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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Comments

Dygz

You stated: "I definitely do not think that glass cannon pve dps gear is great for pvp (since you gear enough defensive stats only to survive unavoidable damage spikes) - so automatically you have pvp focused gear with more defensives on it. To push for gear that is good for everything is the antithesis of what ashes wants to achieve with its horizontal progression".
The goal of Ashes is for the gear provided by devs to be PvX: No difference between PvE gear and PvP gear.
I did not disagree that "Ashes will have specialised gear for what you want"... The devs will provide specialized gear: there will be gear focused on Physical stats and gear focused on Magical stats - but the gear they provide will not, from a dev perspective, be specialised for PvE or PvP.

You then made a clarification - that players could make a set of gear that they use for PvE and a set of gear that they use for PvP. And I agreed that is possible.

I didn't see a post that said PvP stats are boring. It's not quoted in the post where you mentioned the antithesis.
I have seen posts that specifically stated Stun is boring. So, I'm trying to understand how PvE or Trinity resolves Stun being boring.

If I want gear that has stats that prevent Stuns because I find being Stunned to be boring, why would I put those stats only on gear I plan to use for PvP and not on the gear I use for PvE? Especially, since I am likely to encounter both when I'm in the open world?

Obviously, I don't understand what you're saying so I'm trying to get you to rephrase so that what you're saying is clearer to me.
That's the way discussions work.

Tragnar

veyrah wrote: »

Tragnar wrote: »

and I definitely do not think that glass cannon pve dps gear is great for pvp (since you gear enough defensive stats only to survive unavoidable damage spikes) - so automatically you have pvp focused gear with more defensives on it

To push for gear that is good for everything is the antithesis of what ashes wants to achieve with its horizontal progression

I just dislike that theres 1 most important stats in pvp. Like in ESO you gotta get impen gear to prevent basically everybody critting you all the time, not an issue in PVE. It feels bad to have such a variety of stats to pick from for your gear and instead you have to pick x on every class in pvp or get reckt. No cc reduction stat on gear pls. Just balance the skills and counter skills/cleanses.

from this post i have the impression that stacking 1 pvp stat is boring, but i never talked about stuns being boring

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

Devs dont need to make "special" clarifications or declarations about certain stats being better in pvp or in pve, because it is actually discovered by the players on which stats or combinations of stats give you the biggest advantage in either pvp or pve or pve when pvp happens

open world nature of a game gives 3 different interactions for players and they can optimize their gear toward those different interactions

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

What I found out from gaming for a lot of years is that when developers "try" to encourage certain stats to be used in a certain way then the players just ignore them if it doesn't line up with what works for them and for their strategies

CROW3

Ashes 101 | Combat System Overview > Crowd Control wrote:

One major factor in all combat games is the effectiveness of Crowd Control, specifically the mechanic of CC Lockdown where one player can initiate a fight and through the careful rotation of CCs drain the victim from 100% life down to 0% without the victim ever being able to counterattack.

In order to prevent this from happening, Intrepid is doing everything they can to prevent CC lockdown chains including having diminishing returns on stuns, sleeps, and slows.

They are also going to tie hard CCs to action skills and soft CCs to tab skills. Now, the question is: How does Intrepid classify hard and soft CC?

Intrepid considers Stuns, Knock Downs, Sleeps and Paralysis as Hard CCs. Basically anything that takes 100% of a player's control away (movement and the ability to act). This means skills that proc these effects will be restricted to Action Abilities.

Anything that takes away only one side of control (movement or ability to act), is considered a soft CC. However, when it comes to roots and silences Steven has Stated that some roots and silences are considered hard CCs. If this is an indication of a tiered system of CC or if it just means soft CC will be available to action and tab, while hard is restricted to only action we do not know. I will be flushing out this section a bit more when we get more details, as well as breaking it down in the appropriate skill sections.

Thought this would be relevant for our continuing discussion. Here's the link if you want to review.

