Crowd Control/Heroic Surge Feedback

[Mannyfrez]

Yeah, insta-kill spells need a fix too, they are over-powered. I suggest mobs get a chance to be raised to full health if they have been killed by a death spell. And if they've been banished they should have a chance to be sent back at full health.

OH! And you guys can word it as a "fix" for players by saying that any player who gets banished/insta-killed now has a chance to return to the dungeon at full health! YAY TOD!!! (and...murmer, murmer, murmer, the monsters get this too...)

Have it ready for, say, Update 4? Maybe 5, just enough time for all the CC casters to re-spec to necromancy and the Bards to re-roll as Rangers.

Actually, maybe just give all Bards on all servers a free re-roll somehow and just remove Bards from the game altogether. I mean they aren't even in 4.0 right! Yeah, Bards need to go. Do it up! It's what the players want...

I feel your anger as a fellow bard... First they gimp my favorite class Ranger (the ranged type) than they fix Ranger some what, now they make my other favorite class bard pretty much useless... Where can a D&D fan win.. even the pnp version has been gimped (4.0e.. cough D&D for pre-k)

[KillEveryone]

Please don't let this heroic surge go live.

I would gladly put up with air elementals, worg trips, and any other critter cc if you don't nerf my bard. I'm happy with her cc and you are going to nerf it. It just won't as much fun to play this character anymore.

Please don't nerf. It is disheartening.

[Zenako]

The durations you cited were all of one minute or more, which is still longer than the average mob's lifespan.

Only if you were planning on killing them anyway. Which in many quests you may as well do. BUT, if you were charming them to help your side (when for example you are playing solo which is being strongly enabled by Turbine these days) having your charmed allies only stay charmed for a fraction of the time they used to makes that method a lot less attractive. Or for example in quests that constantly respawn if you kill the mobs (Madstone, OOB, are two that spring to mind immediately) you will have to now be reduced to just killing them instead. Perhaps this is an underhanded way to lower the number of active mobs on a server, by finding yet another way to force everyone into the one true way of playing, kill them all.

Did not get around to checking it out, but I suspect that Rangers Animal Empathy probably got nerfed as well.

The name of Heroic Surge should be reviewed. Heroic has been used by Turbine to mean "an asymmetrical advantage given to players" and that does not describe Heroic Surge well since it's symmetrical (well, mostly anyway).

The old canard about being Held or tripped or whatever not being FUN, was also most often whined about by players who built characters with a weakness that was being exposed (ie low WILL saves). This is effectively removing one of the downsides to Min Maxing. Before and on live, you see some dogs or air elementals, you need to be aware of the threats they pose and counter them accordingly. Not every mob in the game should have the same way to be killed, step up to it and mash the swing button. At least in my opinion.

One will also find that the Surge is not a panecea, but takes some time to build up before it happens. I think you will see many players still dying and wondering why they did not get to save from the bad situation, when they see the mobs breaking free "all the time". That will be observational bias, since there are probably going to be scores of opportunities for the mobs every day, while only a handful for the characrters.

Weird behavior. It would make more sense to me to give total immunity, but for a shorter period of time (like 5s).

There is no obvious visual indicator when a mob is under a Surge or it has expired. If you examine the mob, there is no text (unlike if you examine it while it is under a spell and you can see that spell (s) listed.) so it is a guess when it has gone away. Choices appear to be, wait for 20+ seconds before trying again, or just spam more effects until you blow away the Surge Protection and land another spell. This means that the spell point effective methods of CC and such are suddenly not, and will take 3 to 5 times as many spell points to accomplish the same task. (Spell point pots on sale in the store!).

They already changed/nerfed most Charm spells to prevent the mobs from wandering far from their tether point. This also means that other methods often used to deal with mobs have been nerfed. In the past it was possible to Mass Charm a cluster and then let them fight it out as the mobs each finally saved on their own timeframe. Now ALL the mobs who have not gotten lucky already will break at the same time due to Surge leaving them all on one side with no one to fight, except to come after the caster if possible.

The most powerful CC effects already have limits. Fascinate requires reasonably close proximity and the effect is immediately broken on any of them that gets attacked. A spell like Irresistable dance has a very short range, and you still need to kill the mob in some other way, if that is what the objective requires. One FoD or Destruction can do the same thing and from a safe out of melee range distance. For much the same SP cost, those methods do both tasks at once. Disable the mob and kill it. Dance just disables, and you still must kill it in some fashion.

