Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="eamon" data-source="post: 5280574" data-attributes="member: 51942">I agree with Mesh Hong - stunned & dazed are a good thing.  If anything, I'd make em more nasty rather than less nasty.  The current gameplay has decided to sacrifice too many things at the altar of balance for my tastes.  Sometimes, when you're screwed, you're just that: screwed.If you push someone over a ledge, he's out too - frankly, I think the problem isn't that an effect can be decisive, it's that such effects are a little too common and when they occur, it takes too long.  Battles, in general, simply take too long.  When combat is a finely balanced activity that involves a delicate push and pull by both sides for a prolonged duration even after the combat's essentially decided, that means that attacks simply aren't lethal enough.  A Tug of War is more fun: lots of tensions, but once one side has the upper hand, the end is usually quick.Fortunately, the problem is getting less bad by itself: really problematic powers are often errata'd, and monsters now deal more damage meaning that combats are quicker.I guess the direction I'd prefer looking in would be one where one takes MM3-style monsters, halves their hit points, doubles their damage.  Then, all dazing+stunning attacks should deal less damage than they do now - that makes it a real trade-off.  Monsters&PC's that can can stun at-will should not exist; those that can daze at will deserve a critical look; similarly encounter/dailies that can mass-stun or stun for a long time are tricky.And there should certainly exist better countermeasures than there do now - think freedom of movement from 3.5 and similar.  A standard action to remove an allies stun would be reasonable, for instance.  That could be a skill power, for instance, or a leader power.The real problem isn't nasty conditions - conditions aren't nasty enough, for me - the real problem is that the game pretty much ceases when under the effects of such conditions.  There are no countermeasures (or only very limited countermeasures); there is no really opportunity cost for using such attacks, nor are such attacks less likely to hit.  Combined with the poor scaling of NADs and the fact that many of these attacks target NAD's a solution in terms of attack bonus isn't easy either.Now, there do exist items that protect against such conditions in a limited fashion - but simply negating an effect is a bad design choice since it's just as frustrating to the attacker and in any case the defensive effect is so strong that for balance reasons such items are often considered overpowered and/or can only be used rarely (daily powers and with specific limitations).Stun & daze don't fit the 4e spirit.  You can fix that by making them less and less relevant - but if you subtract from the game like that, it turns even more grindy and less fun - DPR shouldn't be the only thing that matters.  Alternatively, you can make em fit by adding to the game - introduce countermeasures and balance powers so that there's a real tradeoff.  In a meta-game sense, you can address the frustration by raising the speed (damage) of combat: that way, it's not perceived as yet another cut in an inevitable death by a thousand cuts that the player is frustratingly helpless to prevent but rather the equally powerful but more fearsome penultimate strike - if you can't escape the stun the combat will end quickly for you.</blockquote>

Verification