How to Solve The Issues of Crowd Control, Kiting, and Healing in MMOs

Hello Verrans!

In this thread, I am going to be discussing the issues of crowd control, kiting, and healing in MMOs. Then, I will talk about the most successful, currently implemented solution to these issues that I've seen.
________

To preface, I have PvP’d at a high level in many MMOs over the years. As many of you may have noticed, they all take varying approaches to crowd control, kiting, and healing.

For example, with CCs:

An MMO may use diminishing returns on CC durations. This results in a reduction on the duration of their effects when the same or similar ones are used on a player.
- The problem with this is that it makes the impact of individual players lower in larger settings.
- Player A lands a stun on a target. Player B who is not in voice with Player A also uses their own stun on the target. Player B's stun doesn’t have an effect because of diminishing returns. This feels bad for Player B.
An MMO may implement a trinket system. Usually, the trinket is an activated effect on a long cooldown. When activated, the player will break themselves out of the effects of any CC. Some trinkets may give a brief period of invincibility to CCs for a second or two after activation.
- The problem with this is the long cooldown.
- When facing multiple players who may all have their own sources of crowd control, only having access to a single way to break out of CCs results isn’t enough. Losing control of your character simply because the game does not give you enough options to take also feels bad.

For kiting:

Many MMOs have issues with the balance of ranged and melee combat.
- In some, ranged may feel too strong with melee being unable to close the distance effectively without dying.
- In others, melee characters are impossible to escape from and can run ranged characters down with little issue.

For healing:

Many MMOs have issues with healers being too strong.
- When this is the case, healers sustaining themselves can often result in them being unkillable even in 1vX situations.

________

Now let’s talk about the solutions.

There is one MMO that has implemented a successful solution to all of these. The PvP is skill-based, equalized, and animation-heavy. The combat shown in the Ashes demos seems to take a very similar approach. So, I think their solution would also work well here.

To give context:

The skill bar on Guild Wars 2 is split into two sections: weapon skills and utilities. Together, they make up a minimum of 10 abilities you can activate at any given time. The weapon swap mechanic brings most classes up to 15 skills. While class mechanics or utilities can increase this even further (up to 35 skills).
Weapon skills are a mix of attacks, mobility, and defensive skills tied to your specific weapon.
Utilities include 1 healing skill slot for each class, 3 open slots where class-specific skills can be taken, and 1 elite skill slot for each class.

________

Using this, Guild Wars 2 solves the issues with CCs in two ways.

First, there are stunbreak utilities with cooldown of around 24-48 seconds on average. Each player can slot up to 3 (sometimes 4) stunbreaks in their build if they choose. Many of these have additional effects as well to add flavor and make combat more interesting. For example:
- One stunbreak may have an evade.
- Another may provide an attack speed and damage buff for several seconds.
Second, there is a duration based-buff called “Stability” which negates the effects of incoming CCs. Some stunbreaks may also give stability to the player, or the player and their allies.

As a result, Guild Wars 2 gives MULTIPLE options that players can slot to deal with crowd control. When combined with 2 active dodges on 10 second cooldowns, defensive weapon skills, spacing, and multiple stunbreaks or sources of stability, good players can manage CCs coming from multiple enemies.

In other words, if you’re good at PvPing, you can 1vX consistently without getting locked down.
________

To deal with the balance of ranged and melee combat, Guild Wars 2 implemented multiple sources of direction and targeted dashes, teleports, and movement speed modifiers to speed up yourself and/or your allies and to slow down enemies.

In Guild Wars 2, mobility skills are not affected by movement speed modifiers. They will travel the same distance regardless of what movement impairing effects are on the player.

For example, a warrior’s sword has a directional leap they can use to close or create distance. However, it has an animation that can be interrupted by a well-timed CC to deny this mobility.
Most non-targeted directional leaps can be outplayed by using a CC to interrupt the animation.

Movement speed modifiers can speed up the player and slow down their enemies.

Boons:
- Swiftness increases movement speed by 33%. (Long duration, can be maintained indefinitely by all classes if they build into it.)
- Superspeed increases movement speed by 100%. (Short duration, bursts of speed)
Conditions
- Cripple slows movement speed by 50%
- Chill slows movement speed by 66%
- Immobilize prevents moving, turning, and dodging.

