Shoota boy blobs, 'Ard Boyz, Trukks, Tact Spam grenades, DA spam grenades, Chapter Standard, Blind Grenades...
These are some of the most common forms of CC found in plenty as soon as the game starts.
I say this to relay the point that, to me (and I suspect a lot of others), you really are inundated with a plethora of nukes and CC coming from so many sources in this game.
Having each unit have some sort of ability worked fine in DoW2 (where the scale was may smaller and much more manageable), but when you can spam out so many squads in DoW3, DoW3 quickly combines with the DoW2 principle of "give units lots of abilities" in a way that is not so healthy for the game imo.
I think it promotes a much more hectic/twitchy style of gameplay where you are simply looking to land/dodge the best combo of abilities rather than setting up good tactical flanks or having a better strategic army of combined arms.
I would suggest Relic look at reducing the availability or line unit's access to CC/nukes so that their having one is a much more rare occurrence - to reduce the perception of: just about everything in this game can activate some ability and nuke you.
I would perhaps start by requiring the above units to make a small wargear purchase to get access to the ability (say, 25/5). Not only would this reduce the availability of active abilities right out the gate for a lot of units, but also promote more tactical play (getting an upgrade to do a specific job - a la DoW2) and encourage more squad preservation.
Some units and abilities I think shouldn't even have CC: Trukk's taunting you as well as throwing boyz on you is extremely powerful (so powerful that people will use trukks for no other reason than to Chain-CC you).
Chapter Standard probably doesn't need Knockback - I would just remove it and force SM to use it more tactically with their army rather than as a "knockback any unit you want."
In general: in a game where you can build so many squads (part of that whole large-scale battle Relic wants for DoW3), allowing each of those squads to have abilities quickly becomes an issue. The difference in gameplay between 2-4 squads running around with grenades and 5-9 squads running around is huge - as if there's some sort of exponential growth in the potency of CC/nukes the more individual instances are available for that CC/nuke. Relic should be very careful in adding abilities that do this in a game where they are so effective.
Comments
Dandalus
Well said. What is CC, I forgot what it means. Though if a player spams too much I just tech up to nuke his blob, usually it works, then I just kill generator, turret and core asap.
vindicarex
CC = Crowd Control. Basically, any ability that stuns, slows, knockbacks, or otherwise impairs the normal movement/firing of a unit.
Katitof
Agreed.
Line units have ~15 ways of soft and hard CC for ork and LSM, Eldar have around 5.
Eldar should be standard here, not the other two.
CANNED_F3TUS
Yes please. This would benifit the game greatly and slow things down a bit. It would make combat more enjoyable too.
Some units are gonna need some redesigning tho i think.
Dandalus
Thanx.
Dandalus
Just let me say this, having many troops is to fight at many fronts not blob them, there are plenty ways to deal with blobs, even a single whirlwind. So I don't think it's so bad yet maybe there are to many CC. Be cautious on what changes to make, that's my final verdict.
Martin
I don't really see how this will promote tactical flanks, opposite I think cc allows you to capitalize on a tactical flank because you can prevent him from running away. By "having a better strategic army of combined arms" I assume you are referring to army composition, I can see what you mean in regards to tacs with frag grenades being too effective against their counter weapon teams, maybe shootas too, have not played enough ork, but I cannot think of a way it applies beyond those 2.
I am concerned about trucks, orks need them to counter weapons teams and soft-counter snipers/rangers don't they? making an individual truck less effective could be problematic in this regard. Would be nice to hear what active ork players think of this.
vindicarex
Well it's mostly those 2 units @Martin , but the problem extends to other units too:
Trukks (can chain Taunt quite well if done right).
Scout Blind Grenades can still chain CC very well.
Some even complain about ASM jump - I'm not so sure tho.
And then we have vehicles like Dreadnoughts and Titans getting stunned by boyz and slowed by Bolters
CC is basically the answer to everything in this game - so when it is available and spammable, it's too powerful.
Eldar have very little CC, so their units don't really suffer from this sort of gameplay - they more or less rely on their powerful Auto Attacks. I really like what Relic has done with Eldar in DoW3 - and yes i've played DoW1 + DoW2.
Dandalus
Well said, you are completely correct on these examples you mentioned.
vindicarex
Combine dodging the tonz o bombz + dodging stormboyz + dodging gorgutz Klaw taunt + dodging trukks... it becomes pretty hard pretty fast when fighting Orkz this way.
Dandalus
Too weak to fight!? So this was all about, weakness, PATHETIC!
Katitof
An advise of "play without elites to see how balanced they are" kind....
As much as you don't like them, doctrines are in, are core part of the game and not going anywhere.
Not including them is like saying "there is close to no poverty in the world if we ignore Afrika, South Amerika and half of Asia".
And EVEN excluding that, in ork case for example, ALL of their early game units have mostly hard CC(shoota nades, a'rd boyz, trukk stuff, nobz, loota suppression).
SM have very spammable CC(scout nades) and CC with a punch(ASM) and soft CC like dev suppression, in mid game we have dreadnought slam, whirlwind knockback.
Eldar have only nades on extremely long cooldown(90 seconds without doctrine), banshee suppression for only a couple of seconds, vyper slow device that(both soft and non sustained CC) and WB charge taunt which works only on singular units, only for a couple of seconds.
CANNED_F3TUS
Yeah less cc and there should be some stun or cc immunity for some units.
Some bigger units suffer from long drawn out ability animations and stunning and CCng their ability to go in cool down is a bit irritating.
Dandalus
Just have good detection and kill scouts, in mid game such firepower is available.
CANNED_F3TUS
Yeah but its more than just scouts in stuff. I agree they are part of the problem but as mentioned we have a massic CC overbloat and i hope they tweak units so its not as bad.
Dandalus
True.
Katitof
I'm going to blow your mind here:
Doctrines -ARE- included in campaign, before they were made free you literally had a tutorial teaching you how to buy and equip them.