Marcet

I expect stuns, supression, root, snare, blind, disarm, silence, stasis, slow, entangle, polymorph, knockback, knockup, nearsight, fear, charm, flee, taunt, pulls, and more to be in the game.
There's things worst than a stun and not even talking about tweaking durations of each one. Everything has his moment.

Noaani

Dygz wrote: »

The goal of Ashes is for the gear provided by devs to be PvX: No difference between PvE gear and PvP gear.

What the developers mean by that statement is they aren't going to add in gear with PvP only stats like many games do. Such stats make it so you have gear that has defenses against mobs in PvE, and other gear with defenses against players in PvP, but for the most part, you need different gear to be able to function in each.

What the person you quoted was saying is that part of the horizontal progression in Ashes means that if you want to maximize your damage in PvE (perhaps you are in a guild with solid tanks and healers and you are a DPS class), then you can select gear that only has stats that increase your damage output.

Such gear, however, is a liability in PvP combat. Even with those solid tanks and healers, you need more defensive gear than that gear is providing you.

So, you would have a set of gear with more defensive stats on it, meaning you in effect have a PvE set of gear, and a PvP set of gear, even though all items function 100% in both PvE and PvP (which is what the developers have said).

This is just another in the long line of "can someone please explain basic concepts to Dygz, as he really has no idea".

Fairtale

The problem with stuns is that they are lazy development and should be replaces by real animations/mechanics.

Instead of stunning...:
- ...a frost mage should freeze enemies'
- ...a warrior should throw the enemy on the floor;
- ...a druid's "root" spell should not simply 'hold' peoplo, but instead bind them to nearby trees or whatever nature stuff;
- ...a rogue should not stun, but instead, throw something like bolas to bind the enemy's feet together, causing them to fall;

The classic "stun" mechanics are simply placeholders for things that the developers were too lazy to implement correctly IMO.

Veyrah

mr n0body wrote: »

The problem with stuns is that they are lazy development and should be replaces by real animations/mechanics.

Instead of stunning...:
- ...a frost mage should freeze enemies'
- ...a warrior should throw the enemy on the floor;
- ...a druid's "root" spell should not simply 'hold' peoplo, but instead bind them to nearby trees or whatever nature stuff;
- ...a rogue should not stun, but instead, throw something like bolas to bind the enemy's feet together, causing them to fall;

The classic "stun" mechanics are simply placeholders for things that the developers were too lazy to implement correctly IMO.

In development of a game like ashes, a lot of shortcuts are made and have to be made. You cannot animate every little action. Also, stuns usually only last a second or so, for a good reason. How would animating a 1 second stun work for any of your examples? Not very well.

CROW3

mr n0body wrote: »

Instead of stunning...:
- ...a frost mage should freeze enemies'
- ...a warrior should throw the enemy on the floor;
- ...a druid's "root" spell should not simply 'hold' peoplo, but instead bind them to nearby trees or whatever nature stuff;
- ...a rogue should not stun, but instead, throw something like bolas to bind the enemy's feet together, causing them to fall;

I disagree that these cc abilities and stuns are mutually exclusive. Stuns are a classic board game mechanic called: "you lose a turn" . You might not like it, but it doesn't invalidate its use or mean that it's the result of laziness.

Fun fact: The board game "Sorry", which is arguably an entire game of CCs was first sold in 1934. I thought it was at most a late-70s thing.

Dygz

Tragnar wrote: »

from this post i have the impression that stacking 1 pvp stat is boring, but i never talked about stuns being boring

My understanding of that quote from veyrah is that players can spam an ability in a way that mobs won't - if that ability does not have a sufficient cooldown to help mitigate spamming.
In this case, I don't think it's that stacking one pvp stat is what's boring - what's boring is being forced to use gear with FOTM cookie-cutter stats instead of being able to reliably focus on stats you might prefer otherwise.
And, yes, that clears up the context quite a bit.
Thank you for that clarification.

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.

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.

Tragnar wrote: »

open world nature of a game gives 3 different interactions for players and they can optimize their gear toward those different interactions.

Sure, but... if you hate a stat like Stun because it's boring, you're probably going to have the stat that mitigates Stun on all of your gear, without regard for whether you're doing PvP or PvE. Same if the FOTM PvP stat is Crit.
Because you will be getting peanut butter in your chocolate and chocolate in your peanut butter.

