Renewal Stunlocking will destroy any depth this game has if it makes it into the release version.
It can't be beaten, it's pretty easy to pull off, and only three DGs can do it. If Erebus ever gets any love then he'll be able to do it too. Great.
Two weeks after release every team who has competitive aspirations will be using it. A week after that they will stop playing, because once you can do it you've eliminated any team from serious competition who can't. "But Kestrel," you counter, "Only a few people use this technique!" Yah well you don't see this being used alot now because every team that figured it out with a couple of exceptions has stopped playing already. Not only that, but all the casuals who can't find good partners and come up against this in pub games will be ragequitting and then crying to you about it.
Rebound items might work. We don't know. Do you know? Have you tested them against a good stunlocking team? If not then you need to seriously consider taking drastic measures:
- Staff of Renewal should provide a flat passive 20% reduction to cooldowns. It's still an advantage and worth getting, but not as OP.
- Stuns should have drastically reduced effect time on DGs - I'm thinking along the lines of 0.3, 0.7, and 1.0 seconds. Rook doesn't need time to walk up and hammerslam. He can buy speed items, he can warp in, he's fine, trust me. It's a numbers tweak, which means you can do it before release. It still provides an interrupt and at high levels a useful stun. Stuns all have secondary effects anyway, so you won't cripple the DGs, who are all relatively powerful anyway. It prevents the complete rage that you will be facing from a community of what we all hope will be many many thousands.
Longterm, as mentioned elsewhere, all Spells which have similar effects should either
- have diminishing returns
or
- take effect only when similar spells are not in place
If and when Renewal Stunlocking is removed from the game we will be looking at a fun, deep, and dynamic experience for groups larger than 4. (2 v 2 and 1 v 1 are still relatively shallow, but that can wait until after release.)
Peace
Kestrel
If a Demigod enemy is already stunned, another stun state should not be applicable until the current one is expired, perhaps. That might mitigate abuse... I believe many others have cited the necessity of timing then (which at least gives you a chance).
Perhaps also cut in half, successively, the duration of stun from each identical successive usage of it upon the same target. So the first time Demigod Y stuns, he does so for 4 seconds. If a stun from the same ability strikes the same target, the duration is now 2 seconds. A third usage 0.5 seconds. Etc. . At least then you can`t simply rely on identical ability spamming.
Had a big, long discussion on IRC the other night. Trying to figure out a counter to a Rook+UB combo where Rook is carrying Renewal and Warp. Only difinitive conclusions is that you would need Oak to interrupt several times, after which nobody could really think of an effective strategy to actually down one of them.
However, we (I, at least) kept coming back to warp, and that boulder and drainstun allowed Rook to walk up and hammer.
Maybe the success rate of a stun can be decreased if it follows immediately after another stun. This should reduce the chance of stunlock kills.
I haven't played the game so I don't know if this will work though.
What's Staff Of Renewal ? I don't see it in any shop or the favor item list.
It's an assassin favor item, Mercury. It reduces cooldown by 50% on all abilities and items when triggered.
Warlok and Risk - that's the diminishing returns part. We brought this up a long time ago as a deep fix for many of the ability imbalances but it never got implemented in a build we played.
It's probably too late for diminishing returns or taking replacement out before release, but vastly nerfing stun times would help alot without really damaging Assassin play, imo. Renewal either needs complete removal, a flat passive percentage, or just an active 20% reduction.
We haven't even looked at Renewal and Regulus Sniping. On the larger maps like Leviathan each team has two Regs with Renewal Snipes alot of the time. Those two Regs are producing maxed across-the-map focused damage of just about 3800 hp - in 8 seconds (including proc). No way for a target to clear LoS in that amount of time. We told them this would be an issue and they nerfed Snipe and Renewal down to that. 1900 dmg in 12 seconds is acceptable. 1900 dmg twice in 8 seconds isn't.
What's funny is that the original post is a result of my deciding the game actually had depth and play value and then being reminded that Renewal Stunning hasn't gone anywhere - people just stopped using it as much because it was less fun and we are in a Beta. As soon as we get hungry, competitive players in though it will jump right back to the top of the heap, because for some people it isn't really about the fun so much as the humiliating defeat of your opponents and incrementally improving win/loss ratio ^^
Oh completely missed that tab, thx : )
Yup, I can see how it leaves a player no option except to die.
Stunlocking has been discussed since Beta 1. I even released a mod to try and combat it. So far, nothing has changed.
Actually the best counter for this stuff is Ice TB. His cooldown slow + interrupt was made to counter stunlocks. But he's actually Rook's most effective stun partner too. So you have a solution built into the problem - but it takes every other option off of the table. By the time you develop alternative counters most people have stopped playing.
