Knockback, Stil a Dirty Word?

[lemming]

13 minutes ago, Psi-bolt said:

 

Is that right?  So if I target an NPC at 12 O'Clock and there are NPCs at 10 and 2 they will all go in a straight line in the same direction?   I can't test it now but I thought that they would move away from you, yes, but the 10 O'Clock NPC and the 2 O'Clock NPC will go in a NW and NE direction respectively (assuming 12 is N).  

Just checked in Perez on some unwilling skulls.   And for the most part, they went in the same line away from me, but they will sometimes just travel away from me.   What they definitely don't do is go direct from the targeted mob.   So if you hit the center of the group, they will all travel away from you, even if there are some closer to you than the impact point.

[The Trouble]

1 hour ago, Psyonico said:

Do you think that explosive blast has radial knock back? Because it doesn't.  Every knock back power in Energy Blast knocks directly away from the caster.

 

Therefore, Explosive Blast and Energy Torrent do the exact same amount of scatter.

So Energy Blast is even easier than I recall.  I appreciate the correction, thank you!

 

For what it's worth, I only ever put the +Recharge proc in Explosive Blast.  Nova is the only power I ever bothered to convert to knockdown.  SuddenlyI want to dust this character off and resume knocking back for justice.

[BasiliskXVIII]

I don't think any secondary effect has a greater delta between how good it is when played well, and how awful it is when played badly, which contributes a lot of the hate to it. Especially since the majority of people that I've seen using it in game tend to be in that middling-to-poor range. It's legitimately a good survival tool, but I do wish there were more tools that let you mitigate the scatter. Honestly, a KB IO set that allows you to have guaranteed KB would be a nice counterpoint to Sudden Acceleration, letting you keep your KB, but helping with scatter by ensuring that everything goes. That's where I find it most irritating, in powers like Buckshot, where there's like a 50% chance to KB and it's a narrow cone so you're hitting only a few targets anyway.

 

Also, playing NPC golf with enemies to knock them into AOE effects is a lot of fun. Sonic Thrust is the best power in the game because of that, and it isn't close.

 

 

 

[dukedukes]

Any repel haters? Go on, melee my mobs 😎

 

 

 

[Xalon]

All you have to do is not use your KB powers when it won't benefit the group. I use my PB knockback powers to knock enemies close to my team. Or if too many swarm, its a good way to split up EBs or AVs. As long as you pay attention, it should be easy to choose what to use at any given time. 

[kelika2]

6 hours ago, MTeague said:

Knockback is hated by some.  "Most" or "Vast Majority", I find doubtful.

dont use the forums for an indication of popularity

if its like any of the other third party mmos out there from runescape to daoc to the few projects that splintered from SWGEmu the ingame playerbase just dont care about the forums outside of patch day or making an account

[PeregrineFalcon]

6 hours ago, MTeague said:

Knockback is hated by some.  "Most" or "Vast Majority", I find doubtful.

What's worse is that when, a couple of years ago, there was a forum poll about knockback and it turned out that the majority actually liked knockback.

 

But the knockback haters still continue to post "The majority of people hate knockback." Even though that's been repeatedly proven to be false.

[Biff Pow]

There's no point to KB-to-KD in Nova because it kills most of its targets. I do use the Overwhelming Force set in Explosive Blast because it turns it into a PBAoE power and I like to melee. But I leave the KB in Energy Torrent because sometimes you want enemies out of your face.

[Psi-bolt]

13 minutes ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

What's worse is that when, a couple of years ago, there was a forum poll about knockback and it turned out that the majority actually liked knockback.

 

But the knockback haters still continue to post "The majority of people hate knockback." Even though that's been repeatedly proven to be false.

 If I had to guess, I would say that most people are honestly indifferent about KB.  And to the extent that they have a preference, it could be colored by ST KB powers like Force Bolt which are awesome.

[Major_Decoy]

I enjoy knockback, but I still slot every AoE power on my Energy Blaster with Knockback to Knockdown. I leave the single target powers be. If I knock something back it is now on me to deal with it.

 

That said, there are some changes I think would improve knockback:

 

1) Successfully knocking back a target should boost your range so you can shoot it again without having to move (provided you still have line of sight)

 

2) A little more graphic variety in knockback animations would be fun. I want to see a target flip over backwards because I've knocked it back.

[ZemX]

14 minutes ago, Psi-bolt said:

If I had to guess, I would say that most people are honestly indifferent about KB.  And to the extent that they have a preference, it could be colored by ST KB powers like Force Bolt which are awesome.

