A Knockback to Knockdown toggle

[Wavicle]

4 hours ago, Jacktar said:

Hi Wavicle, I just been to dance class and half way through a foxtrot It dawned on me what you were telling me about mag levels and it was like a flash of Duh yes of course !

Message received (lol eventually) and understood. I love learning something new to me about our game and do appreciate your patience with me.

Glad I could help! Enjoy your new slots!

[Riverdusk]

Main thing that annoys me about knockback is how often things get stuck inside walls.  There are "tricks" that sometimes work to get them to come out, and some powers that can still reach them, but I've had to restart missions way too many times due to stuck mobs.

[plainguy]

On 11/7/2021 at 4:06 PM, Yomo Kimyata said:

What's the problem we're trying to solve?

 

1.  People complain about knockback when I'm on teams.  Ok, if that bothers you, use one of the tools available.  Problem solved.

2.  I'm not doing enough damage when I'm solo.  Ok, if that bothers you, use build 2 or 3 and switch to a solo build when you are soloing.  Problem solved.

 

Am I missing something?

I think this mostly a Mastermind issue.. 

 

I know what the OP is say. But I say expand on this a bit, because I play masterminds ( yes I do have many full pet masterminds for the incoming petless comments ) and I think its just the whole issue of pets and Masterminds at the wrong moment.  You are the only Archtype in a cave mission that is told not to play your class fully. EG don't summon your pets. Which I get.. But that was Original Dev poor design choice. As can be seen with Praetoria those caves/tunnels accommodate everyone.  I recall they were hoping to one day fix this cave issue and were aware of it, that is why tunnels were much larger. 

Mind you it not just caves, it is pretty much anywhere where it becomes crowded, like in small rooms and tight hallways.. I know pets can be pushed.  

But players do get annoyed. 
I have had to bail a couple of times on a team because people just weren't happy with my pets. They just asked me to change toons or they were leaving. Or the team lead invited a 2nd mastermind and players were like I can barely tolerate one and people start to bail. So again I would bail not to cause any issues, I'm okay playing solo.

 

Nonetheless it is this stigmata that you play with and it can compound.  So its your pets are a pain in the ass and now they knocking mobs all over the place.. 

So yea its about knockback but I think there is more involved here. 

[arcane]

Not sure how KB->KD IO’s are any more of a “Mastermind thing” than a Storm thing, a Kheldian thing, an Energy thing, a Bonfire thing, etc. I happily deal with it on all of the above because the KB->KD IO’s are plainly worth it except on S/T attacks.

 

On some powers like Tornado and Bonfire, there is no other enhancement as potent as a Sudden Acceleration/Overwhelming Force in DPS terms. So obviously the knockdown conversion should retain its cost, because powerful things have costs in game design and balance.

Edited November 10, 2021 by arcane

[Harakh]

A Knockback to Knockdown toggle imo is more a quality of life change than anything else since KB to KD already exists through enhancement slotting.

 

I’m sure I’ll be regurgitating some other comments when saying, sets with knockback have less slotting customization after using 5 or 6 kb to kd. No other secondary effect I can think of requires this trade off to be more team friendly. Some argue “be smart with your knockback”. In reply, PBAoE knockback skills are near impossible to use in crowd situations without causing scatter. PBAoE and ranged AoE Knockback requires either a wall, attack from above, or a control set with -kb to manage the effect. If the management factors are what cause you to tick then by all means tick, and expect if subjectively using knockback “incorrectly” to hear about it…

 

Since KB to KD enhancements exists, what does a toggle truly change? So someone might complain that a player is no good at utilizing knockback and asks that guy to toggle up. This is no different than players asked to slot the enhancements. I have witnessed players giving that guy the KB to KD IO during missions and asked to slot them immediately. This is no different than asked to toggle up but actually requires more time spent for the group waiting for the transaction and change to take place. In both cases that guy could of said “NO”.

 

So whats the difference? The word choice used to convey “KB to KD please”.

 

The idea of this toggle seems to cause a heartache in those who want to play CoH as close as possible to its debut.

 

What does the toggle take away from those people? Nothing, continue to say “NO” to change and use knockback.

[TorduVide]

On 11/9/2021 at 9:22 PM, arcane said:

Not sure how KB->KD IO’s are any more of a “Mastermind thing” than a Storm thing, a Kheldian thing, an Energy thing, a Bonfire thing, etc. I happily deal with it on all of the above because the KB->KD IO’s are plainly worth it except on S/T attacks.

 

On some powers like Tornado and Bonfire, there is no other enhancement as potent as a Sudden Acceleration/Overwhelming Force in DPS terms. So obviously the knockdown conversion should retain its cost, because powerful things have costs in game design and balance.

 

How they could easily be seen as a MM thing is pretty simple, actually.  All those others don't have six separate instances of an ability that are constantly active and can randomly decide to trigger knockback at any given time with about 2/3 of everything they can do being able to trigger a knockback.  All the others are pretty well in control, the MM can't actually tell their primary form of dps to not knock things out of their own aoes, let alone that of their teammates, without nuking the damage those abilities can do.  It would literally be like all of those others having all of their damaging abilities being balanced to be used all at the same time (meaning each does notably less damage than being used separately) and all of them being mostly out of the player's control other than being able to turn them off or on meaning they fire off randomly while active during combat and also trigger a knockback randomly every time they hit, often enough even multiple times a second, without any way of stopping it other than not using those abilities at all or reducing the damage possibility of all of them to about 1/3 or less of the normal amount which is only as high as it is normally because they have two auxiliary abilities that only exist to force KB on those abilities and as a way to make sure the player doesn't do too much damage at lower levels by being the sole source of two buffs that, when combined, increase damage to an actually decent amount (in the case of the MM that's done by unlocking more pet abilities, but you get the idea.)

