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
― Plato
My understanding of veyrah's complaint is that if the FOTM PvP stat is crit, everyone has to have anti-crit gear, so, a person who might want some other type of gear is "forced" to get impen gear.
veyrah says it's boring to have to only get the gear that will counter the FOTM PvP stat when we have so many other stats we could have on our gear.
Reductio ad absurdum arguments don't serve you well. They aren't at all convincing and, again, in this discussion is moot.
Dreoh says that Stun is boring, so the game should not have Stuns. Dreoh also says that Blind and Fear are OK because they do not completely take away player agency.
So, I don't understand how burst damage is relevant to either of those complaints. And I don't understand how stacked crit being unreliable is relevant.
Well, you are the one who keeps bringing up PvP specialized gear.
My expectation is that people will be wearing PvX gear. Especially if, at Launch, Sieges also include mobs like the Dragons we have in the Alpha One Sieges.
I think people will have Siege gear, but that Siege gear will still be PvX gear.
And Farming gear will still be PvX gear - especially if you hate Stuns because Stuns are boring or because you want to avoid Crits... especially since mobs can have Stuns and Crits as well as player characters.
With Raids people will be concerned about encountering rival raids or groups - especially as they travel back home, so, I expect PvX gear there as well.
We have no way to accurately predict the percentage of random PvP we might encounter during any game session, so, for those people who hate Stun or who are concerned about Crits used in PvP, it would behoove them to always wear gear that mitigate those stats. It doesn't mean that has to be the only stat on their gear and it's unlikely that those would be the only stats on their gear.
same with stuns in pve - if you have a raid boss that does unavoidable stun on the whole raid then either he has to keep the raid in stun for an absurd amount of time or the stun is absurdly long so healers need to have that stat to keep tank alive and neither is liked by players and such encounter would be universally hated[/quote]
That is what you would want.
It seems to assume that the only encounter is going to be against a boss and that there will be no encounters with a rival group or raid that is larger than our own.
With regard to Stun, the length of Stun does not seem to be a factor when it comes to being boring.
I don't find Stun to be boring, but the complaint appears to be that Stun should not happen.
Similar to how PvErs thing that being attacked by other players should not happen.
And one way to mitigate that, if Stuns are in the game, is to wear gear that mitigates Stuns. Because there will be times that the Tank is to preoccupied to protect the concerned player(s) from Stun.
More than one way to skin a cat.
1% more Crit might have more value for you. Might not have more value for someone who hates Stun.
You can get more Crit with passives. Bards could increase your Crit. A wide variety of ways to increase Crit.
And absolute max Crit shouldn't be unnecessary.
In fighting games, the people that are taking advantage of those CC systems aren't leaving the game. If they were, no one would be playing them.
The problem with those games is the steep learning curve to getting in, the amount of time you need to play the game before it becomes fun. In an MMO, the obvious thing would be that this translates to people that are not making use of broken CC would be leaving the game.
However, my point is that this isn't true, as people have more reasons to play an MMO like Ashes than just PvP - and to the people that would be most affected by broken CC (ie, not the people that are set up to take advantage of it) are the people that are the least interested in PvP.
In a fighting game, everyone has the same goal. If that goal is blocked by a broken mechanic, those that don't think they can achieve it will leave.
In an MMO, people have many different goals. This one fact means that the comparison stops working as soon as you leave combat.
It's demonstrably true after all, people continue to play and join BDO, and despite all their constant complaints about PvP balance, the horse training part of the game is decent, so PvP can be left unbalanced (and by the opinions of the loud minority that I occasionally check on, has been unbalanced and unfun for going on two years now).
It helps that PvP is much shorter in BDO too since CC->death even in 1v1 is 10 seconds max, these days, cutting down on that game time ratio.
The stance is a common one in game design, so whether or not I personally like it, I can't say it isn't successful or profitable. I'll take my crusade elsewhere. I wish Dreoh luck.
You are literally conflicting their design goals with the reality of how rpgs are played
This is literally putting words in my mouth - I never said that there will be no possibility of pvp happening, but that statistically it is not worth to paranoidly assume that you are going to be ganked at any time.
Thing is that what I see likely to happen is that there will be blacklists being created for guilds and thus you will get a lot of discord spying going on to figure out if someone wants to gank a raid or scout if your raid is being ganked on
thing is that you are talking about gearing to loose - if you gear what towards what you like instead of what works you are then deliberately diminishing your chances of doing something successfully
― Plato
Especially in an MMORPG that allows players to craft gear with the stats they prefer.
Players determine what they consider BiS gear to be.
