Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
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.
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.
Comments
Many others and I have provided many strong arguments why they should be limited. Please read more than just the title lmao.
@Dygz Both blind and fear are better than Stuns yes. You can still move while blinded. It's absolutely no different than the silence/disarm example from my original post. Of course extremes are never good, but arguing from the extreme is never a good argument anyways. Minute long blinds are worse than 2 second stuns as @Aerlana said.
I agree fear is not really fun but it's still better than outright stuns since you run away from the attacker and usually exit fear after taking damage.
@Tyranthraxus Nobody here is arguing against CC. This post is against stuns. If anything, this is an argument for more and more varied CC.
@veyrah None of what you said can't be done through other CC options, which was the entire purpose of my post.
@CROW3 So lets add broken limbs and concussions and your character becoming paraplegic. Realism only goes so far towards good game design. Stuns are not good game design in pvp. If you don't understand why, read the original post.
As for me overgeneralizing stuns? No, I absolutely am not. My entire argument is that stuns remove all player agency, which is against the core principle of playing a game. I recognize it could be an extreme opinion, but it's also very true that any scenario you give me where a stun would be needed could be replaced by other viable CC's that don't take away player agency.
Stuns are absolutely never necessary. Necessary means there's no other option. There are plenty of other options.
Also, Tradition is never solely a good argument for something.
Tl;Dr: People not reading the original post, and thinking this is an argument against all CC, or people having the opinion that stuns are necessary for some reason.
An enemy doing a big attack that could wipe your group isn't even best countered by a Stun in this type of game (where the option is also available in PvP). The best counter design wise is an 'Addle' or something that drastically reduces the damage of the enemy's next attack, and you just put that on a 'CC cooldown' the same way you'd have had to do for the stun.
This way, bosses like the Poison Dragon and Ice Dragon still get to use their own CCs and utility abilities and poisons, without the group having to worry about insta-wipe due to high damage, yet PvP doesn't need a stun. The ability in question is even still useful in PvP if it applies to everything because you can use it to stop big spells and channeled abilities in the same way.
I won't say there's always better options, but 99% of the time there's better options.
Hell many MMOs just make big mobs immune to stuns b/c of how strong they are.
I think defiance bars have been the best alternative to boss CC immunity.
I've seen both Wildstar and GW2 use defiance bars and they reward good team effort and makes every CC viable in a boss fight.
Primary influences were Liechtenhauer, Talhoffer, Fiore and George Silver. I found they had the most usable content.
Great resource:
https://www.wiktenauer.com/
Worked on a tabletop RPG for a home brew campaign trying to draw on the themes and concepts of the old art. Modeled it out and even created some playing aids (custom playing cards depicting guards, tactics, targets, etc.). Was not a successful implementation because the players did not want to be overwhelmed with choices. Some are perfectly happy spamming the same action over and over, or having a couple of choices compared to what you could consider as 3D chess. But for a computer game or even an MMO RPG such choices can be provided more organically. Movement is already this way in games.
That system includes a couple of rock-paper-scissor choices. The speed of the attack (First-Counter-Last). The “feel” or strength of the attack (Strong-Medium-Weak).
Used starting and ending guards plus the option of each strike to determine the line. As for shape, that’s a deeper level I just don’t think you can get to in a relatively simple model. Both opponents used a 3x3 matrix for defense and attack locations (which could determine the line of attack and defense). So there are nine strikes, but realistically maybe six or seven because some combinations are less optimal. But they could be used to surprise the opponent, although you better be prepared to move for cover or else the surprise is on you. If an attack line crosses a defense line, then that attack is set aside or they come into a bind should each side choose to press. But essentially your attack line is also your defense line.
Each exchange starts with the presentation of a guard. The ending guard of the last exchange being the starting guard to the next. Players have the option to change guards based on where the next guard is located compared to the current guard. Each guard being a 3x3 matrix, or tick-tac-toe board, moving more than one square presents disadvantage. The player who won the previous exchange starts the current exchange with advantage. They can give up that advantage in exchange for a more elaborate change of guard or take that advantage into one of the contests.
