I never said that GD and D3 are identical games thugs you can implement the same mechanic. Nor I said the change is a breeze to develop.
All I said with certainty was, if the only thing you want to CC are the things dangerous to you, and those you can’t because the game doesn’t allow you to, then CC is useless.
Once you acknowledge that as a design problem, then we can move on with the talk.
I got a feeling that many here are in the “it would be too hard to change ergo it’s OK how it is right now” bandwagon.
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy GD how it is and bosses fights are fun enough, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be improved and it doesn’t mean how CC works is far from ideal.
For a long, long time I used most of the CC Xervous mentioned with my Trickster. Plus Grasping/Entangling Vines which made Malmouth a cakewalk and still helps a lot in SR and my Epic Gloves with Knockdown.
I just don’t agree with this and find this argument entirely silly. This is much less an attack on you as it is a grilling of Crate, who have parroted this several times.
We’re in a state of the game where MQ is being disintegrated in 5 seconds anyways. The kill time in the video you linked was many times longer than that. In this world where we can Thanos-snap everything out of existence a trillion different ways, is it really so overpowered to be able to defend oneself by CC’ing bosses?
If Grim Dawn’s endgame bosses mimicked the ‘meaningful combat’ that its early-game mobs/heroes present to players, I could understand the argument of not wanting them to be locked down so as to expose players to their ‘mechanics.’ As it is, there is no room for ‘meaningful combat’ in the lightspeed dps meta.
Edit: Superbosses being immune? Fine, they take several minutes to kill anyways (usually…). But everything that dies in 10 seconds being immune to crowd control? Please, how asinine.
The only place people really want CC to work against bosses is in SR boss chunks. Because bosses can live there much longer because of much higher health pool, those 5 seconds can suddenly multiply several times because of higher health pool and most likely resistances from mutators.
So boss chunks would devolve into CC locking every boss in the chunk on one on one (this one on one already happens because everyone just lures every boss in the chunk one by one). You no longer have to fear getting bursted down by the boss you are fighting because it can’t do anything about the CC you are throwing at it.
The issue I take with the video really is not that it is fast but rather how safe it is for how easy stacking Freeze is to do (on a Cold build, a lot of it comes on your attacks and procs as is, they will add up). His Freeze interrupted Rashalga multiple times and for awhile kept her on lock for 3-5s straight - that’s basically a free Mirror.
Now like you said, Bosses like Rashalga nowadays aren’t an issue - they melt pretty quickly on well-built characters but consider the possibility of this build being able to maintain that same level of CC application/safeness just about everywhere else including Crucible/Shattered Realm. It seems rather silly don’t you think?
Yeah, because the playerbase has shifted towards uber clear speeds with top tier gear we should trivialize the one thing left that poses a remote threat to them even further. Great idea!
Which also require immense skill and experience to pull off. GD as we all know is a game of sacrifice. If I opt for damage, I give up defence, and this is where player experience comes in.
Surely it makes sense for this gradual shift towards DPS to occur as the player base gets older/wiser.
If anything, Zantai, it should be taken as a compliment as it demonstrates the sheer shelf life of GD.
The same argument goes for top tier gear. The longer players play this game, the more the invest into it, the greater the probability of them finding top tier gear.
So really…how is this anything but natural?
But to return to OP, I agree fully that CC res on bosses should remain as it is.
If removed, it would serve to be a cheap crutch to triumph over what is supposed to be an unforgiving game.
For the record - Regarding the shift towards damage…this is something I personally am all too familiar with. If you could plot the builds I’ve posted over the months with the X-axis being time, and Y-axis being defence, you would notice a downward trend.
Great example - the very first PB reaper I did opted for Ishtak’s devotion because I was so inexperienced in the crucible!
I didn’t know what was happening, it all seemed like a kaleidoscope of flashing colors and random numbers.
All I could do back then was hold down the LMB, and pray I made it through alive.
It was with the guidance of better players than myself (e.g. fluff, ptir) which gradually allowed me to better understand the game, and slowly let go of the training wheels defence offered.
It took the gameplay experience to a whole new level because now I could actively (to a limited degree) influence/control the enemy - not too dissimilar to sun tzu’s art of war.
In current end game content like SR and Crucible enemies CC presents the most danger and is up to players to be able with their builds to cover multiple soft spots and by their playing abilities to try avoid dangerous damage.
Now people wanting bosses to be prone to CC to see how will affect the play style. You won’t be killing bosses, you’ll cheat them to death. And mind that we’re talking about really few bosses being almost impervious to CC resistances. Heroes like healers, dangerous mobs like Basilisks and such are still prone to CC effects.
Also one of the fastest leveling options is using Olexra flash freeze, which shockingly works even against bosses on normal.
So I don’t think the current CC system by bosses requires complete overhaul!
It’s very odd to me that everyone advocating for CC immune on bosses operates the extremes as if it’s some kind of sophistry competition we practice here. I don’t think many (if anyone) who wants CC to work on bosses wishes to “trivialize” the game. People simply like the mechanic and want the endgameplay to be more diverse since the mechanic is already there.
It would be a hell to balance and cut off any permaCC possibilities on bosses if implemented, especially this late in the game development. But i struggle to see how you can argue that cutting off the major part of gameplay from the endgame is a blessing as an idea when the very appeal and the selling of this game (correct me if i’m wrong) is diverse gameplay with good mechanics. Hell to balance now - yes. Bad idea per se? - I don’t know what game are you playing in that case.
Nobody said it wasn’t, or that there is an issue, but griping about CC against bosses when players can output the amount of damage they do just seems like a rather narrow mindset.
The only people cutting it off are the cutting edge players interested only in pushing clear times. CC a viable tool for clearing endgame content, just not one that contributes to the speed mentality.
I think that CC-ing bosses breaks the balance of ARPGs. But it’s also the most fun thing to do for me. Or second most fun to killing big scarry fat bosses in seconds because you have figured out the right build and grinded all the gear.
