Crowd Control?

[ASYLUM101]

So, I initially wasn't going to create a thread about this, but I'm bored out of my mind. :)

http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=345

This is where the argument came up, and I think it'd be better off in a separate thread.

To summarize; crowd control wasn't too effective in TQ. Yes, it worked, and it was somewhat helpful, but it could have been leagues better. For classes which are SUPER fragile, like say, the ice sharder, or the earth mage(who actually didn't experience this as much as storm), the mobs would normally gain pretty quick and maul you on legendary if you don't time your skills right. Sure, you can mix in dream and throw some slowing distortion waves, or petrify them with distort reality, but both cases aren't sure-fire ways of controlling your environment to ensure the skilled player can protect themselves. The distort realilty is an excellent skill, no doubt, but the range was so short that setting it off at the right time was a challenge. The damage of said skill was enough to hold it on it's own, but that's besides the point.

What I think I'm trying to say is, we need(or I'd like, I don't know how the community will respond) some more dedicated CONTROL spells. Say, nature for instance would've been LOADS better without briar ward, and WITH briar ENTANGLEMENT or something. Something to root your enemies at a distance with some sort of massive plant. That would make it safer for your pets and you to pick them off and allow you to come up with some very interesting strategies.

This is is just a handful of possibilities, but what do you guys think? Crowd control worth it? I'm thinking yes. :)

[Starkrun]

if a caster goes crowd control you need to make sure its a main focus not a one point wonder to eliminate exploitable skill use...

And i agree some form of stun or wall, a good snare spell or root spell would be great... or a high aggro summonable that works.. low DPS very very high defense, its entire job to hold and take agroo...

I would love a pet like this.. kinda like the Carnagor in Hellgate: London, fully upgraded that beast could hold aggro for days!

[ASYLUM101]

You know, you mention HG:L alot, haha. I'm assuming you're one of the few(along with myself) who actually enjoyed that game. :)

But yeah, basically things that would scale REALLY well but not be completely useless early on. A good example of something GREAT for controlling is like you said, a wall. The necromancer's bone wall and prison were excellent skills in D2, very fun and cool, and they did a pretty good job. At least, I think they did. I never used the skill, but my my brother did and would always trap the enemies far from us when we were low on hp. Good times!

You could even go as far as doing something like the sorc, and summoning a firewall to discourage enemies from coming through. They *could* pass through, and risk taking tons of damage, haha.

[eisprinzessin]

I actually gave my Sage "Ice Shard" in normal Hades for crowd control purposes. But he is not super fragile. Until then he lacked a decent AOE attack.

"briar ENTANGLEMENT" sounds good - druids in WoW have such a skill.

I never tried "Ensnare" from hunting ... if it could ensnare multiple enemies. But the way it is, it is just good for the mobs to hinder you from fleeing.

"War Horn" is effective - and given to a class usually wearing sturdy armour. Other classes would benefit more.

There are several other skills, which can stun or slow down mobs and buy you some time, but that's not exactly what you, ASYLUM101, are looking for, is it?

[yerkyerk]

I say pets. Lots of pets - like the necro in D2. Not only is it heaps of fun, it's an effective way of crowd control. The few pets you could have at once in TQ disappointed me and they were with too little for really effective crowd control.

In TQ, Fear was a fun way of crowd control (although it scaled very poorly).

What would be cool is skills to push back your opponents (there was such an AoE skill in Fable which threw all nearby opponents on the ground - it did no damage I think, but was pretty buttrock to use).

In Torchlight, the Ember Lance was pretty cool for this purpose, iirc it was a straight beam that travelled through your opponents (I believe the pushback function was unfortunately heavily nerfed in the first patch).

[Confuted]

perhaps you could have a skill that controls a pet plant. Just off the top of my head, how about a plant that resembles a venus fly trap that can crawl underground and grab onto things with its roots or jaws. Perhaps give it a passive skill that gives it poison damage or thorns. Could even have the plant deal life leech damage and the health is dispersed through the team equally or distributed by varying health needs (low health, threat level, just enough health regen to live while taking burn damage or poison, some sort of priority system to benefit a group).

by making the crowd control a pet, exploiting it won't be so easy.

[yerkyerk]

Sounds a lot like one of the druid's pets in D2 :)
http://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp/skills/druid-summoning.shtml#poisoncreeper
Although that doesn't trap or heal..

But a single trap that traps enemies at random doesn't seem like a very effective way of crowd control. Either it'd capture everything and be insanely overpowered, or it wouldn let a bunch through, making it very unreliable.

[Confuted]

ah yes, i had a feeling my idea resembled something from a game I'd played before; been so long since I played D2.

Anyways, maybe the trap pet has a reach of the whole screen to make it more effective at crowd control? and maybe it doesn't completely ensnare the enemy. It could be that it slows them down by % but it could be tech to completely immobilize/stun a certain number of opponents by the use of its jaws.

