In GW2 (the beginning of like every sentence I've written on here for the last two months, I know...) There are controlly effects like stun and knockback and immobilize, but they last for a much shorter duration than in CoX and as such you cant really ever lock anything down.
Let's say you have a skill that can stun a target, it will last for like 1 second. The only way to lock it down that I can see would be to have multiple people spamming stuns to the point where they overlap in time such that the stun never goes away. Also, I think they might have a rule where you can't be stunned if already stunned, so chaining them together requires timing and always leaves the stunned target with a window of opportunity to get out of it and re-establish their defenses, keep fighting, run away, etc.
I kind of like this. It definitely works better on bosses and elites etc in the sense that they resist stun and even when stunned it won't last long. I would maybe allow pets, minions, and lts to be stunnable for longer, but the lack of true mez control is not a bad thing, to me. Might be better for PVP too.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
Most games (particularly with heavy pvp elements) relay on short durations of control effects because it is a terrible pain to "balance" (I use that term loosely). Particulary for pvp where no one enjoys getting locked down and being defeated while under a control status effect. One thing to take note of in many of the games with control effects is the average time to kill (ttk). That is the time it takes to defeat an opponent and then with games with multiple opponents (particularly when looking at a possible heavy opponent rich environment for the pve side of things), the ttk for whole spawns.
If it takes seconds to take down your common pve opponent (or in some games, like fps games, seconds to take down a pvp opponent), a 1 second control effect is huge. In games with multiple targets, or harder to take down opponents with longer ttks, a 1 second control effect is nigh useless unless used in a clutch moment. If it takes multiple players to coordinate their efforts to actually lock downa target for 1 second, it is increasingly difficult to do in those clutch moments. Of course there's a lot to be done on the developer side to provide sufficient notice for upcoming clutch moments.
However, one of the major positive points of the old game was its long duration controls, particular for those that relied on a control oriented primary power set. If all the controls were at that "1 second" mark, you will quickly find that an entire Classification in this game is will generally viewed as not worth the effort. This is even more true if it would take multiple layers layering multiple of control effects just to get a lock down of a second or two when outside of clutch moments, time is better spent debuffing and doing damage. This places even less need for control primary sets because the game is then designed to lean more heavily on the easier to deal with (design wise) debuffs and damage.
Since we will have a Classification with a Control primary, and many other powers with control effects, we do have allow for a very noticeable effect and give weight to the effects via decent durations. But our control scheme does something that is not seen in many other games, our controls aren't binary. Even if that stun lands and doesn't manage to lock down a target, it will still have an effect on the the target. Easier to defeat targets will be easier to lock down while tougher to defeat targets will require more effort (in either individual build, coordination of effort, or both). This keeps the fun of a single control set user useful but also provides room for coodinated play.
This does however have an impact on PvP and as such, it requires we provide adequate means for players to mitigate control effects on their characters. There is a lot to unpack in this topic, but the short of it is, we've provided plenty of ways to resolve this issue (and we expect there'll be plenty of tuning to get it all right enough as time goes on).
The main point here is that we haven't shied away from the difficulty of designing and balancing control effects with longer durations in this game. We've instead embraced the challenge of it out of necessity since it was a type of play style enjoyed in the old game, and we want it to be enjoyed again in this game.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
Thank you. I really enjoyed being a controller who could actually live up to the name.
When it comes to PvP in other MMO's like you discuss, I always wondered why control abilities weren't channeled, with a 1-second duration beyond when the channeling was stopped. So the controlling player would take herself out while controlling the other, but would still get the benefit of a 1-second stun equivalent. Of course the channel would be interruptable, so the controlled player's allies (or a time delayed attack by the controlled player) would stop the channel, starting the 1 second timer. Best of both worlds in my opinion. But that is not CoT, so I don't know why I even brought it up.
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
I've honestly never been a fan of the short duration control in most games.
Now, my first MMO was Dark Age of Camelot, which like CoH had long duration controls (Root and Mesmerize typically lasted well over a minute for the primary CC classes, with Stuns in the 5-10 second range depending on class/spec/level/etc). My second, of course, was CoH; so the bulk of my time spent in MMOs has been in games with long duration controls.
This is the feel that I had long grown accustomed to, and that virtually no other game achieves that feel is rather jarring to me. making me feel like Control in other games simply isn't worth the effort.
In fact in many games this has led me to outright disregard their control options even though this can negatively impact my character performance (not timing that 2 second stun (with a 45second reuse timer) juuuuust right to interrupt that uberdamage attack). It's an odd point in my mind where I would rather simplify my powerbars/playstyle, ignore the "controls" and their added complexity/timing issues, and just build to take/recover from the hits that I was "supposed" to interrupt.
