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Thoughts on stuns, their effects on vehicles, and late game elites
Jazz_Sandwich
An opinion that I've seen brought up once or twice in the forums, but which I feel deserves it's own discussion, is that stuns from early game units such as space marine scouts and scrapped-up ork slugga boyz, should not impact late game elites, or even vehicles. An example to illustrate how silly these stuns can sometimes be would be a squad of 'ard boys charging at an imperial knight paladin before it executes a chainsword sweep, stunning and preventing the ability being used. I mean, a dreadnought slam? Fine. Stagger and stun anything you'd like. A basic unit charging and stunning a super-unit? That has problems.
First off, this somewhat ruins the impact of the late game elite when it can be harassed that much by basic usage of an early game unit. Holding off for a 9 or 10 point elite is a huge decision in this game which is largely dominated by early game elite choices. The reward should for holding out should be commensurate, and having these units countered by the same easy stuns that counter your 3-point elites isn't ideal.
Secondly, we already have a precedent for stuns and other effects that act against certain armour types but not others - Ronahn's long shot stuns vehicles, but not infantry. The slow death doctrine for tactical marine flamers slows infantry but causes vehicles to become immobilised. Surely it would be fitting for a scout grenade/'ard boy charge to stun infantry, but not a tank?
Lastly, we can't ignore the feel of play, as it's something many who dislike the game feel is 'off' relative to the first two games. Aside from the ridiculousness of a towering imperial knight stopping mid-chainsword swing because a slugga stood on it's toe, an endgame unit being countered this easily detracts heavily from the feel of how powerful these units are supposed to be. Consider in dow1 a bloodthirster having a crowd control ability countered by an ork slugga. Or in dow2 a hormagaunt cancelling the avatar of khaine's wailing doom ability. The 9 and 10 point elites are the "showstopper" units of this game, and controlling them is something a new player should feel giddy doing. Having them staggered by a unit they are designed to overwhelm, in the middle of an ability designed to counter said unit, ruins this feel. Especially in a game where so few units truly feel durable.
Comments
ThePendulum
100% agree.
Call me naive, but i think this is simply a case of Relic not considering the way their units and abilities interact with the rest of the game.
I say this, because if you look at dow2, units like tyrant guards/carnies are not affected by any "lesser" units' stun,knockback,immobilization attacks/abilities.
Cant think of any other examples for this, but im sure there are more.
Jazz_Sandwich
I don't think it's naive and it could very well be a factor, but I get the impression that this issue is more related to the prevailing design philosophy that there must be clear counters to powerful units/abilities, perhaps more so than in the previous games.
I'd also suggest that it's demonstrative of attempts to keep early game units relevant late game. Which I completely support, but I think that, as in the main example I provided of the slugga boy, some of these counters stay powerful for too long or against too many enemy types. Which I suppose brings us back to your point.
vindicarex
Agreed, I made a couple forum topics about this in the past myself.
In other Relic games, there has been a clear distinction that only specific anti-tank abilities will affect armor, but almost all CC abilities work on everything this game.
I think it would not only serve balance better, but improve quality of gameplay (avoid gimmicks) as well as maintain the immersion/"realism" Relic usually has going for it in their games. DoW3 is a bit less like this than their previous titles, but vehicles should be differentiated more as requiring specific counters to beat.
ThePendulum
I will say, in case i forgot to, i completely agree with the idea of not allowing basic line units to stun knights etc. It just doesn't make sense.
I suppose it's entirely possible this is just relics design philosophy, but I sincerely hope not. It's frustrating to no end to have a Knight Paladin stunned by a tier 1 unit right after activating the sweep just to put it on cooldown. It also looks ++heresy redacted++ IMO.
Gorb
Why does it have to be the creators of the game not considering the way their game works?
That's a cheap shot, which opens you to similar, which generally isn't constructive and leads to unfair arguments. Why can't it just be intentional design philosophy? You can still disagree with it as much as you want, but it removes the element of perceived competence from the question.