These are built into weapon and utility skills. There are many options to increase your own movement speed and slow down enemies. However, there is counterplay in the form of boon and condition removal:

If Player A gives themselves swiftness, Player B can remove swiftness from Player A with the use of an attack that removes boons.
If Player A cripples Player B, Player B can remove the cripple from themselves through the use of a condition clear.

There can be many sources of movement speed modifiers and many sources of boon and condition removal in player builds. When managing their cooldowns properly, a good PvPer can kite effectively against multiple players who may each have their own combination of movement speed modifiers, CCs, and boon and condition removals regardless of who is primarily ranged or melee.
________

To prevent Healers from being oppressive, structured PvP in Guild Wars 2 prevents the Healing Power stat from being tied to two other defensive stats. In other words, healers may have high health, but they will struggle to build resistance to physical damage.

Preventing healers from being tanky is necessary. Healers in Guild Wars 2 can stall against a single DPS player, but they will eventually lose without assistance from their teammates. Unlike other MMOs, healers in Guild Wars 2 cannot tank 3 players at once and stay at full health the entire time.
Crowd control abilities can also be used to shut down certain important support skills being used by an enemy healer.
Poison is a condition that reduces incoming healing by 33% to whoever is affected by it.

________

In conclusion, Guild Wars 2 gives players both choice and control over their build and gameplay. There are layers of counterplay that can also be counterplayed. The skill floor is low due to skills being easy to understand, but the skill ceiling is high and allows the best players to consistently win 1vX if they’re outplaying their opponents.

Thanks for reading!

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Comments

Ludullu

So all of those just sound like buffs, debuffs and item abilities/effects. So yes, I agree that Ashes should have those things.

And to counter healers and OP mages, I'd suggest having a wider range of mana gameplay mechanics. All kinds of mana burns and removals and stuff like that.

bloodprophet

GW2 is a collosal failure in ALL of those areas.
Stay away from GW2 design on classes and combat.

Depraved

Blindside wrote: »

Hello Verrans!

In this thread, I am going to be discussing the issues of crowd control, kiting, and healing in MMOs. Then, I will talk about the most successful, currently implemented solution to these issues that I've seen.
________

To preface, I have PvP’d at a high level in many MMOs over the years. As many of you may have noticed, they all take varying approaches to crowd control, kiting, and healing.

For example, with CCs:
An MMO may use diminishing returns on CC durations. This results in a reduction on the duration of their effects when the same or similar ones are used on a player.
The problem with this is that it makes the impact of individual players lower in larger settings.

Player A lands a stun on a target. Player B who is not in voice with Player A also uses their own stun on the target. Player B's stun doesn’t have an effect because of diminishing returns. This feels bad for Player B.

An MMO may implement a trinket system. Usually, the trinket is an activated effect on a long cooldown. When activated, the player will break themselves out of the effects of any CC. Some trinkets may give a brief period of invincibility to CCs for a second or two after activation.
The problem with this is the long cooldown.

When facing multiple players who may all have their own sources of crowd control, only having access to a single way to break out of CCs results isn’t enough. Losing control of your character simply because the game does not give you enough options to take also feels bad.

For kiting:
Many MMOs have issues with the balance of ranged and melee combat.
In some, ranged may feel too strong with melee being unable to close the distance effectively without dying.

In others, melee characters are impossible to escape from and can run ranged characters down with little issue.

For healing:
Many MMOs have issues with healers being too strong.
When this is the case, healers sustaining themselves can often result in them being unkillable even in 1vX situations.

________

Now let’s talk about the solutions.

There is one MMO that has implemented a successful solution to all of these. The PvP is skill-based, equalized, and animation-heavy. The combat shown in the Ashes demos seems to take a very similar approach. So, I think their solution would also work well here.

To give context:
The skill bar on Guild Wars 2 is split into two sections: weapon skills and utilities. Together, they make up a minimum of 10 abilities you can activate at any given time. The weapon swap mechanic brings most classes up to 15 skills. While class mechanics or utilities can increase this even further (up to 35 skills).

Weapon skills are a mix of attacks, mobility, and defensive skills tied to your specific weapon.

