not expecting it. Premediated 'set up' stuns gives enough time / space for assualted player to react to a trap. Making it more about outplay, less about surprise - coin flip / who blinks first.
You cannot reliably Stun a character that has been built to be highly Stun resistant. That is what the RNG is for.
Yes. Sadly they are not perceived or felt that way in PvP instance. You can be correct about this, but it's irrelevant if it's not effective in winning 'emotions' of the players with who you want to keep playing with.
It's an RPG. Don't expect an RPG to have optimal PvP.
I don't need to win emotions.
Every playstyle in Ashes will have less than optimal play conditions.
Especially since all playstyles are stuck on the same server.
Expect RPGs to have RNG. If you don't want RNG in your PvP, you should probably play some other genre.
It's not about being bored. It's about being able to counter-play the actions of other human player. Like it or not, we do regard ourselves as human beings who are entitled to fair play. No amount of time sinked into the game eradicates it.
B/c stuns are very boring for those who are stunned. IMO combat shouldn't encourage someone to just twiddle their thumbs and wait
You counter-play a Stun by building your character(s) to be resistant to Stuns.
And you hope that your allies have skills that can increase your Stun resistance and/or break you out of Stun.
Other bs mechanic than stun, just to give an example at what I'm getting at here (not stuns to be specific, although they are expression of same problem) is not mediated / reduced to the mean crits. When one player gets 3 crits in the row out of RNG even though it has 5% chance. Other player failing all of them.
Sometimes shit happens. That's also part of playing an RPG.
3 Crits in a row with a 5% chance is going to be exceedingly rare. That is unfortunate, but not unfair.
At that instance it matters not how much you've built for that chance. The instance will be perceived as unfair. And thus will taint the experience of PvP.
Doesn't matter how it's perceived. What matters is what it actually is.
People can qq about anything.
Ashes is an RPG that is PvX. And the PvP is focused on 8-person groups.
If you want to avoid Stuns, build your character to be highly Stun resistant. And group with others who can buff your Stun resistance.
I'm also not sure what you're trying to convey here.
I especially don't know what you mean by "predetermined outcomes".
That someone just wins by stats or by class when compared to winning by effort and expression of 'skill' in said build execution.
There is nothing a player who is either countered by a spec, having horizontal advantage or even more obviously countered by superior stats like due to level or better gear can do to win. So the most obvious solution is not to participate because the whole 'pvp' instance is there just to waste time of the player.
Yes, if we focus in build over execution. I would argue that we should keep such design out of pvp and just leave it to co-op pve.
I wouldn't be so sure. I think there is plenty of room for RPGMMO's to improve. And PvP is one of the areas where genre needs to be re-imagined. Probably by looking for inspiration in other games which did.
Tank meta is still going to have to react and adjust to opponents using Action Combat.
Action Combat tends to be less predictable.
In case of outcomes of who wins, yes. In case of expression skill is predictable enough to play around and try to out best your opponent. Good example would be chess. While there is a lot of freedom in player choice how to make moves, they still compete within confined space of what can be done. However for it to play out well, you need to avoid who blinks first mechanics. Like point and click stuns, to promote there and forth exchanges between players trying to best each other. Meaning, there should be always given enough time for a player to counter act the play of other player.
And I doubt an individual Tank is going to be able to predict all the class and gear and non-class augments they might face. Rotation probare about movement and dodge/roll/blink/block and, probably, Weapon combos.
Except that we already have games where is tons of stuff to "memorize". And players seem to do fine. But yes, that requires a bit more of a ramp up. And makes meta more difficult to solve, which I personally see as a plus.
Anbly is not the same thing as twitch since rotation is on cooldown timers.
Rotations are linear execution which can be done by a bot. The only thing what determines how good you are at it is if you read up a guide someone else did what buttons to press in what order and when putting it in the muscle memory against a dummy or something.
Given that rotations are generally always the same, it continues to dilute the player expression of skill even more tilting more towards what level or gear the character has. Which when in turn game needs to compensate with some other mechanics. In most MMO raids are full of gimmicks to compensate. Or game tries to implement some kind of dynamic mechanics to get rid of via resource building abilities / resource expending abilities where expenditure is a choice between few abilities depending on current situation.
