Add a new inherent toggle power for changing KB/KD

[Rylas]

Title is the TL;DR.

 

Knockback is one of the more divisive mechanics of the game. Personally, I don't appreciate it since I tend to play melee characters. But I see the appeal for those who use it for mitigation or just love it for the lulz. But there are clearly camps of lovers and haters for this effect, and threads pop up frequently asking for some sets to be changed from KB to KD. Or asking for sets to be made with two exclusive options of the same powers.

 

All lovely suggestions, but perhaps a more simple one might work better. Introduce a new inherent power that when toggled on makes all KB powers do KD. It costs no endurance and doesn't detoggle when mezzed. Changing Kheldian forms doesn't detoggle the power. And when toggled off, all KB power return to doing KB. This will not turn KD powers into KB, as that probably adds more mitigation that wasn't intended.

 

Benefits: players who love having KB powers can keep their KB. If they're worried about synergy in team play, they can toggle them over to KD powers. Melee players who want to enjoy sets that have too much KB for their playstyle can enjoy those sets without having to sacrifice slots to make them KD.

 

Cons: None. My logic is flawless (he said, tongue in cheek).

 

Thoughts?

[quixoteprog]

While it would definitely be preferable to sacrificing a slot in each power that does knockback just to make it easier to team. I can see the case where I would want some powers to do one and other the other.

I run an Energy/Energy blaster. And I would be fine with, even prefer, to have my ranged powers do KD or KU, but I prefer to have the one melee power I took from Energy Manipulation do KB so that the mobs are not just knocked down but also pushed back out of melee range.

So, maybe TWO powers? One for melee and one for ranged?

That way tanks and scrappers whom I imagine would ALWAYS want KD could set them both to that.

Instead of a toggle it might could be an inherent power. You do a quest, or talk to an NPC and they set it. Kind of like alignment or notoriety?

[Steampunkette]

The way the KB to KD IO functions is to explicitly replace the Knockback Value of any power it is specifically slotted into to .67 mags. It can do this because it's an internal power process (I.E. one that is tied to a specific power)

 

To make the toggle work you'd be doing an external rather than internal power function. That means you'd need to go through every single power with Knockback in it and find the KB Mag for that power and create an "If KB2KD Toggle is Active Reduce KB by (Magnitude the power typically creates) and add KB Mag .67" value tied to it.

 

Kind of like how every Scrapper Power has an "If Fiery Embrace is on this power deals Q more Fire Damage) tacked onto the end of it and any attempt to look at Scrapper Powers while customizing your kinetic/invuln Scrapper shows a fire effect on an invisible target being hit by your powers. 

 

That's the difference between an internal and an external power change. It would fix the "Problem" but it would only do so through an absolutely BONKERS amount of tedious work to the ultimate effect of "Save some people a few KB/KD slots" Because you'd STILL have the massive forum arguments unless the Devs turned it into an always on Autopower because some of us wouldn't use it and some people would complain, loudly, about it. And if they did turn it into an autopower? That'd just shift the complaints to the other side of things. "KB was Awesome why did you take it away!?" threads -everywhere-.

 

The only real difference would be those who hate Knockback would have the implied agreement from the Devs that Knockback is WRONGBADFUN and the idea that they should be able to demand people turn their toggle on when they're on the same team as a RIGHTGOODFUN player.

 

Which is what happened when the KB to KD IOs were added to the game in the first freaking place! I've had more than a few people on Everlasting ask why I don't slot KB to KD in every freaking power and any build I put into the build guides that isn't KB free tends to get at least one comment about sacrificing some survival or damage output to make things easier on the scrapper who can't be bothered to press the W key for half a second to move over to the badly mangled physics mess that was a warwolf peeking it's back-end out of a wall while it spasms for 8 seconds trying to right itself.

 

Nothing is going to be good enough for certain players 'til all Knockback is removed from the game and a Stalinesque history-rewrite is implemented where the fact that KB ever existed is a taboo no one discusses.

[Rylas]

12 minutes ago, quixoteprog said:

So, maybe TWO powers? One for melee and one for ranged?

That's not a bad idea. I could see needing some powers to do KD and others doing KB. The idea, after all, is to allow more control over one's powers.

[Rylas]

12 minutes ago, Steampunkette said:

Nothing is going to be good enough for certain players 'til all Knockback is removed from the game and a Stalinesque history-rewrite is implemented where the fact that KB ever existed is a taboo no one discusses.

