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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Where does hard CC, and CC in general fit in an 8 man team.
PenguinPaladin
Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
Ive been wondering on how you balance a team fight, where 8 people have the ability to CC. How do you prevent one or 2 targets from just being CC'd in place until death?
Im starting to wonder how much utility you can actually give each class. If every class has 4 or 5 CC type abilities, one person could CC lock another person potentially. Which would be rather frustrating. And so i imagine 8 people, CC locking someone would be even more so.
I think giving certain classes like tank and warrior skills where any ally withen a range gets hit with a CC the tank takes the effect of the CC and a portion of the damage.
And then give clerics and bards cleansing skills.
And maybe have rangers and rouges have abilities where things like roots dont work on them for a time.
Im starting to wonder how much utility you can actually give each class. If every class has 4 or 5 CC type abilities, one person could CC lock another person potentially. Which would be rather frustrating. And so i imagine 8 people, CC locking someone would be even more so.
I think giving certain classes like tank and warrior skills where any ally withen a range gets hit with a CC the tank takes the effect of the CC and a portion of the damage.
And then give clerics and bards cleansing skills.
And maybe have rangers and rouges have abilities where things like roots dont work on them for a time.
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Comments
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Crowd_control
You're assuming 8 people focusing 2 of your 8, that cant move wouldnt kill them in seconds and then have a 8v6?
Maybe bards could have an active song that clenses the next CC on an ally. Things to prevent the first interaction from being an immediate death
Ok, and while they kill 2 of yours in seconds, you kill 2 of theirs in seconds. Why would it be 8v6 and not 6v6? Are you assuming that one team of 8 has some advantage over the other team of 8?
Its an open world. There isnt going to be a count down timer to battle start. If the battles start with instant deaths its going to be very frustrating to do anything you need time to react.
Instant death? I thought the problem was CC lock? Now it sounds like a damage output issue? Either way, sounds like the team in your scenario effectively staged a surprise attack or was better coordinated & deserved to win 🤷 I fail to see the problem.
Alright, thats your opinion. If you dont want to be involved in a discussion about potential abilities that could reduce the harshness of CC's then your part of this discussion is over. Thanks.
Thanks for the input, diminishing returns is a pretty good all in one mechanic to help the issue
I'm pointing out that both teams have the same potential abilities. Team combat is about coordinating attacks, shielding & healing allies, determining target priority. If you want to CC lock a high threat target then go for it. The other team will have to react. I don't think CC in an 8 man team is anything to worry about because its an even playing field. I hope that clears up my position in the discussion.
You've got me there. But you are missing the point entirely, and it must be that i havnt made the point well.... i want classes to have utility. I want classes to be more than 15 different damage skills. I want classes to have a good amount of CC options.
I want to know ideas, for other skills that puts the balance of CC's into the players hands. I want enough ideas for how to curve CC's so my ranger can root, and stun, and sleep. And its on the players and team work to change the targets of those CC, or clense, or whatever.
Cleanse, Spell Shield, Heals/Shields, all standard operating procedure in MMOs.
You havent been pointing that out, you've been writing off the very thought of having a discussion.
And again, im not saying it is unfair to either side for the combat to be this way, i want ideas on more fulfilling combat.
I would like to see tanks with area protections and CC specific redirection. A tank buff skill where any CC's on allies around him are drawn to him.
I would like to see previntitive clensing. Id like to be able to cast a clense on a target, and then next CC on that target in the next 5 minutes is clensed. Because this is an open world pvp game where anyone can attack you, so being "ambushed" doesnt mean you didnt see anyone and were not prepared.
Id like classes to have some CC immunity skills that fix their flavor. Ranger activating wild step to be immune to roots. Mages activation a state making them immune to sleep.
Things that fit and make since and flesh out these "30" skills each class might have that isnt just, heal, bigger heal, group heal. Bigger group heal. Shield. Bigger shield.
I want more than "standard mmo" because ashes is aiming for being above the standard.
This is quite interesting both in terms of how much quantity of cc each class should have but also in suggesting that hard cc is kind of the norm and I would definetly argue against and even if there is an avenue to pick hard cc's and it becomes a meta there will be a counter strategy to it. Ofc you could be trying to highlight not every class but if two or more or the same classes with "weak damage dealer classes that have NICE cc's" were trying harding on voice to lock and unload with their dd friends.
People will quickly say diminshing returns but this is a pretty pretty extreme system inbedded counter measure, usually to games that don't want to over complicate things and you could say "fair one" as it increases player accessibilty. Ofc in a good trinity system mmo you have ally spells that can help you.
