Why is Crowd Control being treated like the middle child?

[sunderthefirmament]

It might be worth mentioning that mission types where CC is traditionally king are the same mission types that the community has complained about when DE adds new versions of them. For example, how many times did we loudly complain about yet another iteration of mobile defense being added to the game?  Yet mobile defense, where kills don’t even matter, is a mission type where CC is more important than killing. 
 

The community seems to crave engaging content where kills are king. It shouldn’t be surprising that CC has been devalued, based on player feedback alone. 

[Probably_Asleep]

7 hours ago, sunderthefirmament said:

It might be worth mentioning that mission types where CC is traditionally king are the same mission types that the community has complained about when DE adds new versions of them. For example, how many times did we loudly complain about yet another iteration of mobile defense being added to the game?  Yet mobile defense, where kills don’t even matter, is a mission type where CC is more important than killing. 
 

The community seems to crave engaging content where kills are king. It shouldn’t be surprising that CC has been devalued, based on player feedback alone. 

That's true, I agree with that. I think designing a mission that just needs CC (and not let it be boring) is difficult. But personally if I had a choice between doing two 2-minute exterminate missions or one 4-minute mobile defense mission, then I'd choose mobile defense. In a mobile defense I at least have to consider multiple things, while an exterminate is just moving forward and pressing a button until the objective marker turns green. Also playing on a Switch makes me biased because of the loading screen.

Granted, if I had to choose between one 2-minute exterminate or a 4-minute mobile defense then I too would pick exterminate. In my humble opinion the gameplay of exterminate isn't superior to mobile defense; it's just the fact that there's nothing preventing you from clearing it as fast as your character can move. (And I think that's why Capture is even more popular than Exterminate)

I don't blame players for complaining about a mission that takes twice as long to get the same amount of loot. But I don't consider that CC's loss or killing's win. It's just a consequence of design. And speaking of, a "game mode" that I really enjoy is Adaro, Sedna for leveling up melee weapons using the sleep/stealth trick. It's a combination of CC and killing that can be done faster with practice and experience. I never get tired of it! Plotting my path, spotting every enemy, taking special measures to deal with Eximus, and trying to beat my time and total "score" (affinity points). That's also a good example too of how CC immunity can add to the fun. The sad part about it though is that it's a solo-only activity and it wasn't actually even designed by DE. But the fun I have doing that proves to me that there is untapped potential left in this game engine!

[Beryliberries]

9 hours ago, sunderthefirmament said:

It might be worth mentioning that mission types where CC is traditionally king are the same mission types that the community has complained about when DE adds new versions of them. For example, how many times did we loudly complain about yet another iteration of mobile defense being added to the game?  Yet mobile defense, where kills don’t even matter, is a mission type where CC is more important than killing. 
 

The community seems to crave engaging content where kills are king. It shouldn’t be surprising that CC has been devalued, based on player feedback alone. 

When CC was the more popular pick, it was for different reasons in some cases just due to circumstantial stuff regarding the game in terms of weapon balance etc. CC back in the before times, when raids were available, was also just a way for people to entirely ignore enemies. It was why frames such as Vauban were so popular for some. Cover the map in bastilles and don't engage with the enemies that are stuck so that more don't respawn. As for defensive type missions, I think the isn't even necessarily a CC issue. Its that enemies scale so exponentially that it becomes difficult to manage many defense objectives that don't have very good scaleable health to measure up with the damage they are taking. For example, I don't think a lot of the qualms with mirror defense had to do with CC at all. It had to do with a poorly scaling HP objective coupled with it just being slower than other endless activities while also having worse rotations. I still find CC rather useful as a way to mitigate damage or to just make the majority of enemies flow to where I am so I can kill more enemies. 

Edited April 19 by Beryliberries

[Beryliberries]

10 hours ago, Probably_Asleep said:

LOL that comedic timing reminds of of the line from Without a Paddle: "Thank you for breaking glass where my children play..."

 

Fair enough! Sorry if I put words in your mouth.

 

I saw this wall of text and thought "There's no way I'm going to re--" but then I glanced at the top line and it just sucked me in. Now I'm a programmer, but when I was younger I naively claimed that I would be a writer when I grew up. So if I were younger, I'd say you've got an everyman's voice that uses a single-breath tone to set a non-threatening but emotionally-snapped mood. It's quite good! I'm even impressed by your self-censorship. It's not just keyboard mashing, the size and symmetry look deliberate and get the hidden message across.