Oh, limited testing with spell like Irresistable dance (which by its description has a variable duration) indicates that the surges kick in on it as well. But the data is too sketchy to be more than just speculation, unlike the more factually based posts I made above.

[Borror0]

Only if you were planning on killing them anyway. Which in many quests you may as well do.

I don't think it's a particularly good idea to let monsters be CC'd for so long. Because, if we don't plan to kill them, we can just ignore them. There is usually a good reason they are there. The whole "Flesh to Stone all the mobs to avoid respawns" was pretty cheesy and everyone knows it.

BUT, if you were charming them to help your side (when for example you are playing solo which is being strongly enabled by Turbine these days) having your charmed allies only stay charmed for a fraction of the time they used to makes that method a lot less attractive.

However, I'll agree with you that it's too short for some charm spell. If the spell cause the mobs to follow you (like dominate) then the effect should last much longer without Heroic Surge kicking in. However, if the effect is not powerful enough for the mobs to follow you around, I think it's fine to keep it at a short duration.
There is no obvious visual indicator when a mob is under a Surge or it has expired. If you examine the mob, there is no text (unlike if you examine it while it is under a spell and you can see that spell (s) listed.) so it is a guess when it has gone away.

Choices appear to be, wait for 20+ seconds before trying again, or just spam more effects until you blow away the Surge Protection and land another spell. This means that the spell point effective methods of CC and such are suddenly not, and will take 3 to 5 times as many spell points to accomplish the same task. (Spell point pots on sale in the store!).

Might be a good idea to bug 'em to add a visual cue - make the mob yellowish while under Heroic Surge, for example - because "spam until it sticks" was never particularly fun for me. If you got to spam until it not only HS times out but then through SR and saves, this could get pretty frustrating...

[Zenako]

One thing that occurs to me is that all my testing has been with capped or nearly capped characters.

IF the onset of Heroic surge is dictated not as an absolute passage of time, but as a fraction of the duration of the spell instead, we could have a SERIOUS issue on lower level casters. Has anyone ported over a low or mid level caster and able to check. My 5 slots are full already. (Wiz, Cleric, Bard, Ranger/Rogue and an unplayable Favored Soul...grrrr).

IF the spell duration nerfs are a percentage of time (ie 75% reduction on Elite) then that would mean low level characters on Elite settings would get almost zero benefit from casting spells. No Hypnotism, no Charm, no Command, etc. If they are triggered at a fixed passage of time then most low level casters will not even approach those time limits before the spells expire on their own.

One thing that will really bug me is that the information on Spell Durations for CC is now all but meaningless. Sure it says my Suggestion Spell lasts for 4 minutes, but it never does. 3 on Normal, 1.5 on Hard and 1 minute on Elite.

Perhaps all spells with durations should be nerfed in the same way? On Elite your Wall of Fire or Blades only lasts 1/4 their stated time....but that would go counter to the strong push of just kill everything, no thought or cleverness involved.

[Favis]

One thing that occurs to me is that all my testing has been with capped or nearly capped characters.
IF the onset of Heroic surge is dictated not as an absolute passage of time, but as a fraction of the duration of the spell instead, we could have a SERIOUS issue on lower level casters. .

Realy good point.

Only if you were planning on killing them anyway. Which in many quests you may as well do. BUT, if you were charming them to help your side (when for example you are playing solo which is being strongly enabled by Turbine these days) having your charmed allies only stay charmed for a fraction of the time they used to makes that method a lot less attractive.

In some quest CC an be used insteed of kill. This adds variation to the game.
Reward from killing them is slight higher exp and the reward from CC is slightly higher speed. I like that we should continue haveing the option doing both (depending on the prefences of people in the party).

There is no obvious visual indicator when a mob is under a Surge or it has expired. If you examine the mob, there is no text (unlike if you examine it while it is under a spell and you can see that spell (s) listed.) so it is a guess when it has gone away. Choices appear to be, wait for 20+ seconds before trying again, or just spam more effects until you blow away the Surge Protection and land another spell. This means that the spell point effective methods of CC and such are suddenly not,

This is realy bad.
If the implement Surge Protection on monsters then we should know clearly wich mobs are effected by it so we don't use up our spellpoints in on imune monsters.

I would gladly put up with air elementals, worg trips, and any other critter cc if you don't nerf my bard. I'm happy with her cc and you are going to nerf it.

