New "Stunned" roundtime-freezing version of Staggered and Surprised

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Rias
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New "Stunned" roundtime-freezing version of Staggered and Surprised

Post by Rias »

Per the changelog: The roundtime-freezing aspect of the Staggered and Surprised effects has been moved to a new Stunned effect. While not under the Stun Immunity cooldown timer, the next Staggered or Surprised effect to be applied to a character will be upgraded to Stunned, which prevents roundtime reduction and starts the Stun Immunity cooldown (15 seconds as of this announcement) for that character.

The intent here is to prevent "stagger-lock" which was a way for various classes to put their target into a perpetual state of being unable to act, which was ultimately both unfair and unfun. This ONLY affects the roundtime-freezing part that previously came with being staggered/surprised, meaning the various other penalties of those effects still apply every time even if they are not upgraded to Stunned. We can look at further balancing tweaks to the other effects of stagger/surprise as we go if needed, but the roundtime-freezing aspect was easily the most important facet to address first.

This is very much a "please test it out and let me know how it feels so we can tweak it to just the right spot" update. So feedback would be very much appreciated!
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Karjus
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Re: New "Stunned" roundtime-freezing version of Staggered and Surprised

Post by Karjus »

Very exciting. Great place to start, will likely change up a lot of styles of play and also how mobs work.
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Re: New "Stunned" roundtime-freezing version of Staggered and Surprised

Post by Rias »

I've split out the stunned effect into its own thing, because there were issues tacking it on to the stagger/surprise effect. The messaging now states that you've been "staggered *and stunned*" if the stun applies on top of the stagger (or surprise). It's a little more wordy, but also clearer that it's a separate thing and that you're also suffering from the usual stagger/surprise effects.
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tulpa
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Re: New "Stunned" roundtime-freezing version of Staggered and Surprised

Post by tulpa »

So, maybe I have misunderstood something, but I noticed Growth now staggers and stuns the caster for ten seconds. Is that right? Previously it only staggered (I think for 5 seconds). It's just something applying the effect once, so the stun took me by surprise.

I'm also safely above the exhaustion threshold when I cast this, thanks to Vitality, but I don't think it should matter either way
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Re: New "Stunned" roundtime-freezing version of Staggered and Surprised

Post by Rias »

This update just split the RT-freezing aspect out into its own separate effect (Stun), so it can only be applied once during the cooldown period while the rest of the stagger effects still occur every time. It was split out into two effects shortly after the first update because the "upgrade the lesser stagger effect to a stun effect" implementation had oddities, like the stun being replaced by a new stagger and not having the RT-freezing effect, which essentially made it beneficial in a way to be staggered shortly after a stun.

So, it now applies both stun AND stagger if you're not on Stun Immunity cooldown. Once that happens, you're on the Stun Immunity cooldown for 15 seconds during which you cannot be Stunned (have your RT countdown frozen) but can still be Staggered (various roll penalties, can't perform most actions). Having both Stun and Stagger at the same time is the same as the old Stagger before the RT-freezing aspect was split out. Having both Stun and Stagger active at the same time is not any worse than before, it's the same. It's just that the Stun effect can only be applied once every 15 seconds.

No durations were touched, so the 10 second stun/stagger from casting Growth is what it always was.

There can still be "stagger lock" if multiple staggers keep getting applied to a target before the previous staggers wear off, but this will be less likely to happen in smaller encounters because of the stagger move cooldowns. We can take a look at that part next if we need to, but the first adjustment was putting the RT countdown freeze aspect on a cooldown, so when the stagger does wear off you're not going to still be stuck in RT and unable to act until it counts down. It was a lessening of the "lock" aspect of stagger, but not an outright removal.
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Serity
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Re: New "Stunned" roundtime-freezing version of Staggered and Surprised

Post by Serity »

Would it be possible/reasonable to have the stagger effect of an ability from ambush resolve before the surprise effect, or perhaps the greater of the two durations will cause the stun? Using something like Sweep (or presumably Staggering Blow, etc, though I don't have that) from stealth causes surprise and its stun duration to take precedence, and then the ability's stagger-without-stun hits afterwards.
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Re: New "Stunned" roundtime-freezing version of Staggered and Surprised

Post by Teri »

Appreciate the changes greatly.
Current thoughts after doing a bit of group fighting: Sometimes I am caught off guard after doing an ambush or dirt kick from hiding and then get pelted in roundtime. (Boulders hurt, man!) I'll probably get a better idea of the flow the future, but it does null dirt kick as a disengage option in group combat to rehide, and makes the usual tactics I use as an adventurer feel less helpful for the group overall with surprise and dirt kick. I think Kaiju commented in discord about it being time for effects with things and I think that would be neat. Seeing as how dirt kick is blinding them with dirt, maybe of a chance for enemies to whiff their attacks with negative rerolls, or something, or still allow a hide attempt after they strike vs the usual cool down of "You can't do that while under attack." What tended to happen was I used dirt kick or attacked to surprise, got hit, then my options were spend many seconds hitting enter on hide when the cooldown for being under attack ended while hoping they got staggered again or targeted another pc, or potentially I just run out of the room, hide then come back.
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Re: New "Stunned" roundtime-freezing version of Staggered and Surprised

Post by Serity »

Deft Recovery doesn't seem to break stun, so if you get stagger-stunned for ten seconds (or whatnot) and then immediately deftly recover from it, if you had any RT at all you're still out of the picture for ten+ seconds while the stun resolves. Not sure if this is intentional or not.
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Re: New "Stunned" roundtime-freezing version of Staggered and Surprised

Post by Rias »

Serity wrote: Mon Apr 24, 2023 11:54 am Deft Recovery doesn't seem to break stun, so if you get stagger-stunned for ten seconds (or whatnot) and then immediately deftly recover from it, if you had any RT at all you're still out of the picture for ten+ seconds while the stun resolves. Not sure if this is intentional or not.
Whoops! Fixed, it now breaks the stun as well. Thanks for reporting.
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