Pretty much 90% of what you're saying harmonizes with my own thoughts and feelings on the subject. I like the aesthetics of some of the tilesets enough to overlook their practical downsides, but that's pretty much the only thing I take a different direction on. I'm also convinced that CC is really the only logical way to grow a game's immersion. Since starting this thread I've reflected on my viewpoint and I'm more convinced than I was at the start. I originally thought that some weapons were so different than one another that it could be a good medium for diversifying the experience, but the more I thought about it the more I realized that the weapons I have the most fun with are because they introduce a side effect along with their raw damage like CC or healing. I love my Tenet Cycron, not because it kills, but because I can load it up with Cold and Radiation and becomes like s new CC ability. I also love the Tenet Plinx because the SFX and force feedback are incredible, and in addition it has the ability to quickly clear an area of enemies I can't be bothered with at the time. Praedos gives me more mobility, and Sancti Magistar let's me face-tank everything. I always need at least one weapon that is dedicated to the actual killing, but the rest of the slots are more like secondary abilities to add to my Warframe. As long as one weapon can kill fine (usually my primary), then I don't even see the need for another high-damage weapon in the loadout (especially if I can instead get something like CC, mobility, or survivability from the other slots). Because I don't find a value in the choice of two weapons that serve the same function. If I have a primary that takes care of the killing and won't run out of ammo, then when am I ever going to use a secondary? In that case I feel like I'd only be switching just because I feel bad for my secondary and melee weapons. (And I'll admit I do occasionally use them specifically out of pity) By "seky" and "mel" don't want my pity-equip! They want to be useful!

In a roundabout way, that's sort of why I agree that chasing the power creep is lazy. Dealing damage is just one function that needs to be accounted for in a good experience. And it's so obviously harmful to the rest of the game when it gets chased as far as it's been. I've often seen people complain: "What's the point in CC if I can just kill enemies instead of immobilize them?" Which is a valid point, but it's a side effect of problematic design. CC was the original answer to the question: "How do I deal with more enemies than I can kill?" You'd use CC to limit enemy activity and give you and your squad time to catch up to the numbers. And that could have grown with the game. The core roles of healer, damage dealer, crowd controller, and party buffer are principle archetypes that don't ever need to go obsolete. But the second you make a damage dealer capable of destroying everyone in sight, then you don't have damage to heal, a crowd to control, or an battle to buff up for. And from there the only option is to make a stronger enemy that can't be annihilated the moment it arrives. By then, though, you've already killed the balance of the game, because players are naturally going to feel entitled to what you gave them before. They want their old damage dealers to perform the same way with the new stronger enemies. So you have to give them better guns, augment the old frames, and/or offer stronger characters that do the same thing just with higher output. It will always be less than "enough" for a live service game. It's a repeatable formula though, so an unobservant game designer (and player) might not even see it happening. Healing works the same way. Stronger enemies means more healing and damage reduction requirements, and better shielding or invulnerability support. But it also just works as an arms race between enemy and player with nothing new ever being presented.

CC is different though. It's level-agnostic. A level 10k enemy is just as useless as a level 1 enemy if you can jam their weapon. CC is immune to power creep, but it also can't be infinitely turned up like damage or healing. So the new content comes out and then the healers aren't enough, the damage dealers aren't enough, but the CC'ers are still enough. And that's a threat to the purchase cycle. At that point a company has two choices: Backtrack and rebalance the power creep, then make new mechanics that are interesting enough to keep the players engaged. OR, disable CC so that you can continue along the power creep spiral. A company that has imagination and passion would want to create something new and fun, but a company lacking in those qualities will just view CC as a barrier to their profits. And that's exactly what we're seeing. To your point, the parkour was an amazing innovation that this genre really didn't see coming. I'm sure if someone suggested it on the forum back before it was added people would have been like: "No being able to fly around the level would destroy the game balance!" But it went on to be a defining feature of this game that now no one would ever want to see removed. Those sorts of risks reward a company with a legacy they can be proud of. Companies everywhere are taking less and less risks.

I don't consider myself a socialist or a capitalist. (I'm more of a "do whatever it takes to survive so I can watch everything fall apart in my lifetime"-ist) That said, I wish things weren't set up so that the more successful something is, the less adventurous it becomes. Warframe has a lot of potential in my opinion. I think there are minimum dozens but probably hundreds of new mission types that could be created and enjoyed within the existing engine. Mimic hide-and-seek, procedurally generated stealth kill races, archwing volcano escapes, build-a-fragmented modular boss fights, Fortuna Noir crime investigation quest, Relay vs Kuva Fortress battle, Tenno-v-Infested tug-o-war mission, and so much more. Please just take a risk and try something! Not a Kahl/Duviri, start-from-scratch project that feels like an attempt at starting a spin-off game. Something new for my Warframe to do!