 

My in game experience is that people are indifferent until KB starts really affecting them negatively and then they get vocal about it.  If someone on the team is regularly scattering well packed mobs that others on the team are AoEing... someone will say something about it.  And I don't mean me.  If I am tanking and someone scatters my group, I don't get mad.  I go find another group.  If the scattered group follows me, fine.  If it doesn't, I assume whoever scattered it is handling them.  "You knock it, you bought it", is my way of handling this.  And a lot of times, that's okay with the person doing the KB as well.

[Krimson]

My suggestion is to use Knockback with impunity and if someone says something reply, "Are we running missions or are we farming?"

[lemming]

6 hours ago, BasiliskXVIII said:

Also, playing NPC golf with enemies to knock them into AOE effects is a lot of fun. Sonic Thrust is the best power in the game because of that, and it isn't close.

My favorite tactic is to find a char to attach remote bomb to and catapult them over to a group, then blow it up.  Sure, more effective just to attach a bomb in there, but definitely less fun

[Super Atom]

Just do the knockbacking instead. if someone knocksback your knockbacked enemies thats just MORE knockback for you to enjoy. it's a flawless plan

[Major_Decoy]

I do, however, entirely resent NPCs using Handclap or Lightning Clap. There's no strategy to it, it's just "Oh, I have a power recharged, I'll use that"

[macskull]

8 hours ago, Psyonico said:

Therefore, Explosive Blast and Energy Torrent do the exact same amount of scatter.

While the first part of your post was correct (knock is vectored from the caster’s location which is not necessarily the center of the power doing the knock), the part I quoted isn’t strictly true.

 

Why? Well, you see, neither of those powers are guaranteed to knock mobs. What’s more, Energy Torrent has a 60% chance while Explosive Blast is only 50%. What this means is even if you’ve got mobs up against a wall or whatever you’re only going to send some of them flying. You can mitigate this by using fly or teleport and only ever using those powers directly above the mobs you want to knock, but this isn’t at all practical on indoor maps.

[Neiska]

I have seen both good and bad KB players.

 

Good ones use it strategically, pushing the big threats off squishies, pushing things into corners, pushing things into aoe and so on. Being able to move an enemy can be a fantastic tool if used right.

 

I think the best use was during a team, it was almost a full wipe, down to just me the Robo MM and the (I think he was a) Defender. The Tank went one way, the squishy DPS  went another, both aggroed their own packs and both faceplanted. Then aaalll the mobs from both packs came running right to me and the Defender. I thought I was about to follow shortly after, but the Defender just swooped right beside me and toggled his Repelling Aura on. Stuff was running at us, but it just bounced off. And I was able to heal the ranged attacks that did get through. Honestly it was kind of shooting fish in a barrel for my robos. It took a little bit, but the defender and I took out what splattered our tank and blaster which was a pretty awesome moment. I didn't even know the defender had that, he hadn't used it until that moment. When it was over he just toggled it off and we pressed on.

 

Bad ones just spam it and hit spawns of enemies like a bowling ball, scattering things all over, often away from the Tank/Brute and melee dps, or pushing things out of AoEs and so on, often being as much a hinderance as much as a help.

 

I have been tinkering with a robo/ff build myself. I have only dabbled with one before, never had one at 50 or fully kited out before. It will likely be my next project. Personally when I have knockback powers, I try to have a bit of awareness. Just because I "can" blow a mob across the room doesn't mean I "should," and often enough saving it for a few moments proved to be a very nice counter to something a mob was going to do.

 

Anyway, back to Knockback - like many other tools, it depends on the user. I have seen good and bad tankers. Good and bad Controllers. Good and bad Corruptors and so on. If you are just zooming around blasting things than yea, I can see it upsetting people. But even that style of play has its place, either on speed teams where people just rushing to finish as fast as possible, or an all ranged team which I do see time to time. 

 

PS - I do kind of wish we had a reverse knockback powerset or ability, the only one being fold space. But a support or ranged set with some "get over here" abilities might actually be quite awesome to see.