Personaly I would enjoy that they nerf the air elemental CC and worg trips as makes some quests less fun. And I mind if the implement heroic surge on spells/songs against players.
But please don't implement it against monsters.
This must be one of the worst solusions if you like CC to have shorter times.

If a monster is CC'd for too long, then that monster is not representing a threat and that removes the tension that combat is supposed to create which is bad, too.

Many monsters are not view as a threat in combat.
So I think that type of agumentation is weak.
The reason they don't represent a threat usualy depends on:
* high DPS from the players
* good healing from Cleric/FvS/Bard
* CC
and people enjoy that the threat is diffrent in diffrent parts of the quests.
To increase the threat in some part we have:
* monster that are hard to damage (damage reduction etc)
* Beholders that makes it impossible to cast healing spells
* monster the are imune to CC

We don't want heroic surgeon or some thing like:
* you kill monst to fast so the next monst get high damage reduction
* you have healed to much people so now your healing don't work on 2 of the people in the party for 3 sek.
* you CC is so strong so they monster don't save on ordinary saves so now they ge imune for 3 sek.

It's not the same but I hope you see the point

[Borror0]

Many monsters are not view as a threat in combat.
So I think that type of agumentation is weak.

Two wrongs don't make a right.

[Mjesko]

Crowd control is good, because it makes the game something else other than a DPS fest by giving players something to do other than "Hit that monster really hard, for a lot of damage!" and by forcing players through a more diverse range of challenges than "You've been hit really hard by that monster, for a lot of damage."

However, too much crowd control is also bad. If a player is CC'd for too long, that just means he is standing there doing nothing until either time passes or until he dies. Neither situations are particularly fun since the player is waiting rather than playing. If a monster is CC'd for too long, then that monster is not representing a threat and that removes the tension that combat is supposed to create which is bad, too.

That's the two situations that this change is trying to prevent: monsters being CC'd for too long and players being CC'd for too long. If it does that while keeping crowd control spells worth playing, then it's successful. If either CC spells become close to useless or if either of players or monsters stay CC'd for too long, it fails at its goal.

I think currently cc spells are very good balanced against monsters, because they are an alternative way to handle an encounter. If the durations are reduced the usefulness of cc spells will be more limited and this makes damage and esp. instant kill spells much stronger.

I think its good if damage spells are getting a bit stronger, but instant kill spells are already very powerful and are not much fun for the melee characters, because the spells remove one target or multiple targets from the encounter.

[Borror0]

I think currently cc spells are very good balanced against monsters

It's not only about balance. Balancing is only one part of game design. In this case, the problem is not only with the powerful level but rather in how they affect gameplay. For example, if the a fight is neither too hard nor too easy but entails having players being helpless for five minutes, you've still got a problem.

But, it is also a balancing issue. When people make claims like 'But CC spells are fine now!" or "CC spells are useless now and you are making them worse!" they fail to realize that high saving throws, high SR and immunity to CC spells is much more common than it once was because Turbine reached the conclusion that those effects were too powerful. It's not uncommon to see players complain about those high saving throws, high SR and especially about the immunity to CC spells; if we want these to be gone, we have to accept spells getting nerfed one way or another.

[ieatogres]

The durations you cited were all of one minute or more, which is still longer than the average mob's lifespan.

The name of Heroic Surge should be reviewed. Heroic has been used by Turbine to mean "an asymmetrical advantage given to players" and that does not describe Heroic Surge well since it's symmetrical (well, mostly anyway).

Weird behavior. It would make more sense to me to give total immunity, but for a shorter period of time (like 5s).

1 minute is not really enough time to use a Dominted mob in another fight. It breaks the entire intent of the spell. Also, this system is not based on player or mob attributes at all; the devs may as well just remove all attributes from the game if they keep on implementing systems that bypass them.

[ieatogres]

It's probably intended to be both.

"But how can that be Borror0? Why would a game designer want to nerf both players and monsters at the same time?"

Crowd control is good, because it makes the game something else other than a DPS fest by giving players something to do other than "Hit that monster really hard, for a lot of damage!" and by forcing players through a more diverse range of challenges than "You've been hit really hard by that monster, for a lot of damage."

However, too much crowd control is also bad. If a player is CC'd for too long, that just means he is standing there doing nothing until either time passes or until he dies. Neither situations are particularly fun since the player is waiting rather than playing. If a monster is CC'd for too long, then that monster is not representing a threat and that removes the tension that combat is supposed to create which is bad, too.