Each guard had its own identification of where that guard was stronger or weaker in terms of attack or defense. So guards mattered.
As for skill, that would most likely increase or decrease the modifiers. Perhaps some skills (wrt Actions) would involve combinations and some of the more advanced techniques.
As for weapons, different weapon classes have their own set of guards, reach, advantages, limitations, etc. Shields and dual weapons became interesting, but also need greater consideration or else your opponent could use your own shield or weapon against you. Not as easy as one might think. More often than not these came into play in the bind. Example, for sword and shield, the shield tends to be the primary weapon to bind an opponent in order for the sword to do the dirty work. Weapons like daggers and rondels are more for the killing blow when you have them down on the ground and are on top of them. So let’s say for a Tank that a Mage has been harassing gets him to the ground and takes that damn wand and sticks it in the Mage’s…eye. Not sure we’ll be seeing that in AoC, but it would be pretty cool.
Where such combat gets tricky for a game is what exactly is Hybrid combat? Something like this probably doesn’t work for a pure tab targeting unless you break the character hit boxes into segments (9 mini hit boxes selected by clicking Shift-Tab). A bit easier for action combat because you can aim at different body locations. Strength of an attack can be achieved by how the key is pressed (quick for weak, normal for medium, longer for strong). Perhaps the same approach for speed could be used when pressing the left mouse button. And yeah, that’s still a lot to process between two different styles they plan to have in their hybrid system. Perhaps for the Tab targeting system it would use an algorithm to be the “3D chess player” with respect to combat. Click a button or two and the algorithm does the rest. For the tab targeting player it would just look like you have a wider variety of attack animations.
It all depends on how many additional years you want to wait on this game to release. Some major game developers spend a considerable amount of resources on this area and have little to nothing to show for it. So the choice might be 2023 release with stuns or maybe 2030 release with something else that might not work.
Changing the mechanics of spells is extremely simple, unless they are using spaghetti code, which I highly doubt. The biggest time sink would be balancing, and that's an iterative and necessary process no matter what game it is or if you use stuns or not. Balancing is also usually done by a separate balancing team.
Add the fact that they are balancing for team play and not 1v1's and balance suddenly becomes incredibly more lenient.
Depending on how a blind is implemented. In WoW a blind is a stun broken with damage. In Witcher 3, you can move but can't attack. In WoW fear is a stun (you have no control over your character). If your definition of a stun (and why they need to be cut) is that you lose complete control of your character than both Blind and Fears should be cut too.
Nice strawman. I wasn't arguing that realism is the way to go, only that stuns are present in actual combat which is why they are part of simulated combat. But if you want to go there, broken limbs and concussions have also been implemented in good game design. Look at Insurgency - they implemented both concussions and broken limbs as temporary effects and it works. Can that carry over to AoC, sure - but that gets to my point about approaching cc in a more specific way.
I understand your opinion, I just don't agree with you.
All stuns are all bad all the time. Got it. No over-generalizations at all.
Agreed, but if you're interested in disrupting convention understand that there is an inertia you need to overcome with a disproportionately convincing argument as an alternative. Unfortunately, your arguments continually just come back to 'I don't like being stunned.'
A larger human combatant will have a more than distinct advantage in melee with all other things considered.
Introduce monsters and dragons and that size and scale leads to an even greater mismatch. A dragon would wipe whole parties with just a swing of its tail. Not even getting to its thermonuclear warfare breath weapon. The only possible advantage might be they don’t fight like humans/humanoids or have a limited attention span or ability to handle multiple opponents.
You could argue that despite their size and power dragons tend to “turtle” into a more defensive position, making them less optimal than they are when they are out flying around hunting or strafing cattle (or villages). But then maybe that dragon was bullied as a dragonling and you can’t really expect them all to behave the same way. Plenty of room for personality to determine how a creature might fight or when and why they might do so. Makes it interesting.