I mean, immersion is a fair argument. But immersion is something that is different for everyone. I myself vastly prefer the mechanical interaction of a stun being a stun, instead of increasing the burden of knowledge by excluding (visibily or otherwise) types and groups of units from this mechanic.
If this had to change (and I don't believe it does), I would suggest creating different forms of Stun. Lesser Stun and Greater Stun, for example. In keeping with the existing aesthetics and language of this game, and thus clear at a glance that maybe they affect different unit types. Automatically just making larger units immune to regular Stun effects has a range of balance effects that would need to be analysed, instead of just claiming "it doesn't make sense, change it".
Opinion post.
Skemooo
have you seen them stun nades stun a deathstorm droppod? stun the turrents? if that sounds intentional im just gonna shutup and stop thinking.. coz that doesnt make any sense to me :P
ThePendulum
First of all: my comment wasn't intended to be a cheap shot, or a derogatory remark towards anyone's scope of perception. After all, Relic is my favorite developer, and the only developer that makes strategy games that I love playing. My comment was an educated guess based on the way past titles have worked, mechanically. I had lended my argument to the consideration that an oversight MAY HAVE occurred. Oversights happens. People don't consider things sometimes. It happens. If this WAS an oversight, and we knew this, how would you have responded to my suggestion? "Thanks for the info! Turns out this was unintended!"?
I have no bone to pick with you Gorb, or with relic, so don't think I'm trying to argue with you, but I feel like you're jumping to conclusions about my personal thoughts, based on something that could be interpreted very differently based on tone.
And yes, even the above statement could by applied to me as well.
Back on topic:
Secondly, I stated that I believe this is not relic's design philosophy because it doesn't fit in with the way DoW2's stuns/kockbacks worked. Yes, they are very different games, but I wouldnt think mechanics would change so much that something so large as an Imperial knight would have been able to have been stunned by something literally the size of it's toe, because it didnt work that way between units in prior games.
Feel free to disagree about any of my concerns; I would never attempt to invalidate your opinion, nor would I expect you to invalidate mine. No, i dont feel you are invalidating mine either, this is just an "just in case" clause.
The thing about the internet is tone is implied, and I feel you may have mis-implied mine. Let me be clear: DoW3 IS a fun game, and there are many very cool things in it, but there are many design choices i simply cannot stomach for extended periods of time, let alone find prolonged enjoyment in. This, hence, is why I'm here voicing my concerns, however late they may be. Yes, this obviously means I may have misimplied your tone towards me as well.
As for burden of knowledge: six additional words could clarify that. Much in the way the description of the melta is applied to the land speeder. By providing detailed feedback on the mechanics available to players. By providing text on units that say what kind of unit they are, so that tooltips for stuns will tell a player that this will noy work on said unit. Just an idea.
As for your idea about different degrees of stuns: I can definitely get behind that idea.
Cribstaxx
Without the ability to stun Titans they would be extremely powerful. Wraithknight and taldeer would never die in the hands of a good player.
Perhaps stun needs to be tweaked, but they will have to Nerf some Titans if they make them immune to stun/blind
MaxwellsDaemon
@Cribstaxx
Just put Titan stuns on less spammable units than...well the 2 cheapest units in the game
Jazz_Sandwich
I would never advocate making these units immune to all stuns, just some of the more spammable early game infantry stuns. Dedicated vehicle stuns and more powerful units like dreadnaughts using slams to stun titans still feels right.
The most straightforward change I would hope for would be that ard boy charges and scout grenades become dedicated infantry stuns, rather than both infantry and vehicle stuns.
ThePendulum
I like the idea of dread slam stunning knights vs spammable t1 infantry.
Gorb
Well, in fairness, I asked why it had to be that kind of statement. There are plenty of other educated guesses to fall back on!
