Whatever happened to crowd control?

ran fos 2 last night with a bunch of freshly rushed t5's. the trolls had no idea why they had dom, saying my dom is such and such and i get knocked around like a ragdoll. i type in chat its for cc and shields. their response was hysterical. they both say at the same time - what does a weapon and central city have to do with dom. i literally laughed so hard i pee'd a little. i typed in chat - not central city or a wep, cc as in c r o w d c o n t r o l and s h i e l d i n g b u b b l e s. to which i get - what the hell is crowd control? i then freeze and i have never been so happy about dc'ing.

Controller Role, Electricity/Earth ignored revamp. 3dps Setup isI MHO top game issues.
This game needs real role playing MMO feal not 1 guy hold block,3 guys Spam pwrs, 2guys Tap Triangle and burs 2 guys Heal,heal,heal Tap Triangle,heal.everyone Block rinse repeat every single 8man run

No wonder this game is dps centric,people getting bored quick.The content 8man wise sucks after 2-5 play throughs of same old same old

It seems like someone feels left out or unaccepted... I'll give ya a hug!

I agree that crowd control should be needed more in combat than it currently does. It should have to be "scripted" for it to work, there should be more elements that are add to the combat experience that warrents enemies to be controlled. It would be nice if certain PI were needed and had a bigger impact in battle then other PI...

I'm not saying that the enemies would not or could not be defeated with out a a partiliar PI, but some enemies should have a vulneralbilty to certian PI and more Tolerance to others... It's would be cool to fight against a Robot that heal when attacted from Fire and was Vulnerable to Ice. Maybe even have some monsters that take additional damage when encased or crushed, and others that need to be electircuted, dazed, stunned, purified, or polarized.

Lol I could care less. What bothers me is when players who don't understand how a role and how its mechanics work ask for changes that are unrealistic. Which includes the OP and a majority of posters in here. But yes, lets cyber hug.

The PI thing would be cool to add on specific NPCs. Like the Pokemon thing. You know where certain elements are weaker to others. That would be cool to add elemental NPCs and have some pis weaken them. It shouldn't be to a high degree though so some powersets don't get discriminated.

On the control effects topic, I would still love to see them make trash rank NPCs operate under the same mechanic as the NPCs in solos/duos/wallbots in nexus and now the new OP last boss fight. Lt rank NPCs should be the ones breaking out like they do now since they can hit harder and should be the focus on the tank. Bosses should still be immune. NPCs can still be taunted while under a control effect so it doesn't even conflict tanking.

I guess I feel like "what's the point of having PI for every Powerset if there is no major difference in gameplay". Seeing that effects with another does "additional damage", but not different from another effect mixed with power does "additional damage" seems kinda lame. But if they had it were certain NPC were more susceptible to different effects would add depth to the game and make it even more relevent to having different powersets.

I agree with your control effect and raise you more control effect! I think it would be great if not only did we have 3 different levels of NPC, like you suggested, but also having NPC in the different roles (Tank, Controller, Healer, and Damage). This will spice it up during combat, where like in PVP, NPC would be a challenge to it's counterpart, but no match to it's respective role that has the advantage. This would add the complexity and fun of the game.

Well the trash rank, Lt. rank and boss ranks already exist in game. I purposed that because it would already work with what the devs have live. All they have to do is reprogram the trash rank npcs. Not much else.

When this thread was active I suggested people be realistic and work with NPC mechanics already in the game because it can be "easily" added compared to some of the suggestions people had of completely different mechanics that would require huge changes. Asking for small things that can work is easier for the devs to add than major changes that require resources and time away from their dlc and update schedules. Even recycling some of the NPC mechanics from the old batcave raids would work.

I have mix feelings about the NPCs and roles. Sure it would be cool to see but honestly, if I wanted to go up against a healer I could just do real pvp. I guess it would depend on the environment, the kind of pressure the team would be under, whether it's a boss fight or corridor battle, and whether the combat counter mechanics work (which they don't. they are garbage. I hate them. stupid game server lag and window periods do not work ).

It's not about removing blue bar healing, it's just that the mechanic really isn't necessary and really doesn't add anything to the game in my opinion that isn't covered by the green bar healer. Note, when I say get rid of blue bar healing I'm really talking about how instant power spam functions in this game.

As for the OPs wants, sure that would be grand but it still doesn't solve the problem that outside maybe a couple of minutes in each of the T1 to T4 raids we don't need to CC. FOS2 you might have to spend 5% of the raid CCing. The rest you're still going to have to power dump.

