KB to KD toggle

[Bill Z Bubba]

2 hours ago, Krimson said:

Knock back is part of the game. I love how so many players want a believable experience EXCEPT when it comes to what happens to a body when force is applied. While I would enjoy making some toons even more Godlike, I don't think it should be that easy.

 

I'm trying real hard to figure out a believable excuse for Focus and Shockwave causing KD and KB respectively.

[Luminara]

26 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

I'm trying real hard to figure out a believable excuse for Focus and Shockwave causing KD and KB respectively.

 

Force = mass * acceleration.  The fastest recorded pitch was clocked at 105 mph, and your super-powered Bill Z Cuisinart is swinging his arms at double that acceleration, minimum, creating tremendous force.  Stand next to a highway when an eighteen wheeler is driving past at 75 mph, the wind from that vehicle will transmit some of the force generated by the vehicle's mass and acceleration.  Same principle applies here. 

 

Science, Captain Slapchop!

[Bill Z Bubba]

11 minutes ago, Luminara said:

Force = mass * acceleration.  The fastest recorded pitch was clocked at 105 mph, and your super-powered Bill Z Cuisinart is swinging his arms at double that acceleration, minimum, creating tremendous force.  Stand next to a highway when an eighteen wheeler is driving past at 75 mph, the wind from that vehicle will transmit some of the force generated by the vehicle's mass and acceleration.  Same principle applies here. 

 

Science, Captain Slapchop!

 

Throw a knife at 210 mph at someone. Is it going to go through them or knock them down?

[Stormwalker]

9 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

Throw a knife at 210 mph at someone. Is it going to go through them or knock them down?

 

See, this is exactly why (well, part of why) Kitten America uses those fancy Vanguard energy claws.  I can justify all sorts of things with those just by chalking it up to "fancy tech does fancy stuff".

 

The other reason is, of course, that they look cool, and I grew up with Star Wars, so I am a sucker for energy blades.

[Bill Z Bubba]

1 minute ago, Krimson said:

Bows have existed for millennia, and somehow meat shields have managed to stop arrows, aka long knives, from going right through. Compound bows can launch arrows at right about that speed.

 

That is true but have you ever seen an arrow knock someone back?

 

Don't get me wrong, I know the whole thing is silly. I don't think anyone is coming to this game looking for a realistic experience.

[Andreah]

35 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

Throw a knife at 210 mph at someone. Is it going to go through them or knock them down?

In weaponeering, we call this the "Coupling Problem"

[Rudra]

The difference would be that an arrow or bolt is a focused impact. All the force is applied to a very small location. That said, there was a Secret Service agent that was apparently thrown by a .22 bullet. Though in his case, it was in his head from Hollywood and he more or less threw himself thinking that was what a bullet should do to him.

 

When force is applied over a larger area, the object the force is applied to is more likely to move based on the amount of force applied to it. When force is applied to a smaller area, it is less likely to move the overall object and instead penetrate. See your arrows comment versus being slammed in the chest with heavy warhammer. Or in game terms, contrast the sets like this:

 

Solid matter with small surface area: Archery and assault rifle. (Penetrates the target, kinetic energy is spread over a very small area.

Non-particulate energy: Dark blast. (Negative energy, dark energy, void energy, whatever. Does not impart kinetic force, but drains instead.

Low particulate energy: Fire blast. (Erm... I really think this is a weird one... so....)

Unclear particulate/non-particulate energy: Cold. (I'm not sure if you're chucking ice at the target or just a projectile the target absorbs like dark blast that causes harm by rapid temperature change.)

Particulate energy: Energy blast. (Photons exhibit both wave and particle properties. And the attack is over a considerable surface area if you consider the particle aspect. That and energy blast itself is basically defined as kinetic energy in the way I read it.)

 

I'm not a scientist though, and there are articles that make me wonder about some of what I just posted.

[Andreah]

All other things being equal, faster projectiles and impacting objects are less likely to cause a force of knockback than slower ones with equal kinetic energy. So when you see a shotgun blast knocking someone off their feet and through a window, that's hollywood, not physics. But we see it so often we get conditioned to expect it. 

[Andreah]

I prefer not to try to bring real scientific principles into things. It's a game, things need to be fun. Realism beyond a certain minimum usually makes it less fun. Make it fun, and reasonably balanced so no one feels like they're constantly being carried, or constantly carrying everyone else.