Oversights can definitely occur, and if it was confirmed as such, I would respond pretty much exactly how you described. The issue is in terms of jumping to conclusions, for me, is that you did the same when you went for what is pretty much the most negative (intelligent) response available. I believe you when you say it wasn't intended
I was originally questioning the need to go straight to that reason, especially given supporting factors like this game having had a couple of major balance patches (and people like VindicareX noting this interaction before. So it will have been on Relic's radar).
In terms of how previous games worked, you're right, DoW II functioned differently. But so did vDoW (again). In theory, in that game, any ability (given the lack of actual stuns in that game) with physics properties could affect any target, because the entire system worked from a (simplistic) physics system. Units had mass, abilities and the like had force, and the engine handled the calculations inbetween. There is no one system to draw inspiration from, for this design case.
For my argument, I would say that design has evolved since 2008 - 2009. People criticise MOBA games, but they did a world of good for focused design on the smaller-scale of things (indeed something DoW II was a bit ahead of the curve on). There has been a lot more focus on straightforward design rather than something that might make sense in some situations but not in others. I suppose another way to do it would be to completely emulate those games, and make certain units in DoW III Immune to Stuns. But again, this comes with a balance impact.
DoW II was a game with a high burden of knowledge. I believe DoW III is (far) better in this regard, but there are still complaints about the UI tooltips and the specific values of certain abilities and interactions. I don't like the idea of adjusting how Stuns work across the board for this reason, in addition to the impact on balance and so forth. I understand immersion; I've been playing 40k and 40k-related games for close to 20 years now. But I don't believe it's an argument of a higher order than those I mentioned. It's a personal, emotive one. I simply don't rate them as highly when it comes to games design (though of course that isn't to say they can't be important in their own right).
ThePendulum
I see.
Well, I suppose the underlying (and unmentioned) argument for what I went straight for the oversight argument was that the alternative would be that the design philosophy was intentional regarding stuns, which meant that spammable t1 units that could easily make up ~50% of one's army composition and are perfectly capable of stun locking powerful units but with no risk involved considering the melee unit is doing what it would already be doing: attacking a target in melee.
With frag grenades, its quite possible to miss or whiff a target (only knocking a model or two back instead of the whole squad).
With scout grenades, while i dont know if you can only stun 1 model, or if hitting one model means they're all stunned, there is still the chance to evade.
With jump units, there is the possibility to evade or only whiff a couple models.
With the Knight class of units, with the exception of Taldeer's jump, there are no options to evade, because the knights move too slow in comparison to the line infantry these disruptor moves are obviously designed for (not to exclude knights from the design, but to recognize the obvious design goal being to stun standard line units).
If that IS the intended design philosophy, that the most basic units can stun knights nearly on demand, then so be it. But I think it's a terrible one. Not just from an artistic standpoint (because it looks ridiculous and feels cheap) but from a gameplay standpoint as well because the knights are too slow to evade, the wind up for counter play is too long and would certainly lead to a total miss (paladin sweep) and would essentially force a nearly 1 minute cooldown on the paladin. Its a damned if you, damned if you dont scenario, and that spells bad design to me; therefore, presuming this was an unintentioal oversight was, in my mind, actually giving relic the benefit of the doubt, rather than accusimng them of designing something poorly.
ThePendulum
For some reason I cant edit, so.. P.S:
In my mind, all I have to go on is jumping to conclusions, because this is not a real time talk between myself and the developers. Make no mistake, I'm neither assuming the worst, nor feigning for the best, but simply wprking with my own logic in the confines of not having the benefit of just asking the developer amd learning right then (considering how many questions go unanswered, roughly speaking).
Yes, it was a conclusion I had jumped to, but not the worst one I could have jumped to either.
ThePendulum
My phone still won't let me edit, so sorry for the triple post but I feel this is important:
You made the argumrnt that dow2 had a much higher degree of knowledge required to play the game effectively, and while i do agree with that statement, I think it also hurts this game that it doesn't, because I think it may be fair to say that RTS games, or strategy games in general, are more of a niche market, than say mobas. Not that they cant be popular, also not that a strategy game cant be more popular than a moba, just that on average, more gamers play mobas than strategy games. No data to conclude, again, just a guess.