I note that, in GW2, a lot of the minions Can be taken down in just a few seconds, especially with the more hard-hitting powers. I remember that it would usually take several ordinary hits, even a whole attack-chain, to put down ordinary enemies in CoH. Long-term Control powers were important, then, especially with how long it took to defeat opponents with a Controller. My Mind Controller might have been able to take a whole spawn of thugs, lock them down, and take them all out, without once being hit in return, but it took Time and Power Management and a bit of skill to do it.
Be Well!
Fireheart
I personally dislike mechanics that only prolong the agony, even in PVE. I'd rather a fight thats medium length and somewhat fun and interesting than a much longer hold-fest where I have the mob frozen and need to take like 60 seconds to actually damage them enough to beat them while reapplying holds the whole time. That isn't really engaging or stimulating to me. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against some group hold, or at least immob, and stun, etc. But it's like, well to use a Magic analogy, a lot of players like to play blue decks that run a lot of counterspells (or they did, before the game designers decided to nerf that, which is a recent thing that players a t large railed against but I think was needed). For years the game company printed cheap, effective counterspells at low rarities and low casting costs. People inherently want that because they have a tendency to be risk averse. As a magic player, you get addicted to counterspells at some point because they give you what you hope is a safer board state where you can stop your opponent from doing anything that might hurt you, but they do not actually advance your board state either, so they don't get you any closer to winning, they just stave off losing for a while. Thus they lead to longer, more drawn out, boring games, especially if most of your deck is counterspells. Sometimes, for the sake of having more fun, a little danger is a good thing and the best defense is a great offense.
Also, I'm playing GW2 now and that game throws fewer monsters at you at a time and from what I've seen first hand, it feels like the mobs in CoX were far faster to batch-process with my Blaster and my Mastermind than the monsters in GW2 are. I think one big reason for that though is the auto-exemping the game does wherever you go. Nothing is ever "all grey to you" in that game, because the game makes sure of that at all times. As you wander around the wildernesss, there are individual monsters here and there, and there are a lot of them, but there's never a mob of like 12 Crey Security Guards led by a Power Suit, or the fantasy equivalent. That many minion level monsters would pretty much kill any single toon in GW2. It's basically always one monster, sometimes two or three, Even when you go wading into a Bandit hideout in Kryta, they're spaced far enough apart that you don't have to aggro more than 2 or 3 at a time if you don't try to. In events and stuff that are intended for groups they might spawn more stuff all together and whatever, but in the normal open world, it's 1-3 monsters at a time, or a single Veteran monster, usually.
The lack of any sustainable hold or mez in GW2 is taking some getting used to, I was primarily a debuff Defender player in CoX (can you guess which sets?). And even the short-duration stuff that GW2 has for mez effects is often something the really tough bosses are just immune to anyway. It would be nice if I could hold or immob something for an amount of time that seems like it's doing something, from my perspective, but those things are probably doing more good for me just interrupting the monster's attacks and whatnot than I realize when I'm doing it. From my point of view the mez and knockback in GW2 seem like irrelevant speed bumps, but I think in PVP they work better and are not as inappropriate as full-on CoX style mez. Also, just being able to keep a target within the area of an AoE damage effect is usually pretty good, even if it's not full-blown immob for like 10 seconds, just the first 2 seconds might get massive damage on the target, especially if there are multiple overlapping AoEs on the target.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
Controllers were easily one of my favorite classes in CoX (tied with Defenders), I actually really liked the very playstyle that you found lacking. I honestly found that locking a mob down and whittling them away left me feeling more accomplished than just burning them down in a few attacks.
I also really don't like the rushed feeling of glass cannon type DPS, that kill or be killed, where it's an imperative that you spend yourself as quickly as possible in order to outpace the incoming damage.
I would honestly be very disappointed if CoT didn't allow me to recreate that controller playstyle. Most games out there already don't.
(As for GW2... Verdant Brink, Pocket Raptors. So. Much. Hate.)
I played mostly Controllers in CoX. I got way more enjoyment out of basically screwing a mob up instead of the damage aspect. That is what was great about CoX, there was room for all types of players. In fact that was its strength. A good team of different types who knew how to play their toons, was a sight to behold for sure!
As others have mentioned having what I guess you would call "true" Mez control is actually one of the things I really liked about CoH. I was a fan of the Controllers' ability to "lockdown" targets and frankly that was one of the things that made the game unique/special to me.
Now clearly the idea of full lockdown Mezzing has different ramifications depending on whether you're talking about using it in PVE vs PVP. Obviously in PVE there's not much problem because I don't remember the last time a NPC boss complained to me about being permanently locked down. On the other hand real live players tend to (justifiably?) whine when they get locked down in PvP so it's probably reasonable to avoid letting Mezs do that to human players in PvP.
