Try to limit the amount of braindead and anti-fun CC that is stuns. There are better alternatives.

As the title says, stuns are a net negative in PvP. Whatever enjoyment someone can get from stunning a player is minute compared to the frustration stunned players feel at loss of agency.

Any reason for adding a stun can be countered via an alternate form of CC that doesn't completely remove player agency.

You want to give an ability a stun to stop people from kiting and running around? Use snares/roots/slows instead.
The players movement is impeded but they can still act/react and keep their agency, even if limited.

You want to give an ability a stun to stop interrupt a spell cast or stop a player from casting spells or using abilities? Implement silences/disarms/etc.
The players actions are impeded but they can still act/react by moving.

Not relying on the uninspired all-encompassing "stun" state only adds more depth to combat, meaning you have to use the right CC for the right scenario.

Stuns are just a lazy way to balance combat in my opinion, and completely invalidate the entire concept upon which playing games is built upon, which is playing games. You're not playing the game when you don't have control of your character, you're just watching your character get his shit kicked in for 5 seconds with zero agency.

You might be thinking, "Well what if both scenarios go off at the same time, isn't that effectively a stun?"
Sure, but that would (ideally) require at least two abilities. More if you delegate different effects to multiple abilities. For a full lockdown of a character, make it require a silence spell, a disarm, and a root, and whatever other creative idea you may come up with. Don't fall back on the 1-click-stop-playing effect.

This might be an unpopular opinion, but I fully believe stuns are the easy way out of game balancing. (In PvP. Stunning non-players is fine, because no one loses agency)
Sure some people will probably think I just hate being stunned... and yes, that's exactly my point. Getting stunned isn't fun at all, and I believe games without stuns or at least minimal stuns are all the better for it.

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Vhaeyne

Noaani wrote: »

Vhaeyne wrote: »

To simplify my point. If I rush to cap in two to three weeks. Then spend the next six months doing nothing but caravans and sieges. A huge portion of my gameplay experience is going to be PvP. I don't think this play style is out of the question for many people. In fact, I think many people are going to play like this.

A caravan in itself likely represents a dozen hours of harvesting, and it is highly likely that half or more caravan trips won't even be attacked.

The preparation time for a siege is likely to be massive - months if you are talking about a metropolis. Even while in a siege, you aren't going to be directly engaged with other players for goof portions of it.

Since we are talking about how not being effective in PvP when someone keeps you CC'd will or will not see people leave the game, it is just that portion of the game where you are literally engaged with other players that we are really talking about here - not the time spent in activities where engaging others in PvP is likely to occur.

Someone can literally spend their entire life attacking caravans. That would be a player who spends all of their time on PvP.

The player who does that is going to be very concerned about how CC works, since PvP is likely to occur all day for that player (Not a small part of their playtime). Bad CC balance would be extra annoying for someone who fights all day because they are getting put in time out constantly for just trying to play the game. I think it would make people quite Ashes.

Noaani

Vhaeyne wrote: »

Someone can literally spend their entire life attacking caravans.

They can, but even in this unlikely edge case, they would still need to spend time between them actually looking for them. Such a person is still unlikely to spend more than 10% of their in game time in actual combat with other players.

As I did say in my original post on this point though, people that are specifically all about that PvP life (as this person would be) are the people that would be putting that CC to use, rather than having it used on them.

Vhaeyne

Noaani wrote: »

Vhaeyne wrote: »

Someone can literally spend their entire life attacking caravans.

They can, but even in this unlikely edge case, they would still need to spend time between them actually looking for them. Such a person is still unlikely to spend more than 10% of their in game time in actual combat with other players.

As I did say in my original post on this point though, people that are specifically all about that PvP life (as this person would be) are the people that would be putting that CC to use, rather than having it used on them.

They are still going to have to deal with getting CCed. If the CCs are bullshit like Op fears. The game will suck.

Noaani

Vhaeyne wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Vhaeyne wrote: »

Someone can literally spend their entire life attacking caravans.

They can, but even in this unlikely edge case, they would still need to spend time between them actually looking for them. Such a person is still unlikely to spend more than 10% of their in game time in actual combat with other players.

As I did say in my original post on this point though, people that are specifically all about that PvP life (as this person would be) are the people that would be putting that CC to use, rather than having it used on them.

They are still going to have to deal with getting CCed. If the CCs are bullshit like Op fears. The game will suck.

PvP combat will suck.

Noaani

Vhaeyne wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Vhaeyne wrote: »

Someone can literally spend their entire life attacking caravans.

They can, but even in this unlikely edge case, they would still need to spend time between them actually looking for them. Such a person is still unlikely to spend more than 10% of their in game time in actual combat with other players.