That's the two situations that this change is trying to prevent: monsters being CC'd for too long and players being CC'd for too long. If it does that while keeping crowd control spells worth playing, then it's successful. If either CC spells become close to useless or if either of players or monsters stay CC'd for too long, it fails at its goal.

I'm ok with trying to prevent long lasting crowd control, but do it using the player and mob stats. Change things like lowering the save roll rates, not a system that bypasses everything that makes DnD what it is (rules based on character development).

If they used a mechanism like changing save rates, they could possibly even remove immunities from crowd control as the faster rate of saves would allow higher CR monsters to break free much quicker. Look at the air elementals as an example. The save rate is so high that even the best reflex save player can't avoid getting knocked down within a second or two. Just use the system DnD already has in place. It works, it uses the player and mob stats, and it's an easy timer adjustment that could be linked to difficulty. It also would work better to allow immunties to be removed since a save rate several times a minute would allow most high CR mobs to break much sooner than lower CR mobs while the heroic surge system allows a CR1 to break as quickly as a CR20.

[Borror0]

1 minute is not really enough time to use a Dominted mob in another fight. It breaks the entire intent of the spell.

"If the spell cause the mobs to follow you (like dominate) then the effect should last much longer without Heroic Surge kicking in" -Borror0

Also, this system is not based on player or mob attributes at all; the devs may as well just remove all attributes from the game if they keep on implementing systems that bypass them.

Monsters still have saves to make and those are still based on our spell DCs. The only difference is that there is now a shorter maximum duration.

[Arctigis]

It's not only about balance. Balancing is only one part of game design. In this case, the problem is not only with the powerful level but rather in how they affect gameplay. For example, if the a fight is neither too hard nor too easy but entails having players being helpless for five minutes, you've still got a problem.

Maybe. To me it really does seem like they only want us to play a certain way (kill everything). I'd honestly rather
they take the spells they don't like out of the game than implement this system. The ability to use spells as they
are described to gain a tactical advantage is gradually being eroded.

But, it is also a balancing issue. When people make claims like 'But CC spells are fine now!" or "CC spells are useless now and you are making them worse!" they fail to realize that high saving throws, high SR and immunity to CC spells is much more common than it once was because Turbine reached the conclusion that those effects were too powerful. It's not uncommon to see players complain about those high saving throws, high SR and especially about the immunity to CC spells; if we want these to be gone, we have to accept spells getting nerfed one way or another.

I do agree with this. However, as you have stated, most of the current CC spells are susceptible to SR or are
difficult to land due to saves; many having a recurring save. Would you expect SR and saves to be lowered now
across the board to compensate for the heroic surge effect?. I guess it may boil down to a 'fun' issue - is it more
fun for your spells to land more often (but are less effective) or is it more fun to optimise a character to be
more effective at their chosen casting focus?. Personally I'd argue the latter as it requires more thought and
planning. I also don't think we will see any reduction in SR or saves.

As an aside, anyone tested this in Shavarath yet? I can see it being a lot of fun there!.

[ieatogres]

One thing that will really bug me is that the information on Spell Durations for CC is now all but meaningless. Sure it says my Suggestion Spell lasts for 4 minutes, but it never does. 3 on Normal, 1.5 on Hard and 1 minute on Elite.

Perhaps all spells with durations should be nerfed in the same way? On Elite your Wall of Fire or Blades only lasts 1/4 their stated time....but that would go counter to the strong push of just kill everything, no thought or cleverness involved.

It kinda reminds me of that bank commercial where the man hands the boy a toy truck for 5 seconds for the boy to play with and then swaps it out for a truck made of cardboard leaving the boy quite upset. They advertise x minutes on a spells description only to reduce it significantly behind the scenes with a system that bypasses the existing systems.

[Borror0]

Maybe. To me it really does seem like they only want us to play a certain way (kill everything). I'd honestly rather
they take the spells they don't like out of the game than implement this system. The ability to use spells as they
are described to gain a tactical advantage is gradually being eroded.

It depends by what you mean as "tactical advantage" in your post. If you mean "the possibility to render an encounter ridiculously easy by using the right spells and applying the right cheesy tactic", then yes that is being eroded in order to make the game more challenging and the combat more active.

However, if you mean "requiring us to think" then it's not being taken out unless Turbine nerf the spells more than necessary.