Utilities include 1 healing skill slot for each class, 3 open slots where class-specific skills can be taken, and 1 elite skill slot for each class.

________

Using this, Guild Wars 2 solves the issues with CCs in two ways.
First, there are stunbreak utilities with cooldown of around 24-48 seconds on average. Each player can slot up to 3 (sometimes 4) stunbreaks in their build if they choose. Many of these have additional effects as well to add flavor and make combat more interesting. For example:
One stunbreak may have an evade.

Another may provide an attack speed and damage buff for several seconds.

Second, there is a duration based-buff called “Stability” which negates the effects of incoming CCs. Some stunbreaks may also give stability to the player, or the player and their allies.

As a result, Guild Wars 2 gives MULTIPLE options that players can slot to deal with crowd control. When combined with 2 active dodges on 10 second cooldowns, defensive weapon skills, spacing, and multiple stunbreaks or sources of stability, good players can manage CCs coming from multiple enemies.

In other words, if you’re good at PvPing, you can 1vX consistently without getting locked down.
________

To deal with the balance of ranged and melee combat, Guild Wars 2 implemented multiple sources of direction and targeted dashes, teleports, and movement speed modifiers to speed up yourself and/or your allies and to slow down enemies.

In Guild Wars 2, mobility skills are not affected by movement speed modifiers. They will travel the same distance regardless of what movement impairing effects are on the player.
For example, a warrior’s sword has a directional leap they can use to close or create distance. However, it has an animation that can be interrupted by a well-timed CC to deny this mobility.

Most non-targeted directional leaps can be outplayed by using a CC to interrupt the animation.

Movement speed modifiers can speed up the player and slow down their enemies.
Boons:
Swiftness increases movement speed by 33%. (Long duration, can be maintained indefinitely by all classes if they build into it.)

Superspeed increases movement speed by 100%. (Short duration, bursts of speed)

Conditions
Cripple slows movement speed by 50%

Chill slows movement speed by 66%

Immobilize prevents moving, turning, and dodging.

These are built into weapon and utility skills. There are many options to increase your own movement speed and slow down enemies. However, there is counterplay in the form of boon and condition removal:
If Player A gives themselves swiftness, Player B can remove swiftness from Player A with the use of an attack that removes boons.

If Player A cripples Player B, Player B can remove the cripple from themselves through the use of a condition clear.

There can be many sources of movement speed modifiers and many sources of boon and condition removal in player builds. When managing their cooldowns properly, a good PvPer can kite effectively against multiple players who may each have their own combination of movement speed modifiers, CCs, and boon and condition removals regardless of who is primarily ranged or melee.
________

To prevent Healers from being oppressive, structured PvP in Guild Wars 2 prevents the Healing Power stat from being tied to two other defensive stats. In other words, healers may have high health, but they will struggle to build resistance to physical damage.
Preventing healers from being tanky is necessary. Healers in Guild Wars 2 can stall against a single DPS player, but they will eventually lose without assistance from their teammates. Unlike other MMOs, healers in Guild Wars 2 cannot tank 3 players at once and stay at full health the entire time.

Crowd control abilities can also be used to shut down certain important support skills being used by an enemy healer.

Poison is a condition that reduces incoming healing by 33% to whoever is affected by it.

________

In conclusion, Guild Wars 2 gives players both choice and control over their build and gameplay. There are layers of counterplay that can also be counterplayed. The skill floor is low due to skills being easy to understand, but the skill ceiling is high and allows the best players to consistently win 1vX if they’re outplaying their opponents.

Thanks for reading!

gw2 is different. every player can basically do everything....aoc follows a different direction, where one class can do something so you are motivated to grup up or change your build depending on the encounter. a good way for ashes to deal with cc would give support class the option to cleanse said cc or protect their group when they are cc'ed. it follows the design direction of having to group up with different classes to overcome your weaknesses, instead of 1 person being able to do everything and anything.

Blindside

Depraved wrote: »

gw2 is different. every player can basically do everything....aoc follows a different direction, where one class can do something so you are motivated to grup up or change your build depending on the encounter. a good way for ashes to deal with cc would give support class the option to cleanse said cc or protect their group when they are cc'ed. it follows the design direction of having to group up with different classes to overcome your weaknesses, instead of 1 person being able to do everything and anything.

