Try to limit the amount of braindead and anti-fun CC that is stuns. There are better alternatives.

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Consider what situation you'd be in if things were reversed, as with the DPS meters for example.

If Steven had said 'no, no Stuns, we'll make do with other things', would you have an argument capable of shifting this?

The argument here is that there is no cost to removing Stun . It is not necessary for any game function.

So why risk poor balance, add a mechanic that is unfun for many or can be rapidly pushed toward that, forces builds to lose variety, etc?

If the Word of Steven was 'Stuns don't add anything to Ashes, so Ashes isn't adding Stuns', what argument can you make that they need to be added?

If your answer to this is 'well that's not the situation, so we don't have to have an argument', then that's why we're arguing with you still. Or in my case, would be, if this sort of interaction fit the definition of 'argument'.

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So your argument is 'I believe games need this', 'lots of people like them', 'people would be bummed out'?

The DPS Meter arguments are stronger.

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But even this isn't really counterplay, it generally goes even worse.

People don't 'stop trying their CC because their opponent might have a percentage CC resistance'. They do it anyway, and then the person with the 40% resistance chest piece gets a string of rolls like 87, 64, 44, 54, 48 and gets stunned 5 times, every attempted Stun succeeds (not talking about back to back stuns even)

Some complain that the game is broken. Some go 'it is how it is', some complain in direct proportion to how much losing the fight cost them, and some go 'wait why is Stun even in here?'

Movement abilities clearing Root/Bind is a given if we're arguing that Stuns are bad. But 'wearing a 50-50 negate or reduction' and calling it 'counterplay' is submitting yourself to RNG and setting up a balance situation where anyone who doesn't have that gear is seriously hurting (or the gear wasn't worth it).

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That's my bad, I misunderstood you, and that's sort of my point, though not related to any argument you're making.

We would probably all agree that 'just giving a percentage chance to resist CC' isn't good, right? Yet there are games built almost entirely on this.

How did those games get designed that way? It's probably because that's what someone thought of, saw somewhere else, and then just went 'that's how it works usually so let's do that'.

So, sorry for assuming that is what you meant. Something that seems like 'an obvious flawed design' to one person doesn't to another, and sometimes that means they end up being discussed and make it in.

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This will become a de facto utility calculation for nearly every content type, and it will usually be an easy calculation.

I am not supporting or opposing this, but I can tell you that it's something that people like me just calculate immediately and then worse yet, figure out 'what hole this is trying to fill'.

What I mean is, every time a game releases gear that helps resist something other than damage, and people seem happy about it, it's usually a sign that either one should stop building for that effect type (if the gear is common) or definitely start building for that effect type (if the gear is rare, so you can steamroll anyone who doesn't have it).

Shoutouts to all my 'fighting game patch notes readers'.

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I believe that resistances should be based on food buffs, actually, so that's a different thing altogether in my mind.

Unfortunately, in the end, MMOs can't be balanced by shooting from the hip. Anyone with the design skill will simply 'attempt the design themselves, see where the devs made the error, and exploit it'. I don't say this because I like it, though I 'should', since I'm usually in the category for it.

MMO balance is just not a 'creative endeavour', it's a very precise number crunching game, anyone who GMs even tabletop games that aren't entirely premade can probably give you tons of examples.

tl;dr gear tuning for CC resist in any form is just a signal to exploiters. It might be a confusing signal, it might not be 'definitely this is the #1 meta all the time', but it is definitely 'giving advantage to the highly intelligent over the average player', and I don't think that's good.

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Going back to this then, discarding my bias temporarily (up to you if to believe that, ofc).

Which CCs mean what, depend on what options the game gives.

Stun - Works in all systems, becomes more powerful in robust systems.
Sleep - Works in all systems, contingent on what damage or healing types wake the player. Become weaker in robust systems but can be tuned
Silence - Works in systems where channeled spells are important, doesn't change much here, a bit unbalancedly strong depending on your class
Blind - Works in most systems, highly variable depending on if it is an accuracy down effect or more than that, usually balancedly strong across classes that you'd bother to apply it to for the noted purpose
Root/Bind - Works in a few systems, variable depending on if damage types or movement abilities break it, unbalanced strong if they don't, depending on class
Snare - Almost always unbalanced by class, works in most systems, but weak enough that some don't care enough to complain about it until it starts stacking constantly, at which point there's usually a cap to how slowed you can get
Knockdown - Works in most systems, tends to be unbalanced if it can't be resisted or if it stops abilities, can be tuned for balance in games with defensive stances that you can take (i.e. still block with shield or weapon or any other defensive concept)
Interrupt - Works in systems with telegraphed abilities and high performance latency better than others, sometimes almost the same as stuns, but tuneable to be similar to knockdown
Impale - Works in all systems (whether or not it's useful isn't really the issue, unlike Blind for example where you could use an AoE ground ability and ignore its goal), same issue as Roots/Snare
Mesmerize - too complex per implementation to say

How much agency (assuming relative balance) do you want the game to have, is a big question. Games with low general player agency don't suffer as much with lots of CCs or really strong ones.

CC stopping a player from doing what they want to do, is frustrating, but in a system where you could never do much to begin with, you don't have that feeling of 'I could have dealt with this situation if I wasn't CC'ed'. It's usually more of a 'CC is part of my opponent's class' kit for interacting with my basic options'.

That's what I meant by it being a 'given'. It just makes so much sense to me that if you have Snares and Roots, then your mobility options break them, that I don't even imagine systems where this isn't true.

To me (bias back on) the ideal is that when CC hits you, you grumble and go 'fine! I'll do this instead', or 'damn, my counter to that was used for something else!' as you realize you have been 'outplayed'.

But I can agree that in a game where you have only 'use abilities and swing weapon', pretty much any CC doesn't have a 'fine, I'll do this instead' reaction to go with it except whatever item you use to cleanse CC. And since I am not familiar, people would have to tell me if those normally work through Stuns and Interrupts.

One thing I do have a 'problem' with, Mathematically, is that if standard '1v1'-ish TTK is 30-60 seconds, and a 1 second stun is allowed, in a game where that math relies on defensive skills or healing, it will be a problem.

Because 2v1 and 3v1 change the TTK to 10-20 seconds, and for at least some classes, even getting to that long means they had to use a defensive ability, usually on reaction. If you Stun, Interrupt, or Silence the defensive ability, then TTK should drop to 6-12 seconds, and the less time teammates have to figure out how to save you if you get focused down (after all this could be a 3v3 but something goes wrong), the faster balance gets torn up. Of course, fully accept that you could balance this by having the other side just 'stun someone' to prevent the death.

If this is acceptable to people as an enjoyable experience, then that's fine. It works pretty well in the favor of my group and other skilled players in Sieges.

I'm just still opposed to mechanics that rapidly accelerate the process of 'average players getting deleted', because opponents who can't fight back are boring, and because I'm a carebear.