Or at the very least, don't ruin the existing content by nerfing things to fit into the new content.

I just feel like the definition of CC has evolved from what it meant 8 years ago to what it means right now. Like I said before, its really just damage mitigation vs damage delivery depending on the flavor of crowd control you choose to have nowadays. Muzzle flash? Damage mitigation. Mag pull? Damage delivery. Etc etc. The reason CC used to be king was due to a culmination of reasons that really came down to the fact that it was the best tool at the time for dealing with enemies, just as damage may be now. Crowd control is pretty supplementary to damage but I don't think its outright as dead as many players have convinced themselves honestly. I do think no matter what CC will continue to be supplementary but I dont necessarily view that as a bad thing. I genuinely don't think that just because 4-6 enemies at a time in a map that I am constantly running around destroys my ability to use a frame effectively or make it a useless frame. There are plenty of tools every update that become popular that do have CC. Take Nautilus cordon, elemental sandstorm inaros, kullervo with ensnare/similar cc, the rework to mag's pull, are just a few I can name off the top of my head. All of those synergize really well with damage tools we have been given over time. Now, is that to say that CC can't be better than it is? Of course not. I think there is a way to middle ground this. I just think a lot of people either play so low level content where CC will generally always matter less or have convinced themselves that CC as a whole is just absolutely never useful. 

I also think that generally speaking, a lot of CC tools have overlap in how they function. Primarily being, slows, disarmament, confusion, ragdolls, suspended, or pulling enemies together. I don't think this is a bad thing however, just merely an observation.

[Probably_Asleep]

1 hour ago, Beryliberries said:

I just feel like the definition of CC has evolved from what it meant 8 years ago to what it means right now. Like I said before, its really just damage mitigation vs damage delivery depending on the flavor of crowd control you choose to have nowadays. Muzzle flash? Damage mitigation. Mag pull? Damage delivery. Etc etc. The reason CC used to be king was due to a culmination of reasons that really came down to the fact that it was the best tool at the time for dealing with enemies, just as damage may be now. Crowd control is pretty supplementary to damage but I don't think its outright as dead as many players have convinced themselves honestly. I do think no matter what CC will continue to be supplementary but I dont necessarily view that as a bad thing. I genuinely don't think that just because 4-6 enemies at a time in a map that I am constantly running around destroys my ability to use a frame effectively or make it a useless frame. There are plenty of tools every update that become popular that do have CC. Take Nautilus cordon, elemental sandstorm inaros, kullervo with ensnare/similar cc, the rework to mag's pull, are just a few I can name off the top of my head. All of those synergize really well with damage tools we have been given over time. Now, is that to say that CC can't be better than it is? Of course not. I think there is a way to middle ground this. I just think a lot of people either play so low level content where CC will generally always matter less or have convinced themselves that CC as a whole is just absolutely never useful. 

I also think that generally speaking, a lot of CC tools have overlap in how they function. Primarily being, slows, disarmament, confusion, ragdolls, suspended, or pulling enemies together. I don't think this is a bad thing however, just merely an observation.

I'm a Mag main, so my strongest opinions on CC tend to gravitate towards her kit. With augments, Mag has four CC options:

1. Relocate enemies
2. Relocate projectiles
3. Halt range attacks
4. Halt enemy movement

And I think this is a seemingly simple though brilliantly complete set of options. I like that there is value in enemy placement, both in where you can apply Magnetize, but also in missions like Interception where you may want to yeet an enemy away from a console to keep them from taking the node back. And of course Magnetize is amazing both as a defense and offensive tool, but it's also great for closing off areas of concern so you can focus on a single direction of combat.

Then with the augments you get to momentarily neutralize shooters and slashers respectively. Which, while not removing them from the battlefield, give you time to do other necessary actions like regenerate energy, save a defense target, or remove yourself from a dangerous situation. So at least for Mag's kit, I can see that CC is much more than just a one-trick-pony. The type and layout of enemies, the nature of the objective, and my current energy/HP stats all combine into a different required arrangement of separate CC behaviors.

And I wouldn't mind one or two CC-immune enemies now and then as sort of a "stop everything you're doing and pay attention to THIS unit" event. It would sort of behave like a field boss in that case. But that's not how things work anymore. Now game modes have upwards of 10 or more Eximus Units all descending from different directions and usually within a confined space. Their weapons can't be jammed, their movements can't be halted, their attacks pass through barriers, and they can't be stunned in any way. The only way to deal with the situation is to cancel all CC activities and focus entirely on delivering as much DPS as possible in every direction.