Which brings me to what I would suggest and have suggested multiple times over the years. Make CCing relevant in ALL encounters. Healing and tanking and dpsing is required in all encounters, why isn't controlling? Sure the OP wants to have various scripted mechanics sprinkled around the game. (And I welcome them)..but why stop there? If Power is limited, CCing should, in theory, be required because the healers cant heal through un controlled enemy waves and the dpsers cant burn fast enough. Is it a wonder there are 3 trollers and one healer groups these days?

It's not rocket science.

We dont need to crowd control because we can supply enough power for healers to heal through any damage and for dpsers to burn anything down before the group wipes. WE GIVE TOO MUCH POWER. What happens when we remove that power? Healers cant heal through the damage, we would wipe. UNLESS we crowd control. IF the mobs are stunned/incapacitated they can't damage us. That scenario could happen in any and every encounter, including trash mobs. But it doesn't because we have infinite power that allows single healers to heal through everything.

If you want to CC we need to reduce the power out. Shift the game from healers and dpsers with giant duracells on their back to tanks and controllers working to keep mobs from obliterating the group.

Fix the core of the problem and I bet we will see some interesting crowd control possibilities that are simply hidden behind a wall of healing spam and instant power spam.

Note, the game would slow down some. But everyone other than the DPSers would probably start having more fun.

My personal thoughts on how to give controllers a more rewarding experience would be to rework the taunting mechanics.

Reduce the amount of trash, but make it untauntable. or get rid of AoE taunts/only allow a few powers to taunt that need to be directed at specific targets. Make it hard for a lone tank to keep everything in order, and you open up the need for a second tank as well controllers to catch stragglers and other adds (maybe even have 20% of mobs only attack healers)

Could this get outgeared? yes, but you could always have an instance scale its difficulty to the average CR of the group.

I respectfully disagree. Having pretty solidly farmed War of the Light Pt1 over the last couple of days, the difference between this content and the previous four or five DLCs is staggering. The last boss in Assault and Battery in the best example - you NEED crowd control in that fight. Sure, you can have a second tank do it, but a controller is better than the tank. One good controller can get those manhunters pulled over into position and perma-stunned within about five seconds of spawning. If you don't use crowd control, the manhunters charge Sinestro and he starts one-shotting. That is the sort of content design that we need, the sort that lets controllers CC whilst still giving power.

And whilst it is the best example of CC being useful, it is not the only example. With the number of stuns and knockbacks the enemies use, the vast majority of adds will be killed quicker if stunned. The feat where you have to hit three buttons at the same time (and do this eleven times) can be doable with a tank, but is easier again to just stun the three adds. Half of the missions in metropolis can be done alone if you run in, pop a stun, and activate whatever it is you need to.

This made the content more fun for me as a controller than a lot of recent content. I don't personally think starving the entire group of power would be as much fun.

Yup...this is why my 97cr quantum troll sits on a shelf most of his life. I'm tired of spamming recharge

R.I.P. CC

And I don't disagree that situations like that are necessary and welcome additions. My point is that is only one part of the problem.

Which is my entire point about about putting the onus on controllers ALL the time to keep the enemy stunned rather than just spamming instant power. WE DON'T STUN FOR 90% of the CONTENT BECAUSE IT'S BETTER TO JUST HEAL THROUGH IT AND FACEROLL THE CONTENT WITH MASSIVE BURN BY USING 2-3 TROLLERS SPAMMING POWER. Solution-REMOVE INSTANT POWER (or at least put it on a long cooldown for emergency situations). Then we can have a scenario where "the vast majority of adds will be killed quicker if stunned". Scenarios where you have to pull mobs away like in FOS2, Assault and Battery, Broodmother are great. But I see those as obstacles that are like puzzles you figure out rather than fixing the core problem that 'controllers' err batteries have.

You're not starving them. You're just putting a limit on it. Increase the weapon power regen across the board so we can be CCing the entire content rather than spamming instant power, not just limited scenarios.

Look, as long as there are mobs that we can stun and control WE HAVE SOMETHING TO DO. But as long as we have the ability to spam power to other players...most of the time we will be asked to do that. Changing the power output properly would make ALL of the content more enjoyable for controllers and tanks. Not just certain 'puzzle' sections. If controllers are spending their time stunning and knocking back mobs then tanks don't have to sit there and turtle the entire time. Kill two birds with one stone.

I warned everyone about this 2 years ago Warlan. You included