If you could direct your fear, even minimally, that'd actually be million times better.
- It's not a strawman, it was a direct counterargument as to why realism isn't a good be-all-end-all argument for something in a video game. It would be a strawman if I was arguing why concussions and limb breaking shouldn't be in the game, which I wasn't lol.
I do agree realism has it's part to play in many games depending on the game, but the "stuns exist in real life therefore they should exist in game combat" is not a good argument against "stuns take away your ability to play the game".
- That's fair, but my original post counters every point you've made so far by itself.
- It's not an over-generalization if it's all true. Stuns remove all player agency. That's an absolute fact. It's the entire point of my argument. You have yet to provide any example of when a stun is necessary. Necessary meaning, "can't be done by anything else".
- You're right of course, which is why I stated this might be an unpopular or never considered opinion.
I don't see how "I don't like being stunned" is not a good argument for it.
Though it's definitely bad faith on your part because my entire argument is far more complex than that simple phrase. I've provided many examples of why my argument is a better alternative, and nobody has provided any examples of why stuns are better than any alternative.
If I were to play devil's advocate, the only argument for stuns is "they are simple". But I think that's a weak and lazy argument to make in game design.
Edit: I'm not sure what @RocketFarmer is arguing lol
This person is just here to argue, not have an interesting discussion.
I offered a pretty good compromise I think. Make stuns depend on pre-apploed status effects. If a mage stun requires a burning status effect to work, the receiving player can prepare for it by either pulling back into his party, casting some cc shield (if he has one) or preemptively buffing defense or healing.
Yeah but depending on your game, this is just 'what actually happens' and the players are given more tools, skills, or agency to avoid it.
To use another FFXI example, Spike Flail (only need to follow the link if you doubt my explanation).
It's literally 'if you pull hate from behind the dragon it immediately does an attack that will probably kill nearly everyone behind it'.
Or from the Monster Hunter side, 'thermonuclear warfare breath weapon' is so relatively common that you just get used to 'making sure it either doesn't do it, or that you are well out of range/hiding behind something when it does'.
So I wouldn't say that the 'only' possible advantage is that they don't fight like humans. It's that the players don't fight quite like humans either (in that we can do massive healing spells, resist 50% of fire damage, or just 'not die when a 40 ton Wyrm swings its claw at your head, due to incredible armor')
Yeah - good idea. This reminds me of the environmental factors that can help with cc in Divinity: OS. For instannce, if there is water under the mob, and I cast a lightning bolt it causes shocking dmg and stuns the mob. Cool if we could do that in an MMO.
The stuns currently in the Alpha One should be fine.
Yeah. Rogue's had blind as far back as I can remember (I don't remember if it was vanilla, but it definitely goes back to TBC). Based on your experience, totally understandable that you don't see this as a stun (and I don't think WOW is any kind of gold standard with cc, I just think it will be part of the convention you're challenging).
I hear what you're saying, and I think this is where it would help with a pretty specific table to begin detailing the attributes of each cc (e.g. cast time, duration, what breaks it, does it cause damage, mob can move?, etc etc)
That's easy. Stuns are necessary when I want to absolutely remove all of your agency to inflict my will upon you.
I'd go further - in any turn-based game it's called 'you lose a turn,' and it's meant to disproportionately advantage the other player. It's a pretty basic convention in board and card games. So, I'm guessing you would not want to play Uno with me.
Ok, I don't know where you got the "I'm just here to argue" bit from but that's pretty disingenuous.
You made the claim that stuns are necessary, but you don't explain why they are necessary.
I however, explained how they are not necessary.
I stand by what I said. I don't see how your compromise can't be solved through other CC options. Your idea is nice "compromise", but why is a compromise needed? Why do you believe stuns are an absolute necessity? I'm honestly looking for your answer here.
Combo effects are neat, I agree, but why can't the combo effect be burn -> root or burn -> silence. Why does it need to be burn -> stun?
Yeah, this works for me.
It also makes it easy for environmental factors to be significant in the game.
