About Crowd Control.

[Mr_Gyactus]

In the majority of MMO, be able to control an enemy is determinant for a successful fight, starting from a tank&spank (where we only need to engage an enemy and defend weaker characters) up to chain stuns.

Crowd control an enemy is fun, because it adds tactics and an variety of actions.

I feel FF14 lacking of mechanics involving CC.
Because of this, a big part of the fight is focused on damage skills (and spam of these), without worrying about what the enemy is doing.

If a dodo decides to use sleep, how can we counter it?
If a gnat decides to vanish and use his lightning ray, can we prevent it? We can stun an enemy or paralyze or silence it, but it’s not easy to get an ideal time.

Notice what a monster is going to do, and interrupt the attack, results in an improved fight.

When we see a mole to escape underground, we can move away and the attack misses.
I’m asking something like that.

I suggest two answer.

1. “Something” (a noise, an action, a visual effect) alert us of the attack, and we have a time for a reaction. Example: moles.

2. Monsters can have a predetermined rotation of skills.
With time and experience, we’ll know “the dragon uses 2 times a tail’s attack, after that it breaths fire”: after 2 tail’s attack, we’ll run away or stun it.
Otherwise an attack can trigger with a particular condition: HP losses, a magic, time….

That’s all. Any good idea?

[MariyaShidou]

First, Crowd Control has nothing to do with a single enemy for the obvious namesake, Crowd. CC is more on things like Sleep a bunch of mobs so as to let the party focus on one single odd one.

Second, if you truly want a fun and reactive fight, monsters should not have a predetermined rotation of skills. Have you seen any fighting games that is considered a little bit challenge, where the PC-controlled opponent has a predetermined routine?

Third, "something" to alert, yes. There are already effects that notify you of what the mobs going to do (The gnat disappear IS the effect, there is a delay before it appear and zap you and you CAN avoid that the moment it disappear, Dodo has an obvious casting animation and so does Apkallu). For many, it's not enough. But then we have a dilemma here: It's a reactive playstyle, you extend the time for reaction to make it easy, in effect also make it less challenging? If you play action games, say, Devil May Cry 3, if enemies fight in slow-mo while you still move around at normal speed, would it still be a challenging game? And then there's latency issue.

[Naqaj]

#1 is the established solution in many MMOs. The target gives a visual cue, like an animation, or a line of text (the former being the better choice, as you don't need to keep an eye on the chat window).

I would strongly advise against #2. It takes one or two attempts to learn the pattern, and then most of the challenge of the fight is gone.

This is something that's still very underused in other games, having monsters that actually change their attack pattern more often.

[Mr_Gyactus]

Second, if you truly want a fun and reactive fight, monsters should not have a predetermined rotation of skills. Have you seen any fighting games that is considered a little bit challenge, where the PC-controlled opponent has a predetermined routine?

Yes, basically every themepark from EQ2, WoW and later :-) and DMC bosses have rotations
Der ritcher (FF10) has a rotation, do you find it easy? A lot of FF12 hunting and bosses have a rotation of skills.

CC starts from the idea you cannot challenge 2+ mobs together.
Why? because they deal too much damage/debuff and you die.
But this does not mean you are forced to put one in sleep/paralyze.
If the problem is a skill, you can block -that- skill and take damage white from 2 or more, and that's CC.

Dodo is easy (it's only a big chicken), but what's the problem with 4 dodos? they use sleep, and you cannot block it. If we were able to counter sleep, we were CCing 4 dodos.

[yukikaze_yanagi]

i don't really wanna fight mobs with a set of actions set in a stone. more like randoms actions and pre-determined action to a certain % of live, as always been.

#1 is the established solution in many MMOs. The target gives a visual cue, like an animation, or a line of text (the former being the better choice, as you don't need to keep an eye on the chat window).

this work if the action is a insta-kill or can be avoided in some way. In ffxi we had stun for that, in ffxiv nothing like that (speaking with boss fightes in mind).
In a normal battle we already have a certain degree of advice for skills, like the casting efect, teleports ecc, that is enought

[MariyaShidou]

EQ, WoW and even DMC are not fighting game (DMC is action game). Street Fighter is a fighting game. And you can always Sleep the Dodo.

Oh and that boss in FFX

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0o90i4xZWI

I call it easy, lol.

[Mr_Gyactus]

EQ, WoW and even DMC are not fighting game (DMC is action game). Street Fighter is a fighting game. And you can always Sleep the Dodo.

Oh and that boss in FFX

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0o90i4xZWI

I call it easy, lol.

I'm not talking about fighting game, you did.
I'm talking about FF14 and how I can fight a monster. Now, today, we can only pew pew a monster, until someone (player or monster) die.

