Gotta be honest, I’m writing this because I’m bored.
Stacking is one of those issues that shows up from time to time, and I can’t think of any one time that someone has really explained what is going on. So, out of the charity of my bored heart, I’ll explain what it is, what causes it, what the problems are, and what solutions can be.
#1: WHAT IS STACKING and WHY DO PEOPLE DO IT!!!
It’s in caps because I’m supposed to be yelling it inappropriately. Just… picture me yelling the title for a moment… O.K. now we’re good.
Stacking is is when a team of players all stand on one spot. Sometimes it is done to pull enemies around a corner. Sometimes it is done to avoid certain attacks by enemies. Sometimes it is done as a choke point to bottleneck enemies. But, for whatever reason, the most important cause of stacking all lies in one single fact: it works.
#2: WHY DOES STACKING WORK!!!
There are many underlying mechanics in the game, and nearly all of them benefit from players fighting in close proximity to each other. I will list these in a six-inch voice.
a) Boons have a limited AoE range. The closer you are, the easier it is to spread boons.
b) Melee cleave has a limited range. If you can gather enemies together, you can AoE more effectively.
c) Heals are also AoE based.
d) Combo fields also have a limited range.
e) By having all players in a single spot, you can tell where enemy attacks are going to go.
f)Many bosses won’t use certain attacks at certain ranges, making them more predictable.
g)It is easier to coordinate damage if everyone is in one place.
h)Rezzing is easier because you don’t have to run to a player’s corpse.
i)Non-cleaving enemy attacks end up attacking a larger health pool, making the stack more durable.
There are probably other reasons I have not thought of, but you all get the gist of things: pretty much everything in the game encourages players to fight in close proximity to each other.
#3: WHAT IS WRONG WITH STACKING!?!?*
I put an asterisk there because this is a trick question. There is actually very little wrong with stacking from an objective standpoint. I’ll list them here, again in an office appropriate voice
a)It is awkward to look at. A gigantic mass of clipping polygons doesn’t make for the best presentation.
b)It is awkward to play in. Many stacks are in tight corners, where the camera ends up zoomed up into a blob of clipped polygons, making things hard to see.
c)It doesn’t feel personally satisfying. As a blob, you rarely feel your personal contribution.
d)With a hard time seeing enemy tells, it can be hard to truly learn or understand an encounter by just stacking.
And that is really it.
“But Wait” some hypothetical Joe Shmoe asks, “There’s exploits with, like, the FGS and bosses not attacking, and stuff. Why didn’t you say anything?”. Well, hypothetical person that exists just for me to persecute, this is a very common case of misdiagnosing the problem. For you see, poor ignorant Joe Shmoe, there is a very large issue where there will be a problem, and this problem can be looked at and evaluated on its own premises, but because it is tangentially related some other hotbutton issue, they’ll just tag it onto that, like a rider on a bill in congress or a remora attached to the underside of a shark.
Sometimes this is just done out of sheer ignorance, like Joe Shmoe did here. It is not always a conscious step to take some random circumstance, and expand it to all of stacking everywhere and anywhere. The mental state flows the other way: because stacking feels so awkward, counter-intuitive, and unsatisfying, it must therefore be evil and cause other problems throughout the game. I mean, if there was no problem with stacking, then why do I hate it so much? Well, Joe Shmoe, it is because you didn’t know.
Joe Shmoe didn’t know, fo’ sho’, ‘aight? But then there is the more evil person, who knows that the problems are circumstantial at best, but just doesn’t care because they don’t like stacking. It is these people who will insist that, the Spider Queen in AC not attacking meleers with her poison AoE isn’t a problem with AI or enemy design, but an issue with stacking. They’ll declare that the FGS wall stacking tactic is only possibly an exploit because stacking exists. These people are hard to reason with, because their goal isn’t to be reasonable, and if left to their devices they would do more harm than good.
To ensure greater freedom, it is important to deal with issues in their own circumstances. If there is an exploit where a boss bugs and doesn’t attack, you fix that exploit. You don’t impose draconian changes on everyone and ignore the actual causes of those exploits.
I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.