That said, if true, it stands to reason that a niche game should be catered towards the niche player, rather than towards designing a niche game, for a less than niche player.
Of course its not that simple, there are degrees to both sides, I well understand that, but in my mind, this game has more influence from mobas than it does from strategy. Again, just my opinion.
Gorb
Honestly @ThePendelum, I'm sorry for any tone I may have given. I would much rather - personally - people debate the validity of the mechanic (poor or otherwise) than claim that the developers missed such a large and game-ranging interaction with large units. Something being poor, doesn't necessarily reflect on its creators. Design is an ever-evolving thing. That said, you weren't to know that, and your justification is completely understandable.
On the point of it being poor, I disagree. Stuns are useful, especially as most (all?) of them are pretty much AoE as well. This is important because it means they're effective against Line Units too. And while the perception is that Elites win games by themselves, the reality is a player's use of Line Units makes just as much of a difference. If you're using your Stuns to keep a (single?) Elite permastunned, that's a valid tactic. But you're not stunning any other unit then, and they're free to respond in any way they can.
Additionally, this opens up a window of opportunity for strong Elite units. Do you immediately commit them to the fray, knowing the enemy may have Stuns waiting? Or do you hang back and try to bait your opponent into using these abilities (sub-optimally). Certainly, a lot of the (ranged) Elites have significant range on their kill shots. This again, is the game of reactive gameplay I'm familiar with from both playing MOBA games and practising baiting the AI in DoW II SP (which I have spent entirely too much time with)
One final note on the burden of knowledge, and the skill curve inherent to games. Despite what some folks might say, MOBA games (specifically, DotA 2, HoN, and even LoL. The original core three, ignoring Demigod for the moment, heh) have an incredibly high burden of knowledge. And a really steep skill curve. The developers of some of these titles have spent the last few years finally addressing that kind of burden, and the technical debt and legacy design decisions that have created the incredibly competitive community (which, as people know, is famous for its toxicity as well) around these games. To user pushback, too. People don't like to see the skill curve in these MOBA games "lowered" (whether or not their perception is actually correct).
I don't want us to fall into that trap here, either. A game can be complicated, but not have a high burden of (invisible) knowledge. There should be a skill factor in executing large-scale strategies in this game, but the information doesn't need to be misleading or hidden outright.
KanKrusha
I suspect the ability to stun elites goes hand in hand with the lethality of their abilities. There is high jeopardy on both sides.
Personally, I would like to see that jeopardy toned down on both sides but I can appreciate it is a design decision and consistent with the "no dumbing down" argument.
Jazz_Sandwich
I agree completely. However I do not think that certain "stun" effects becoming "infantry stun", and noted as such in the tooltips would constitute an invisible and complicated mechanic. We currently have a "vehicle stun" effect noted in some tooltips, this seems analogous to that. No need to learn off invisible exceptions to rules, having an ability that stuns a tank but not an infantry unit and vice versa, is something I would not regard as overly convoluted.
RedDevilCG
@Jazz_Sandwich actually that is a good point, and on that note of differentiation there are other opportunities for Relic to clean up clarity of what is "vehicle" and what is "infantry". I mean, currently you use vehicle upgrades on Nobz and not infantry upgrades. That is very confusing.
Gorb
Alright, let's roll with the idea. Leaving aside for the moment that Elites can be vehicles, walkers, units or special characters.
So what Stuns would become infantry-only? And what impact would this have on balance? The initial argument was to do with immersion, but we have to balance that against gameplay somehow. By reducing the utility of Stuns on (certain) Line Units, we both weaken them and buff the Elites you could use them against.
That's quite the shift.