Edited 11 hours ago by Neiska
Added a PS

[ivanhedgehog]

13 hours ago, Maelwys said:

^^ Case in point! 🙈
 

  

We could flip that around:
"Knockback lovers have small, underdeveloped frontal lobes. They love imposing their sub-standard playstyle choices on others and especially enjoy trolling teams that were previously blissfully steamrolling through content without having their targets unceremoniously punted away from their melee attacks, PBAoEs and debuff patches." 😛

More seriously; it's true that some specific players are quite capable of leveraging knockback to clump rather than disperse enemies. And the introduction of Combat Teleport (and the addition of Knockback Resistance to most AoE Immobilise powers) has somewhat lessened the negative impact of 'uncontrolled' teammate-induced Knockback. However a bad knockback player can still be a major PITA on a team; and mechanically speaking KnockDOWN provides almost as much mitigation as KnockBACK but without all the hate and vitriol. So I personally will almost always choose to convert KB>KD - as a courtesy to my teammates even if it doesn't make much difference to my own toon. And whilst I haven't personally ever booted anyone off a team I'm leading for using Knockback badly (even back in the old days), I have used several of them as "Vengeance Bait".

 

On live I had a storm troller running hurricane that insisted on standing next to my stone tank in granite during an ITF. we asked him to stop multiple times. No joy. He tried the "dont tell me how to play" spiel. Told him "Ok, do what you want solo" KICK. he was quite upset.

[ivanhedgehog]

11 hours ago, Psi-bolt said:

 

Same, I've gotten as high as 30 before abandoning it.   And that's a shame.  Energy Blast is a cool looking set, but the slot tax on top of the set being somewhat middling even without considering the KB is the killer.  Peacebringers, by contrast, tend to have the tools to use KB as well as one can, although I've still never taken Nova.

My first 50 on live was an Energy/fire blaster. This was long before IOs and I learned quick how to place my shots. I was on a regular team which helped. When my wife leveled her PB we all learned to squash quantums. We were like a well oiled machine by the time we hit 50 with that set.

[Forager]

5 hours ago, Biff Pow said:

There's no point to KB-to-KD in Nova because it kills most of its targets. I do use the Overwhelming Force set in Explosive Blast because it turns it into a PBAoE power and I like to melee. But I leave the KB in Energy Torrent because sometimes you want enemies out of your face.

 

This guy knows.

 

I have explosive blast converted and nothing else. I was confused by the guys talking about converting Nova... like if anything is still alive, you probably didn't knock it anywhere.

[ivanhedgehog]

5 minutes ago, Forager said:

 

This guy knows.

 

I have explosive blast converted and nothing else. I was confused by the guys talking about converting Nova... like if anything is still alive, you probably didn't knock it anywhere.

The days of popping a yellow, 3 reds /aim/bu and nova joy. nothing left standing

[UltraAlt]

21 hours ago, The Witchfire said:

I'm wondering if KB is still the same vile concept it used to be in Live days.

 

It only ever was in small select groups that were very vocal.

 

21 hours ago, The Witchfire said:

I'm guesing some of it has to do with characters being so overpowered nowadays. "Scatter a mob and have them pull in another mob or two?  Who cares, I farm 6 mobs at a time."

 

You're basing playing CoH and knockback use on "farming"?

 

21 hours ago, The Witchfire said:

I can remember dealing with it at middle levels on live though. Worst instance was running misions as an SG and having Strong Girl get us wiped repeatedly via Shield Rushing Clockwork, scattering them everywhere, and then getting shot from 10 different directions by the mob and all the nearby ones that got aggro'ed by the first mob being knocked all over the map.

 

Wow. I've actually never seen that happen with shield rush.

Fold-space will put a group neatly in a line for shield rush.

 

21 hours ago, The Witchfire said:

Hel, I even had to retire my Energy / Energy blaster because nobody would group with a KB causing character, even on Virtue.

 

Odd. 

I'm unsure what "even on Virtue" means.

Does that mean "on Virtue" rather than "on Freedom" or any server at all?

 

I used to run a Energy blaster on Champion all the time. I had other ones on Guardian and Triumph that I ran sometimes.

I don't remember ever running into issues playing them.

 

All that being said, I don't end-game.

 

 

[The Witchfire]

30 minutes ago, UltraAlt said:

 

It only ever was in small select groups that were very vocal.

 

 

You're basing playing CoH and knockback use on "farming"?

 

 

Wow. I've actually never seen that happen with shield rush.

Fold-space will put a group neatly in a line for shield rush.

 

 

Odd. 

I'm unsure what "even on Virtue" means.

Does that mean "on Virtue" rather than "on Freedom" or any server at all?

 

I used to run a Energy blaster on Champion all the time. I had other ones on Guardian and Triumph that I ran sometimes.

I don't remember ever running into issues playing them.

 

All that being said, I don't end-game.

 

 

 

OK, let me start by saying just because you've never seen something doesn't mean it doesn't exist or hasn't happened.  I've never been to Australia but it's still there, lol.

 

"Even on Virtue" meant that before the other servers were getting shut down or dying out (leading to the servr being invaded by farmers and trolls), Virtue's RPers were genraly more tolerant in my experience than the average player when it came to game mechanics issues.