That's why you build your character(s) to be resistant to Stuns if you don't like being Stunned.
People can "feel" all kinds of stuff. Doesn't make it true.
How people feel is what ultimately matters when it comes to games. And while people are different, they are more the same than they are different. Especially in regards to what is considered fair. There is tons of literature about game theory which was forged in tons of experiments in all sorts of fields, the easiest to start with is economic games. As well as we know multiple pvp games which tilted away from stupid disable mechanics for this very reason I try to argue.
Again...I don't really understand anything you wrote here.
I don't agree that Stun is a twitch skill.
Stuns are fair to the defender.
That point and click instant ability which disabled a player for extend period of time is not fair as there is no way to counter play it. The offending side just decides that now I'll disable the player. Even if you give an ability to a player to counter stun, due to the fact how quickly it's applied there is no room to deploy a defense against it. One side needs to guess. Other side can choose.
It requires extreme effort and attentiveness on the defender while still having to roll on luck. While it demands no effort on behalf of the one who puts the stun on the player.
How is this fair? What the defending player can do to not being stun? So either you give build choices which makes stun almost irrelevant when why to even have the mechanic in the game waiting for newbies to get themselves into a trap. Or even if reduced a bit it still poses the same problem.
No. Because the defender can have gear and Passive Skills and stats that put the RNG in their favor to resist Stuns. Just because the defender is hit with a Stun, does not mean the Stun will be effective.
That's not as simple as a coin flip.
How about offender would need to build towards disables at expense of damage? The defender is already ad disadvantage with no way to avoid it. Why to put even more on it. Points spent at x are points not spent at y. So even if you go around saying spec into anti stun, the defender is to whom the system is unfair.
You cannot reliably Stun a character that has been built to be highly Stun resistant. That is what the RNG is for.
Yes. Because efforts the player put into the game should be focused based on RNG. People love this system in real times games. No, they don't. It's absolutely hated. Morrowind mod which removes dice rolls from hit chance is probably most popular ones for the game for exactly this reason. Competitive pvp games reducing crit chance to a mean is also a mechanic to address RNG which makes people frustrated.
RNG is awful mechanic for player versus player interaction as it removes player agency. Damn it's even awful for PvE if not done carefully or if not specifically built around it like DnD is, where on top of that game has DM who will often normalize the streaks to keep the game engaging.
RNG is like salt it's ok in small doses to spice things up. But quickly ruins everything when not closely moderated.
If you don't want RNG in your PvP, you should probably play some other genre.
Exactly. I don't want to play on vacant servers where people quit due to frustration. Because in ashes PvE is gated by PvP competition. I also want PvP to be fun. Wow, a game which fun and feels meaningful to play. What a new ground breaking concept.
You counter-play a Stun by building your character(s) to be resistant to Stuns.
And you hope that your allies have skills that can increase your Stun resistance and/or break you out of Stun.
How about building a character to be able to apply stun at expense of something? How about stun thresholds just a compromising idea. Still crap band aid, but at least intention to move to the more fair design would be much appreciated.
Sometimes shit happens. That's also part of playing an RPG.
3 Crits in a row with a 5% chance is going to be exceedingly rare. That is unfortunate, but not unfair.
When that rare moment happens it will be insanely frustrating. And that what the player will remember. Not the 50 times when it did not. Reduction to the mean is the typical solution of having the crit chance mechanic while also not having these crazy streaks. Unless you specifically want the game to be coin flipping, I'm not sure what's to argue against here.
Doesn't matter how it's perceived. What matters is what it actually is.
People can qq about anything.
This is a game. For a game to be sustainable the players participating have to agree on shared reality / confines of the game. The games which all people participate willingly, agree with the confines, have no enforcement cost, hence the sustainability of the game is better. And you can create co-operation through competition. Because agreeing of shared set of rules and playing according to them is co-operation.
I think you can find a lot on this by Jean Piaget and emergent play.
And this is important because you want people to play with. And those people to want to play with you. If pvp is less about engagement / sportsmanship / competition and more about pwnage Q_Q go cry me a river, when game won't last. Problem is that such stun mechanics, creates and feeds into that Q_Q feeling due to being unfair.