Easy there, Jordan Peterson. You're putting a slip-n-slide on top of this slippery slope fallacy. There's always going to be someone that thinks their way of playing is right. Those types will always complain about something. But let's not jump to extremes here.

 

17 minutes ago, Steampunkette said:

The only real difference would be those who hate Knockback would have the implied agreement from the Devs that Knockback is WRONGBADFUN and the idea that they should be able to demand people turn their toggle on when they're on the same team as a RIGHTGOODFUN player.

Adding choice isn't implied agreement to anything. It's giving a player more control over how they want to play. A lot of my game play is in PUGs. I've never seen any pitchforks and torches brought out for someone using KB powers. I form quite a bit of PUGs and I play a lot of melee characters. I try to keep groups close to walls and corners when someone's using a lot of KB powers and all I request is that they try to take advantage of that. And if they don't, if anything, I'll politely leave the group after a mission or two and go form another PUG. Even though I started the one I was in. Why? Because I don't care to tell people how to play.

 

Does my anecdotal story beat your extreme hypotheticals? Not really. But perhaps we don't need to resort to fears of totalitarianism. Which is ironic, considering I'm suggesting something that gives players more choice/control over their own powers.

26 minutes ago, Steampunkette said:

That's the difference between an internal and an external power change. It would fix the "Problem" but it would only do so through an absolutely BONKERS amount of tedious work to the ultimate effect of "Save some people a few KB/KD slots"

I figured it would require adding code to all KB powers. And sure, that could be tedious. But not exactly difficult since it's just copy/pasting the same thing to all those powers. But it would do more than "save some people" some sots. Kheldians have A LOT of KB powers, and many in their human form. For playing melee, that's not exactly intuitive. And Kheldians are hungry enough for slots as is.

[PaxArcana]

So basically, a toggle that would work like Bio Armor does (internally to the set), yes?  When it's on, all KB becomes KD .... when it's not, powers are left alone.

 

Well, here's a thing to consider: rather than changing the magnitude the way the IO apparently does .... why not just change the DISTANCE?

 

It's still knockback, but it only sends them ONE FOOT back (and they fall to the ground).  That's unlikely to be problematic for AoE or Melee characters, after all.

[Steampunkette]

4 minutes ago, Rylas said:

Easy there, Jordan Peterson. You're putting a slip-n-slide on top of this slippery slope fallacy. There's always going to be someone that thinks their way of playing is right. Those types will always complain about something. But let's not jump to extremes here.

 

Adding choice isn't implied agreement to anything. It's giving a player more control over how they want to play. A lot of my game play is in PUGs. I've never seen any pitchforks and torches brought out for someone using KB powers. I form quite a bit of PUGs and I play a lot of melee characters. I try to keep groups close to walls and corners when someone's using a lot of KB powers and all I request is that they try to take advantage of that. And if they don't, if anything, I'll politely leave the group after a mission or two and go form another PUG. Even though I started the one I was in. Why? Because I don't care to tell people how to play.

 

Does my anecdotal story beat your extreme hypotheticals? Not really. But perhaps we don't need to resort to fears of totalitarianism. Which is ironic, considering I'm suggesting something that gives players more choice/control over their own powers.

I figured it would require adding code to all KB powers. And sure, that could be tedious. But not exactly difficult since it's just copy/pasting the same thing to all those powers. But it would do more than "save some people" some sots. Kheldians have A LOT of KB powers, and many in their human form. For playing melee, that's not exactly intuitive. And Kheldians are hungry enough for slots as is.

#1. The Stalinesque Rewrite of history thing was pretty clearly meant to be a joke... Also I removed the "Forum Gulag" from that joke 'cause I figured I was going too far, but apparently Poe's Law is alive and well!

 

#2. You're not adding choice. You're just adding another way to remove knockback that costs less on a personal basis than the method to remove knockback that already exists. What that does is create -perception- of correctness, which is all a lot of people need to appeal to authority. "Well the devs made a way to remove knockback so you should remove knockback from your personal playstyle" Which is -exactly- what happened when the KD IO came out.

 

#3. My "Extreme Hypotheticals" is literally happening in the KB to KD threads all over the boards where people who hate KB quit any team that includes people who don't have the KD IO in all their powers and kick anyone of the same ilk from teams they're in charge of. These aren't hypotheticals they're real examples of player behavior. And that's the subset of people who both hate KB -and- use the Forums to communicate. There's also lots of personal stories from people who use the forums and like KB about how they got kicked from teams or griped at or whatever.