As I did say in my original post on this point though, people that are specifically all about that PvP life (as this person would be) are the people that would be putting that CC to use, rather than having it used on them.

They are still going to have to deal with getting CCed. If the CCs are bullshit like Op fears. The game will suck.

PvP combat will suck.

Vhaeyne

Noaani wrote: »

PvP combat will suck.

I guess we can all just stop caring about what happens when a player gets CCed then.

Noaani

Vhaeyne wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

PvP combat will suck.

I guess we can all just stop caring about what happens when a player gets CCed then.

Not at all, I never said or suggested that. If I did think that, I wouldn't have even posted the CC list I did to try and get conversation heading more towards what a good CC scheme in a game could look like, let alone make it somewhat balanced, completely cutr out the possibility of being stun locked, and also suggest that players should be able to make choices to decrease how often they can be CC'd even more.

My point in this small discussion was that you can look at things in fighting games and TCG games and compare them to MMO's to an extent, but only to an extent.

In a fighting game the entire game is the fight. If you are constantly CC'd while fighting, you are obviously not going to stay in the game. The same concept holds true in TCG's.

This doesn't hold true in MMO's though, because fighting is not the whole game. PvP in Ashes is a means to an end for most players, not the end itself. In fighting games and TCG's, it is the means and the end.

The shorter version is that you can compare fighting games and TCG's to aspects of combat in an MMO, but nothing more - including player motivation.

Tragnar

Dygz wrote: »

Tragnar wrote: »

like i dont what is hard for you to understand on the fact that some stats are clearly better in pvp than in pve? so hence if you focus on stats that are better in pvp then that gear set is your pvp gear and the same applies for pve - especially since the allocation of stats on crafted gear is in some way controlled by the crafter himself so you don't get to situations where for example raiding gear that is optimized for pve stats is so busted that it is also the best pvp gear.

I love Crit, so I focus on Crit regardless of whether I'm wearing PvE gear or PvP gear.
I almost exclusively play objective-based PvP...and I focus on the objectives; not the PvP... so I don't really care about the differences in stats on PvP gear. So, no, I don't think about which stats are better for PvP or which are better for PvE. That is irrelevant to me.
But, this thread topic is about Stun being boring.
You were on a tangent and I missed the tangent.

There are definitely several strategies that can emerge from what classes can actually do, but the most widespread one is to focus on burst damage that is usually applied during cc when the victim cant use defensive abilities. Stacking crit can work for that, but is pretty unreliable since you can't demand crits when you want them - not to even say that if you stack only crit then you can get to situation when you crit often, but it barely does more damage than noncrit of people that didnt stack it - it just all comes down to stat tuning and how classes work

Though, still, because Ashes is a PvX game, if I was concerned about PvPers spamming Crits, my PvX gear would have stats that mitigate Crits. Because even when I'm focusing on PvE, I might get ganked by PvPers.
In veyrah's example, that should be sufficient since they seem to be concerned with just one stat, and we will likely be able to have Artisans put several stats on our gear.

Yes that can happen, however it all comes down to the likeliness of that happening - if you are ganked less than 5% of the time then i doubt many people would be focusing on having pvp specialised gear for farming - because it is very likely that you tradeoff better pvp odds for slower farming

Tragnar wrote: »

Like I can definitely see a scenario when a raid is gearing absurdly high amount of defensives so they can survive another raid ambushing them when trying to kill a world boss, but at the same time i can see a situation where they gear pure glass cannon so they can oneshot the world boss in 30 seconds and get out

Um. Seems like a stat to mitigate Crits would be something you'd want in that raid as well as in PvP.
A raid with a World Boss seems likely to include Stuns and Crits.

if you are a tank then for sure you'd want to have stat that mitigates crits, but if you a dps then you want to have enough defensives only to not get oneshot by a crit from an ability that you cannot avoid

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

because even 1% more crit for dps has more value than having 20% stun duration reduction especially for classes that have pooling resources or long casts

Vhaeyne

Noaani wrote: »

Vhaeyne wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

PvP combat will suck.

I guess we can all just stop caring about what happens when a player gets CCed then.

Not at all, I never said or suggested that. If I did think that, I wouldn't have even posted the CC list I did to try and get conversation heading more towards what a good CC scheme in a game could look like, let alone make it somewhat balanced, completely cutr out the possibility of being stun locked, and also suggest that players should be able to make choices to decrease how often they can be CC'd even more.

My point in this small discussion was that you can look at things in fighting games and TCG games and compare them to MMO's to an extent, but only to an extent.

In a fighting game the entire game is the fight. If you are constantly CC'd while fighting, you are obviously not going to stay in the game. The same concept holds true in TCG's.