So what used to be a sexy symphony of symbiotic subtleties turns instead into a cringeworthy cacophony of coerced chaos. (Thank you again, thesaurus) I never wanted CC to be king. I just want the game to stay fun. And perhaps if I started playing today then I'd think it was. But I know what it used to be, and that knowledge of yesterday sours what it is today. The point of CC was never to be better than damage; it was supposed to be an equal partner. The shield and the sword. Eximus numbers could be limited, but it's more fun to control the battlefield with CC than to neuter the battlefield with algorithms.

[Beryliberries]

13 minutes ago, Probably_Asleep said:

I'm a Mag main, so my strongest opinions on CC tend to gravitate towards her kit. With augments, Mag has four CC options:

1. Relocate enemies
2. Relocate projectiles
3. Halt range attacks
4. Halt enemy movement

And I think this is a seemingly simple though brilliantly complete set of options. I like that there is value in enemy placement, both in where you can apply Magnetize, but also in missions like Interception where you may want to yeet an enemy away from a console to keep them from taking the node back. And of course Magnetize is amazing both as a defense and offensive tool, but it's also great for closing off areas of concern so you can focus on a single direction of combat.

Then with the augments you get to momentarily neutralize shooters and slashers respectively. Which, while not removing them from the battlefield, give you time to do other necessary actions like regenerate energy, save a defense target, or remove yourself from a dangerous situation. So at least for Mag's kit, I can see that CC is much more than just a one-trick-pony. The type and layout of enemies, the nature of the objective, and my current energy/HP stats all combine into a different required arrangement of separate CC behaviors.

And I wouldn't mind one or two CC-immune enemies now and then as sort of a "stop everything you're doing and pay attention to THIS unit" event. It would sort of behave like a field boss in that case. But that's not how things work anymore. Now game modes have upwards of 10 or more Eximus Units all descending from different directions and usually within a confined space. Their weapons can't be jammed, their movements can't be halted, their attacks pass through barriers, and they can't be stunned in any way. The only way to deal with the situation is to cancel all CC activities and focus entirely on delivering as much DPS as possible in every direction.

So what used to be a sexy symphony of symbiotic subtleties turns instead into a cringeworthy cacophony of coerced chaos. (Thank you again, thesaurus) I never wanted CC to be king. I just want the game to stay fun. And perhaps if I started playing today then I'd think it was. But I know what it used to be, and that knowledge of yesterday sours what it is today. The point of CC was never to be better than damage; it was supposed to be an equal partner. The shield and the sword. Eximus numbers could be limited, but it's more fun to control the battlefield with CC than to neuter the battlefield with algorithms.

There aren't many modes where they spring a ton on top of you. The only ones that come to mind are conjunction spawns(thraxx) and deep archi with that modifier which to be honest is a bit nuts lol. I really only find the deep archi modifier to be problematic for frames who have a more cc-centric kit. As for eximus at large, you can still bubble them to break their overguard fast as well as prevent them from shooting at you. Mag is a really great versatile frame, I really enjoy her as well. Speaking of weapon jamming, I would really like it if they did something against enemies that don't have weapons to jam. Many enemies on the new tiles aren't effected at all which is a bit of a bummer. Mag has been a go to choice for the new tile, specifically netracells to help hasten along the flow of enemies. Sometimes they get stuck in the door and I just find the kill bubble to be a little small at times. There is already a limit on many activities that directly correlates with squad size, perhaps a wider implementation of that would help.

Edited April 19 by Beryliberries

[Probably_Asleep]

2 minutes ago, Beryliberries said:

There aren't many modes where they spring a ton on top of you. The only ones that come to mind are conjunction spawns(thraxx) and deep archi with that modifier which to be honest is a bit nuts lol. I really only find the deep archi modifier to be problematic for frames who have a more cc-centric kit. As for eximus at large, you can still bubble them to break their overguard fast as well as prevent them from shooting at you. Mag is a really great versatile frame, I really enjoy her as well. Speaking of weapon jamming, I would really like it if they did something against enemies that don't have weapons to jam. Many enemies on the new tiles aren't effected at all which is a bit of a bummer. Mag has been a go to choice for the new tile, specifically netracells to help hasten along the flow of enemies. Sometimes they get stuck in the door and I just find the kill bubble t9 be a little small at times.

I do agree that Mag doesn't have it as bad as other frames. And I'll also admit that 95% of the current game isn't going see much different with her capabilities. Believe it or not I was originally planning on opening this thread in the Home > Feedback > Warframe subforum. But I instead opted to put it in the Dante Unbound specifically because that's where I noticed the recent nerf. The Mirror Defense Target just kept dying and I started to pay more attention to the Eximus units that should have been disabled, jammed, or frozen in place. Then I checked the update notes and thought: "Again DE!?"