Nip it in the bud. Reduce stun times drastically. Bring Renewal down to useful levels without leaving it indispensable. Or at least give us an idea of what you are thinking for release, if Rebound doesn't cut it.
If the devs need a clear picture of what I'm frothing at the mouth about please give a Gamma client to Wagnard, Flurus, and Ultimeh, arrange a time to play against them, and ask them to play a stunlock build. Then fight the urge to ragequit long enough to see that this alone will break your game for competitive players or ladder casuals.
Stunlcoking should not exist, ever. After a stun wears off the victim should be immune to stuns for a few seconds.
/seconded, having so many stuns in the game is a bad idea in the first place.
I completely agree, and I already covered this in my crowd control thread (which was basically ignored).
I'll summarize:
- All stuns limited to ~2 seconds. Point is that stuns should be used to interrupt enemies, not incapacitate them for long periods.
- Once you're stunned you can't be stunned again for at least 5 seconds. I know some people will say that this is too extreme, that stuns should just not be able to overwrite one another. Yes, that would force people to coordinate their stuns more, but stun locking would still be a problem (though less so if they are limited to 2 seconds). I say: stun locking should be impossible no matter how skilled you are.
- Snares don't stack beyond 33%. Passive snares capped at 25%, snares on active abilities can be more than 25%, but don't stack.
- Remove the PBAoE stuns and replace them with PBAoE roots. This will also be considered too much by some people, and is by no means a deal breaker if it's not implemented, but in my opinion stuns are too powerful to require no aim and have no tradeoff. Boulder roll can miss and UB's grasp attack incapacitates him too.
The bottom line: Massive amounts of stun and snare currently in the game will ruin it if not dealt with.
I am glad someone has finally put a forceful and thoughtful thread up about this issue. It needs to change and maybe this will finally knock it into somebodies head.
I don`t like the idea of limiting *all* stuns to 2 seconds or less - that would make various abilities too much the same, robbing different Demigods of some of their uniqueness. For example, TorchBearer`s ice abilities seem well-suited to considerable immobility.
Giving a Demigod a 5 second immunity to further stunning after just having been stunned might be a step in the right direction, though in lieu of suffering another stun effect I would apply a drain of energy for the attacker`s effort. The attacker using the Stun ability ought to still benefit in some way from his own energy/ability expenditure... simply completely ignoring the effort would be heavy-handed.
Hmm. I can`t imagine this is not high on the Stardock/GPG balance agenda. A sticky & tough little issue for sure.
We know GPG has been working hard on balance it will be interesting to see what happens with slows and stuns
This is definitely a problem with Demigod's gameplay. Frankly, I'm surprised more of these threads haven't been popping up around the forums.
It will be interesting to see how the rebound items will change the stunning mechanic, but I still fear that the team with the most co-ordinated stuns will win the match.
I`m not a fan of the idea of "rebound items"... if such are effective and get implemented, then suddenly they become necessities.
If they`re necessities, every player may as well simply begin the game with them.
If stun mechanics are a flaw, then they need to be fixed. "Rebound items" don`t fix the problem, they merely treat it. Not the best way to solve X.
I disagree that this change would make various abilities too much the same. The point of stuns, as I said, ought to be to temporarily interrupt or disorient the opponent, not to incapacitate them. The 2 second limitation is therefore ideal for all stuns. However, the use of secondary effects and manner of landing the interrupt is what ought to differentiate stunning abilities.
You used Torch Bearer's ice ability as an example, stating that they seem well suited to considerable immobility. I agree, however I disagree that TB should be able to completely incapacitate enemies for an extended period of time (more than 2 seconds). If Frost Nova were a root instead of a stun, then immobilization would be achieved without taking an enemy out of the fight entirely. That, in my opinion, would be ideal. On the other hand, if Frost Nova were kept as a stun, but a much shorter one, it could have secondary effects - increased cast time, slower attack speed, lower armor, whatever.
The point is, a stun takes an enemy entirely out of a fight and as such it is too powerful to last a long time. A stun is good in every situation against every enemy. If you limit stuns and instead put more varied secondary effects on abilities, combat will be much more interesting, and nobody will be removed from battle for longer than 2 seconds at a time, which is how it ought to be.
I disagree. A 5 second immunity would force players to pay more attention. Yes, they will waste their energy and cooldown if they haphazardly throw stunning skills at the opponent without considering the immunity. That, I think, is a good thing. Also, if these abilities are given significant and interesting secondary effects, as I described above, their efforts will not be wasted entirely regardless of the timer.