 

Funny you mention Champion server also, because that's where my first blaster started out; Energy Energy also. My job and other real life issues kept me from having a regular play schedule, so I had difficulties growing a friends list, which was all but vital finding teams.  Groups repeatedly refused to let an unknown KB blaster on the team,  I was outright told repeatedly that was the issue. It took me FOREVER to get to the mid 20s and the only reason that character made it to 50 at all was Breaker Udual let me on his Family farm runs.   That was pre AE days when PI missions got farmed over and over w/o closing the mision out.

 

Strong Girl's antics:  That was WELL before Fold Space and it's power set were available. Clockwork seem to be less KB vulnerable than they used to back in those days also, but my experience with them since returning is a little limited.  Power sets can and do get tweaked over the years.  The incident with Strong Girl stuck in my mind because she was just doing it to troll the team too.  If she hadn't been an SG member, I'd have booted her from the team.  We wiped 6 or 7 times on one mission at standard dificulty... Against CLOCKWORK.  Never should have happened.

 

Regardless, all I was trying to do was getan overal feling for the community's view on the subject

Edited 8 hours ago by The Witchfire

[Solarverse]

22 hours ago, Maelwys said:

Short version: Yes; it's still hated by a large portion (if not the vast majority) of the playerbase.

Longer version: And it's also apparently loved by an extremely passionate minority of the playerbase.
(Some of them even believe they're "helping" - in much the same manner that a 2 year old with a tub of red paint might make surprise contributions to your home decor...)

Even adding an option (via Null or a Special IO) to globally make KnockBACK into KnockDOWN keeps getting vetoed.

 

 

 

This right here. 100%

[Solarverse]

21 hours ago, MTeague said:

Knockback is hated by some.  "Most" or "Vast Majority", I find doubtful.  Majority of those who post on the forums perhaps, of the entire playerbase... that's another question entirely.  I have been kicked for KB, but it's been rare. Whether that's because the rest of the time people sucked it up because the FF bubbles were worth it to them, or because they honestly didn't give a darn, no one can say.  People may have opinions, but we can't reach back in time and interview those specific players. 

 

Worst case, you can always form a team yourself specifcally saying "KB friendly team forming!" and the haters will most definitely not join.

 

I gave you more credit than that. To think that the vast majority do not hate knock back sounds a bit delusional. The only place in this entire game that anyone thinks knock back is a good thing would be right here...on these very forums. It also happens that these same forum posters have also posted things about being big on RP play. RP + Knock Back go hand in hand, so it kind of makes sense. However, most players in game don't RP and hate KB, that is painfully obvious and always has been since day one on live. That has never changed and remains true. It sounds like to me that you may be in denial if you believe that most players don't hate knock back. Some things in life don't need to be proven due to the abundance of evidence. Players who hate knock back being the majority is one of them.

Somebody in this thread said, "There was a poll on the forums and the players who like KB won the poll..."

Yeah; don't care. The forums and the people who tend to post on them are a different breed than that of the majority of players in game. The forums attract a certain type of personality, while the majority of players wouldn't give two turds for the forums and see the forums as nothing more than a place for players who want to toot their own horns and desire some type of higher recognition status. As another said, the only thing the forums are good for with most players is finding out what's popping off with the patch notes, otherwise the forums are useless to them. When in game, it is quite easy to tell that these forums and people who post them are far from a representation of the player base as a whole. Like I said, forum posters are a different kind of breed.

What is truly upsetting to most of these players who hate knock back is that any attempt made on these forums to request an option to allow knock back powers to be changed to a knock down instead of wasting enhancement slots on it has been met with serious resistance from the knock back loving authoritarianist opposition, even though it is a request for choice made per character and nothing forced on anyone else.

 

And sure, although we can say that people who hate KB players and want them to stop are a bit authoritarianism A-holes, in my experience, most people who hate it tend to not say anything in fear of insulting the KB player and instead one by one start dropping the team in order to escape the KB player.

 

The bottom line, is that the two play styles rarely mesh well. And yes, good players can play with KB rather well...I know, I used to be one of them before the KB to KD IO was invented since Energy Blast has always been my main, however, these good players are far and few between and the common experience is KB players blasting everything out of other people's AOE range and annoying the daylights out of other players.

As far as the "KB Friendly Team" I wouldn't avoid it, I would simply play a character that had KB and then we would all have a blast playing Pinball with the bad guys, lol.

 

Edited 2 hours ago by Solarverse
Clarification