Yes people QQ about a lot of things. Sometimes it is personal immaturity of being a sore loser. Other times it's expression of frustration which is caused by faulty imbalanced game systems. Often expressed poorly and more towards the symptoms than the causes though. Hard to solve, easier to dismiss.
Ashes is an RPG that is PvX. And the PvP is focused on 8-person groups.
If you want to avoid Stuns, build your character to be highly Stun resistant. And group with others who can buff your Stun resistance.
Pretty much all of the PvE content can be contested through PvP. So it's pvp centric.
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Ashes is PvX. It's not PvP-centric.
PvP has no sporstmanship whatsover.
I'm not aware of stuns happening at the expensive of something, so why would that be part of the design?
When a boxer stuns their opponent, it's not at the expense of something. It's a combination of character prep, twitch skill and luck. As it will be in Ashes.
It's pve and pvp. But PvP contests PvE. Your access to pve can be limited by your ability to PvP. Not vice versa. PvP can screw your PvE. Ability to deny access to recources through player vs player competition is one of the core components of the game. So ultimately it's pvp centric. PvE exists to facilitate player vs player interaction.
It's quite sad that you think that way. But I'm not surprised. As expressed before, pvp in MMO is utter crap and been that way since forever. In Lithuania we have a saying "šuo ir kariamas pripranta" meaning "a dog gets used to getting hanged". I think that's a grotesque summation of MMO player base.
When a boxer stuns their opponent, it's not at the expense of something. It's a combination of character prep, twitch skill and luck. As it will be in Ashes.
Yes. In boxing it's easier to defend vs a hit than perform a hit. Marely by body ergonomics. Performing a hit and placing your hand to defend against a hit is always easier and costs less effort and stamina. Generally, if offense and defense is balanced defensive play is superior to offensive play, as punishing mistakes is easier than forcing them.
Comments
All kinds of reasons why PvP in mmoRPGs suck.
All good, man. I just wanted to make sure to iron out any misunderstanding. Totally agree on your and @Azherae's points on available data that could be brought to bear in an analysis.
If you hate PvP so much in MMORPG's, why don't you play GW2? You can play through the entire game without needing to do any PvP
Honestly yea that would probably be better, because even though I felt I covered all the bases of the why stuns are unnecessary in the original post, people have just been cherry-picking parts of the argument and ignoring the other parts that counter it that I had already presented in the OP or in follow-up comments lol
My argument has stayed the same on page 9 as it is on page 1. My logic has been sound throughout and I've only had to make one concession throughout this thread. No one has brought up any point refuting my claim that hadn't already been addressed, or couldn't be dismantled completely. And we've begun the customary recycling of arguments as new people come in and don't read through those already established arguments.
Hehe - yep!
Come on man, Do you really consider that your original post is an argument at all? Like 60%-70% of it is just pretty much personal preference and personal opinion...
Aren't we all sinners?
A part of your argument essentially boils down to "stuns are frustrating", would you agree?
My answer to that is and has been that this is what they are supposed to be.
A game isnt supposed to be 100% fun. There is supposed to be hard time, bad times, frustrating times. These things make the good times even better, and so are a key aspect of any competitive situation.
When I was younger I played a specific team sport. The club I played for had a long history of success. We went actual years without losing a game, and it got to the point where winning wasnt even fun any more - it was just expected.
Then I moved to a different area, and played the same sport for a different club. That club was less successful, but still reasonable. We won about 60% of our games, but winning in that club was far more enjoyable. Even better still was winning against a club we lost against previously.
Now, the brigade of posters that like to cherry pick comments of mine and attempt to prove them inaccurate in isolation (I'm sure you know who I am talking about) will perhaps want to say something like "but you can still lose to someone and then beat them next time, so your point is moot".
You and I both know that this would be missing the point though, as the point I am making is that frustration in general is not a bad thing, but it is something that a game developer needs to manage.
So, the two specific questions for you are - do you agree that an amount of managed frustration is essential for a good game and if so, why cant stuns be a factor of that managed frustration?