In this we are in total agreement. Putting in items to address a general balance issue is a lazy fix, and is not acceptable.
I have no issues with duct tape patches as long as they work. You can always go in later and craft a more elegant solution. But we don't know that rebound will make it in.
If rebound doesn't make it in then we still need to see some big number changes if you want the game to work.
It would be nice if a dev could drop us something juicy about what they are thinking for this set of mechanics.
Played a couple matches against Wagnard/Flurus this morning as Oak. First match was Oak + Queen in which we gave up a few kills but only because of mistakes on our part, not because of stun locking or teleport ganking. I think if we would have specced slightly different (more pushing power) we could have at least tied them in the push and then it would have just been a race to giants.
In the second game I was Oak again with TB and UB on my team. Again, we gave up several kills but I don't think they got a single stun chain off on us. All the deaths were due to slows and simply out damaging us (and a few where I missed a shield or an interupt).
Both games we threw down a lot of observer wards which let us know when we were about to get teleport ganked which bought me time to warp (genral favor item) out of the way and then turn around and penitence the hammer slam or shield the recipient. This usually resulted in us getting away though we did nab a couple rook kills along the way.
I think the biggest issue is that the Oak player has to be 100% on top of his game where as the Rook/UB doesn't so much. The Rook just has to do the same pattern without much thought and while it does take some practice, countering with Oak requires about 300ms response time, counting enemy cooldowns, monitoring mana reserves, very careful positioning, etc. I won't claim to be the best Oak out there but the whole game I had either warp or penitence already hotkeyed just waiting to click a target and even then I still missed a few.
That all being said, with practice I think Rook/UB is beatable with Oak/Queen on Cataract (can push faster than they can if you spend gold on health regen/armor/mana/speed instead of warp stone). On Prison I'm tempted to say go with Erebus and spend all your money on Capture locks. If you can keep the gold flag and one other cap locked (and not die, hence taking Erebus) you'll end up hitting rank 8 sooner and with both teams at 0 kills you'll come out ahead on gold which means you can afford catapults sooner/easier. Of course, again you are going to have to play a perfect game and not give up a single kill since in a low kill game 1000g can make a big difference.
Right. If you are 100% amazing and Wagnard is having an off day then it doesn't really matter what he is doing, you will have the advantage. As an exercise I know we can come up with something complex and inaccessible that counters stunlocking under a given set of circumstances. It would be the exception that proved the rule, though.
Could you counter a stun team with Regulus and Queen of Thorns? What about a Tower Rook and a Fire TB? What about a Yeti Sedna and a Spirit/Aura Oak (no shield, no penitence)? If we say "To counter a stun team you need to have 1 Shield/Penitence Oak and 1 Push Queen of Thorns" then we have stripped the depth and choice out of the game to almost the same extent as just saying "Play as Renewal/Warp BoulderSlam Rook + Renewal/Warp Ice TB or Steal UB."
The issue isn't the couple of really good Québécois who use this right now. If it were, I'd leave it alone and let them have it. I like playing with those guys even when I am on the wrong end of the gun ^^
The issue is that they picked up on this within a couple of weeks of playing, it strips the depth right out, and soon a mongol horde of stunlockers will descend on this game and make it the status quo.
Yes, stun locking is not only game breaking, but it is very easy to do. However, I still assert that no matter how difficult it is to accomplish, a player should never be entirely removed from combat (re: they might as well sit back and watch) for more than 2 seconds at a time. Anything longer than that is simply frustrating and too powerful even if it takes a genius to pull it off. There are far more interesting and elegant mechanics and abilities that can be incorporated into the game that skilled players can take advantage of.
Agreed with this topic - Staff of renewal simply breaks the game.Everything was not balance keeping in mind that they could have a cooldown for 50% reduction.In fact its not only Stunlocking that staff of renewal screws up (although this is definately what stands out the most), its also things like Regulus's snipe (which is annoying enough as it is, dont need 2x of that) and TB's Shatter damage occuring twice as much.Anyway GPG is a very experience company, as are Stardock (who listen to us a lot), so when they read this im sure they will remove it out the game or at least make it so:1. It reduces Cast Time, not Cool Down
This is what my mod did. Bascically, when you were stunned you got stun immunity equal to double the length of the stun. Both affects were applied at the same time. So, if you got stunned for 2 seconds you would have a 4 second stun immunity applied at the same time (so you were immune for 2 seconds after the stun wore off).
This method:
1) Prevented stuns from stacking (because the immunity is applied at the same time as the stun).
2) Prevented stun locking.
3) Added a bit of depth to the game because you really had to time your stuns and use them when they would be most effective.
Agree with the thread.
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