New Control point crowd control is not "fun", it's fake difficulty

So two new crowd control effects were put into control points as an effort to stop people from playing there without a full group.

We'll call those disorient and teleport.

Disorient, for those unfamiliar with it, randomly remaps your directions so your movement no longer goes forward is forward, back is back.

Teleport randomly moves you to a different spot on the map, usually within ~20-30 radius.


Now, the issue I have with these is three-f0ld:
1. Disorient, as a mechanic, disproportionately affects melee characters, and does not do anything to the combat flow of archers or mages.
2. Teleport, as a mechanic, disproportionately affects melee characters, and does not do anything to the combat flow of archers or mages.
3. Both of these effects have no cooldown, resistance, nor diminishing return. You can, luck allowing, be chain teleported from the control point all the way to the gate entrance. Or in the more common case, disorient that changes directions every 2 seconds. It also removes the skill aspect of it, because in these situations you do not have time to both adjust to the new heading, and regain the lost ground due to travelling in the wrong direction.

It is currently possible for you to lose an entire control point with 5 people standing on it, just by an unlucky initial volley upon wave spawn of mages teleporting everyone off and disorienting them during their spawn/immunity phase.


In their current incarnation, they don't add difficulty, they just add a PRNG to the fight that punishes characters who aren't ranged.
Or, at most optimistic, they just add a mandatory skill requirement of blink

Please consider adding a lockout to these skills so that they can apply to the same character at most once every 5(teleport) or 10(disorient) seconds, and a limit on how often the npcs can cast them (6 seconds should work there). This will put disorient back into the realm of a fun mechanic and make teleport no longer a prng check.

Also consider adding a lockout to the control point where the control point does not start losing capture progress while monsters are immune on it.

 

I haven't even tried these changes yet, but I had the same concerns when I first read they were being added to control points. Melee players get frustrated while ranged/mages not so much. Sure, ranged may get taken off of the CP and lose it due to not being there... but a melee is going to have to include skills like Body Slam, Charge, Engage Opponent, etc. in their decks to counter these new hinderances.

I would agree with Umuri on adding Blink to the deck also, but a melee that is in all plate and wearing a shield will not have much luck using blink due to fizzles.

Ranged and mages will just need to hard target and fire away from wherever they land.

 

The problem was/is not JUST the botters cps as Chris explained a while ago a firehose of exp. 1 gm a hour was the xp payout in R36 much lower in r37 but still the best paying xp /h zone.

These were the best group content in the game and they should stay cool and still pay well. They just needed a ballance and id love for them to still be fun .

 

Oh i wasn't saying take it out, I was actually more thinking along the lines of is there a way to make these affect those characters too, even if it was only slightly?
For example:
Teleport: orient the screen vertical/zoom in a random direction
Disorient: Make it affect ground targetting

I actually like the concept of more abilities in monsters and uniqueness in points. Having multiple control points within one area would also be interesting way to require minimum party sizes.

I agree, having specialized roles is important. It's just melee as it stands seems to continually get the short end on nerfs that are mainly aimed at magic users. Having disorient take on special roles against people equipped with a bow, or wands/staves, would make it more universal.
Or, as an alternative, teleport for mages/archers, a superpowered gust(same distance) for melee?
Keeps the same movement/get off the grid mechanic, while making the effect much more "fun" to play against since it can be fought against effectively as melee (orientation, running into the gust, seeing the movement slide to get an idea of where you end up. There's a definitely lack of monsters that use gust.

Totally agree with this!
I like the direction of the push, to add difficulty to the control points, i just am pushing to make it more even for all involved.
Speaking as a mage who isn't much hindered by them except the instant game over.

I wasn't debating the integrity of the PRNG itself, I was just saying that there should never be an "instant game over" condition that is achievable through prng.
In this case, the combination of initial wave immunity (can't even control or cc to try to threat prioritze) that can results in a complete party shove off the grid in a way that can't effectively be countered in a fun and intuitive way.
EDIT/UPDATE: Immunity seems to be turned off in the newest QA patch. Makes things much more organic/managable. Might have been killed earlier, I also switched to a more physical build to test how the weakest class will be able to fare with these changes.

I was just saying that at no point during a control point should a sufficiently sized group be guaranteed to lose no matter how good/geared they are, and the current incarnation allows that with 5, which i feel is a bit high of a minimum group requirement for these things.

If it was tuned to be 3 or lower (which i think the changes i suggested above may achieve, hard to tell) I think it would be a sufficient minimum ceiling.

OOO idea:

AOE Gust. It splits the push distance based on how many targets it hits. If only 3 people are on the point, they go flying, if it's 8, they stay relatively solid. This lets you scale a groupcheck while seeming more natural.

 

Why was my post deleted? Don't like my feedback? First time i have ever had a post deleted.. Maybe i was on to something? Just cause you don't like what i have to say does not mean you need to censor my concerns...

