End Game Retrospective: Lose the Group Crowd Control.

[Talonius]

Dear Obsidian,

 

Please stop the group crowd control.  No, seriously.  Please stop the 30 second paralysis and stun lock.  It's not fun in World of Warcraft, and it's nowhere near balanced or fun in Pillars of Eternity.  I've never come so close to punching my monitor than when fighting multiple Cwen Gala (sp) and/or Sirens. 

 

This is my only complaint about the game.  That I can walk in and be held in place repeatedly while monsters chew on me and THERE'S NOTHING I CAN DO.  And the spell that helps with it has to be recast every 30 seconds.  That could be done if those shades and spectres hadn't teleported on top of Durance and wiped him while he was paralyzed.

 

Dragon fights are silly.  Yes.  But they're optional, and can be cheesed through.

Level cap is debatable.  Some love it, some hate it.  I hate it, but can live with it.

You need more single target mage spells, especially with friendly fire.  But dealable.

You need a way to clear enchants from an item.  Artifacts are meant to be vendored, anyway.

You need better pathfinding.  I can't count the number of times I've seen my characters (or the enemy AI) run between two points and not make progress.  Or give up and just stand there.

 

But this paralysis thing?  It's frustrating, it's infuriating, it's mind boggling.

 

Oh, wait, sort of related to losing control of your character:  if you charm a PC and they change weapons during the charm change the weapon back when the charm ends.  The PC is not going to stand there and go, "Der, the AI thought it'd be nice if I used my pistol even though I'm a tank, so I think I'll follow that order."

 

But group paralysis has to go.

 

Sincerely,

Me

 

[Guest BugsVendor]

Good points.

 

I don't understand why they combined the teleportation with aoe paralyse

 

We probably won't see much changes in POE as there are still so many things to improve on months after release.

 

This, however gives me hope for POE 2:

 

http://www.obsidian.net/jobs/open-positions/qa/837-qa-tester-poe 

[Infinitron]

Mass Paralysis? No problem, just bring along Durance and use this spell: http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Prayer_Against_Imprisonment

 

You wanted hard counters, you got them, folks. 

Edited September 16, 2015 by Infinitron

[Bill Gates' Son]

I know it sucks, but there worse things in BG2.  I guess Josh wanted to bring back some of the insane CC moments.

[Heijoushin]

Mass Paralysis? No problem, just bring along Durance and use this spell: http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Prayer_Against_Imprisonment

 

You wanted hard counters, you got them, folks. 

 

Yeah... but suppose you don't like the guy? (many people don't) Or that you just don't want to play with a priest (fair enough). And even that spell isn't foolproof. 

 

I love this game, but honestly, I agree with what OP is saying.

Edited September 16, 2015 by Heijoushin

[Infinitron]

OK, seriously now. Cean Gwlas don't usually paralyze you for that long. Usually no more than 5 or so seconds from my experience. They can be a problem if there's lots of them, but that short duration puts them not quite in BG2 territory IMO.

 

The real BG2-calibre cheese battle in Pillars of Eternity? The Vithrak bounty, where you can get mass-Stunned for 20+ second durations. And there's no direct defense spell against Stunning, either.

Edited September 17, 2015 by Infinitron

[Teioh_White]

Yeah, one of those Shade pulls in the dungeon for the Dozen's quest ended a Trials of Iron play through for me. Wasn't micro'n the pull, so we were still in traveling formation when spotted, immediate teleport to group and AoE para, his buddy comes, we sit there perma stunned while they slowly chew through the plate mail every character had been wearing for extra safety.

 

Turns out it doesn't matter how much armor you have if you literally never get a move off.

[Tennisgolfboll]

Cc is insanely overpowered. Keeping enemies constantly cced is very easy with just a single wizard.

 

And just like the OP says if you lose control over your own team...

[drunetovich]

We need stacking cc resistance, the more stuns applied the more stun resistance should actor get. Or make enemy stuns limited casts, and also nerf to returning storms is needed.