[Luminara]

10 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

Throw a knife at 210 mph at someone. Is it going to go through them or knock them down?

The shape of the knife, the mass, whether it has a haft or is bare tang, whether there's a hilt, a number of variables affect the final outcome to some degree, but those are actually very small, and the knife will still transmit almost all of its force to the target on impact.  Knives, even throwing knives, aren't designed to pass through, they're designed to penetrate, and there is a difference between penetration and pass-through.

 

Even if your knife is perfectly straight and razor honed, the rotational force it experiences upon being thrown is sufficient to ensure that it will never pass through a target, so, again, almost all of the force will be transmitted to the target.  A knife is not an arrow, it doesn't move like an arrow, it doesn't experience the same forces that an arrow does, and it doesn't behave like an arrow in flight or on impact.

 

Whether that would be sufficient to knock a target down would depend on the target's mass, center of gravity, posture and what the target is wearing (multiple layers of heavy fabric would absorb and spread much of the force, for instance).  I don't know how much force is required to knock an average human down, so I can't answer any more fully than that.

 

Fascination with forensics and interest in various weaponry.  Yes, I am a nerd.

[Stormwalker]

1 hour ago, Krimson said:

Since I'm a farmer, yes KB can be annoying in a farm. BUT, a farm is a closed instance and normally you don't waste time chasing down every single runner that doesn't make it's way back. But for the most part, an aggroed mob will come back to you. I once had a player join me whose toon was named Captain Knockback or some variation thereof. He did not disappoint. But when I run farms, I calculate XP and INF per run, not per arbitrary time unit. So unless someone is being super disruptive, which is near impossible when you can clear a map yourself, KB is manageable.

 

Captain Knockback.  Gotta love it.  I'd be tempted to make that character (slotting all powers with extra knockback, of course)  just to see how much hate mail I got standing around in Atlas Park for having the nerve to exist.

 

Probably be fun to play, too, if not terribly efficient.  As one person put it in a thread about energy blasters, "Power Thrust will never not be hilarious."

 

I wouldn't want to be a scrapper in a party with that character, though, unless they are much more disciplined at managing their knockback than it sounds like.   There is a reason that my rule #1 as an energy blaster is "I will try not to knocback your melee targets", because I know how frustrating it can be.  Speaking of which, why, oh, why, does every helper NPC we ever get for missions have powersets with Knocback?

[JasperStone]

18 hours ago, TheZag said:

Enemies should take +1000% fall damage for 2 seconds after getting hit with knockback so i can have more fun clearing the rooftops in kings row.

This why I love Ki Push from Martial Combat.

 

[Andreah]

I've taken to using Fold Space on my tankers for a quick KB undo ability. If the mobs get scattered, for whatever reason, I can bring the ones still alive back.

[kelika2]

On 7/6/2022 at 8:33 AM, Luminara said:

The toggle suggestion has been discussed.  Thoroughly.  Repeatedly.  Heatedly.

oh sure when a regen thread its met with smiling faces and memes galore

but when a knockback thread happens its time to break out the serious faces

[Erratic1]

17 hours ago, Krimson said:

Knock back is part of the game. I love how so many players want a believable experience EXCEPT when it comes to what happens to a body when force is applied. While I would enjoy making some toons even more Godlike, I don't think it should be that easy.

 

Note to self: Make a Sonic Resonance character and go about making targets invulnerable to player attacks. When other complain note, "It is part of the game."

[Erratic1]

14 hours ago, Krimson said:

Honestly, the people who have a problem with it are usually in a hurry. Or they are tanks. And often the complaints happen on PUGs.

 

Not sure the wisdom of speaking for everyone else, let alone those you disagree with.

 

I am annoyed when my power anchors get sent somewhere such that the power anchored on them is not serving a purpose.

I am annoyed when in the quarter of a second before the keypress occurs activating my attack (area, single target, or otherwise) my target gets sent flying away.

I am aggrieved when my buff power which needs the presence of foes around me for its effect triggers with nothing around me.

 

And given how many people PUG, I am certainly not sure of the wisdom of being dismissive of the PUG experience.