The compromise seems relatively simple to me: let Mezs fully lockdown PvE targets but allow for some shorter durations against human players so that fully locking them down is much harder and/or impossible. Basically human players would have some default Mez resistance that would be much higher than any PVE/NPC target. As I understand it that's how CoH eventually made things work in its PvP.
If you still don't like the idea of using lockdown Mez tactics against PVE targets there's nothing that says you have to use those kinds of powers or powersets in CoT. Basically if you don't like Controllers don't play them, but also just because you don't like the slower tactics they use doesn't mean you should be suggesting they don't exist at all in CoT. I honestly didn't really like to play Scrappers in CoH but I'd never suggest that they should not exist in some form or fashion in CoT. *shrugs*
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
We might have different play styles and whatever, that's fine. I'm just really waxing philosophical here, but I think that, despite people liking longer mez to the point of lockdown being possible, it's actually better for a game like this, overall, to limit that, even in PVE.
Again, the idea that that play style provides safety and security and not really any form of advancement of your position in combat is a problem for me. We'd all love to be able to petrify our opponent so that they can't do anything. At some point you still should actually try to win the fight, and mez lockdown being such a powerful tool to neutralize your opponent give a completely unfair advantage in situations where it works. If you have the Godlike power to be able to mez everyone around you and just causally walk up to the glowwie and click it, then get out of the map, you've basically circumvented like 50% of the game, namely the part where you take up the fight against the badguys and defeat them. You no longer have to try to defeat the evil doers, you can just neutralize them when you need to.
I think group mez should always have a chance of either missing some of the targets in the area (like the Radiation power Choking Cloud, which hit like a maximum of 50% of the targets in the area when it fired off) and/or wearing off extra early for some targets such that you're always worried about the targets waking up on you and you have to manage that.
Damaging attacks can hit or miss and can do random amounts of damage, within expected limits, in MMORPGs. I don't see why mez effects can't be more random in duration and effectiveness just ti mitigate their raw powerfulness. The idea that I could walk up to a mob of minions my level or maybe one level above me and be able to apply and reapply a group hold that totally paralyses them while I slowly wait for it to erode their HP away over the course of a few minutes doesn't appeal to me. It takes a long time, and is far too safe and effective. I think the game ought to have a greater risk involved than that in such encounters. Make the group mez powers less accurate against big groups or make the duration more random so that you never know when a guy will come out of mez, and such that, in a large enough target group, a few are bound to come out of it earlier then most and you don't know which they are until it happens.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
I've been operating under a delusion control power that has lead me to believe that momentum will be used to mitigate control effects in both PVE and PVP. If I haven't been totally deluded ( massive assumption), then the problems of perma-lock in PvP will be mitigated to some extent through burning momentum. This will also keep DPS builds from constantly using momentum to juice damage because they will constantly be burning it trying to stay unlocked.
How about you sticking with the tactics and powersets you like to play and let other people play with the tactics and powersets they like to play? The last time I checked CoH didn't get shutdown because it provided strong lockdown capable Mez powers.
For what it's worth one of my original mains in CoH was a Fire Controller. In terms of "speed of play" it was actually one of the fastest Controller types because once I got my Fire Imps and Hot Feet going it was able to easily (and safely) mow down mobs left and right. Why do you think Fire Imps got heavily nerfed from the way they worked at the beginning of the game? It was because we could clear the maps so quickly we barely even needed our Mezzes. As far as being "godlike" to the point that I could supposedly skip half the game by just locking everything down that "capability" was offset by the fact that the Controller archetype was very (and I mean VERY) squishy HP wise with no real defenses/resistances at all. Sure I could lock things down well enough but if I made one mistake and let something actually damage me I was usually instantly toast. My Mezzes were my only defense, period.
Again I can accept you might not like the playstyle/tactics of a full lockdown-style Mezzer class but I really haven't seen anything you've said that would convince me that they shouldn't exist in some form or fashion in CoT. If you want to play something that might be faster or more "exciting" then play one of the many other classes that'll be available.
P.S. And who said you always have to "defeat" MOBs in order to advance through a mission? Try telling that to a Stealth-based character who uses Invisibility to bypass obstacles and enemies...
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
If we were trying to create balance between the classes... Not absolute down to the fourth digit kind of balance, but general balance so that people don't feel cheated by their class choice.
....If we were trying to create balance, we could explain it this way:
Compare any two characters' performance in a one-on-one competition.
Option 1: Both character A and character B do 10 damage per second and has 100 hit points. Both characters would take each other down to zero hit points in the same amount of time.
Option 2: character A does 10dps and has 100 hit points but character C does 5 dps but has 200 hit points(or has a 50% damage reduction). Both characters would take each other out at the same time.