Apparently you missed the part where I was listing the other factors that are used to deal with stuns which make stuns viable and a great part of competitive PvP. Instead of the previous quote of just saying a stun= stunned players health vs the stunners damage output, and that being all there is to it.
All my comment was stating is there are many more variables to determine whether or not stuns can be viable in a game design and even fun, I never said anything about people being anti-CC. So yea that's my argument, there are several factors "stat builds that can affect CC duration or effect? What about CC-breaks? What about Timing your own CC? Your teammates ability to either heal you, break you free, counter-CC, or just utilize the moment?" That make stuns viable and fun in organized PvP, thus they shouldn't be removed only because "They are frustrating".
Stun pumps more adrenaline specifically because, while you can still attack while Rooted or Silenced,
you can't attack while Stunned. For me, Stun is effectively the same as Fear or Knockdown - it's just a different flavor and adds variety to the gameplay. It's not much different than Frost damage v Fire damage.
With Stun, Fear and Knockdown...I'm going to be mashing buttons to try to dispel the effect as quickly as possible and to be ready to attack/defend as quickly as possible. The difference with Fear is that I'm also going to be desperately trying to prevent my avatar from running into more mobs or off the side of a cliff.
I don't know why MMORPGs should move on or what we have supposedly learned from other MMORPGs that indicate Stuns should not be included.
As far as I can tell, the anti-Stun camp just finds Stuns to be "boring". To me, that seems to be a personal attention span issue; not a game mechanics issue.
I doubt that will convince the devs to remove Stuns from Ashes.
If you don't like the effects of Disable attacks, build your character to have high Disable Defense.
I don't know a single MMO game where PvP is actually well developed. Genre is stale.
I wouldn't focus on "anti-stun" as a thing. More like, pro counter play / outplay / pro mechanical skill in pvp. In addition when there is lack of counter play frustration happens. High accessibility simple to deploy stuns are one of the points in design which goes directly against counter play.
I don't think that removal is a feasible solution. What I offered and some people seem to like it is stuns which require set up and effort on behalf of the player trying to apply it which also allows the receiving end to play around it or counter it. Flip coin / who blinks first is not a counter mechanic. But even more rng diluting Skill dimension in encounter and promoting cheap shots / ganking.
More passive stat checks the player has no control while in PvP encounter? Reminds me of wotlk dual specs. A band aid to bad design. Also fails to address the issues at their root.
Pro-Stun camp v anti-Stun camp.
Building your character to have high Disable Defense is a key factor of counter-play in MMORPGs.
I think every one in this thread supports counter-play and out-play.
If "mechanical play" means player twitch skills...it's action combat, so we should expect player twitch skills to be a significant factor. I'm not aware of anyone who opposes that.
I also don't know what you mean by high accessibility. I'm not aware of anyone advocating high accessibility for Stun. Rather people are supporting the dev decision to include Stun(s). As opposed to not including Stun(s).
I don't really know why Stuns should require more "set up". When a boxer rings your clock, that is typically a surprise that does not require a lot of set up. And mostly what resists that stun is going to be how you prepped before the combat - as in how you built your character to be resistant to Stuns. Resisting a Stun isn't really about player twitch skills. Avoiding Stun with player twitch skills is about not getting hit in the first place.
I don't understand how the flip coin example is intended to be relevant to this topic. Is that supposed to be referencing RNG? Because flip coin / who blinks first is not how RNG works.
I also don't understand the sentence about cheap shots and ganking.
Passive stat checks means you have control of the outcome before the PvP encounter.
The first few weeks of Alpha One, I felt the Tanks were killing my Cleric way too quickly.
Once Passive Skills were implemented, I maxed my Disable Defense, my Crtical Hit Rate, my Health, my Health Regen, my Increased Healing and my Mana. I also maxed my Healing abilities.
Which made it so that the Tanks were inconsequential...they could not kill me while I was Snared.
Sure...one difference is that I was able to do stuff while Snared... but the other significant difference is that the Passives made it so that their Snares and damage attacks had a significantly reduced effect.
That's very similar to equipping gear to reduce the effects of damage.