In an MMORPG where players can put the stats they prefer on their gear, they won't be as locked into FOTM, cookie-cutter BiS gear as in games where the players have to rely solely on the gear the devs provide.
No.
The PvX gear I refer to is crafting the gear you want with the stats you want. And choosing the situations in which you wish to wear that gear.
In Ashes, we get to choose which stats are on our gear and in which scenarios we wear that gear.
I don't know what that is supposed to mean but...
I am reconciling how gear will be crafted by players with the design of an open world, PvX MMORPG that includes Corruption.
If you want to try to support your vision with specific examples from other RPGS with those criteria, feel free.
It's not paranoid to always be prepared to be jumped by rivals in an open world, PvX MMORPG.
Statics don't stop attacks from happening.
A blacklist does will not stop rival guilds from attacking.
No. Gearing for what one likes and gearing for what is successful are not mutually exclusive.
Again, more than one way to skin a cat. Because we don't have to do everything just with gear.
Ashes is more versatile than that.
Agree to disagree. I like stuns. I also like polymorphs, cages, roots, silence, dizzy, pinned, etc.
Ok.
Why do you like stuns?
Do you like stunning, or do you like being stunned?
I very highly doubt you like getting stunned, and as I said in the beginning of the original post, any enjoyment you might get from stunning someone is vastly insignificant compared to the frustration of being stunned.
From my point of view (and it is merely my point of view, I know my opinion here is considered extreme by some), after reading all the arguments for stuns in this thread, the impression I get is just that people don't like change or think it's more trouble than it's worth to split up stuns into it's parts (which has some credence to it, though I think if fully locking down a character requires more effort, doing so is/should be more rewarding and engaging).
You posted twice in this thread that you like stuns in a very "grandstanding" fashion, but haven't explained why. I get the feeling you just read the title and ignored the entire argument of the thread and any good points made against stuns.
Edit: This isn't a thread against CC's or locking down players. It's a thread about making locking down players require effort and counterplay, and thus more fulfilling and engaging for all involved.
Stuns will be in the game regardless.
If this changes... if the arguments made by Dreoh are convincing enough that they say 'ok, this is heavily supported, so no stuns', will you accept it?
While highly unlikely, I would definitely start my own thread arguing the opposite. But I know the devs know what they're doing and they will put stuns in, so I see no reason to do so yet.
As I've said before in this thread, I will still play the game if it has stuns. I fully expect the game to have stuns.
This is just a thread about improving the quality of the game by not defaulting to stuns as a crowd control, and instead being more creative with ability design. It is a thread discussing why stuns are lazy game design and why there are better viable options.
It would be nice if some of the developers read through this thread and maybe questioned more if "X ability should really have a stun, or maybe we should add more diverse CC mechanics across abilities".
It's also just a neat game design philosophy debate.
Also, why not constantly strive for better game design? Why be content with what you have if there's improvements that could be made? That's not to say you can't accept the choices of a game developer. I'm just saying as a game designer to always try to make a game better.
I still can't fathom any scenario where a stun is completely necessary vs. other options. Nobody in this thread has given any examples of such.
There was only the "melee being rooted" example, but that's easily discounted by "melee should have options against ranged enemies by default, including defensive options and mobility options". I mean, that rooted argument is no different than a "Melee is at disadvantage from ranged classes that are standing on a hill out of reach". Are you going to argue that there should be no hills, or are you going to argue that melee should be able to deal with ranged classes better?
The only argument is that it completely removes a player’s agency to do something for x period of time. Which is exactly a stun’s function (and personally why I like them) and why they’re part of the cc toolkit. Most of your and Dreoh’s assertions for other forms of cc are totally valid, except for the assertion that they are somehow mutually exclusive replacements for stuns.
So what it comes down to is a fundamental opinion that you do not like being stunned, speciously extrapolated toward some sort of pseudo-fact that ‘this is bad game design.’ Not a fact, still just opinion.
If that’s unacceptable then don’t accept it and move on, but no amount of mental gymnastics is going to transmute your opinions into an factual argument.
It's a nitpicky and extreme stance I know, which is why I'm also not expecting any actual change to come from this, but I still think it's a good thing to consider when talking about CC's in general.
I'm unsure what your point is here, were you actually addressing the quoted text question? Is the question itself the 'mental gymnastics' you refer to?
Dying makes players lose agency. Remove dying from the game.
Yes, because it assumes Dreoh's opinion is an argument. It's not, it's an opinion. Which is exactly what he responded above.
Lol!
Funny enough you aren't the first person to use this line of reasoning against me. I've had this debate with other people before.
If we want to get in to the difference here I will though.