Option 3: character A does 10dps and has 100 hit points but character D does 5 dps and has 100 hit points but has the ability to stun the other player half the time. Both characters would take each other out at the same time.
Option 4: character A does 10 dps and has 100 hp and character E does 20 dps but has 50 hp. Both characters would take each other out at the same time.
Option 5: any combination of chatracters A thought E would result in a tie.
With regard to this thread, I direct you to Option 3. Radiac said he doesn't like a long fight when he plays as a controller. But in order to balance having the ability to control, you either have to be more squishy or do less damage. Sorry Radiac. I suggest you just don't play controllers if you don't like the pace of a controller fight. Because to expect to have the DPS of a Blaster and the control ability of a Controller is asking for an out-of-balance character.
Having said that, however, the MWM Developers have discussed how the performance of powers will be dependent upon whether they are Primary, Secondary or Tertiary powers. So if someone has a Controller Primary and a Offensive Secondary, it should be balance against someone who has an Offense Primary and a Control Secondary in the same way I explained above with my characters A through E.
In other words, a Control Primary may Mez for 60 seconds, but a control Secondary could only mez for 30 seconds, and a Control Tertiary could only mez for 15 seconds. (I like the power of 2 as it is easiest to model). The same goes for offensive power and defensive mitigation.
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
Right, I'm not against having different levels of Mez capability be spread across the different Primary, Secondary and Tertiary sets. If you want to give yourself the challenge of using Mezzes that only hold for a few seconds or only work barely/randomly in most situations then I'm sure CoT will have an option for that.
But let's get past this notion that being able to throw hard Mez lockdowns automatically makes that person an overpowered deity because the Devs of the game will always balance that out with some significant downsides. As I pointed out in my last post the Controller archetype had the LOWEST HPs per level (at least until the Masterminds came along) and had basically no default Defenses or Resistances to anything. This meant the "glass cannon" Blasters were practically Tanks in comparsion. Sure a skilled Controller could do pretty well regardless, but their lockdown Mezzes didn't guarantee that every obstacle in the game was a proverbial cakewalk by any stretch of the imagination. Basically Radiac's implication that strong Mezzes make playing a game like this too easy or boring is not really proven by the reality of the situation. His is an opinion, not a fact.
One more time I understand that some people don't like the perceived "slowness" or "offense weakness" of a Mez-based class and as I've continued to say there will be plenty of alternatives to avoid that playstyle. But just because you don't like something in a game doesn't mean it shouldn't exist or that no one else may prefer that style. Frankly I've always considered Scrappers to be "fleshy Fire Imps" to be sacrificed as needed but again I would never tell another player they shouldn't play a Scrapper despite my lack of regard for the class in general. Who am I to tell another player what they should or should not like to play? *shrugs*
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
I think we all agree, as most people would, that there need to be limitations to all powers of all kinds to ensure the game is not too easy for any one class or power combo, or even to ensure that it's not just too easy period, regardless of your choice of powers. They nerfed a lot of stuff in CoX over time, like the Herd and Burn tanker build, the fire imps, the smoke bomb rifle blaster, gravity lockdown got nerfed at one point, etc.
All I'm saying is, maybe it would be better to build some of that learning curve into the game from the beginning. Clearly there is some level of long term lockdown control that we can all agree is too much, we're just arguing over where to draw the line. I personally would not feel slighted by the devs if they chose to draw that line in such a way that nobody could just put an entire mob on hold while they go get a drink. This could amount to something as simple as allowing full blown lockdown, but only to a certain upper limit number of targets, then putting more targets than that in most big mobs. If the average mob size at you most lucrative difficulty setting is 8, and you can only lockdown 6 minions at a time, you know you've got those others to deal with, etc.
Yes, there were drawbacks that offset the lockdown ability in CoX, I get that. I played a Gravity/Kinetic controller. I also think you basically don't need toughness or a lot of HP if you can totally paralyze everything and keep it that way until you defeat it. The squishyness drawback was not really one you couldn't just overcome with a better control build, and was essentially trumped by that. The fact that outgoing damage was pretty anemic was the real drawback there, and was necessary, but it led to long, protracted, boring non-fight encounters where you just mezzed a whole mob and waited forever for them to keel over form the light-to-moderate DPS.
If it were up to me, I would back off of the control aspect a little and give those toons a little more hp, toughness, and damage to be able to survive actually fighting a few of those minions, then make them actually have fight 2-3 minions at a time out of the mezzed group of like 12 they just locked down, while those few minions are actually able to fight back. This would make that encounter go faster, make it less boring, and less one-sided.