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.

Tragnar wrote: »

What I found out from gaming for a lot of years is that when developers "try" to encourage certain stats to be used in a certain way then the players just ignore them if it doesn't line up with what works for them and for their strategies

Yep.

Azherae

CROW3 wrote: »

Ashes 101 | Combat System Overview > Crowd Control wrote:

One major factor in all combat games is the effectiveness of Crowd Control, specifically the mechanic of CC Lockdown where one player can initiate a fight and through the careful rotation of CCs drain the victim from 100% life down to 0% without the victim ever being able to counterattack.

In order to prevent this from happening, Intrepid is doing everything they can to prevent CC lockdown chains including having diminishing returns on stuns, sleeps, and slows.

They are also going to tie hard CCs to action skills and soft CCs to tab skills. Now, the question is: How does Intrepid classify hard and soft CC?

Intrepid considers Stuns, Knock Downs, Sleeps and Paralysis as Hard CCs. Basically anything that takes 100% of a player's control away (movement and the ability to act). This means skills that proc these effects will be restricted to Action Abilities.

Anything that takes away only one side of control (movement or ability to act), is considered a soft CC. However, when it comes to roots and silences Steven has Stated that some roots and silences are considered hard CCs. If this is an indication of a tiered system of CC or if it just means soft CC will be available to action and tab, while hard is restricted to only action we do not know. I will be flushing out this section a bit more when we get more details, as well as breaking it down in the appropriate skill sections.

Thought this would be relevant for our continuing discussion. Here's the link if you want to review.

It's actually because of this that would allow me to support a movement to just have no hard CC at all.

Now, everything I say is biased by my fighting game/TCG playing and seeing human game psychology through that lens, but so far it hasn't steered me wrong...

Games that reward execution skill first and understanding notably second are pain for new players, leading to being very niche, and recent developments in both 'worlds' have indicated that this is just unnecessary design.

"This opponent is better than me already, and one of the ways they demonstrate that skill is in preventing me from playing for short periods of time." if this happens because 'I took an action that was a mistake', demonstrably, as in 'I took an action that I can see I shouldn't have taken', then it's fine. "I was trying to defend myself, but as soon as I figured it out, my opponent made me unable to defend myself", is... less fine, speaking purely from the perspective of 'the loser wanting to continue playing'.

MMOs have no matchmaking. They have no guarantees that you won't be outmatched by pure numbers before you even begin. They have no guarantees that you will be able to coordinate, far less understand, a team strategy. I'm not arguing that those things should change.

I'm just giving background for where I am coming from, going forward. If Ashes says 'oh if your aim is better you get an advantage that explicitly stops your opponent's actions from happening', I see this as the same as a dominating player in Dragon Ball FighterZ. You can say 'there's ways to beat it', and I'll say 'sure, but there's no incentive to play long enough to learn to unless you definitely believe that one day you will get to enjoy the game too'.

(Similarly, if your response to that is 'Well they can just play the same class' or 'they can work and enjoy it eventually', we're back to the 'MMOs have no matchmaking' paragraph)

CROW3

Ok.

The Erudite Trader

Does this opinion also consider the duration of stun? Casting two skills just to emulate the effects of stun is a purely waste of time in pvp where every millisecond counts especially for meelees fighting range.

Azherae

The Erudite Trader wrote: »

Does this opinion also consider the duration of stun? Casting two skills just to emulate the effects of stun is a purely waste of time in pvp where every millisecond counts especially for meelees fighting range.

What I 'hear' when you say that is 'I need to stop people trying to escape from me, from being able to do that, and also prevent them from being able to kill me while I kill them'.

So, if that was directed at me, my response is 'mu'. i.e. 'the question is wrong'.

Noaani

Azherae wrote: »

Now, everything I say is biased by my fighting game/TCG playing and seeing human game psychology through that lens

This is a fine lens to look at a combat system through, but you still need to keep an eye on the rest of the game.