 

#4. Yes I'm glad we agree it would be tedious but it wouldn't be Copy-Paste. Each power has it's own knockback value with some being larger than others. You'd need to find the power's individual scaling gradient (if it has one because some powers have flat KB values and others have increasing KB values) and apply that specific scale to the "Remove KB" tag applied at the end of the power.

 

#5. It still wouldn't fix the arguments on the forums.

 

6 minutes ago, PaxArcana said:

So basically, a toggle that would work like Bio Armor does (internally to the set), yes?  When it's on, all KB becomes KD .... when it's not, powers are left alone.

 

Well, here's a thing to consider: rather than changing the magnitude the way the IO apparently does .... why not just change the DISTANCE?

 

It's still knockback, but it only sends them ONE FOOT back (and they fall to the ground).  That's unlikely to be problematic for AoE or Melee characters, after all.

Magnitude determines distance. A Mag 100 KB will fling you across the map if you have no KB Protection Mags but a Mag 2 will just throw you a short distance.

[oedipus_tex]

I agree with this on Energy Blast mainly because Dual Pistols actually has this (altho it turns it completely on or off). Energy Blast is a mastery of energy explusion and I think some control over how far to knock things back would be a nice addition.

[Redlynne]

2 minutes ago, Rylas said:

But it would do more than "save some people" some sots. Kheldians have A LOT of KB powers, and many in their human form. For playing melee, that's not exactly intuitive. And Kheldians are hungry enough for slots as is.

All Archetypes except (bi-form and tri-form) Kheldians get:

• 24 Power Picks that can slot enhancements
• 7 Inherents that can slot enhancements
• 5 Prestige powers that can slot enhancements
• 67 Enhancement Slots to add

= 67 slots for 36 powers that can slot enhancements = +1.861 slots per power on average

 

Tri-Form Kheldians get:

• 24 Power Picks that can slot enhancements
• 10 ADDITIONAL Powers (the Form powers) that can slot enhancements
• 7 Inherents that can slot enhancements
• 2 ADDITIONAL Inherents that can slot enhancements
• 5 Prestige powers that can slot enhancements
• 67 Enhancement Slots to add

= 67 slots for 48 powers that can slot enhancements = +1.396 slots per power on average

 

 

 

There's a REASON why tri-form Kheldian builds will ALWAYS feel like they're starved for slots ... because they have too many powers that "need" slots to be effective.  That's because tri-form Kheldians get an extra +12 powers(!) that can be slotted, and of those you're looking at 6-7 of them wanting to be 5-6 slotted ... which will suck down some 30-42 slots out of your available 67 slots(!).  In other words, as a tri-form Kheldian you've only got about HALF the slots to dedicate towards your Human form powers that any other Archetype would have.  And now you're going to impose a KB>KD enhancement slotting TAX™ on top of that (Cryptic and later Paragon Studios Devs)?

 

Um ... the words I'm looking for are ... NOT FAIR ... AT ALL ...

 

 

 

Now, to be specific, it's really the Peacebringer (alone) who has this particular problem.  Warshades do Slow as their added extra, rather than Knockback, so Warshades won't suffer the Knockback Tax™ to anywhere near the degree a Peacebringer will.  This is why my preference for UNGIMPING Peacebringers (by design!) would be to simply change ALL of their KnockBACK effects into instead being KnockUP instead ... with the exact same MAG and chance to proc and everything else left unchanged.

 

Peacebringers were the first Kheldians designed for Issue 3 ... and it shows.  Still.

A lot of Peacebringer powers are just ports from Energy Blast and other bits of weirdness seemingly pulled at random with no real coherent thought behind the overall assembly once integrated into a whole.

 

 

 

So yeah ... saying that Kheldians are hungry for slots is kind of an understatement.

[Steampunkette]

So. Personal story time. I play a Kheldian, Humanform, with no KD IOs and I spend most of my time blapping.

 

That is I use Incandescent Strike, Radiant Strike, Gleaming Blast, Radiant Strike, Incandescent Strike as my main single-target attack chain. Yeah, I spend a tiny bit of time running over to the target after the Radiant Strike or Gleaming Blast knocks them back (Unless they're AVs in which case it doesn't matter) and then continue the chain until they're dead.