Using the example from above, if you are out in the rain, or fighting in a river, you could have the "soaked" status effect, which in turn could give lightning attacks a chance to stun, and be a prerequisite for some other forms of CC.
Its potentially the easiest way I have seen to make environment a real factor in an MMO.
You think it's not that bad and players should just deal with it, whereas I think it completely invalidates the concept of playing a game
What do you feel about the argument I made that if you want to completely remove player agency, you should have to use more than a 1-button-stun. As in, needing to use an ability that roots, along with an ability that disarms or silences. That is effectively a stun, but requires more thought than, "I'll just stun them".
I personally also think "You lose a turn stuff" in those games is lazy game design too.
In a pvp game you need hard cc. Roots never appealed to me, it seems unfair treatment of melee characters. Ranged characters can still retaliate whilst rooted as it is only movement restriction. Melees would be stuck away from the damage source unable to fight back. At least a stun levels the playing field.
I think it's a good idea, but doesn't necessarily have to be mutually exclusive to a '1-button stun.' This could greatly depend on how these two forms of cc could be calibrated and what their outcome would be. For instance, the 1-button stun could have a 1 min cd with a 1.5s effect. The environmental 'stacking' stun (e.g. lighting + water) could have a more complicated setup, but result in a longer stun say 4s. I'm being loose with the numbers here, but you get my point.
Thoughts?
What is your definition of "hard CC"?
Because mine is, roots are hard CC. Silence is hard CC. Disarm is hard CC.
Slows/chills/knockbacks/miss chance are examples of soft CC.
Does your melee-rooting logic also apply to silencing casters?
So your answer to melee being countered by a melee-specific counter ability is to make it to implement the ability to make it so that they can't do anything?
You realize even with stuns melee is going to get kited. The problem there isn't the root or stun, it's how mobile melee classes are.
Stun happens sometimes. So does a knockdown. Doesn't have to last forever.
I think mesmerize is.
It takes complete control away from you, and turns your character in to a pet for the caster for the duration.
Only seen it in one game though.
I guess an argument could be made in your favor here that the spell combo you described requiring 2 spells is no different than doing 2 non-stun CC spells, a root spell and a silence spell at the same time, which is effectively a stun. So I guess I'll have to concede that a multi-step stun system would be viable
oh yea lol, that's definitely a step even further, no agency as you watch your character kill your allies
Obviously i think roots are hard cc. Read my post again, i go on to say i dont like roots as hard cc compared to stuns. A rooted melee is like a stunned ranged character. Silenced mages can at least still move around.
We also have very little info on melee mobility as of now. We shall see about the specifics, but I stand by what I said from a general point of view.
Fair point. Mind control does suck. I think MC breaks in wow (my main reference point for MC) when you take dmg (this might be irrelevant when you're flung from a mountain). I imagine this varies significantly between games. With a stun, I can blow cds and lay into a target without them breaking cc.
What game has the mez you're referencing?
Sorry, it was ambiguous if you were wording it so that roots were hard cc or not. Fair enough lol.
I would argue melee classes should have more than just melee abilities to be able to deal with such things. Even if a game has stuns, it also most likely still has roots too, so how would you argue they deal with those roots?
I think the argument to be made in our discussion here is not "stuns should exist because roots do" and it's that "melee classes just need more utility/mobility". Even in the current alpha, tanks have the pull and a charge. That's good enough to deal with roots. Get rooted? Pull them to you.
Give melee's a ranged silence or disarm to allow more counterplay to the counterplay against them.
I am not against roots. My argument was basically, if you're going to allow roots, you should also allow stuns. They are basically the same thing to melee characters, save for the odd ranged spell some builds have.
And my argument is, they are the same only if you make them the same.
You easily fix that by giving melee characters rooted options, not by taking the nuclear approach of implementing stuns because of it.
Especially since roots usually still exist even after you implement stuns lol. Unless you are arguing for no roots and all stuns. Then that's where I begin to think your stance is extreme if that is your stance.