Just because you hit me with a weapon, doesn't mean I will take full damage. Just because you hit me with a Stun, doesn't mean you will be able to do as much damage as you'd like while I am Stunned...I might have more Health than you expected and I might recover from the Stun more quickly than you expected. Stun means you should not actively be able to undo the Stun... similar to Knockdown. Might be that someone else on your team can effectively place smelling salts under your nose.
That could be a Cleric... could be a Bard...would be fascinating if that could be a Summoner.
Seems like Stun should be similar to Knockdown, Fear and Blind...
Shouldn't require set-up or effort to execute once. They should probably be on fairly long cool-downs.
The duration of a Stun should not be so long that a reasonable person has time to be bored.
The game should have counters to Stun... everyone supporting the inclusion of Stun agrees with that.
(Don't you consent to being Stunned the moment you log into the game.)
One of core pillars of RPG game is that your "build" matters more than the execution of said build. That's a solid point to make in theory. However I have to question how it pans out in PvP settings. Regardless of how you want to treat it in retrospect or theorycrafting. People take PvP as an instance, player vs player showdown. Not the totality of their gameplay leading to predetermined outcomes of previously made decisions. So you can be correct, right, or whatever how you want to frame it, or to be effective. The first demands removal or strict mediation on how PvP is handled though.
Yes, if we focus in build over execution. I would argue that we should keep such design out of pvp and just leave it to co-op pve.
I strongly doubt many people are familiar with what it actually entails. There are bunch of folk who think wow pvp is ok. High on "copium" I think.
Depends on how defense vs offense is balanced. Generally "tank meta" is more about for-sight, planning and execution of set predictions rather than twitch. The time windows increased survivability grants player provides enough room to think. It's funny, because a lot of MMO PvP'ers fail past their opening "rotation" which is tightly related to your mentioned "twitch muscles".
Meaning that it costs offensive side very little effort to enact something which prevents any huge effort on other players side to come to fruition. Which is part of why frustration happens. You have given an advantage by a system to counter great plays with a easy point and click of a button. That's utter bs. And why people feel that the fight was unfair and "gamed" by the system. Or "stat checked" with no obvious reason why game systems favors side A over B.
I'm specifically proposing mechanics to avoid any "twitch skills". Point and click stuns are a twitch skill favoring one side for no obvious reason other than specific spec has it in it's inventory. You're and many others are just arguing that that "twitch" thing should be fair to the side of the applier yet not to the one who defends against it.
I'm still trying to figure out how this is not obvious.
It works as coin flip if one spec has point and click stun as a mechanic. And other spec has point and click mechanic as a defense vs stun. This set up heavily favors the offending side as it's pre-determined decision on the offending side to deploy, yet other guess work, jack pot machine on the defending side (grounding totem in WoW Shaman spec is a good example of such mechanic). Resulting in a coin flip type of thing.
It favors ganking, because you can always reliably set stun on someone who is not expecting it. Premediated 'set up' stuns gives enough time / space for assualted player to react to a trap. Making it more about outplay, less about surprise - coin flip / who blinks first.
Yes. Sadly they are not perceived or felt that way in PvP instance. You can be correct about this, but it's irrelevant if it's not effective in winning 'emotions' of the players with who you want to keep playing with.
It's not about being bored. It's about being able to counter-play the actions of other human player. Like it or not, we do regard ourselves as human beings who are entitled to fair play. No amount of time sinked into the game eradicates it.
Other bs mechanic than stun, just to give an example at what I'm getting at here (not stuns to be specific, although they are expression of same problem) is not mediated / reduced to the mean crits. When one player gets 3 crits in the row out of RNG even though it has 5% chance. Other player failing all of them.
At that instance it matters not how much you've built for that chance. The instance will be perceived as unfair. And thus will taint the experience of PvP.
For any PvP focused game it's awful.
I'm also not sure what you're trying to convey here.
I especially don't know what you mean by "predetermined outcomes".
Yu can argue that, I suppose. It's not going to happen.
*shrug*
OK
Tank meta is still going to have to react and adjust to opponents using Action Combat.