If Deep Archimedea is a one-off then I don't think I'll care all too much. As soon as I get the Arcanes I want I don't see myself giving it a second thought. (One advantage of using only one type of frame is that my Arcon Shard needs are much less than the average player; I've got 4 separate Mag Primes and I'm still overflowing with TF Shards) But my real worry is that this game mode is a sign of things to come. What if the next update is just this but more? What if every update chops off more of the fun features until all that's left is a generic looter-shooter? These fears keep me up at night (that, and the muggy thermostat settings my wife keeps scheduling).

[Beryliberries]

4 minutes ago, Probably_Asleep said:

I do agree that Mag doesn't have it as bad as other frames. And I'll also admit that 95% of the current game isn't going see much different with her capabilities. Believe it or not I was originally planning on opening this thread in the Home > Feedback > Warframe subforum. But I instead opted to put it in the Dante Unbound specifically because that's where I noticed the recent nerf. The Mirror Defense Target just kept dying and I started to pay more attention to the Eximus units that should have been disabled, jammed, or frozen in place. Then I checked the update notes and thought: "Again DE!?"

If Deep Archimedea is a one-off then I don't think I'll care all too much. As soon as I get the Arcanes I want I don't see myself giving it a second thought. (One advantage of using only one type of frame is that my Arcon Shard needs are much less than the average player; I've got 4 separate Mag Primes and I'm still overflowing with TF Shards) But my real worry is that this game mode is a sign of things to come. What if the next update is just this but more? What if every update chops off more of the fun features until all that's left is a generic looter-shooter? These fears keep me up at night (that, and the muggy thermostat settings my wife keeps scheduling).

Yeah thats fair. It also just further cements my opinion that mirror defense is pretty eh. Can be hard to keep up sometimes and the health pools of the defense objectives certainty don't help much. Generally as a game mode its just pretty slow and its rotations are pretty bad even with the recent one(tome mods). Hope that gamemode gets some overhauling because I really want to like it.

[Tiltskillet]

5 hours ago, Probably_Asleep said:

Their weapons can't be jammed, their movements can't be halted, their attacks pass through barriers, and they can't be stunned in any way.

Ranged eximus units can be disarmed by Mag at least.   It's also amusing to block eximus movement with Magnetize by clumping normal enemies around them, although I doubt this is super practical.

 

5 hours ago, Beryliberries said:

Speaking of weapon jamming, I would really like it if they did something against enemies that don't have weapons to jam.

Curiously Primary Obstruct stuns some of these units, even though Counter Pulse doesn't.

[Probably_Asleep]

2 hours ago, Tiltskillet said:

Ranged eximus units can be disarmed by Mag at least.   It's also amusing to block eximus movement with Magnetize by clumping normal enemies around them, although I doubt this is super practical.

I just realized I haven't even tried playing with disarm on the new faction... (despite how many Rogue Culverins I've literally disarmed...)

[Beryliberries]

6 hours ago, Tiltskillet said:

Ranged eximus units can be disarmed by Mag at least.   It's also amusing to block eximus movement with Magnetize by clumping normal enemies around them, although I doubt this is super practical.

 

Curiously Primary Obstruct stuns some of these units, even though Counter Pulse doesn't.

They said specifically that they fixed Halikar disarm as well as counterpulse working through overguard when addressing ability fixes they missed with Dante Unbound's notes in Deep Archimedea's patch notes. The section addressing this can be found in the notes or in the original post in this thread.

Edited April 20 by Beryliberries

[Tiltskillet]

4 hours ago, Beryliberries said:

They said specifically that they fixed Halikar disarm as well as counterpulse working through overguard when addressing ability fixes they missed with Dante Unbound's notes in Deep Archimedea's patch notes.

Yeah, I'm aware. For the time being. Magnetized Discharge continues to work though.

[Beryliberries]

30 minutes ago, Tiltskillet said:

Yeah, I'm aware. For the time being. Magnetized Discharge continues to work though.

Ahh, okay. Likely unintended and will be patched I imagine. 

[Tiltskillet]

7 minutes ago, Beryliberries said:

Ahh, okay. Likely unintended and will be patched I imagine. 

It's been bug reported, so it seems likely.   OTOH, I wouldn't have predicted it would continue to work for two years after Eximus Reborn either. :P

[Beryliberries]

2 minutes ago, Tiltskillet said:

It's been bug reported, so it seems likely.   OTOH, I wouldn't have predicted it would continue to work for two years after Eximus Reborn either. :P

Lol, that's fair. I was entirely unaware it could disarm through overguard tbh, same with the others before they were patched. I just sort of assumed they wouldn't.