There’s a problem with curses in general in this game, and resistance reduction is just a part of the issue. In the particular case - the absolute resistance debuffs are cheap and serve to add artificial difficulty.
*correction: it appear absolute resistance reduction isn’t as absolute as it looked like; it doesn’t change my statement on debuffs
The debuff issue in GD isn’t strictly related to the resistance debuffs, respectively the high number of existing resistances, but includes all the crap cast on the player in every fight. Most of the times we fight slowed (both AS and MS), perplexed, stunned (stunlocked at times), and with lowered resistances (sometimes of multiple types). And this crap is everywhere.
Every faction got several representatives of cunts constantly throwing stuff at you.
Let’s take chthonians for ex. - it’s impossible to fight without debuffs in any single fight, in every single second. Even if you got a skill to cleanse yourself, you are immediately cursed once again.
Curses on players are way too common, too efficient, last for too long, and developers haven’t provided reliable ways to get rid of them. This results in severe drops of efficiency of the characters, literally a handicap. Why? If it’s about difficulty, a raw increase of damage of mobs is way better, than disabling the player in so many ways.
IMO in a game with so many damage/debuff types, it is absolutely inappropriate to add such a number of curses, at such a frequency.
There are games which widely use curses in both ways, and this mechanic has always been very dangerous/powerful. But these games provide the ability to work around curses - either increase their potential by investments, if used by player, or a way to decrease their negative effect on player, or allow to even completely remove the debuff.
Here we got the useless Ulo, and the high CD nullification, common to a single class.
- Resistance reductions got to be extremely rare, both players and mobs. It prevents from both exploits and imbalance.
- Debuffs got to expire faster.
- Debuffs in general got to be more rare, numbers of mobs able to curse got to be drastically reduced, along with restricting more than a one cursing mob in a pack. It will encourage strategic gameplay, like aiming this mob, while its guarded by the others around it.
In short - debuffs of any kind got to be either extremely rare, or greatly reduced in efficiency, or there should be reliable tools to remove the negative effects, if we are going to play the “debuff game” at any cost anyway.
And last, stun effect got to be treated in a special way. It’s the worst mechanic ever to exist in an aRPG. It literally nullifies character’s progression, skills and gear, along with the player skills. Stuns belong only to some special ingame encounters.
This is an outdated, unfair mechanic, which developers of such kind of games mechanically translate from one game to another by inertia.
I take back most of it, then.