Can we solo a cactuar or 2? 1,000 needles will kill us if we have less than 1,000 hp. We cannot interrupt, escape, stun it. If I have 1,001 hp I'm alive, 1,000 or less and I'm dead. There is not tactic, or ability, there is only a full bar of HP.
Sleep the dodo is a tactic? Yes, but it's a cheap tactic.
You can sleep the second dodo, but you cannot stop the first one.

Players ask for autoattack, and ask about uniqueness of classes. because every skill they use, every sequence they use, it's fine.
SE can create great animations, autoattack, a lot of flashy effects, but getting the point. we need challenge and "something to do when we fight".
If the combat is dps-dps-dps-dps (or 1,1,1,2), and everything I do is fine, where is the challenge?

There are a lot of different things to do in different aspects, but everything should be done for a reason: break the reiterative action we actually have.


P.S. Mariya Shidou, everything is easy when you see it done by others.

[MariyaShidou]

Solo a cactus? Yes, doable with less than 1000 HP. Stop 1000 Needle? Why yes, possible. Stun? There are stun, example Leg Sweep. Interrupt? Battle Regiment will stop monster from gaining TP in the first place, no TP = no shiny move. Monster already have TP? Heavy Shot/Twisting Vice, bye bye TP. In fact I solo Little Apkallu and they never ever Sleep me again, they don't have TP to do that.

Mobs in FFXIV actually do respond to players up to some degree. Djigga will never AoE if you don't hit them with a Weapon Skill. Dodore Minion will not Tail Whip you if you don't hit Weapon Skill (Which is the main reason why a THM can solo Dodore gang, Tail Whip > all other attack). In return, there are many effect players can do to stop mobs. Ever fight an NM? They are all cake walk mainly because Battle Regimen and the like heavily affect them. For example Great Buffalo, with BR you can stop it from gaining TP and all it do mostly are just normal attack. Then you can break it horns and it can't use its Horn special attack, incapacitate its leg and it can't stomp. People don't bother with normal monsters though, because they die too fast.

The point is, the combat as it is now sucks, because fights are too easy and mobs die too fast.

P.S: I beat all the bosses in FFX. Zanmato > boss, lol. One hit KO bye bye move.

[kukurumei]

There is no such thing as a smart AI in MMOs heck there isn't such a thing as a smart AI in many genres. You either script a simple if/and/or loop and that's about it.

That's why Action MMOs tend to go downhill fast. There's only so many times you can fight an enemy you know inside and out, when a battle is based on "tricks". Kill trash mobs, dodge the spikes, wait for boss to glow red and dodge charge, end battle.

It's the joke "Flip the giant crap over to hit it's weakness for massive damage". That's basically almost every action game and thus design AIs around that scenario. But action games don't last very long. No one plays the same action games 200 times.

So it's better not to think about AI. Smart AI isn't something we can do in MMOs like this. We simply do it through content via script writing a "battle" to feel "epic".

But that's not about crowd control. Crowd control is a bit of a still half baked thing in MMOs. We are locked on a single target ideal, because it works and works well. Script writers can manipulate that to put real "fear and excitement" by using different groups with different timing, and different angles. Because you are suppose to have limited options to probably control the situation. But it's really the same deal. One enemy, one at a time.

We are now stepping into the area of AoE, or natural AoE. You are suppose to weave dodge and apply AoE, but it makes it darn hard on the script writers.

FF14 had the idea where it was many vs many and well...they found out how disgustingly hard that was when you make skills and ideals that apply to that, because to be frank they are idiots in that area.

Games that lived on Crowd control mentalities, have skills that have freeze, slow, knock back, redirect, cluster, barrier, etc.

And well, SE doesn't exactly have much experience with those terminologies, not to mention their whole FF14 development was anything but elegant anyway.

Kinda have to make due with that, since you're asking the wrong people for those things.

If I wanted to go through a list of CC theology, I would show them plants vs zombies. It's a summary of every CC concepts we have made over the pass 30yrs of gaming in simplified form.

[Mr_Gyactus]

I agree, monster are too easy and die so fast (if not, why did I open this thread?).
The point is "How can SE change this flavour?"
Is "hit harder + more HP" enough? Does it change our gameplay?
What do I have to expect from future contents? A bigger buffalo with a different name? More HP, more damage, same tactic?

Yes kukurumel, SE has to improve AOE, status effects, and others. And I agree, they have developed characters ("classes") with a many vs many concept, broken in the end.
Anyway, I find unfair call them "idiots"; maybe you are right, they don't have experience or proficiency, but this is a beta forum, SE is asking feedbacks, and I think this ("dynamism in a fight, not only CC") is way more important for a successful re-release, than a aggro icon or an AH or a chocobo.
However, if SE doesn't have a skilled scripter it can employ one.

@FFX: =_=" well in my copy is not possible (simply zanmato doesn't work on bosses). Don't you think it's a bit "trickY"with that summon?