I’ve been mulling over a lot of things lately when it comes to game design and features that have disappeared over the years. To be honest I missed one of the glaring ones until I started playing EverQuest again. What ever happened to true crowd control?
In EverQuest an exceptional enchanter could turn a nightmare into a gold mine within seconds. This was an important class that required skill, bravery and a bit of luck to be successful. There is no doubt that they were a bit too powerful but why the almost total exclusion in new generation games?
It boils down to the reduction of the importance of the group. Since soloing is now not only the norm but the optimal way to play who would have use for a class that is centered completely on groups? These days each class gets one or two crowd control abilities but the pure enchanter has evaporated. Personally I see this as a shame.
On the whole having a class that is not only able but dedicated to controlling a situation gives designers a whole lot more options with their content. Encounters can be made more complex and interesting.
The other side of the coin is that by having this type of class you add another “necessity” to the game. What is the balance between “this game is too easy with an enchanter” and “this game is impossible without one?” I think in many ways development has decided just not to include the class to avoid that. I would certainly like to see someone make the attempt though!
In either event I think it would be most interesting to see crowd control returned to MMOs in greater quantities. Going as far as the EQ1 enchanter would be a bit much but imagine the possibilities that are out there. One suggestion I would make would be for an off tank type class that specializes in this. There is a ton of potential there. It could be a class outside the tradition of the paladin or dark knight but similar. A chrono-knight could have decent tanking skills, plate armor and the ability to stun and mesmerize consistently. I know I’d be interested in that sort of class.
One final knock against crowd control is the proliferation of the PvP game and the PvP add on to PvE games. These abilities drain the fun out of those MMOs immensely. Nobody likes to stand around and be killed. For me, however, this is just one more reason for a PvE MMO that says, “To heck with the PvP.”
Obviously we won’t know anything any time soon. There aren’t a lot of big name fantasy MMOs coming out in the near future. 38 Studios’ Copernicus would be the one I’m looking for to have this sort of thing. Until then, however, I’ll just have to keep roaming around in Norrath to experience this sort of design.
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I would like to add, what happened to PvE? Making more classes viable for certain or actually, all tasks ahead, is a noble effort. But in the end we cast spells of mass destruction nowadays and CC is totally gone. It has become a victim of dumbed down gameplay due to an unreasonable and totally wrong try to make the game more “accessible” for everyone. The result are stale games, and the main culprit in this regard is of course WoW.
On a side note, I share your sentiments regarding PvP. Balancing classes in an EQ/WoW/DIKU-Mud setting is basically not possible.
EQ had some PvP servers, but it was always clear that this has limitations. I understand the wish for some pvp now and then, but we have seen in Ultima Online to what it lead, to an awful lot of restrictions and an empty world, Felucca, the pvp side. Strange, as every and his daughter loves pvp, which is “fun, neverending endgame content” ™ – which definitely is not true, as we have experienced.
I do not see pvp as a reason for the limitation of CC, though. Many stun abilities still exist, and are countered in their duration by “resilience” in WoW to some extent. They idea that stuns break once people take any or some damage is already incorporated in the FEAR mechanic of WoW, to some extent. Also in “sheeping”.
PvE gameplay and PvP are fundamentally different, and both game modes mix like oil and water, at least a japanese designer once said so, and I totally agree. Guild Wars is a prime example. PvE and PvP are so separated there, pvp only happens in controlled areas/arenas, but for a long time they shared the same skillset. So pve skills usually got nerfed for pvp reasons, and some interesting ideas could simply never ever be invented because of PvP.
The irony is that they recently made pvp and pve versions of the same skill. The PvE versions are usually grossly overpowered abominations. The designers seem to think this is what makes pve cool and what pve oriented players want. Oh my.
I wish they would finally get it and make a PVE game OR a PVP game, and not a problematic try to please everyone. And this not only in regards to Guild Wars 1/2.
EQ2 still has viable CC classes (Illusionist and Coercer) and they do exactly as described in the article, turn difficult/impossible situations into clean organized battles.
The loremaster in Lotro is also a decent CC class and Turbine have done a good job of keeping their abilities from being overpowered to the point of making content trivial when they are included into a group. In EQ2 a well played CC class makes the content completely trivial since is has been designed to make it playable for groups without a CC class in them.
My opinion is that CC has been reduced/eliminated from most modern MMOs because players did not want to be tied down to being forced into having a pure CC class as a necessity in a group. People are not patient when building groups anymore so content is designed to be managable without it, which makes it ridiculously easy with a CC class to control the content already designed to be doable without control.
I think the problem is that you aren’t playing modern MMOs that don’t happen to be WoW, more than that modern MMOs lack crowd control classes. Off the top of my head:
CoH: the controller archetype is the most powerful crowd control I have ever seen in an MMO. These guys are capable of locking down entire groups of enemy mobs.
EQ II: still has plenty of CC specialists, as pointed out above.
LoTRO: has not one but two classes that specialize in crowd control, the Loremaster and the Burgler.
Even in WoW, Mages, Warlocks, and Rogues all have powerful CC abilities. The difference is that in WoW there are few encounters where it is expected that you will have CC along. There are certainly individual instances where you are f-ed without true crowd control, but for the most part a decent multi target tank is all you need.
I actually found the above comment about WoW to be a little humorous. I play pretty much every MMO BUT WoW (which should show through in my posts). Your examples are valid but I stick by the heart of my point. EQ2 I neglected to mention because I consider it pretty much under the “EverQuest umbrella” but in none of the other examples do you find a class that serves only the role of crowd control that an enchanter did.
City of Heroes is the best example but it is a bit long in the tooth these days. I realize nobody wants to be dependent on a third type of class but I think a bit more depth could be added insteaad of just giving a few classes one or two crowd control abilities.
If you’re looking for specialized roles in combat and in particular one where a player can vastly affect the outcome of the battle based on how well he played a certain role then boy do I have a game for you: EVE Online. I know this post was about fantasy games and everyone else has responded with fantasy games, but EVE really is the only game I have played with something like the enchanter class you spoke about. The catch is of course that there are no classes in eve, but that players with the correct skills both (their character sheet and themselves) and the right ship can do that sort of thing with either an EW (electronic warfare) ship to constantly jam (unable to target and fire), net/web (ship speed is slowed and thus easier to hit, and do more damage), and scramble (enemy ship can’t warp away and thus escape from the combat). There are also a multitude of support class ships that do everything from healing to only buffing up other characters stats. You might want to look into it.
Epic Slant is about all MMOs so you’re more than welcome to point out Eve! I’ve heard a lot about the game and honestly have never tried it. I really should. I know Massively reports on it constantly and a big issue with it is simply time but I would probably be interested.
I loved Earth and Beyond.