Action Combat tends to be less predictable. And I doubt an individual Tank is going to be able to predict all the class and gear and non-class augments they might face. Rotation probably is not the same thing as twitch since rotation is on cooldown timers. Twitch skills are more about movement and dodge/roll/blink/block and, probably, Weapon combos.
And I think this thread is really about having the freedom to avoid movements and actions from being cancelled - Stun. Obviously Stun prevents action for some duration.
That's why you build your character(s) to be resistant to Stuns if you don't like being Stunned.
People can "feel" all kinds of stuff. Doesn't make it true.
Again...I don't really understand anything you wrote here.
I don't agree that Stun is a twitch skill.
Stuns are fair to the defender.
Chained Stun Locks are not fair to the defender. I think the vast a majority of people here agree with that.
If you don't want to be Stunned, build your character to be highly Stun resistant. Ashes is an RPG.
No. Because the defender can have gear and Passive Skills and stats that put the RNG in their favor to resist Stuns. Just because the defender is hit with a Stun, does not mean the Stun will be effective.
That's not as simple as a coin flip.
You cannot reliably Stun a character that has been built to be highly Stun resistant. That is what the RNG is for.
It's an RPG. Don't expect an RPG to have optimal PvP.
I don't need to win emotions.
Every playstyle in Ashes will have less than optimal play conditions.
Especially since all playstyles are stuck on the same server.
Expect RPGs to have RNG. If you don't want RNG in your PvP, you should probably play some other genre.
You counter-play a Stun by building your character(s) to be resistant to Stuns.
And you hope that your allies have skills that can increase your Stun resistance and/or break you out of Stun.
Sometimes shit happens. That's also part of playing an RPG.
3 Crits in a row with a 5% chance is going to be exceedingly rare. That is unfortunate, but not unfair.
Doesn't matter how it's perceived. What matters is what it actually is.
People can qq about anything.
Ashes is an RPG that is PvX. And the PvP is focused on 8-person groups.
If you want to avoid Stuns, build your character to be highly Stun resistant. And group with others who can buff your Stun resistance.
And I'm not sure I have enough ability to convey rather complex topics in very easy to digest manner. But I'm trying.
That someone just wins by stats or by class when compared to winning by effort and expression of 'skill' in said build execution.
There is nothing a player who is either countered by a spec, having horizontal advantage or even more obviously countered by superior stats like due to level or better gear can do to win. So the most obvious solution is not to participate because the whole 'pvp' instance is there just to waste time of the player.
I wouldn't be so sure. I think there is plenty of room for RPGMMO's to improve. And PvP is one of the areas where genre needs to be re-imagined. Probably by looking for inspiration in other games which did.
In case of outcomes of who wins, yes. In case of expression skill is predictable enough to play around and try to out best your opponent. Good example would be chess. While there is a lot of freedom in player choice how to make moves, they still compete within confined space of what can be done. However for it to play out well, you need to avoid who blinks first mechanics. Like point and click stuns, to promote there and forth exchanges between players trying to best each other. Meaning, there should be always given enough time for a player to counter act the play of other player.
Except that we already have games where is tons of stuff to "memorize". And players seem to do fine. But yes, that requires a bit more of a ramp up. And makes meta more difficult to solve, which I personally see as a plus.
Rotations are linear execution which can be done by a bot. The only thing what determines how good you are at it is if you read up a guide someone else did what buttons to press in what order and when putting it in the muscle memory against a dummy or something.
Given that rotations are generally always the same, it continues to dilute the player expression of skill even more tilting more towards what level or gear the character has. Which when in turn game needs to compensate with some other mechanics. In most MMO raids are full of gimmicks to compensate. Or game tries to implement some kind of dynamic mechanics to get rid of via resource building abilities / resource expending abilities where expenditure is a choice between few abilities depending on current situation.
How people feel is what ultimately matters when it comes to games. And while people are different, they are more the same than they are different. Especially in regards to what is considered fair. There is tons of literature about game theory which was forged in tons of experiments in all sorts of fields, the easiest to start with is economic games. As well as we know multiple pvp games which tilted away from stupid disable mechanics for this very reason I try to argue.