[Talonius]

The real BG2-calibre cheese battle in Pillars of Eternity? The Vithrak bounty, where you can get mass-Stunned for 20+ second durations. And there's no direct defense spell against Stunning, either

 

I'm a completionist.  I pride myself on exploring every map, every nook and cranny, finding every secret, lifting every bit of fog of war that I can, looting and pillaging every piece of gear. 

 

The Sserkal bounty is the first quest in any game that I walked away from, and is the only quest that I know of in PoE+White March that I didn't finish.  A great big nope, not happening.

 

Stun/Paralysis solutions:  institute diminishing returns, increasing resistance per encounter, or abilities that allow each class to shake it off (my recommendation).  The encounters with multiple enemies capable of stun/paralysis will still be a pain in the rear but now you have a strategic choice:  when to use the ability to counter the stun/paralysis.  Break Durance free immediately and cast Prayer Against Imprisonment?  Break everyone free and hope the ability isn't used again right away?  Or you know that further uses of the ability will not affect you as greatly.

 

And any solution instituted for the PCs should be available to the NPCs as well.  I'm not asking for a lopsided solution that favors me as a player.  I'm asking for a more balanced ability.

 

Side note:  love the avatar.  Star Control II was an awesome game.

[Infinitron]

 

The real BG2-calibre cheese battle in Pillars of Eternity? The Vithrak bounty, where you can get mass-Stunned for 20+ second durations. And there's no direct defense spell against Stunning, either

 

I'm a completionist.  I pride myself on exploring every map, every nook and cranny, finding every secret, lifting every bit of fog of war that I can, looting and pillaging every piece of gear. 

 

The Sserkal bounty is the first quest in any game that I walked away from, and is the only quest that I know of in PoE+White March that I didn't finish.  A great big nope, not happening.

 

Stun/Paralysis solutions:  institute diminishing returns, increasing resistance per encounter, or abilities that allow each class to shake it off (my recommendation).  The encounters with multiple enemies capable of stun/paralysis will still be a pain in the rear but now you have a strategic choice:  when to use the ability to counter the stun/paralysis.  Break Durance free immediately and cast Prayer Against Imprisonment?  Break everyone free and hope the ability isn't used again right away?  Or you know that further uses of the ability will not affect you as greatly.

 

And any solution instituted for the PCs should be available to the NPCs as well.  I'm not asking for a lopsided solution that favors me as a player.  I'm asking for a more balanced ability.

 

Side note:  love the avatar.  Star Control II was an awesome game.

 

 

Funnily enough, despite the seeming intractability of the Stuns, I ultimately managed to beat that fight relatively quickly. Vithraks aren't very durable opponents. Light your guys up like Christmas trees with generic Will-increasing buffs like Crowns of the Faithful, try to spread them out so they don't get hit all at once, leave Durance at the back to cast Suppress Afflictions, and let loose with AoEs from many directions, and they'll go down pretty quickly. This is on Path of the Damned difficulty.

 

And yes it was.

Edited September 16, 2015 by Infinitron

[pi2repsion]

Yeah, one of those Shade pulls in the dungeon for the Dozen's quest ended a Trials of Iron play through for me. Wasn't micro'n the pull, so we were still in traveling formation when spotted, immediate teleport to group and AoE para, his buddy comes, we sit there perma stunned while they slowly chew through the plate mail every character had been wearing for extra safety.

 

Turns out it doesn't matter how much armor you have if you literally never get a move off.

A good lesson in paying attention to how you initiate combat on trial of iron rather than a problem with paralyzation, surely.

[tdphys]

Spell timings are really dependent on graze/hit/crit  ;  so If you try to hit some higher level CC enabled mobs and don't get buffs on... yes them reliably critting you is going to seem  overpowered.   Come back in 3-4 levels, and use scrolls / spells to buff up.