[medierra]

I think the main problem with crowd-control skills in TQ is that I designed and balanced them based too much on my MMORPG experience. In most MMORPGs you're fighting less enemies that individually pose a much greater threat in encounters that last much longer. Being able to remove one enemy from the combat for even a few seconds can be the difference between survival or defeat.

Because of this experience, I think I over-valued crowd control in TQ and was probably too conservative in the skills I designed. In D2 I never used crowd control skills since they never seemed necessary.

Based on what I've learned from TQ, I realize that I just need to be a bit more generous in doling out crowd control abilities with larger durations that effect more targets and are easier to quickly fire off.

[ASYLUM101]

I actually gave my Sage "Ice Shard" in normal Hades for crowd control purposes. But he is not super fragile. Until then he lacked a decent AOE attack.

Er, you don't see lightning blast, spellbreaker or scattershot/puncture shot/volley as good AoE attacks? :P Ice Shards are fun and all but... not really what I'd call crowd control, you get a tiny bit of slowing right? That's about it, and with only a few points invested, I don't think you'll get enough slowing power, and the damage is quite pathetic.


I never tried "Ensnare" from hunting ... if it could ensnare multiple enemies. But the way it is, it is just good for the mobs to hinder you from fleeing.

Oh man, ensnare is awful. It really needs instant recharge and a longer lasting timer, or a much larger AoE. Currently it's just grab one guy at a time and ping him to death, but you almost always have to worry about the what, 5 other guys? Not very controlling at all.


"War Horn" is effective - and given to a class usually wearing sturdy armour. Other classes would benefit more.

Well, war horn is decent at high levels where the AoE covers the whole screen. At lower levels, not so much. Very good panic button but for a crowd control skill, it's not the best.


There are several other skills, which can stun or slow down mobs and buy you some time, but that's not exactly what you, ASYLUM101, are looking for, is it?

Not at all, I'm talking about stopping them from afar. Like I mentioned about the entanglement, or something similar. Stop them from afar so casters/archers can do something at a distance without having to worry about getting mauled. I know all the skills and their usefulness in TQ, lol, trust me. I've been over that game way too many times.


I say pets. Lots of pets - like the necro in D2. Not only is it heaps of fun, it's an effective way of crowd control. The few pets you could have at once in TQ disappointed me and they were with too little for really effective crowd control.


Didn't medierra say already this wasn't gonna be done? I loved the necro in D2, having the army of what, 24 skeletons was funny as hell. Albeit a bit useless on certain bosses(Diablo always one shotted ALL my skellies with his AoE attacks.) But yeah, pets are a good method of crowd control. Control the crowd with another crowd! haha.


In TQ, Fear was a fun way of crowd control (although it scaled very poorly).


VERY poorly, not to mention it was somewhat annoying. I do enjoy casting fear on dudes when I'm about to die though. So, yeah, good form of controlling the crowd.


What would be cool is skills to push back your opponents (there was such an AoE skill in Fable which threw all nearby opponents on the ground - it did no damage I think, but was pretty buttrock to use)

In Torchlight, the Ember Lance was pretty cool for this purpose, iirc it was a straight beam that travelled through your opponents (I believe the pushback function was unfortunately heavily nerfed in the first patch). .

I dunno what skill you're talking about in Fable, but knockback/knockdown is something that would be cool and pretty useful. Imagine earth mastery with a shockwave ability! How kickass would that be for a melee/earth user, rush in, shockwave their asses then beat them down while they stumble back to their feet.

perhaps you could have a skill that controls a pet plant. Just off the top of my head, how about a plant that resembles a venus fly trap that can crawl underground and grab onto things with its roots or jaws. Perhaps give it a passive skill that gives it poison damage or thorns. Could even have the plant deal life leech damage and the health is dispersed through the team equally or distributed by varying health needs (low health, threat level, just enough health regen to live while taking burn damage or poison, some sort of priority system to benefit a group).

by making the crowd control a pet, exploiting it won't be so easy.


Pet plant, haha. I've got that in my mod! Except he doesn't leech guys, but he does hold enemies! But yeah, that is similar to the druid's creeper, although yours seems a bit overpowered in comparison. :P

and the pet that can trap sounds like something I tried to do in TQ for my mod as well(as a method of crowd control) but it didn't pan out well... interesting idea, but like yerk mentioned, unreliable or overpowered. The way you can kinda control it's overpoweredness is severely limit it's lifespan. Make it last like 5 seconds, trap everything real quick to give you a chance to ... run or cast a strong spell, dunno.


ahahaha medierra, I knew I had something against MMOs for a reason! :P
haha... well, glad to see you are evolving as a developer. :)

[yerkyerk]

This is the skill from Fable;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vYYQv3FZQU&feature=related

Apparantly it does do damage, but not so much (there's a similar skill which does tons more damage, making Force Push a bit unnecessary..). Stronger enemies would get up again in Fable. Perhaps the strongest enemies should simply be pushed back instead of knocked over?