That point and click instant ability which disabled a player for extend period of time is not fair as there is no way to counter play it. The offending side just decides that now I'll disable the player. Even if you give an ability to a player to counter stun, due to the fact how quickly it's applied there is no room to deploy a defense against it. One side needs to guess. Other side can choose.
It requires extreme effort and attentiveness on the defender while still having to roll on luck. While it demands no effort on behalf of the one who puts the stun on the player.
How is this fair? What the defending player can do to not being stun? So either you give build choices which makes stun almost irrelevant when why to even have the mechanic in the game waiting for newbies to get themselves into a trap. Or even if reduced a bit it still poses the same problem.
How about offender would need to build towards disables at expense of damage? The defender is already ad disadvantage with no way to avoid it. Why to put even more on it. Points spent at x are points not spent at y. So even if you go around saying spec into anti stun, the defender is to whom the system is unfair.
Yes. Because efforts the player put into the game should be focused based on RNG. People love this system in real times games. No, they don't. It's absolutely hated. Morrowind mod which removes dice rolls from hit chance is probably most popular ones for the game for exactly this reason. Competitive pvp games reducing crit chance to a mean is also a mechanic to address RNG which makes people frustrated.
RNG is awful mechanic for player versus player interaction as it removes player agency. Damn it's even awful for PvE if not done carefully or if not specifically built around it like DnD is, where on top of that game has DM who will often normalize the streaks to keep the game engaging.
RNG is like salt it's ok in small doses to spice things up. But quickly ruins everything when not closely moderated.
Exactly. I don't want to play on vacant servers where people quit due to frustration. Because in ashes PvE is gated by PvP competition. I also want PvP to be fun. Wow, a game which fun and feels meaningful to play. What a new ground breaking concept.
How about building a character to be able to apply stun at expense of something? How about stun thresholds just a compromising idea. Still crap band aid, but at least intention to move to the more fair design would be much appreciated.
When that rare moment happens it will be insanely frustrating. And that what the player will remember. Not the 50 times when it did not. Reduction to the mean is the typical solution of having the crit chance mechanic while also not having these crazy streaks. Unless you specifically want the game to be coin flipping, I'm not sure what's to argue against here.
This is a game. For a game to be sustainable the players participating have to agree on shared reality / confines of the game. The games which all people participate willingly, agree with the confines, have no enforcement cost, hence the sustainability of the game is better. And you can create co-operation through competition. Because agreeing of shared set of rules and playing according to them is co-operation.
I think you can find a lot on this by Jean Piaget and emergent play.
And this is important because you want people to play with. And those people to want to play with you. If pvp is less about engagement / sportsmanship / competition and more about pwnage Q_Q go cry me a river, when game won't last. Problem is that such stun mechanics, creates and feeds into that Q_Q feeling due to being unfair.
Yes people QQ about a lot of things. Sometimes it is personal immaturity of being a sore loser. Other times it's expression of frustration which is caused by faulty imbalanced game systems. Often expressed poorly and more towards the symptoms than the causes though. Hard to solve, easier to dismiss.
Pretty much all of the PvE content can be contested through PvP. So it's pvp centric.
PvP has no sporstmanship whatsover.
I'm not aware of stuns happening at the expensive of something, so why would that be part of the design?
When a boxer stuns their opponent, it's not at the expense of something. It's a combination of character prep, twitch skill and luck. As it will be in Ashes.
It's pve and pvp. But PvP contests PvE. Your access to pve can be limited by your ability to PvP. Not vice versa. PvP can screw your PvE. Ability to deny access to recources through player vs player competition is one of the core components of the game. So ultimately it's pvp centric. PvE exists to facilitate player vs player interaction.
It's quite sad that you think that way. But I'm not surprised. As expressed before, pvp in MMO is utter crap and been that way since forever. In Lithuania we have a saying "šuo ir kariamas pripranta" meaning "a dog gets used to getting hanged". I think that's a grotesque summation of MMO player base.
Yes. In boxing it's easier to defend vs a hit than perform a hit. Marely by body ergonomics. Performing a hit and placing your hand to defend against a hit is always easier and costs less effort and stamina. Generally, if offense and defense is balanced defensive play is superior to offensive play, as punishing mistakes is easier than forcing them.