[Teioh_White]

 

Yeah, one of those Shade pulls in the dungeon for the Dozen's quest ended a Trials of Iron play through for me. Wasn't micro'n the pull, so we were still in traveling formation when spotted, immediate teleport to group and AoE para, his buddy comes, we sit there perma stunned while they slowly chew through the plate mail every character had been wearing for extra safety.

 

Turns out it doesn't matter how much armor you have if you literally never get a move off.

A good lesson in paying attention to how you initiate combat on trial of iron rather than a problem with paralyzation, surely.

 

Eh, I don't know if it's a lesson one wants. The game has serious, horrible isssues with micro as is. 2.0 went someways to addressing that, but you still don't want your players having to position their team for an effective opener each pull.

 

Granted, once you've played through the game a few times, you can recognize which pulls up coming are going to be particular dangerous, and you need to micro the pull, and which is a bunch of lions you can just run into. But that's only the hardcore who play a game multiple times through, and we really shouldn't be catered too, as we're such a small market.

[servantrider]

Personally I wish all characters (ally and enemy alike) grew more resistant to CC every time they are affected by it in a fight, with the increased resistance resetting after combat is over.

[Guest 4ward]

 

you fight 2 crowd controls in this game, the first is melee system which is infinite if one opponent is faster than the other + the crowd control which also seems infinite as enemies spam their abilities over and over. In the IE games you weren't fighting the first crowd control, if you saw an enemy cast confusion on minsc (using the combat log info) you'd move minsc away from your party members or you'd move the other chars away from him thus countering the possible disable of your chars. Another way was of course drinking the potion or casting the spell that countered it. On top of that the encounters would vary dependant on how you moved your chars in battle (when you start moving, where you move to etc.), it added to the replay value of the game from the combat aspect.

In PoE, you have controllable, predicable combat varying in playthriughs because of diufferent party composition / char builds. In IE it was a combo of the above, i could make sorcerer, give him nearly the same spells and still the battles in BG2 would play different because of the above, BG2 is a classic becasue of the replayability of the encounters, hopfully PoE2 will have that.

[Killyox]

TL;DR version - play better, put more thought into countering it. It's easily countered and requires thought on the part of player. If game is too hard you can reduce the difficulty level instead of wanting to reduce the difficulty for people who don't want it easier.

 

 

 

Don't cluster your party. Spread it.

 

Play more proactive instead reactive. Predict certain things based on enemies you will face (Scout).

 

Have them wear rings that grant Suspend Afflictions if needed. If just 1 resists or is outside aoe then he can get out all of them almsot instantly.

 

use potions with -seconds to negative effects

 

use spells that give +50 vs paralyze, domination etc and cut their durations by 10 seconds. Also buff Will after cc specific buffs.

 

You are meant to think about how to deal with it and not just run in.

 

There was only 1 fight that frustrated me due to CC (and the fact I attempted it at lvl 5...) but I still managed to adapt and win instead of wanting to reduce difficulty (the thought of wanting easier difficulty never crossed my mind even when frustrated)

 

 

 

I have NEVER been CCed for as long as you describe. Seen it once seen it all (countering grp cc).

 

Vithraks are pushovers

Edited September 17, 2015 by Killyox

[Teioh_White]

I'd rather not have to send in a scout to engage a fight at range so I can buff my team up with potions/spells before pulls, then spread them out, then make sure to keep doing that throughout the fight, as they won't last near long enough. It's a ton of pointless micro in a game horribly riddled by it. And it's not even the best way of doing it

 

All that stuff you mentioned doing? You don't have to bother, a Ciper and a Wizard and keep everything prone on the ground from the word go, so they'll never get a chance to do anything but die to your dps classes. Neither side should be able to just completely stun lock the other.

 

And yes, there are quite a few fights where if you don't cheese (setting up the pull or spamming your own CC are both really cheese), you'll easily be stun locked till death. It's terrible design.