[ASYLUM101]

Oh that one, how I loved using that spell then trampling the enemies. OR using ghost rush, that skill was awesome.

[yerkyerk]

Fable is filled with awesome skills. Never played part 2 though, crappy exclusive titles..

[ASYLUM101]

Hahaha, it's not worth it. Total joke. :) If you thought the first had fun, awesome fights and cool bosses/spells... well, the sequel doesn't have cool fights, or awesome fbosses. Spells, most are meh. They took out a bunch of my favorites from the game, like the mana shield thingy.

[medierra]

Didn't medierra say already this wasn't gonna be done? I loved the necro in D2, having the army of what, 24 skeletons was funny as hell. Albeit a bit useless on certain bosses(Diablo always one shotted ALL my skellies with his AoE attacks.) But yeah, pets are a good method of crowd control. Control the crowd with another crowd! haha.


Yeah, this just isn't a good idea for performance reasons. In single player a lot of pets can be a significant drain on performance, in multiplayer it can be a nightmare. I might be wrong but even in their lower-poly models and lower-resolution textures, I'd be surprised if Blizzard allows for a class with so many pets again in D3. Even in 2d 800x600 D2 a multiplayer game with more than one necro could cause major performance problems.

Unfortunately the art, animation, AI, and pathing of characters is collectively one of the most performance-taxing elements of the game. I think 5-6 pets per player is about the max that we'd want to allow.

[yerkyerk]

No point in making a thread about that than. I never thought necro's were that big of a performance hit (rather, some people thought they were a performance problem because they were so visually present). Never experienced a disconnection due to summons. Some effects in D2 were a lot more taxing than an entire army of skeletons. They did cut the number of skellies through 3 in patch 1.10 though and I don't think they're going to have a proper summoner with D3. Ah, we'll make do.

I can't help but wonder though.. I know the TQ engine was designed around aRPG action and has reasonably complex models, but how can there be such a performance difference with an aRPG compared to RTS's - where sometimes thousands of units are on screen at once.. Perhaps even tens of thousands (Total War series) without lagging. And at least dozens of seperately moving regiments. They all need pathing and everything.. oh well. Guess I should get used to the fact that proper summoners are a thing of the past in these kind of games.

[Starkrun]

The push back effects are something i would love to see, maybe a ground pound to fling monsters away or some form of Nova that can be enhanced for damage, dream had something like this.

The necro from D2 was amazing at CC, he could form walls and circles and effectively hold back monsters. In Diablo 1 with a top end firewall casted in a hallway monsters would be dead or half dead before they go to you.

IMO there are a few good ways to effectively keep monsters at bay and not break game if Grim Dawn is anything like TQ in respect to amount of mobs hitting you.

1: A nova attack that eminates 360 with a push back effect
a)add a slight stun with chance to resist to it
b)add a chance to freeze or slow the enemies
c)add a chance to fear

2: a wave type of attack with a decent arc
a) slow skill that lasts longer then a few seconds
b) knockdown with a good length animation to get on there feat
c) class appropriate effect which slows there movement

3: the sleep skill "looked" amazing, bring it back but beefed up
a) pure mezmorise (sleep) multiple targets
b) AOE sleep skill to encompass many

4: Wall spells that can be created with mouse gesture or via context area from player EG: Necro Bonewall
a)ability to add massive hp to wall
b)ability to add a damage shield to the wall or reflect damage
c)ability to coat the wall in poisons XD

Delivery options:
Phantom pet that passes though mobs and causes confusion, paralysis, sleep, fear.
Groundpound for a shockwave, massive nova emanating from player "PBAOE" on a side note we need more PBAOE spells, DAOC was the only game that did it right
A massive cloud that once conjured would catch all with in its area and apply choosen effect.
Totem or other device created that delivers the intended CC spell/ability
A passive pet that has an AE mild CC effect, like the Cold Aura on the Sorc in D2
also offensive Aura are fantastic idea, need more of them but not as crappy and weak as the pallys in D2, more like the fun ones from TQ :)

Crowd Controls Rules:
1) closer to the focus point stronger the effect
2) effected monsters need an outward sign that they are effected
3) PETS CANNOT ENGAGE or they auto DISENGAGE!
4) this is Grim Dawn, its ok to make things a little... bloody....

