Comments on: Changing attitudes towards crowd control

By: Rurjaos

Rurjaos — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 09:51:24 +0000

CC definitly is art.
But not every player is art-aware. “what demon?”, “huh, elemental?”, “didn’t recognize it’s mc’able”, “uh, m-what?”.
cc’ing something at the right time is as valuable as releasing it at the right time, but that mean to know, how much the tank-heal-team can handle STRESSLESS. Sure, with actual gear and some skill, almost every trashpack is aoe-able. But I prefer fluid runs, where I can stay in motion all the time, because my team is always above 60% mana and no downtime instead of the stop-and-go aoe-parties normally are.
But as history tells, artists often have to die to raise the value of their art.

By: Lujanera

Lujanera — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 18:04:39 +0000

On my server, too, we have seen a substantial migration from 25s to 10s. If 25s become so unpopular that they resemble top-end BC raiding (ie, only 1% of players participate in them), I wonder if we will see them phased out.

By: Lujanera

Lujanera — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 17:37:52 +0000

These are all excellent ways to make players care about CC. Damage alone, as mentioned, is a pretty weak way to make CC desirable.

Even in the absence of CC, these mechanics can make the dps role more interesting in the sense that they require precise adherence to the kill order. You can get through a lot of these sorts of mechanics if you kill the right mob fast, but woe to the group that screws this up.

By: Andenthal

Andenthal — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 15:49:55 +0000

I’ve always been in the crowd of “what you do at the lower level is training for the higher levels”. If you take 5 mans as the “lower level” of end-game, then they are training for the “higher level” – raids.

In a raid, failure to CC (or kiting, or other non-damaging abilities, such as stuns, etc) can mean a gauranteed wipe. How can one expect players to CC/stun/interupt in a 25 player raid, when they’ve never been asked to do so in a 5 man instance – which has fewer penalties and greater leeway.

@ the whole “CC makes DPS job harder” thing. All I really have to say is “LOL”. Apparently using anything other than an AE damage ability is “hard” now. I guess finding the correct target, and using the correct abilities is a task relegated to only tanks and healers now?

By: p0tsh0t

p0tsh0t — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 20:57:36 +0000

Late to the party, but to restate the obvious, the death of cc and the positive aspect of the playstyle it encouraged is entirely due to design fail.

Why was CC necessary to begin with? Because most encounters were designed to overmatch a player group. DPS, excessive tank health and uber healing couldn’t match (and weren’t designed) to match the effectiveness of CC in tipping the odds in the groups favor. Perfect CC evened the odds without adding aggro.

As a result, you tended to get tactical group play and a better skilled playerbase. The problem is now that encounters are simply not tuned to basically wipe a group without CC anymore (or don’t scale when players are overgeared to provide the same challenge). It just becomes a trivial gogogo speedrun.

Remember when pullers were just as important as CCers?

By: Kring

Kring — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 17:00:45 +0000

After the 25 mans are gone, the pures will be the next step. I can’t wait to see your census post after 1 year of Cataclysm.

By: spinks

spinks — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 16:34:29 +0000

I think we still haven’t seen the full longterm effects of 25 mans tending to drop to 10s – I keep hearing more and more that 25s are dying outside the hardcore.

I suspect the game will get more focussed, 25s will be phased out, and it will probably be seen as a good thing. But I also suspect that as 10 mans split for natural reasons, it will be harder to fill the gaps and part of that is due to fewer server PUGs/ 25s where you might meet people.

Blizzard have thought of this though, and that’s where the new looking for guild tool comes in… (it’ll still suck to find a raid as a melee though )

By: Dril

Dril — Sat, 23 Apr 2011 08:47:27 +0000

@Stabs: undoubtedly I would never disagree that a good community can make a good game great and a bad game tolerable.

RIFT seems to be enjoying a relatively nice community, but I just can’t help feeling Trion are going to throw it all with LFD tool, which is a real, real pity. Not to mention they could very well be removing the beauty of their class system by bringing it in as well.

@Spinks: I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s simply just because they’re all hybrids, but rather that the tanking, healing and support souls (sans Bard) all follow the same mechanics as their dps colleagues because they’re all in the same class. Whilst it doesn’t do much for feeling unique, it does mean that it’s not a massive playstyle jump, which helps a bit.

By: Uzi

Uzi — Sat, 23 Apr 2011 08:29:47 +0000

I agree with what several people have said:-

To make CC relevant, the lack of it must impact the group. So combo abilities, buffs, healing or whatever from the mobs.

I think however the actual problem with LFD is the lack of community. Back in the day my TBC hunter was valued as they were stready DPS and cast iron reliable CC. People in my guild and on the server knew this. In the LFD enviroment that mage might be a complete tool so asking them to sheep might mean a few wipes….easier to just pull it all if the healer can cope. And the healer is more likely to be competent . . . as you dont know either player.

I see a lot of 25 man guilds dropping to 10 man content (even though its harder, certainly on Heroic) due to lack of players/organisation ease. I see a lot of once proud guilds folding. In the old days before LFD you bumped into ‘new’ players via the daily heroics and if they were good you added them to friends and asked them on dailys more often. If they turned out to be folk you got on with and could also play well you invited them to raid/join your guild/you joined theirs. Now I did still bump into funny/skilled/great folk via LFD but because they aint on my server I’m not going to ever raid with them or use them to replace the normal attrition of the PvE raider burnouts in my guild/raid com/circle of friends who PvE.
And that to me is the main problem for LFD and PvE.

I recall a certain DK who used to aggrevate the hell out of me. They were a great player however and as they were on my server we used to play a fair bit. And as time went on I got to know them better and ‘get’ their humour. Eventualy we joined the same guilds, exchanged packages of hard to find goods and still raid together today. This would not happen, or be terribly unlikely, with LFD.

By: Aracos

Aracos — Sat, 23 Apr 2011 06:15:03 +0000

Back in vanilla WoW, I played a mage, and I was a damn good one. Not because I was the best DPS’er, but because I knew how to place and maintain a sheep better than practically anyone else on my server. It was an art form unto itself, and I was proud of it, and tanks loved me for it. If Blizzard wanted to, they could make CC relevant again simply by making the mobs have some kind of “cooperative” abilities. If one isn’t CC’d, he buffs the mobs, or debuffs your group, or mob A gives an added ability to mob B, something like that. That way even overgeared groups would have to at least consider the need to CC rather than just mindlessly AoE everything to death. And then maybe, just maybe, a person’s other skills might be valuable other than what their DPS or Gearscore is.