While we're at it, I think we all agree that being able to totally AoE the hell out of a mob in a few quick attacks is probably too good as well, and some blasters could do that in CoX. My Elementalist in GW2 has a lot of AoE, he still can't just waste an entire pack of of wolves all grouped together before getting mauled by them. I'm not saying the game should be like GW2, but I would personally like it better somewhere between CoX's level of control and map clearing speed and that of GW2 which is slower, more combat grinding and less controlly. CoX probably allowed you too much control and made you able to clear a map full of baddies too fast, both of which are different ways of making the game too one-sided and easy. GW2 is maybe a lot slower while still not allowing lockdown control, and I think there might be a middle ground inbetween where you can partially lock down a mob reliably, but still need to actually fight the ones that shrugged it off.
You can always make the game go faster by adding in buffs, better gear, and tweaking baseline power numbers to make them BETTER as the game progresses, and nobody will complain about that. If you make it too easy and then pull back with the tweaks, you get people rage quitting because their Preferred Play Style (TM) of basically laughing their way through easy-as-pie maps with their degenerate combo got taken away from them and now they have to actually work for it, plus their build needs a serious respec again.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
It seems to me that you're worried about a specific problem cropping up in CoT that didn't really exist in CoH. I don't remember being able to lock down entire MOBs (including Bosses and Lts.) and then being able to AFK long enough to go get a drink being a typical thing in the least. Sure a decent Controller could keep the average MOB locked down indefinitely but to accomplish that you usually had to ACTIVELY RETOSS MEZZES ON IT as often as possible. Somehow you seem to think that CoH Controllers were far more powerful than they actually were.
I have no desire to see Mez powers in CoT become TOO POWERFUL either - nothing in a game like this should let anyone become overpowered. But if the Mez powers in CoT end up being roughly equivalent to how powerful they were in CoH then we'll be fine. There's absolutely no need to "pre-nerf" this game far below the typical level CoH operated at as far as Mezzes go.
You clearly never played a Fire Controller. For what it's worth I'll concede that some types of Controllers in CoH were more "offensively capable" than others. But just because some were arguably slower than others doesn't make the entire playstyle/archetype broken. Have you ever considered that maybe Controllers weren't really your cup of tea to begin with?
Perhaps we should be collectively grateful this design decision is not up to you.
One more time your assessments of the Controller/Mez playstyle being "too boring" or "too slow" are simply your opinions. If those things were truly as broken or as horribly designed as you imply the CoH Devs would have completely reworked that archetype years before the game was shutdown. Besides the CoH Devs actually did address your concerns of having a more "offensive Controller" when they created Dominators. But the key there was that they didn't get rid of Controllers in the process - we had the CHOICE of either playing Controllers OR Dominators. Why is your mindset here to REDUCE the number of class/playstyle options instead of INCREASING them? I'll simply remain happy that CoT is in fact allowing for a range of Mez vs Offense capabilities in the classes they are offering.
Just because YOU personally didn't like how Controllers worked in CoH doesn't mean that NO ONE else did - how many times do I have to say that? I actually loved how Controllers worked in CoH almost solely because pretty much no other game allowed for that kind of Mez-based playstyle. It's fine that you tend to like the way GW2 handles its Mezzes but CoT is not the spiritual successor of GW2 so I would expect its Mezzes to remain in the mold provided by CoH pretty much without question.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Radiac, considering the number of AT's, as far as we can asses, that are planed for I would find it hard to believe that any of the ones that has control as either primary or secondary would not fit you. Heck, it even sounds like you might be more comfortable with the AT's that has sets from the manipulation pool instead of the control pool.
You will most likely be able to find sets that fits your wishes in regards to mezz-ability and combat-speed so why "limit" the choices for the rest of us? Really, if I'm playing a controller then I want to really be able to control the "battle field", not merely semi-control it through what I will see as arbitrary restrictions.
But I just have to know, take your own preferences away and tell us how your suggestions would improve the game as a whole, especially when compared to CoH.
You know, I always found the solution to those long battles as a Controller was to have a Scrapper on your team. Then you could lock down the mobs and just focus on 'maintenance' of your lock, while the Scrapper goes to town in City of Statues. Fight ends faster and everybody wins.
Be Well!
Fireheart
Good team synergy for the win!
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
Looks at planned power sets. Looks at planned masteries. Gets very giddy. Starts laughing loudly. Laughter turns maniacle. Looks back at massive to-do list. Chokes and hunkers down.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
Stalker looking for a good natured mezzer for long term friendship and general mayhemic fun.
*pats Tannim on back* There there, you'll get it done... eventually.
Not to split hairs, but the word is "giddy", not "gitty". I'm sure it's probably a typo or auto-correct thing, but the word "giddy" means "happily excited", "git" is word (used more in England than the US) meaning "a foolish or worthless person" and thus "gitty" would mean "similar to a git", which I don't think you meant. In any event, I make more typos than anyone I know, so I'm not trying to point fingers, just too OCD to let it go. I apologize for even mentioning it.