Yes, you are correct. In GW2, every class can do everything. However, that is different than saying every class does do everything.

GW2 character builds are still specialized. For example, a guardian can be damage, or they can be support. Hybrid builds are far and few between. Similar to what you described in AoC, character builds in GW2 are adjusted depending on what is needed. Different encounters in any of the 3 gamemodes may require different character builds to succeed. This results in a variety of different classes being needed to fill different roles.

If you look at structured PvP in Guild Wars 2, class stacking is rare because the variety is needed to overcome weaknesses. If this wasn't the case, 1 person would be able to do everything and anything. However, this is not how it works in practice.

Blindside

bloodprophet wrote: »

GW2 is a collosal failure in ALL of those areas.
Stay away from GW2 design on classes and combat.

Are there any other MMOs with PvP where a skilled player can consistently win against multiple opponents without some type of gear or level advantage? If there is, please share because I would like to try it out as well.

It is rare to find an MMO where players can easily multiclass and change builds on the fly with standardized gear. As far as I know, Guild Wars 2 has the most accessible, skill-based, and rewarding PvP. You can level characters and acquire the highest level gear in the game to use in other gamemodes (as gear does not matter in GW2 PvP). PvE is not required in the slightest to play at a competitive level.

Depraved

Blindside wrote: »

Depraved wrote: »

gw2 is different. every player can basically do everything....aoc follows a different direction, where one class can do something so you are motivated to grup up or change your build depending on the encounter. a good way for ashes to deal with cc would give support class the option to cleanse said cc or protect their group when they are cc'ed. it follows the design direction of having to group up with different classes to overcome your weaknesses, instead of 1 person being able to do everything and anything.

Yes, you are correct. In GW2, every class can do everything. However, that is different than saying every class does do everything.

GW2 character builds are still specialized. For example, a guardian can be damage, or they can be support. Hybrid builds are far and few between. Similar to what you described in AoC, character builds in GW2 are adjusted depending on what is needed. Different encounters in any of the 3 gamemodes may require different character builds to succeed. This results in a variety of different classes being needed to fill different roles.

If you look at structured PvP in Guild Wars 2, class stacking is rare because the variety is needed to overcome weaknesses. If this wasn't the case, 1 person would be able to do everything and anything. However, this is not how it works in practice.

yeah you were talking about builds for different situations and all that, fair enough, but remember you mentioned in ur post a build that can escape free from multiple people ccing you, evade, heal, become unkillable in 1vx ( i guess assuming you are better than your opponents). and this still steers away from the design of one class cant do everything in aoc, they dont even have the option. also classes are kinda rock paper scissor in 1v1 in aoc. they focused on party balance not in 1v1 balance, although rock, paper, scissor its a form of balance.

it makes more sense in aoc (and by that i mean sticking to their design philosophy) that not one class has the option to do everything, so you would rely on your supports to help you survive through cc or help you break free, while the supports rely on the other classes to protect them and kill the enemies, no matter the build.

if you give the option to every class to become unkillable, invalidate cc, heal, etc, why would any1 play a diff build? also remember that aoc doesnt sepparate pvp from pve, unlike gw2, so you wanna be able to do both and build for both.

Blindside wrote: »

bloodprophet wrote: »

GW2 is a collosal failure in ALL of those areas.
Stay away from GW2 design on classes and combat.

Are there any other MMOs with PvP where a skilled player can consistently win against multiple opponents without some type of gear or level advantage? If there is, please share because I would like to try it out as well.

lost ark comes to mind. its literally isometric g2w
eso
blade and soul
probably ultima online but no one plays it anymore i think.

there are many other games where gear matters, but you can still win 1vx or 2vx assuming everybody has the same gear

Blindside

Depraved wrote: »

Blindside wrote: »

Depraved wrote: »

gw2 is different. every player can basically do everything....aoc follows a different direction, where one class can do something so you are motivated to grup up or change your build depending on the encounter. a good way for ashes to deal with cc would give support class the option to cleanse said cc or protect their group when they are cc'ed. it follows the design direction of having to group up with different classes to overcome your weaknesses, instead of 1 person being able to do everything and anything.