 

And just because KB to KD makes a few select abilities particularly potent doesn't mean it's worth remaining as a IO.  That's essentially saying "This drug makes all pig products super foods so all you need is a couple ounces of some pig product every day to get all the nutrition and calories you could possibly need in a day, as such ALL foods should have a 3000% increase in price!"

 

Like that's great for people that can eat pork that also like to, or in this case people that want and have those abilities, but now all the other things have to suffer just because this drug, or in this case these IOs, make a handful of things awesome.  That really isn't acceptable as hurting most for the sake of a few is how many a problem in many aspects of life happen.

Edited November 15, 2021 by TorduVide

[arcane]

My Bots doesn’t do any KB and it was not difficult to get there. I don’t believe you need KB to KD on all three pets. But if you did that would be easily addressed too. For instance the Drones only have a single target KB, and no significant reasonable player population has any problem with that. You can do all this with damage values still hitting ED cap. You claim it hurts your damage but this is incorrect with proper slotting. It sounds like you’re struggling with pet slotting. Maybe swing by the MM sub for IO tips.

 

Still disagree any MM’s can scatter half as badly as Storm, which typically has 2 Tornadoes and 3 Lightning Storms out all the time with a decent build. And a buttload of that old i0 fear.

 

EDIT: looking back through the pet powers and seeing barely anything bad. Where the heck is the problem here again? Is it another set that’s worse than Bots/Necro/Demons? I have played those and verified the KB is hardly uniquely problematic for them.

Edited November 15, 2021 by arcane

[oedipus_tex]

I'd like to see this for Energy Blast, mainly, because it is the set I consider the "knockback specialist." Not too keen on it for every set. Mainly the reason I'd like a toggle is to decide, shot for shot, whether stuff gets KBed or KDed. 

 

FWIW Dual Pistols sort of has this already. 

 

 

While I'm here I'll also reiterate that I'd like Knockback Chance to scale for Defenders and Corruptors. They currently cause higher knock Mag, but not Chance. I've prototyped a very knock-y version of Defender Energy Blast on a private server and it was so much fun to play.

[Bill Z Bubba]

I liked how the Champions PnP RPG dealt with KB. It allowed me to create a boxer with 2 attacks. One was a lethal jackhammer. The other did massive KB and created a force wall directly behind the enemy so that the KB distance to object calculation made the attack do massive damage.

 

KB doesn't do extra damage when you knock an enemy into a wall. That's sad.

 

Also, AoE KB pisses me off to no end. I've gathered these farks around me so that my AoEs are more efficient and you want to toss them all over the place? You suck at this and should be ashamed. 🙂

[Aurora_Girl]

23 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

I liked how the Champions PnP RPG dealt with KB. It allowed me to create a boxer with 2 attacks. One was a lethal jackhammer. The other did massive KB and created a force wall directly behind the enemy so that the KB distance to object calculation made the attack do massive damage.

 

KB doesn't do extra damage when you knock an enemy into a wall. That's sad.

 

Also, AoE KB pisses me off to no end. I've gathered these farks around me so that my AoEs are more efficient and you want to toss them all over the place? You suck at this and should be ashamed. 🙂

 

*Handwaves*

 

Physics. 😛

[Wavicle]

1 hour ago, oedipus_tex said:

FWIW Dual Pistols sort of has this already. 

yes it does, and it loses build up to get it.

[oedipus_tex]

39 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

I liked how the Champions PnP RPG dealt with KB. It allowed me to create a boxer with 2 attacks. One was a lethal jackhammer. The other did massive KB and created a force wall directly behind the enemy so that the KB distance to object calculation made the attack do massive damage.

 

KB doesn't do extra damage when you knock an enemy into a wall. That's sad.

 

Also, AoE KB pisses me off to no end. I've gathered these farks around me so that my AoEs are more efficient and you want to toss them all over the place? You suck at this and should be ashamed. 🙂

 

 

I built a prototype power where a psuedopet knocks itself back for the LOLs. Never got around to making it into something but it was my LOL way of making knockback entertaining, by using it as a self limiting component for the pet.

 

 

 

[RogerWilco]

On 11/8/2021 at 7:45 PM, TheZag said:

I love me some good old fashioned knockback.  Enhance it over 9000,  knock them back to the moon.  The map is only clear if they were knocked clean out of it.  The floor is lava and you are saving their lives.  Up, up and away.  Its a bird,  its a plane,  no its a hellion hit by mag 50 knockback.  Time a knockback with a friend using the baseball bat.

One of the things I like about City of Heroes is that not everything has to be optimal and effective and you can still succeed.

I have a toon with Energy Blast, with lot's of KB, and it's a lot of fun. I also have a Robots MM.

Not all power sets are balanced, and certainly not in all circumstances.

I mostly play with friends and we just laugh if a few mobs fly around.

I understand the problem, and my preferred solution that people would stop complaining about KB isn't going to work.

I know it can be annoying when I'm playing melee, but it's also hilarious sometimes.

I know it's not a solution, but I wish people would care a bit less about "efficiency" and enjoy the rag-dolls.

 

One of the reasons I stopped playing World of Warcraft and then found this game back in 2010, is that everything got dumbed down and pushed into the same cookie-cutter builds because of "balance" and "efficiency". CoH not caring  lot about these things is what allows the wealth of different builds and characters. Just don't think every build can solo +4x8, and I don't think they should. I'm fine with a character at +0x0, as long as they're fun to play and look cool.

 

Edited November 22, 2021 by RogerWilco