For the same reason why watching a cutscene isn't the same as being stunned, the death state isn't the same as being stunned.
When you are stunned you are still actively in the battle, but you are not physically allowed to partake in the battle.
When you are dead you are not actively in the battle, thus it is clear to the player that they have no agency in the battle.
Though I do agree that long death timers are bad game design too (generally speaking).
There are many scenarios in which death timers make sense and have no alternative (like Counterstike having 1 life per round, or capture the flag game types), unlike stuns which do have valid alternatives in every scenario I have ever considered.
There is a distinct difference between getting stunned and getting killed. There is nuance to it, though you may disagree, which is fine as long as you try to consider the points I'm making.
I considered it on page 1. I'm getting tired of your supposed reasoning. To me it doesn't make sense. Your opinion seems somewhat relatable but it really isn't nearly as bad as you describe it, and not nearly enough to be valid argument against such a staple of a cc skill.
I also still don't get why it is much worse than a sleep. It takes away agency. Usually the tradeoff between stun vs sleep is duration vs wake on damage. Seems fine to me.
My reasoning is sound and hasn't changed. I've been very clear about my reasoning from page 1. I've also said that stuns aren't the worst thing in the world, and I will play AoC even if it does have stuns. I just think it's the laziest and most unimaginative way to create CC.
I do think the arguments I've made are very valid against simple stuns.
Sleep is far better because while you lose agency, you get it back as soon as you start getting punished.
If you want to get into the extreme nuance. Stuns and losing agency does suck by itself, but the exact reason why it is bad is because being punished for not being able to act is completely insane to me.
To put it in other words, losing control of your character sucks, and if you get stunned for 5 seconds (or 2 seconds or whatever, doesn't matter) but nothing happens to you it's, "well that sucked a lot but alright".
If you get stunned for 5 seconds, and then someone starts attacking you with things you'd normally be able to react to, that's completely atrocious.
Sleep is like a halfway point between the two of those. Being sleeped also sucks, but the fact that you only get one instance of punishment and then you can react makes it infinitely better than stacking punishments while you can't react.
Edit: I will also reiterate that things being "staples/tradition" isn't a good argument in itself for it's validity.
Thus, any argument against stuns seems to me to also be applicable to an argument against players being able to kill each others characters.
Like you, I am all for stuns if done well. I am also all for players having ways they can build their character (stats, gear, builds etc) to minimize their impact.
I know 0 games with 5 second stuns, sounds excessive. You're exaggerating for the purpose of making your argument sound more plausible. And yes a 2vs 5 sec stun is a huge difference.
Also your prime argument applies to all cc.
A staple is an argument if the statistics show that. All games with good pvp in my opinion have had stuns. Name some games you thougt had good PvP please.
That way, yes the player isn't "playing the game" but they also can't just take free damage unless it is a specific kind. This encourages strategic play and teamwork on the group doing the stun.
I've seen it work with a threshold, like stun ends after receiving x damage.
Funny, I edited in the 2 second thing because I knew you would use that disingenuous take lmao.
Also, there's plenty of long stun abilities in games, in fact here's one off the top of my head
Can you explain how my prime argument applies to all CC? And what is this prime argument you're referring to?
And no, that's a false equivalency. Games can be good with stuns or without. My entire argument is any game is better with more thought out CC mechanics, not that a game with stuns is a bad game. Don't twist my argument.
In fact, it's literally a well known logical fallacy called the "Appeal to tradition".
I just went into the nuance of the difference between death state and stun state like 3 comments above yours
Would you not agree that the better version of strategic play and teamwork is the team working together to apply a root/slow/gravitywell and a silence and/or disarm (depending on if they're a caster or weapon user), or whatever other kinds of CC may be relevant to shut them down?
Wouldn't that be more engaging than "Xan cast stun for 3 seconds on him so now everyone dogpile until he breaks free from duration or damage"
Don't you think many decisions in AoC are based off tradition? Why the holy trinity of roles? Why the typical races? It is all to appeal to a certain kind of player. Stuns is part of that.
Where did you get "I did not mean it" out of that lol.
The duration of the stun doesn't matter, but I knew you or others would be pedantic about the duration of it being too "unrealistic". It really is a pedantic argument to make.
Sure, tradition is useful when you are playing it safe, I never said tradition wasn't useful.
But developing an alternative to the Holy Trinity is far more complicated than splitting stuns up into it's parts.
Nearly every MMO combat system already has the "parts" implemented. All you'd have to do is implement them a little more where the stuns might be "normally".
Stuns have nothing to do with races, I don't know why you're grouping those together in a "certain kind of player" grouping.