CC doesn't have to be "hard" to be one IE an effect which disables a player from action or movement until its end, which to generally satisfy the wielder's of these skills should last, probably at the very least 2 seconds. Movement speed decreasing, other stat weakning, silencing (but can still move + maybe some physical skills), sleep (get hit and you're awake immediately) and blinds are still examples of great cc's that still leave the victim still able to play/solve/escape.
Some classes are given their own personal cleansers, character stat increases improve resilience to being affected or can lessen the effect or its duration, a gear set bonus or an accessory can provide you a lot of cc protection vs something you're not particularly fond of when you understand the gameplay and what you would like to do in a team fight (some gear can have for example "when activitated, cleanse all magical based cc's). Then ofc consumbles or foods can add a further layer and all of this is up to the developers and balance team of what vision they have for PvP.
From my vast experience enjoying PvP games though, I would advise heavily against overloading characters with tons of cc capabilities though BUT in the interests of team play and set ups, classes could have a lot of cc capabilily but after certain conditions are met.
So an example would be "A rogue has 4 INACATIVE cc abilities like... after an enemy has enough bleed stacks, he can send out a deadly paralyze or after he evades a melee attack and has enough stamina he can throw blinding sand in the enemy direction".
This is the perspective of most players i woukd think, because having too much CC available is just very very frustrating. But at the same time, i think if every class has a few ways to clense themselves of what they found most anoying to their play style, and healers/buffers could full clense, give lasting cc protection, or preventative CC protection. And certain classes like tanks, could redirect the target of incoming CC's. I think class abilities could be more varied overall and more CC could become available to the players as well.
I also think the augment system of your secondary class, changing what CC's your skills give you immunity to is an option
Even so, I think CCs should not have too big role because it is simply anti-fun if you are locked a good amount of time. Warhammer Online's open world PvP can be considered being good in general, however, one of the issues were that players could lock others too frequently. If we think of WoW at the beginning, you could lock other players, take a piss, and come back to finish your target. The system in WoW is ofc evolved during years and I think it is today a good reference game to loan some ideas.
Diminishing return was already mentioned which is a great tool to prevent locking. I also think that cleanse abilities would be a good add as well. I would like to add that CCs cannot be just balanced 8v8 in mind because there should not be too much CC possibilities available in 1v1 situations either because open world PvP and ganking. Of course if all classes have a chance for counterplay the situation can be better.
Still, I would say that CCs should not have too much emphasis and would rather need well timed actions and good coordination if used in group play for CC combos. Simply because even CC gameplay can be considered as fun if you are the one controlling others, however, it can easily create unwanted balance problems and less fun combat in general.
Anyway, that does not mean there should not be well designed CC skills. I would like to see class specific CCs which makes sense also from weapon and/or class fantasy point of view. For example, tank needs to play deep in the front line to support his/her team members, perhaps pulling enemies towards or causing short stuns with shield bash, for example.
Just breaking this down - there are two sides: the target and the caster.
The target has a few categorical reactions to cc: avoidance, resistance, survivability, and escape.
The caster has a few delivery mechanisms: direct single target, passive single target, active AOE, and passive AOE
Likewise the target also has an active or passive variation to the 4 categories above
We can assume DR (+timers), ability CDs, and properties like range to be taken into account.
So it could be interesting to walk through each potential combination to see where some unique cc / anti-cc abilities can be found. For example, an aura surrounding a bard that dampens cc effectiveness by 30%, a mage statis bolt that chains between three players requiring them to stay close together or suffer some dire consequence, or a repulsion shot that knocks back any players within a 10' radius.
We can probably come up with at least 50 abilities / spells fairly quickly that would be a fresh take on standard mmo cc tactics.
Exactly, and some good thoughts. And what time would be worth discussing ideas than while they are finalizing (a testable) combat system, just before they go to work ironing out skills for classes
I think they also want to make hard cc's like stuns skillshots so that they aren't as consistent to pull off.
Not sure if cleanse abilities will be specific i.e. remove root/slow, or just a remove-all button, but yeah that's as much as I know about it.
Physical Disable Modifier(Constitution)
Physical Disable Defense(Power)
Magical Disable Chance(Will)
Magical Disable Defense(Mentality)
Which will directly influence how the classes CCs will play out as we already know your primary archetype will influence your base stats, considering Ashes relatively long TTK, CC diminishing returns, CC having chance to fail and a status you can focus on to increase your chance to resist or reduce its duration(we still don't know how those CC defences will work), i don't expect CC locks to be a thing.
Aren't we all sinners?