 

Oh, also my AoE chain which is what I'm mostly doing to big groups is Solar Flare followed by Nova which wipes out all the minions (Because they're in the Nova's AoE even while flying through the air from the Solar Flare when I click the power) and leaves me with lieutenants running into melee. I just bounce back for a Proton Scatter and Luminous Detonation then go back to Single-Target chaining the boss 'till they get on me again.

 

By the time the Boss is dead so are all the LTs and the minions died in the opening salvo. 

 

Could I do damage marginally more efficiently? Probably. But it's enough damage to get the job done and do it fast enough that I can PL my husband's characters from 1 to 22 in about 3 missions on Peregrine Island and 20 minutes. (I could probably do it faster if I did AE Farms but I just never enjoy those as much for some reason... Also we only go to 22 in PLs so we can enjoy leveling the character up and RPing after the character's defining powers are gathered and SOs are slotted)

 

Could I make it easier for a PuG to fight alongside me? Maybe, but can run over to the left side of the room to fight a group at +4x8 solo while 2-3 other people do the same to a group on the right side of the room and the remaining 4-5 people do it to a third group. Honestly that's -far- more efficient with any group that finishes their spawn running over to help clean up the dredges of the other two spawns.

 

Also: Triform PBs are a lie. You're not a triform you're a Dual-form that has to go to Human-shaped for RP sequences. Just slot the living heck out of your Dwarf and Nova forms, slot Inner Light however you like and make sure to grab Restore Essence because those are the only two "Humanform" powers that really matter. Everything else is needless because you'll either be Tanking or Blasting with no middle ground in Dwarf and Nova respectively. Your Humanform Powers are really just there for set-muling. 

[Teirusu]

Also, part of the problem is the fact that the KB to KD IO doesn't add anything else to the power.  It would be nice if the Sudden Acceleration IO added something like Recharge enhancement to the power as well.

 

The Overwhelming Force IO not only does the conversion and adds additional chance for KD, but also adds Damage enhancement as well.  Since most IO sets have tons of damage in them already, Recharge would be a nice fit. or END reduction.  

[PaxArcana]

... or reducing the target's protection against KB/KD, maybe ...

[Steampunkette]

4 minutes ago, PaxArcana said:

... or reducing the target's protection against KB/KD, maybe ...

Wouldn't work. It would need to reduce the target's KB Protection by 10 (or more) and hit with the KB -after- the other effects have landed.

 

Otherwise you'd be hitting someone with Mag 10 KB Protection with a .67 knockback (having no effect) THEN reduce their KB protection by 10 (Having no effect unless another KB hits them in the moment)

 

 

[PaxArcana]

1 hour ago, Steampunkette said:

Otherwise you'd be hitting someone with Mag 10 KB Protection with a .67 knockback (having no effect) THEN reduce their KB protection by 10 (Having no effect unless another KB hits them in the moment)

That's exactly what I'm suggesting, except, make the debuff last for a while, and be self-stacking.  For example, if it lasts for 30 seconds, and in that time you can hit them a total of eleven times .... using your numbers, for the last blow their KB protection has been cut by 100 points, and maybe they go down on their backside.

... even, if the buff is strong enough and/or lasts long enough and/or there's enough people with that set beating on it, an AV.  (Which in turn suggests a fun badge to maybe strive for.)

 

And yes, that means that the first few times you hit, their protection is absolutely going to laugh at you KB or KD.  But, eventually ... "who's laughing NOW?"  🙂
 

Edited August 24, 2019 by PaxArcana

[MunkiLord]

I'm only for this if we also get the option to turn knockdown powers into knockback.

[Steampunkette]

20 minutes ago, PaxArcana said:

That's exactly what I'm suggesting, except, make the debuff last for a while, and be self-stacking.  For example, if it lasts for 30 seconds, and in that time you can hit them a total of eleven times .... using your numbers, for the last blow their KB protection has been cut by 100 points, and maybe they go down on their backside.

... even, if the buff is strong enough and/or lasts long enough and/or there's enough people with that set beating on it, an AV.  (Which in turn suggests a fun badge to maybe strive for.)

 

And yes, that means that the first few times you hit, their protection is absolutely going to laugh at you KB or KD.  But, eventually ... "who's laughing NOW?"  🙂
 

It would probably make the powers animate awkwardly because there's only so many clock-cycles in a given power's activation... but it's possible. Maybe.

 

So long as there's an absolute floor of 0 on Mez Protection. If there isn't an absolute floor on Mez Protection and you had a total -1 Mag Protection Debuff the result would be that you go flying backwards through the air until the debuff worked off...