Yes, you are correct. In GW2, every class can do everything. However, that is different than saying every class does do everything.

GW2 character builds are still specialized. For example, a guardian can be damage, or they can be support. Hybrid builds are far and few between. Similar to what you described in AoC, character builds in GW2 are adjusted depending on what is needed. Different encounters in any of the 3 gamemodes may require different character builds to succeed. This results in a variety of different classes being needed to fill different roles.

If you look at structured PvP in Guild Wars 2, class stacking is rare because the variety is needed to overcome weaknesses. If this wasn't the case, 1 person would be able to do everything and anything. However, this is not how it works in practice.

yeah you were talking about builds for different situations and all that, fair enough, but remember you mentioned in ur post a build that can escape free from multiple people ccing you, evade, heal, become unkillable in 1vx ( i guess assuming you are better than your opponents). and this still steers away from the design of one class cant do everything in aoc, they dont even have the option. also classes are kinda rock paper scissor in 1v1 in aoc. they focused on party balance not in 1v1 balance, although rock, paper, scissor its a form of balance.

it makes more sense in aoc (and by that i mean sticking to their design philosophy) that not one class has the option to do everything, so you would rely on your supports to help you survive through cc or help you break free, while the supports rely on the other classes to protect them and kill the enemies, no matter the build.

if you give the option to every class to become unkillable, invalidate cc, heal, etc, why would any1 play a diff build? also remember that aoc doesnt sepparate pvp from pve, unlike gw2, so you wanna be able to do both and build for both.

Blindside wrote: »

bloodprophet wrote: »

GW2 is a collosal failure in ALL of those areas.
Stay away from GW2 design on classes and combat.

Are there any other MMOs with PvP where a skilled player can consistently win against multiple opponents without some type of gear or level advantage? If there is, please share because I would like to try it out as well.

lost ark comes to mind. its literally isometric g2w
eso
blade and soul
probably ultima online but no one plays it anymore i think.

there are many other games where gear matters, but you can still win 1vx or 2vx assuming everybody has the same gear

Ah I see what you mean. I was trying to say that there are a lot of options you can take in your builds. In GW2, there are many ways to outplay your opponents. There aren't any classes or builds in GW2 that are unkillable. Since gear does not have any effect in PvP, winning relies solely on a player's skill.

To clarify, in Guild Wars 2, a bad player with the great build will lose to a great player with a bad build. That great player on a bad build could also win 1vX into multiple meta builds if the people do not know how to pilot them well.

As for your examples of Lost Ark and ESO, I was top 10 in North America as a multiclasser (peaked rank 6 NA as a gunslinger main) for PvP. You cannot 1vX in that game remotely as consistently as you can in GW2. At a high level in GW2, a top player can consistently 1vX other good players if they're playing better. That's not the case in Lost Ark.

I also played at a high level in ESO as well and gear played a massive factor in PvP. However, I do not have experience with blade and soul or ultima.

In regards to winning 1vX, the key word is "assuming everybody has the same gear" and from what I've seen, there are very few MMOs that actually equalize gear and have good PvP balance outside of GW2.

KingDDD

This is a flawed perspective.

GW2's as a game has a low skill-ceiling and high skill-floor in terms of physical button pressing. It also doesn't attract more competitive/skilled players, lowering the overall competitive skill pool of the games total population. This makes your arguments pointless as there are other variable factors creating the situation you enjoy.

Noaani

Blindside wrote: »

bloodprophet wrote: »

GW2 is a collosal failure in ALL of those areas.
Stay away from GW2 design on classes and combat.

Are there any other MMOs with PvP where a skilled player can consistently win against multiple opponents without some type of gear or level advantage? If there is, please share because I would like to try it out as well.

Archage.

A skilled player was - when I played it - able to beat people that had put 6 figures in to their character - or three average players.

No idea what it's like now though.

Edit to add; some of that was gear (perhaps 20%). However, a skilled player should have good gear. If you cant get good gear, that is a skill (in terms of MMO's) that you are missing, and you cant really call yourself a skilled player at that point. You're just a somewhat skilled player.

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