ThePendulum
On the idea of Elites: piggybacking off of what @Jazz_Sandwich said, perhaps elites could fall inyo clearly define archetypes. What I mean is, when picking elites (much in the same way doctrines are selected), elites could be categorized based on what unit type they are, so if what the previous poster states is true, MegaNobz could fall into the Vehicle class of elites, as could other walkers, and (potentially) Knight class walkers (or they could even have their own seperate class), and then lesser elites (killteam) could fall under the infantry class of elites.
This, along with more informative tooltips could state that for an ASM jump slam would knock back Infantry (yellow highlighted) upon landing, but not knockback (blue highlighted) vehicles and walkers, nor (red highlighted) large walkers.
Adding different color coded tooltips on the UI unit panel to indicate the type of unit it is would also clarify at a glance what would work on that unit, IMO.
This, in my mind, would also open up more upgrade paths dor units so that their abilities would work on other units too.
An example would be ASM from DoW2: Jump slam stuns/knockbacks infantry with no upgrades, however with a (newly added) powerfist, now the slam stuns vehicles. The same could be applied to dow3, as well.
As far as making the distinction between what stuns work on what units vs not, a sleek combination of concise tooltip text, more informative UI, and additional upgrades would go a long way in implementing something like this.
@Gorb
Btw: no offense taken, sorry if i caused any. I'm just trying to offer constructive feedback and suggestions about something i want to be as passionate about as i was with previous titles, but got frustrated.p
Jazz_Sandwich
Indeed. I wasn't of the impression that it would not affect balance. However it is my personal opinion that the biggest issue that DoW3 faces at the moment is not in fact balance. This is not to suggest that balance is unimportant. And I am aware that small changes like this can go a long way in the grander scale of play.
My initial argument concerned more than just immersion - this IS 40K after all, there will always be some suspension of disbelief. It concerned the feel of play with certain units and frustration with how other units interacted with them. I appreciate that this is a nebulous and hard to define element, but qualitative experiences do make the game, and this is one that has irked me personally, and seemingly not me alone. The concept has come up in disparate threads often enough for me to feel like it would be worthwhile to have a thread by itself to discuss it.
As for what stuns, at present I would suggest the stuns resulting from scout grenades and 'ard boy charges. These to me feel like the most egregious offenders of stuns that affect units they feel like they ought not to. But this is why I feel a thread on the matter would be interesting, to hash out what people think on the matter.
Regarding the delineation of troops affected versus those unaffected by the stuns, this is a divide already present in the game. As I've said before, we already have specific 'vehicle stun' abilities that don't discriminate based on armour class alone. Ronahn's long shot will pass through and damage wraith units, terminators, nobs, meganobs etc, but stun a deffkopta or predator etc. I could be wrong, but it feels intuitive to tell apart a vehicle from an infantry wearing heavy armour.
CANNED_F3TUS
You bring up a workable point AV units could get a stun that only applies to vehicles with the initial attack of AV units stunning the vehicle for a few seconds and than the vehicle becomes immune to it for a short time (to prevent stun spam and to prevent vehicles from becoming obsolete).
Cribstaxx
People are saying only let higher tier stuns effect higher level units, but if that becomes the case then stun will be almost non existent. What higher tier units can stun vehicles? Dreadnaught, ronahn (terrible elite otherwise), and lascannons team with doctrine. That's it right? Meaning SM are the only reliable stun race for vehicles, not to mention no one uses dreads as a line unit so it would basically be just Las with doctrine that stuns vehicles.
You have to look at what other ways this would effect balance.
Personally I don't think the stun grenade is the problem with scouts. The fact that you can survive early on by solely building scouts and then tech up quickly is the bigger issue (I'm speaking from 2v2 and 3v3 perspective only).
The change I think is needed is a small power investment either for the scouts themselves, or for the grenade upgrade. Scouts die to basically any elite ability in 1 hit, and can be very easily killed if you bring a worker and cut off their retreat.
Stoner
I don't know why we even discussing this. This system works, we just need diminishing returns to avoid abuse, that's it, really people...