[Erratic1]

4 minutes ago, Krimson said:

On today's episode of False Equivalences... Deliberately trolling is not the same as someone on an Energy Blaster just trying to play and have fun.

 

At this point I half consider people using knockback to be trolling. 

 

Who at this point does not know what Energy Blast does or that a lot of people dislike KB? I don't make Energy Blaster* because I am not trying to annoy people.

 

*Well, there was that one time when I'd gotten off a team with someone who had so annoyed me with KB that I wanted to make the most annoying character I could and made a Grav/EB Dominator, but I don't play him (well, at least not past level 40).

 

Edit: Hmmm, now thinking about a Seismic Blast character with KB slotted into the normally KD and KU powers with Meteor not slotted for damage but for nothing but KB. Part of the game after all.

Edited July 7, 2022 by Erratic1

[Akalabeth]

I was in a group a week ago or so with someone who would aoe knockback after a fold space by a different person.  If I recall it was meteor that scattered them everywhere.

 

I was also once in a low level group that had a storm? player who would rush up behind the tank and immediately do that gale power pushing everything away.  They got uhm... asked not to do that after a while by others.

 

When I play melee, I usually treat it like I do repel.  Someone knocks all the mobs away from me, I don't chase.  I'll hit something else close to me or just stand there since you feel like I don't need to help. 🙂 

[Erratic1]

3 minutes ago, Krimson said:

Only thing I can say then, is vet your groups before you join. Not much to recommend if you consider a certain percentage of the population to be trolls. 

 

Or act to inform people of their asocial behavior. 

 

I am put in mind of the time fighting the infinite spawn of witches where the Storm Summoning character kept running forward after the crowd alphas had been absorbed by the melees and scattering the group all over. I offered in chat, "I am not sure it is helping the melees to be knocking the spawn apart." Of course this was met with a comment about not needing to be snarky, but really, how much nicer could the phrasing have been? In any event, I think the message was received.

[Erratic1]

1 minute ago, Akalabeth said:

I was in a group a week ago or so with someone who would aoe knockback after a fold space by a different person.  If I recall it was meteor that scattered them everywhere.

 

As a T9, Meteor should have been killing most of what was hit. And given the long animation time on Meteor (2.57s) along with the need to have to target its arrival I would normally expect a goodly chunk of Meteor's potential targets to already be sufficiently along the way to defeat that Meteor definitely should have finished them off. 

 

The person using Meteor may not have known that if you Upthrust immediately after casting Meteor both effects will manifest at the same time, further reducing the likelihood of anything surviving.

[Akalabeth]

Sorry.  I was just relating a couple of notable experiences with knockback I've had. 😕

 

Also for what it's worth, when an energy blaster, assault rifle etc. is low level there's not a lot of options to reduce knockback.  OF is level 10 and the only other one I know is a level 17 minimum.

[Rudra]

Intentionally using a buff to annoy your team is trolling. Intentionally scattering the enemy to annoy your team is trolling. And there are definitely trolls in the game. Every game has them.

 

Being an energy blaster and trying to take down targets while on a team is not trolling. The player is trying to be part of the team with a character (s)he enjoys. If (s)he is knocking away your anchors or knocking away your current target and that is a problem, talk to him/her and help him/her grow as a player. If they call you snarky for doing so, give an apology (for the perception of snarkiness at least, even though you don't have to stipulate), and carry on the conversation to help the player grow. If the KB player is still not receptive? You're dealing with a troll.

 

And if you're dealing with a troll? Nothing in this thread will prevent him/her from continuing to troll you. So let's please move past the trolls and approach this from the perspective of players who enjoy KB characters. And that is not just Energy Blast. That can also include Assault Rifle and several other power sets.

[Erratic1]

1 minute ago, Akalabeth said:

Sorry.  I was just relating a couple of notable experiences with knockback I've had. 😕

 

I was only noting that while bodies fly away with Meteor, a goodly chunk of them should be dead. See upthread for my complete agreement with you on Hurricane.

 

[AerialAssault]

This gets a down-thumb from me because I've scammed more than a few people out of enhancements when I told them that if they want me to slot KB->KD so bad they can buy the enhancements for me and at this point it's financed some of my character's builds. Don't take this source of income from me.

[0th Power]

This again?

 

Is there a fix regen thread too?