Will they ever bring crowd control back?

[Shurrikhan]

Was this game ever designed with CC in mind?
Genuine question.

A bit. See original T5, for instance. Or just the fact that many dungeons' speedruns were in fact faster when using CC well (Sleep hitting the strongest mob right after DoTs are applied, since DoT damage couldn't break CC back then; healer reaps the DPS benefits) back in ARR.

This would go beyond "Just Sleep mob X and then don't hit it" since that isn't really adding much other than frustration when Zergy McZergface comes and spams his AoE's and clips the sleeping dude and wakes them up. (Or if you follow Ye Olde WoWe style, Sheep one mob, Freezing Trap another, Hex a third, Repentence a fourth, Shackle/Banish/Hibernate/Bind a race specific fifth. With potential for ghetto hard CC from like Entangling Roots on a melee dude for a 6th CC. Also with the really old school Mind Control usage to not only lock down a dangerous target but also then use them for evil to help deal with the trash pack (Such as MCing a healer mob to push out insano healing, or MCing a mage dude who'll blow up the other trash better than actual Mage players))

But stuff like silencing healers to prevent them from healing/buffing their allies. Pacifying dangerous ability based enemies. Using Stuns effectively to mitigate damage. All alongside standard interrupts as well as various forms of soft CC to mitigate damage (Such as Slow, Blind, Knockbacks > Binds *Cough*Fluid Aura*Cough* or Heavy).

It's just... This would require for them to make trash actually dangerous and interesting. As well as add enough tools to jobs to allow them to actually accomplish this.

Also, likely would also require for trash to live longer so that there's actually merit to CCing rather than tossing a handful of Flares into a pack and having them all fall over.

With the final point being, to also make these things relevant for in boss fights too, so that you don't have a ton of vestigial skills that are only relevant for trash packs (Given that we seem to be limited to like 2-3 AoE skills, this seems like an actual concern for devs. Instead of you know... Making more encounters with AoE requirements to help justify more interesting AoE rotations)

This. All this.

I don't get the appeal for what I'll just call "prelude CC", where you can't begin the actual fight until X, Y, and/or Z are complete. But holy hell are mid-fight survival tactics (which tend to involve CC in some way) and maintaining high awareness and responsiveness by which to actively thwart enemy activities fun.

XIV at present is very poorly equipped to handle that, but the changes necessary to build and give context for a good use of CC would, imo, be a massive boon to the game even if the CC itself were never added. (Though, of course, it'd be far more obvious in its merit once the CC is in fact added.)

[AngelCheese77]

I doubt it will ever come back due to how places are set up to use AoE damage so well. Though I do still have the sleep ability on my hotbar for my WHM when I'm soloing.

[Khavir]

Lets hope not.

[SamSmoot]

IN WoW, CC has been dead in group content for years, but when soloing against connected mobs, turning one into a sheep or frog for 60 seconds while you killed it's partner can be a lifesaver. I wouldn't mind seeing it here for that purpose at least.