That said, I think what I'm talking about here is maxxed out extremes, not everything inbetween. I played a gravtiy controller, I remember locking down entire mobs. YES I had to keep re-applying holds, but I was able to do so with absolutely no action being taken by the mobs in the meantime. I had effectively created a game state where I was very slowly winning the fight with the gravity "squeeze damage" minor DoT and my "opponent" was completely unable to do anything at all during the "fight". Clearly, whether or not this is possible is dependent on the level of target you go after. If the mobs were conning blue to me, that's supposed to be easy, if they were red or purple, that's something else. All I'm saying is that there might be some benefit to setting the maximum possible amount of lockdown in the game to something less than what CoH had, in most "evenly matched" PVE cases, so that you can then make the controller classes more able to actually fight the badguys themselves. Then you could up your difficulty and fight stuff that you're not able to achieve a hard mez lock on.
People who liked and used the overpowered stuff that got nerfed in CoX always complained about it when the nerfs went in. Those players were, by their own admission "having more fun with their preferred play style" before the nerfs happened, but the devs still nerfed that stuff for the good of the game. If there had been a way to totally batch process a whole map without any risk of defeat to the player, that would be overpowered, I think we can all agree. CoX had that, it was the herd and burn fire tanker tactic. The devs nerfed it, and people b1tch3d and moaned about it very loadly. You saying to me now at this point "But some people LIKED being able to totally freeze a mob forever and watch them slowly die from minor DoT, why take that away?" is no different to me. This is the complaint of people taking advantage of OP mechanics that their OP toys got taken away from them, and it happens every time you mess with the mechaincs after the fact.. The game designer has to design a game that's fun and requires decisions and interaction, not just a most efficient right answer that shortcuts you to the loot in like 5 minutes or totally neutralizes the whole encounter. I think there exists a level of control that goes too far and hurts that purpose. The fact that controllers like to control stuff can be assumed, I think, and you still have to measure carefully how much control you want the controller to actually be able to achieve.
Going back to the Magic analogy, for 15 years Wizards of the Coast printed cheap, common, low-casting cost spells that could outright counter any one spell cast by the opponent. After a long time spent nerfing a number of different aspects of the game and then systematically letting power creep happen, they came to the conclusion in play testing that two things were too powerful, counterspell effects and land-destruction effects. In both cases these were things designed to disallow your opponent from actually doing anything, but didn't advance your board to the point that you were any closer to winning the game yourself either. In combination, you could drag a game out forever with them. So they pulled back on the counterspells and land destruction spells, making them at higher mana costs and discontinuing the printing of the old, cheaper ones. People who liked them, because they were so good, complained, predictably, that their Preferred Play Style (TM) was getting nerfed. To this day people will tell you that "Control decks are not a thing anymore because there's no 2-mana hard counter, stupid Wizards of the Coast." But wizards did that for a reason. They wanted the game to be a fun, interactive experience for both players, not a one-sided suckfest or a battle of counterspells versus counterspells ending in a draw 3 hours after it started.
In a PVE game, you can allow a lot more of this, I admit, because its more fun being on the control end of the game when you're in full control, but it's still a place where you can have too much of a good thing, I feel, and then have to pull back, for the a sake of balance.
I'm all for variety. I would just try to make sure that variety doesn't include "clearly way overpowered" as an option when compared to the others.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
[/quote]Not to split hairs, but the word is "giddy", not "gitty".{/quote]
Hangs head in shame. I fixed it, but it was probably because I was originally typting gets giddy but the words got mashed and I had to edit (I'm terrible when posting on the road using my phone). When I went to edit, I selected the suggested word...
Any way, with regards to the topic of being able to lock down entire spawns. This is again, something that is and was very rare in gaming, particularly with CoH with entire power set designed around the concept of completely locking down a target. This isn't going away.
Here is the thing, barring a few of the "extreme builds", those edge cases of upper-bound performance of certain primary / secondary controller sets, most did not have sufficient damage output to compete with the output of archetypes over time.
Meaning that yes, you did a lot to keep mobs locked down. Keeping busy by applying controls and leveraging secondary powers (my first main and 50 was a Grav / Kin controller), still took more time over the course of levels and even at the high end of the game when you compared to the meta-data of cross-archetype comparisons. I would also say that this type of play is a form of "fighting". Controlls are attacks as much as a melee or a ranged health attack. They are just different types of attacks. Taking a look at the more offensive controller, the dominator, who survived more on its controls because it couldn't gain any sustainability by debuffing spawns or buffing itself heavily, was more offensive and had to be quicker to defeat spawns compared to a controller.