 

I really don't think anyone has been "botting" cp's.. No one was getting 1 gm an hour... If the intent of having CP's with a full group net exp better then soloing then i don't understand why they need to make CP's increasing in difficulty. If a group of 3-4 high levels can accomplish doing a Control Point it should be ok. Instead of constant nerf's trying to play catch-up, they need to make Higher level CP's that net more exp that actually takes 6+ players to defend. It's like having a group of 8 players be able to steam roll the Rise.. Then once a few players get to certain level or playstyle they start to 3 man the rise yielding a better reward of exp due to the time and effort invested. Then all of a sudden someone does not like that and tries to take it all away making it impossible for the 8 man group to do it and making it a bit more difficult for the 3 man to do it. Might as well make CP's scenes 6-7 skull zones now cause the difficulty is clearly not a 5 skull scene..

 

Sorry, but 1 mil XP / hour pretty much translates into 1 GM / hour (for quite a lot of skills)

 

I and many others made 1.2-1.4 million xp an hour, most the skills u gm at 1.2 million xp.

 

In a full group at a control point? The "way" they want you to do them? If so in a full group or even in a smaller group should we not be rewarded for doing so? I mean once you get high up in levels.. Increasing skills past 100 doesn't yield much dmg for the time and effort it took you to reach 120+ in those skills. I'm currently level 114 probably the highest level in game. I have put in a lot of time and effort to reach this level.. I know what is "fun" and is not. Just the way the devs have tried to "control" things are making the game worse. Once you reach level 100+ you will soon realize that its going to take way to much time and effort to see any real benefit or reward for doing so.

 

Only because you can have an party with 8 players doesn't mean that you must make a group with 8 players for doing the content.

And if you want to force various party sizes, then, well... sorry, make an instanced system like in WoW, or an better example would be Final Fantasy XIV Reborn where you only can enter dungeons or raids as soon the party is full

 

Yes i think they should just scrap CP's and if they want us to have a full group to even do them they need to make them an instance like chillblains... THen maybe they will actually make them rewarding and fun to do. As of a few releases ago they have just made the game not fun or rewarding and focusing on to much fluff and new bundles.. Seems like the only reason they are trying to slow everything down to a halt is that they forsee them not releasing the game in a long time from now. Episode 1 should of been release by now but yet they keep focusing on more addon store items and stupid housing bundles... It's time to make the SOTA GREAT AGAIN! It's time to make SOTA FUN AGAIN!

 

YES
but sounds hard to implement... and could be avoided,
maybe just make it increase cast time of spell glyphs instead? would be more reasonable perhaps and could bring confusion from the chaos tree back into pvp if it was given the same effect

 

There was a group of 3 that was making over 3million an hour, but pvp toggled 8 man group made 1.2 u made more if u had 7. I never cheated that includes macroing I know some did but we just held the point some times for 10 hours stopping just to get more regs.

I dont know who is what level ud have to ask chris. I do know there are people with over 100 gms running arround.

Ur right at a point its very slow to gain hence I barley played in r37. I do have a few skills over 116 even a 121. Rapid fire ticks longer and hits harder its worth taking high imop.

Cps were and can be fun, they just need to make sure its not broken before the piblic gets to play with it.

 

That is good news, thank you!

I dont want a easy game, however mabey stagger them in challange and reward so you feel proression moving from one to the next.

 

This is good news, but I have to say that I'm skeptical because of past iterations. (and multiple changes)

When I hear "challenging control points" I immediately think that just means that the same few groups of players that always farm them will continue to farm them.

What I can't understand is why we want people farming control points? How does that make the game better? There's plenty of other things that can be farmed in the game, at lower rates, that don't reward group power gaming. Why not make control points about travel and not about loot and XP?

What is the purpose of a control point? If the answer is that it's supposed to make a few players really high level (i.e. a place where groups can stand around and farm), then mission accomplished, why are we changing anything? If the answer is something with more potential, could you explain what that is, please?

Maybe I'm answering my own questions. Control Points are places for groups to farm that are supposed to be more challenging and less exploitable (i.e. where players are getting more than a solo player would in an equally challenging solo area - I don't think that's fair). Is that right? I was hoping the answer would be more than just that, a lot more.

 

You have some good points, all i know is xp aside the most fun i have had in sota was r36 and it was all pvp tag and controll points for me. I could not wait to play every day.

Mabey they just didnt have anything else yet in that was as fun for me to do. I did not enjoy r37...

 

Good news, as long almost everything can drop somewhere else as well.
Don't get me wrong, something definetly should be exclusive to find in CPs only, no doubt there.
But not everything or almost everything should drop in CPs only.

In the notes it says "high level mobs".

The Rise maybe?
Dragon, Daemon, Phoenix?

I don't want an 100% Spoiler now, just make sure people who aren't able to do CPs can find most of theese things as well, somehow, somewhere else.

 

How about this - once a CP is Defeated - I.E. you have open the "secret" pass - or killed the Super Boss, the CP is now cleared and dead to those players for say IDK 24 hours?

That would stop it from being farmed - Also would make it actually playable for the lesser few who have not abused the systems put in place and are actually playing the game - Not just some place that you HAVE to go find some of those who are absurdly high and beg to have them help you - but what to I know.

Also you would have to put in another mechanic that would say - after 5 - 8 tried to advance the CP it locks you out also. I know that would kill what I have done but anything to actually better the game and not just have a game that player go to 2 - 4 places and everywhere else is dead space.