Knockback Attack! What cool stuff could KB do?

[Leogunner]

32 minutes ago, Number Six said:

Haven't seen it mentioned but instead of simply buffing damage for KB magnitude, one thing I've been wanting to experiment with is to apply bonus damage if a knocked target hits something, based on how fast they were going when they slammed into the wall, etc. Kind of like fall damage but not strictly up and down. Obviously this is just an idea and I'm not sure how feasible it is due to balance concerns and figuring out the right amount of damage, but I can't deny it would feel epic.

 

Unrelated to that: How would people feel about Air Superiority's KnockUp being changed to a high-magnitude Knockdown?

I think the main objective is doing something fun but you still are overcoming incentive, which is the hard part. If it's just adding damage, does it overcome DPS loss or does it amount to higher damage ceilings if leveraged than standard tactics? 

 

You'll still have players at odds with each other or make the extra damage unpopular due to the extra effort involved. 

 

Unless there are circumstances (thinking specific enemies) where you seriously want to capitalize on it, overall enemies are too weak and vulnerable to make a difference....

 

Like,what if there was a stage /faction/rank of foes that just attacked super fast and upon death cast an AoE immob+only-affecting-self effect that, if not worked around, could leave you twiddling your thumbs for a hand full of seconds at a time? They'd have KB protection too so standard KB-to-KD they would ignore. They could also summon barriers that break Los so plinking at them at range is a bit more complicated. You would want to get close to them but not stay close. You'd want to knock them around to interrupt they fast attack pace but you'd also not want to just hold them off if hold them in place since anything near them on death will slow you down. 

 

I was just making up crap as I went along there but overall, just putting up my thoughts. 

[MunkiLord]

1 hour ago, Number Six said:

Overcomes KB protection and applies higher downward velocity when used on flying targets.

 

It's not a mechanic that exists in the current live build -- it was a hypothetical question. Wasn't sure how many people used it on the ground (where the KU bounce has more of an effect) versus the fun of swatting down airborne targets.

If it felt powerful, regardless of how powerful it actually is, I'd be down for something like that. Sounds fun.

[Galaxy Brain]

2 hours ago, Number Six said:

Haven't seen it mentioned but instead of simply buffing damage for KB magnitude, one thing I've been wanting to experiment with is to apply bonus damage if a knocked target hits something, based on how fast they were going when they slammed into the wall, etc. Kind of like fall damage but not strictly up and down. Obviously this is just an idea and I'm not sure how feasible it is due to balance concerns and figuring out the right amount of damage, but I can't deny it would feel epic.

 

Unrelated to that: How would people feel about Air Superiority's KnockUp being changed to a high-magnitude Knockdown?

I like this, but as mentioned earlier relying on geometry is unreliable. 

 

Obvious example being a completely open area with nothing to knock into, but how would this behave in a hallway where you have the choice to knock a guy 10ft into a wall, or 30ft into a wall on the other end? Which would be more effective?

[Wild Claw]

Just a thing to throw into the discussion... someone mentioned once that the Score devs added 'vectored knockabout' to the game engine post-Snap as an experiment. I don't know the state of that code, so it might be absolute nonsense, but if that works you could actually have differing magnitudes of Knockdown as 'vectored downwards knockabout'.

 

I'm not sure if that helps, but something about it is niggling in the back of my head whispering 'this might be useful', so I thought I'd throw it out there.

[Replacement]

On 3/6/2020 at 10:39 AM, Number Six said:

Overcomes KB protection and applies higher downward velocity when used on flying targets.

 

It's not a mechanic that exists in the current live build -- it was a hypothetical question. Wasn't sure how many people used it on the ground (where the KU bounce has more of an effect) versus the fun of swatting down airborne targets.

This would be cool but I think you would need to give it similar treatment to assassin's strike, where the power entry activates one of 2 powers based on conditions (steal the Grounded logic). Because I think it's pretty epic, ground to ground.

 

Tl;dr: knockup when you're on the ground. Knockdown otherwise.

[warlyx]

let Null the Gnull convert all the KB to KD ....and u can nerf buff KB to your hearts content , KB powers are -1 slot by default and that sucks

Edited March 9, 2020 by warlyx

[Blackfeather]

On 3/7/2020 at 2:17 AM, Number Six said:

Haven't seen it mentioned but instead of simply buffing damage for KB magnitude, one thing I've been wanting to experiment with is to apply bonus damage if a knocked target hits something, based on how fast they were going when they slammed into the wall, etc. Kind of like fall damage but not strictly up and down. Obviously this is just an idea and I'm not sure how feasible it is due to balance concerns and figuring out the right amount of damage, but I can't deny it would feel epic.

 

Unrelated to that: How would people feel about Air Superiority's KnockUp being changed to a high-magnitude Knockdown?

Very late to this discussion, but I like the sound of it a lot! Seems powerful and thematic, same goes to Air Superiority's proposed change for slamming things into the ground.

[srmalloy]

As a minor visual enhancement, when someone is knocked into a wall, stamp the 'broken ground' visual effect (I think you see it with Foot Stomp, and one of the path auras does it) where they hit, with the same fade time as its other appearances; you're just stamping it on a wall instead of the ground.

[Max Firepower]

I would prefer knockback to either do damage if a flying mob hits an immovable object, take some damage relative to the percentage of distance not yet traveled.  Power Thrust a Hellion who flies 45’, but hits a wall 15’ away, do 2/3 of the ‘minor KB damage bonus’ or something .  I would not advocate for KU or KD.. yet... I haven’t thought this all the way through, and the SA proc complicates this.

 

The other idea is the billiards transfer.  The Hellion above hits one of his mates and splits his remaining KB distance/damage with his victim, I mean, his friend.

[Galaxy Brain]

1 hour ago, Max Firepower said:

I would prefer knockback to either do damage if a flying mob hits an immovable object, take some damage relative to the percentage of distance not yet traveled.  Power Thrust a Hellion who flies 45’, but hits a wall 15’ away, do 2/3 of the ‘minor KB damage bonus’ or something .  I would not advocate for KU or KD.. yet... I haven’t thought this all the way through, and the SA proc complicates this.

 

The other idea is the billiards transfer.  The Hellion above hits one of his mates and splits his remaining KB distance/damage with his victim, I mean, his friend.

I think for simplicity, KB should just do bonus damage based on the applied magnitude on enemies instead of having to math out the distance / etc. So for example, lets say you hit an enemy with Mag 10 KB, but they have some KB resist that makes it Mag 8. They would be swept away, and take 8 * Damage Bonus. If the KB is converted entirely to KD, the bonus likewise gets multiplied by the 0.5 mag it now has. 

[Max Firepower]

Your idea is more likely to work.  The more I considered some of the implications of likely abuses of my ideas, the less I felt my idea could or even should be considered.

[Bionic_Flea]

Sorry if this was mentioned before; I did not read through the thread.

 

I voted for other.  My idea would be to apply the equivalent of falling damage, even if you have to calculate horizontal distance as height.  I'm not sure of the internal workings or coding of the game, but I do know that there is a formula in there for falling damage -- the greater the distance, the greater the damage.

 

It might make for some interesting changes, as I think Force Bolt from force field has one of if not the most KB but is very low damage.  So slotting for damage would give you much less than slotting for KB.  But these quirks make life interesting!

[Haijinx]

If you knockback zombies they should shatter.