While it may well be true that in a fighting game or TCG, going up against someone that prevents your actions in combat from being effective would deter someone from playing the game - but that is because that combat IS the game.

In an MMO like Ashes, PvP combat is actually only a small percentage of the game. Players either are right in to PvP combat and so will do what is needed to be as good at it as they can, or will not be that on to PvP combat and consider it something to endure in Ashes.

To these people, the detraction is PvP combat, not being CC'd in PvP combat. They have other reasons to play the game besides PvP combat, so not being great at it isnt a reason to put the game down in the same way it is in a fighting game or TCG.

Vhaeyne

Noaani wrote: »

In an MMO like Ashes, PvP combat is actually only a small percentage of the game.

Depending on the game and player population, this statement ranges from true to false.

I think for Ashes that percentage is not small and greater than medium at least.

Noaani

Vhaeyne wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

In an MMO like Ashes, PvP combat is actually only a small percentage of the game.

Depending on the game and player population, this statement ranges from true to false.

I think for Ashes that percentage is not small and greater than medium at least.

I'm talking the game over all, not one individual players perception of the game.

I would assume that the total time all online players will spend actively in combat with another player would amount to less than 5% of the total online time of all characters.

Even in a siege, there are things other than direct PvP against other players that you should be able to do - things that need to be done.

Even someone that is all about that PvP life is likely not going to be engaged in direct combat with other players for more than 10% of their total online time, even if the rest of their time online is spent improving their ability to fight in PvP.

Vhaeyne

Noaani wrote: »

I'm talking the game over all, not one individual players perception of the game.

I would assume that the total time all online players will spend actively in combat with another player would amount to less than 5% of the total online time of all characters.

Even in a siege, there are things other than direct PvP against other players that you should be able to do - things that need to be done.

Even someone that is all about that PvP life is likely not going to be engaged in direct combat with other players for more than 10% of their total online time, even if the rest of their time online is spent improving their ability to fight in PvP.

You could say that MOBA only have a small percentage of their time spent on actual PvP. Due to the time spent in the lobby, farming lanes, "jungling", attacking towers, and just moving around the map to get to the next fight.

If you want to sit back with a stop watch in a siege and say someone is not PvPing every second, they are not using a skill on an enemy, then your definition of PvP is too strict.

For me, I would more realistically Agrue that if someone spends 8 hours playing smite and none of the games were bots, then that person spent 8 hours PvPing. If they spent 2 hours in a Siege in Ashes they spent two hours PvPing.

I make this distinction because If Spend 8 hours engaged in caravan PvP. I am not going to stop the timer every time there is a momentary break in the action. If I am spending all of my time on caravans because I like to PvP then PvP is not a small part of the game for me.

Noaani

Vhaeyne wrote: »

You could say that MOBA only have a small percentage of their time spent on actual PvP. Due to the time spent in the lobby, farming lanes, "jungling", attacking towers, and just moving around the map to get to the next fight.

You could, but I wouldn't.

Reason being, MOBA's dont offer anything else to do, just as fighting games dont offer anything else to do.

I dont know anyone that plays MOBA's for the PvE, or for the crafting.

Vhaeyne

Noaani wrote: »

Vhaeyne wrote: »

You could say that MOBA only have a small percentage of their time spent on actual PvP. Due to the time spent in the lobby, farming lanes, "jungling", attacking towers, and just moving around the map to get to the next fight.

You could, but I wouldn't.

Reason being, MOBA's dont offer anything else to do, just as fighting games dont offer anything else to do.

I dont know anyone that plays MOBA's for the PvE, or for the crafting.

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.

There is also the raw fact that trying to do anything in Ashes is going to potentially lead to PvP. Want to fight a raid boss? You may have to fight other raids to get to it. Want to gather? You may have to fight other groups of gathers for the nodes. Want to grind mobs? Be prepared to fight for the good mobs.

Unless you are in an instance, you may have to PvP for access to any content. Which is why I think PvP is much more than a "small" part of Ashes. Potentially, anything you want to do in Ashes is going to lead to PvP conflict.

Noaani

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.

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