Maybe after to many mesmerizes or playing with a monsters brain EG charms, stuns, sleeps there head explodes from all the magic swimming inside :)

[yerkyerk]

Exploding heads! Now that would be cool... a monster just standing there, waiting to attack you and -BOOM!- its head explodes and the rest of the body falls through its knees and on the floor. Awesome!
http://www.samburdge.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/exploding-smilie.gif

Would also work nicely with a headshot skill

[durruti]

prepare for thread necro in 3, 2, 1: bump!

crowd control _is_ an engaging mechanic _if_ the surrounding gameplay kind of enforces its use. take hard reset for instance, basically what you could call a crowd control fps: you always have limited space to maneuver plus either many or tough hard hitting fast enemies and pure crowd control weapon modes to deal with any given situation. and as much as i want to try that in an arpg i'm not sure pure crowd control was actually needed in either titan quest or diablo 2, seemed gimmicky in most cases from a single player perspective up to second difficulty.

diablo 3 seems to try to incorporate pure crowd control/avoiding (skillwise) and the problem that came up there is its non existant difficulty (being ramped up much later) - what i'd really like to see being avoided in general is having to resort to crowd control skills only in the highest difficulty after 2 playthroughs without getting accustomed to 'em. an arpg might also become too stressful if monster speed is increased too much as there's generally a lot more going on than in an fps.

but "soft" crowd control? like the musket in bastion (limited range cone attack with knockback) or poison skills that slow down enemies á titan quest? i'm all for these as they seem to fit their respective game's pace. did i mention that i now expect bastion stile muskets in grim dawn? :p

[Haaznahnuf]

Here are some other crowd control ideas :


1°) Duel :

To deal with a boss, prepare for AoE attacks, or buy time if surprised.

A few class could provoke a boss in line of sight, and calm down the others mobs at the same time: gunslinger, melee warrior, mentalist or an artifact equipped character (flute ?).
If the boss resists this mental attack, the whole is canceled.
The more mindless, the less vulnerable to this attack.
If the boss is charmed, all the nearby monsters of the same faction are calmed down (auto).
Then, those mobs may resist the attack or not. If resisted, the only effect will be to have them neutral, wandering or standing still, or leaving quietly the area, as if the character is not present (or invisible for that purpose).
For those mobs that don't resist, a specific AI make them somewhat assemble to watch the fight (the archers at shooting range). They can taunt, vociferate, make alert sounds, or be deadly silent (depending on the faction).
Meanwhile the lured boss walks slowly to his starting position, possibly taunting. This boss then builds up its defenses (if not already done) and opens fight (shoot, charge, cast, ...).
If you are very nasty, or for only a few unreliable factions, you can have the Boss having another resistance check just prior to his attack. If he passes it...be prepared for the right button.
When the boss is killed or the player stray too far from its initial location (=flee), then normal fight with all mobs resumes. The "invisibility" towards not charmed mobs vanished too.
If the player behaves hostile first, the normal fight resumes immediately.


2°) Specific lure/confusion :

A crowd filter that is as the TQ skill, but specific.

Such devices are specialized and may be associated with an equipped object, doll, scent, ingested potion, to draw the attention of one type of mobs (animals, radio-sensitive beings, ethereal, faction ...).
They are cheaper, or more potent, than all-purpose lures to compensate for their lessened spectrum.


3°) Summoning hostiles :

A weird one, to make large scale cross-factions diversion.
The objective here is not to win the day, but to catch the aggro and soften the enemy.
It depends how is managed the Enemy : they and us, or truly multiple factions.

Either by map design (i.e. a designed list per map), a summoning spell (class dependent) or a luring device, summoned hostiles appear far away and end being at the same location as the character and the other mobs he/she is currently fighting against (or scheduling to).
The summoned hostiles engage the whole party (player included if enmity) as if they are confused (back in TQ).
The summoned faction can be the map mobs' worst enemy, or random (to be decided), so that the hostility of the summoned creatures depends on which faction they are facing to.
Once (if) decided this skill is a true (very strong) lure and not a magical summon/teleportation, its effects shall simulate a call/lure from a hidden, out-of-screen, spot of the map, or an instant ambush from out-of-screen various spots (e.g. mobs spawn just beyond line of sight and begin fighting toward the character).
There is no duration of the Summon. Summoned ones are compelled to fight to death (as pets and allies) either the hostiles or the character, if left alone. If the character flee very far from that location, or portals himself, the summoned ones stop harming other mobs and vanish (to simulate their fleeing).
It costs less than a normal call for allies.
Of course, all the dead count toward experience.


4°) Zero-gravity / Warp :

A point-blank crowd debuff.
Well, TQ learned me that monsters can fly. So why not to let them fly without harming them ? It could "recycle" the cool flying animation, in loop.

In the area of effect ( a few meters around the character), monsters which don't resist loose foot and start slowly turning in 3D, even exposing their back. All movement is prevented.

If not resisted, the debuff is a very strong malus to all combat skill (aim, off, def, parry, dodge), and a decrease in total speed (spells, skills, ...).

If resisted, the debuff is lessened, and slower movement is allowed (as similar debuffs in TQ:IT), or the debuff is limited to a total speed reduction.