Meaning that yes, a good controller may lock down a spawn, and while having to constantly leverage lock down, will also experience relative safety for that lock down, will in turn take a lot longer to resolve the conflict. Another archetype may be able to attack quicker and take down a large number of targets at a faster pace compared to a controller, but (outside of extremes again) will have to also manage their own health for sustainability. These are trade-offs in design.
By looking at the more offensive side of controlling through the Dominator archetype, you can see how this design metric of control and support centric builds were slower, but also safer, while the control and offense builds were faster but had to be in order to survive comparative encounters. Both types of characters are still "fighting" spawns on their own while using controls, just in different ways.
I really don't see any actual reason to enforce a limit on the ability to lock down a target in order to justify that every build must rely more on offensive attacks. I believe what is more important is that those who enjoy employing the play style of controlling your targets can feel effective in doing so on a general basis while understanding that against more difficult targets, this may be less possible, but when it does happen it will be both fun and exciting. At the same time, those powers should also feel like they have some outcome on the flow of combat even if they don't result in immediate lock down (part of our non-binary effects). And then, in particular to PvP (but this is also applicable to certain PvE encounters), targets have both reasonable access to either ways of mitigating how quickly they are controlled and / or consistant ways of releasing themselves from controls.
The harder part here is that we are doing some things different combat wise than CoH did and part of this is also deals with how players will design their builds. The basic flow of play might feel similar, but how effects are applied and mitigated (in particular looking at controls) will be different. So please don't get caught up in the mindset of looking at how CoH played out and thinking there is a direct application of that game to how this game will play. Again, we want to honor the spirit of that game by providing familiar play styles and mechanics, but have changes to both of those which will hopefully be viewed as an upgrade on and just as fun if not more so than before.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
One of the things that I liked about playing Controller's was that lazy 'Controller-speed' aspect, where you locked-up the enemy and let the DoT do the work. It drove my 'blood-crazed Scrapper' playing-partner nuts. *grin* But, the cool part was that one Could play a Controller in 'mad button-mashing' mode and do quite respectable damage, at the expense of burning up your blue bar.
And, when the unexpected Patrol shows up, or you lose lock on the Boss... well, that's when you gotta pop your blue-pills and BURN, while the Scrapper laughs maniacally and dances in the fire. Interesting Times, but not a place that _I_ wanted to go all the time.
Be Well!
Fireheart
I love seeing little ditties like this. Makes me yearn to get back in.
Thank you Tannim for participating and providing more info for us to salivate over. If we thought controlling was a whackamole timing frenzy before, I can't imagine what it will be like with the new non-binary effects. Will some spawns be frozen and others just chilled? Will some be stopped while others are just slowed? Will some be knocked unconscious while others are just dazed?
This could get interesting.
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
I apologize again for nitpicking typoes, as I am by far the worst culprit of that here and in text messages.
The obsession with CoX is also something I apologize for. I know CoT will be its own game. It won't be CoX. It won't be GW2. I was originally thinking, in terms of those two game, which I am familiar with, that the feel of GW2 is very different from CoX in terms of the control parameters (GW2 has nothing like what CoX though of as control) and it made me wonder if CoX, or it's spiritual successor, might have been improved by reducing the amount of hard mez lock and increasing the other combat abilities of the controllers.
I remember VERY late they tried to increase the damage on some of the gravity attacks, like Propel. I wondered at the time if we'd ever see a reduction of the hold times of the hold powers, possibly with more DoT added to compensate, but the game got shut down.
In any event, it's just an idea, and just my opinion. I don't know what they've got in store, but I hope we ALL love it when it finally arrives.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
Radiac, please never apologize for obsessing over CoH ever again. ;)
I also think that you may be pleased a bit when it comes to determining hiw effective a control power is and how effective the control power's damage is. The base-line we design with provides similar play to that of the old game (in a manner of speaking - and I'm fully aware of how ambiguous this statement is). But thrn like all powers, players can choose which effects of their control powers to improve beyond the base line. The choice is up you.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
The things is that the more you do that the less distinction you get between the different control-focused AT's imo since they (especially the "CoX controller" AT equivalent) become too combat oriented and loose some of their utility. CoX had, and CoT will have, something that effectively no other game that I have played has, a class that is focused on utility and just enough damage to "get by" when solo. Please do not take that away by trying to get MWM to focus more on the damage aspect than the utility aspect, especially by introducing an arbitrary cap on the number of targets (hopefully dependent on group size) that can be "hard lock mezzed".
The thing is that you seem to be lumping all the control focused AT's under one single umbrella and then judging all of them by the performance of the, by your criteria, slowest one. That is not really fair towards the more damage focused "control AT's".
However with the introduction of Masteries you may get your wish, in that a controller could trade away a bit of "mezz efficiency" to gain an equivalent amount of "damage efficiency".