Think about it:

• Which requires most thinking, monsters that fight you back or monsters that are immobilized for several minutes by one spell?
• Which requires most thinking, players that can't fight back or players that are immobilized for several minutes by one spell?

Would you expect SR and saves to be lowered now across the board to compensate for the heroic surge effect?

I would like those to be lowered, eventually. I don't know if Heroic surge was enough to allow that.

[ieatogres]

It's not uncommon to see players complain about those high saving throws, high SR and especially about the immunity to CC spells; if we want these to be gone, we have to accept spells getting nerfed one way or another.

I don't see any change to immunites with this nerf to CC spells; your saying it balances out with removing immunities, but that is something they haven't even stated they are doing or have any plans to do. Now if the devs posted on here that this system is being put in along with removing blanket immunities to CC spells (Except for bosses), I think the attitude would of this thread would be much less hostile.

[Borror0]

I don't see any change to immunites with this nerf to CC spells; your saying it balances out with removing immunities, but that is something they haven't even stated they are doing or have any plans to do.

I was replying to the comments saying that those spells are "just fine now!" If those players are right and this change makes CC spells too weak, then Turbine can just go back and nerf monsters which would lead to some improvements many were clamoring for. Saying that it nerfs CC spells too much is not a powerful argument - unless it is something like "the duration is now too short to be of any worth" - because there are several elemants factoring into how powerful a spell is.

[ieatogres]

I was replying to the comments saying that those spells are "just fine now!" If those players are right and this change makes CC spells too weak, then Turbine can just go back and nerf monsters which would lead to some improvements many were clamoring for. Saying that it nerfs CC spells too much is not a powerful argument - unless it is something like "the duration is now too short to be of any worth" - because there are several elemants factoring into how powerful a spell is.

I don't know about you, but I wouldn't put in a change with anticipation of putting in a different change at a later time to balance it. I would try and have the change balanced to begin with. You state that this change seems ok, but you also appear to expect a change to immunties to go along with it. Would you be ok with this change and the change to immunities never taking place? That is how you should interpret this change, because nothing else has even been discussed by the devs.

[Favis]

I guess it may boil down to a 'fun' issue - is it more
fun for your spells to land more often (but are less effective) or is it more fun to optimise a character to be
more effective at their chosen casting focus?.

Personaly I could se arguments for both.
But it's not fun with imunties on mobs that usualy are not imune.
Imunities are the worst part of Heroic Surge.

I would not have any problem if the change was a general decrease of length of will-based CC spells (not including dominate or songs) paired with lowering of willsave on monsters.

It kinda reminds me of that bank commercial where the man hands the boy a toy truck for 5 seconds for the boy to play with and then swaps it out for a truck made of cardboard leaving the boy quite upset. They advertise x minutes on a spells description only to reduce it significantly behind the scenes with a system that bypasses the existing systems.

That is a information problem with Heroic Surge as it don't stick to the D&D 3.5 rule and are not shown in any spelldescription.

I don't see any change to immunites with this nerf to CC spells; your saying it balances out with removing immunities, but that is something they haven't even stated they are doing or have any plans to do. Now if the devs posted on here that this system is being put in along with removing blanket immunities to CC spells (Except for bosses), I think the attitude would of this thread would be much less hostile.

Mmm trading imunites from some type of mobs to short period of imunities on all.

I don't know about you, but I wouldn't put in a change with anticipation of putting in a different change at a later time to balance it. I would try and have the change balanced to begin with. You state that this change seems ok, but you also appear to expect a change to immunties to go along with it. Would you be ok with this change and the change to immunities never taking place? That is how you should interpret this change, because nothing else has even been discussed by the devs.

I know that Borror0 has put a lot of work into the DDOWiki and mabe hes got some inside information that I don't know.
But from the fact that are shown his argumention is weak as it asumes that the developers would change other things. And that those changes combined with Heroic Surge would make the game better.

Personaly I see no point in makeing the game more boring to play to make it fun later. So if there is a combination of changes that togather with Heroic Surge will make the game more fun then I would like then to wait with adding Heroic Surge (working on spell cast on monster). Untill they can add the other change at the same time.

[LeslieWest_GuitarGod]

This is an extremely bad idea, a giant leap in the wrong direction.

I have long felt the real reason to the step by step nerfing of crowd control is to "improve" server performance.

There are many CC wizards & bards that will be left out in the cold with this change.