This doesn't hold true in MMO's though, because fighting is not the whole game. PvP in Ashes is a means to an end for most players, not the end itself. In fighting games and TCG's, it is the means and the end.

The shorter version is that you can compare fighting games and TCG's to aspects of combat in an MMO, but nothing more - including player motivation.

I think your point holds true here too.

Just because you think PvP is a smaller piece of the pie in Ashes than a fighting game does not mean people are going to put up with it.

The PvPers were the first to go in Wildstar too.

Aerlana

i think that most of the global timeplay will be more on PvE side than pvP side.

But the PvP will always be a permanent "possibility" (due to the fact anyone could decide attack you at anytime for any reason)

This is how the game will be, at least how i see it. I intend to do many RP time, but even i nthose, will be "PvP risk"

Tragnar

even though i dont personally value open world pvp for myself the truth is that when it doesnt have any rewards tied to it just becomes a griefing tool to make someone happy that they can control someone elses life for few minutes

Dygz

Tragnar wrote: »

There are definitely several strategies that can emerge from what classes can actually do, but the most widespread one is to focus on burst damage that is usually applied during cc when the victim cant use defensive abilities. Stacking crit can work for that, but is pretty unreliable since you can't demand crits when you want them - not to even say that if you stack only crit then you can get to situation when you crit often, but it barely does more damage than noncrit of people that didnt stack it - it just all comes down to stat tuning and how classes work

This, again, seems to be a tangent to me.
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.

If you are ganked less than 5% of the time then i doubt many people would be focusing on having pvp specialised gear for farming - because it is very likely that you tradeoff better pvp odds for slower farming

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.

Tragnar wrote: »

if you are a tank then for sure you'd want to have stat that mitigates crits, but if you a dps then you want to have enough defensives only to not get oneshot by a crit from an ability that you cannot avoid

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.

Tragnar wrote: »

even 1% more crit for dps has more value than having 20% stun duration reduction especially for classes that have pooling resources or long casts

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.

Noaani

Vhaeyne wrote: »

I think your point holds true here too.

Just because you think PvP is a smaller piece of the pie in Ashes than a fighting game does not mean people are going to put up with it.

The PvPers were the first to go in Wildstar too.

PvP'ers are the first to go in every game.

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.

Azherae

Mm, sure ok.

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.

Tragnar

Dygz wrote: »

veyrah says it's boring to have to only get the gear that will counter the FOTM PvP stat when we have some many other stats we could have on our gear.

it literally comes down to how the stat system is setup and to what stat is going to be the most abundant and such can give you the biggest advantage - like gearing has always been only about understanding how statistics work and how you can get the most value off of a certain setup - there hasn't been a game yet where you can't get a bis list into a certain scenario/situation - and ashes is not going to be different in this regard

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.

This "PvX" gear you are referring to is simply just leveling gear like in any other mmo - because you are hoarding most stats while when you reach the level cap and start to focus/specialize in certain game areas you create specialized equipment for it as well

You are literally conflicting their design goals with the reality of how rpgs are played

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.

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

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.

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

Dygz

Tragnar wrote: »

it literally comes down to how the stat system is setup and to what stat is going to be the most abundant and such can give you the biggest advantage - like gearing has always been only about understanding how statistics work and how you can get the most value off of a certain setup - there hasn't been a game yet where you can't get a bis list into a certain scenario/situation - and ashes is not going to be different in this regard.

It comes down to how the stat system is setup and how individuals choose to place stats on their gear.
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.

Tragnar wrote: »

This "PvX" gear you are referring to is simply just leveling gear like in any other mmo - because you are hoarding most stats while when you reach the level cap and start to focus/specialize in certain game areas you create specialized equipment for it as well.

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.

Tragnar wrote: »

You are literally conflicting their design goals with the reality of how rpgs are played.

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.

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.

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.

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.

A blacklist does will not stop rival guilds from attacking.

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

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.

Cypher

Agree with Dreoh. Stuns are bad gameplay.

Menda Goodbody

Maezriel wrote: »

Menda Goodbody wrote: »

I'm pro stun. I'm pro any combat moves in pvp. Why limit us?

B/c stuns are very boring for those who are stunned. IMO combat shouldn't encourage someone to just twiddle their thumbs and wait

Agree to disagree. I like stuns. I also like polymorphs, cages, roots, silence, dizzy, pinned, etc.

Dreoh

Menda Goodbody wrote: »

Maezriel wrote: »

Menda Goodbody wrote: »

I'm pro stun. I'm pro any combat moves in pvp. Why limit us?

B/c stuns are very boring for those who are stunned. IMO combat shouldn't encourage someone to just twiddle their thumbs and wait

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.

Veyrah

Dreoh looks to make this into a religion.
Stuns will be in the game regardless.

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