I don't think that was ever going to happen. Gravity got its damage increases because it was under performing in its role. It was supposed to trade off better control to be the single-target-damage-dealer of control sets in the same way that Fire Control was the AoE-damage-dealer; "enough" control offset with better damage. It just never really lived up to that ideal the way that Fire did (partly due to Propel's horrifically long animation). Additionally it was hurt by both the fact that single target damage simply wasn't as valuable as AoE in CoX; and that it had a lot of knock*based soft controls, which were generally not well liked by groups.
Now, I can definitely see space for masteries in CoT that shift the balance of control sets towards faster damage output, altering the playstyle probably more towards something you're suggesting, but I don't think that should be at the expense of the playstyle that others liked. There can be room for both, I think.
I think I said this above, but it bears repeating. When I say "control" as an ethos or play style, I'm referring to the MOST controlly version of the most controlly controller we're going to allow by design in CoT. That decision has to be made somewhere. You have to know how much control is actually available in THE most controlly build allowed by the design. I would DEFINITELY expect there to be a continuum of options ranging from Blaster level DPS and NO control to Controller level DPS (whatever that is) and maximum control (whatever that is). I'm only talking about how much control would be best to have in the most extreme controller case when I talk about pulling back on that relative to CoX. I think max-control controllers in CoX, like my Gravity/Kinetic guy, would have maybe felt better to play if they had a little faster DPS and a little less hold ability. There were certainly other controller builds that we way less controlly and way better at DPS, to be sure. If you're able to hammer the mobs with your attacks or pets, etc, then you don;t need as much control in the first place. All I'm really saying is that if they had taken away a little of the gravity hold power and given me a little more DPS, I would have been happier, especially if it made me able to clear a map solo a little faster.
And in a game where you have to provide some effectiveness for people to solo their toons, I just think it might be for the best if the maximum allowed amount of control is maybe a little less than what CoX had, with the stipulation that you'd get a little more DPS and/or toughness in exchange.
Some people might say they want more control and less DPS than the limit I would personally think is right, and that's a difference of opinion, and we can agree to disagree. But in the final analysis, at some point the decision has to be made as to what the most extreme case would look like, and I think we can all agree that "Hold a whole mob for 10 min with one AoE hold power, but ZERO DPS and your toon only has 1 hit point" is probably bad. Where you end up, as a limiting extreme "most control available" case must be somewhere between that and "Blaster". If, in CoT, the limit ends up somewhere less than Gravity Controller, I wouldn't have a problem with that, assuming the toon is soloable and the damage is a little better. That's really all I'm saying.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
Right, but you can't really do it to just the most controlly build. You have to essentially do it to each and every control build since you want to keep the intended distinction between them. And depending on how close the second most controlly build is it could even be so that those two would switch places. So effectively we are talking about the base line of "control potential" in control builds.
Personally though I hope that [i]the most controlly build ever[/i] leans a bit more towards control than what CoX did since that would be the freaking point of such a build. Considering that we will most likely have access to several build that we can switch between then I don't see why we could make one control oriented for team-play and a damage oriented for solo-play. Heck, just going with damage instead of control augments would most likely make a significant difference in this regard.
Honestly, I have no idea why nor any understanding for people who go for the most extreme build of a certain "aspect" (control in this case) then complain that it has too much of that aspect instead of just balancing their build better towards their "needs/wants". What I am saying is that this is more a matter of choice and reducing them is NOT something I am in favor of.
This. In the old game, I leveraged my Grav\kin's build to hit recharge cap (on all crucisl powers leveraging kin to get there) with GD and GDF slotted to be efficient enough to hold while also upping damage (and leferaging FS), along with my pet slotted for damage. With Incarnate powers I was even beginning to take down some AVs solo.
One of the things that should be understood is that control powers must provide a base-line of performance for several reasons. It could be detrimental to design a control set to be less capable of control in favor of being more damage efficient by making the control powers themselves weaker.
There should be after time, a reasonable expecation that it takes a certain number of control to affect certain types of targets.
The way sets get diversified with "less control in favor of more damage" is in the over-all design. And this too can cause some problems. For a long time Grav offered less team-effective control compared to manhnother sets. Which eventually led to changes in for dimension shift. Meanwhile there were sets which had plenty of utility and damage. Which was why Grav was getting updated with improved animation times and Propel getting a small AoE (or was it cone?) damage in i24.
Also, do not forget that our Tertiary sets are going to allow for much more diversity in build options earlier on in our game compared to what was some variety in build options in the late game in CoH.
Taking a control set and socketing controls for damage, and twkjng a couple of key attacks from tertiaries, while leveraging the support powers from a secondary for sustainability might fulfill something of what Radiac is looking for.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]