 

Then again, maybe that's part of -why- control powers were designed to be binaristic and there aren't any "Protection Debuffs" in the game.

 

You have to admit it would be hilarious to give a Random Contaminated on Mercy Island a -100 Mag knock protection as you knock them back at level 50 (increasing the relative knock scale thanks to level scaling impacts of powers) and thus rocket the dude into orbit using one of the slanted fallen buildings, there.

 

But that's if the engine is even capable of doing negative magnitudes of protection. Which I'm not certain it -can-. The Live Devs set it up to be a straight mag check on absolute values, after all. There may not be the ability to create a Protection Penalty in the system, with attempts resulting in logic errors.

[Haijinx]

I have an alternate suggestion to consider. 

 

Offer an IO that is basically like Sudden Acceleration KB to KD but also has enhancement values.   And sell it for maybe 300k at the P2W vendor.

 

Basically:

"No more Knockback!" Acc/Dam/End/KB to KD.  

 

That way you could get rid of KB at will and only lose set bonuses, not slot enhancement viability.  

 

 

 

[PaxArcana]

23 minutes ago, Steampunkette said:

There may not be the ability to create a Protection Penalty in the system, with attempts resulting in logic errors.

::sad panda face::

That'd be a damned shame, 'cause it'd be a great thing to add to the toolbox.  🙂

[Haijinx]

4 hours ago, Steampunkette said:

So. Personal story time. I play a Kheldian, Humanform, with no KD IOs and I spend most of my time blapping.

 

That is I use Incandescent Strike, Radiant Strike, Gleaming Blast, Radiant Strike, Incandescent Strike as my main single-target attack chain. Yeah, I spend a tiny bit of time running over to the target after the Radiant Strike or Gleaming Blast knocks them back (Unless they're AVs in which case it doesn't matter) and then continue the chain until they're dead.

 

Oh, also my AoE chain which is what I'm mostly doing to big groups is Solar Flare followed by Nova which wipes out all the minions (Because they're in the Nova's AoE even while flying through the air from the Solar Flare when I click the power) and leaves me with lieutenants running into melee. I just bounce back for a Proton Scatter and Luminous Detonation then go back to Single-Target chaining the boss 'till they get on me again.

 

By the time the Boss is dead so are all the LTs and the minions died in the opening salvo. 

 

Could I do damage marginally more efficiently? Probably. But it's enough damage to get the job done and do it fast enough that I can PL my husband's characters from 1 to 22 in about 3 missions on Peregrine Island and 20 minutes. (I could probably do it faster if I did AE Farms but I just never enjoy those as much for some reason... Also we only go to 22 in PLs so we can enjoy leveling the character up and RPing after the character's defining powers are gathered and SOs are slotted)

 

Could I make it easier for a PuG to fight alongside me? Maybe, but can run over to the left side of the room to fight a group at +4x8 solo while 2-3 other people do the same to a group on the right side of the room and the remaining 4-5 people do it to a third group. Honestly that's -far- more efficient with any group that finishes their spawn running over to help clean up the dredges of the other two spawns.

 

Also: Triform PBs are a lie. You're not a triform you're a Dual-form that has to go to Human-shaped for RP sequences. Just slot the living heck out of your Dwarf and Nova forms, slot Inner Light however you like and make sure to grab Restore Essence because those are the only two "Humanform" powers that really matter. Everything else is needless because you'll either be Tanking or Blasting with no middle ground in Dwarf and Nova respectively. Your Humanform Powers are really just there for set-muling. 

I imagine its not your intent - but this comes off as basically a "Learn to play" argument.  

[Steampunkette]

3 minutes ago, Haijinx said:

I imagine its not your intent - but this comes off as basically a "Learn to play" argument.  

Oh, not at all!

 

It's more of a "Knockback doesn't 'Gimp' Peacebringers. PBs with knockback are actually quite effective, even in teaming situations. Here's an example of that bone hard truth."

[biostem]

This may have other unforeseen consequences, but what if we just added a short recharge power to the P2W vendor that basically grants enemies KB protection, (sort of like how some immobilize powers do)?  Then, you could choose to apply this power to enemies you're fighting, to prevent them from being knocked.

[Steampunkette]

7 minutes ago, biostem said:

This may have other unforeseen consequences, but what if we just added a short recharge power to the P2W vendor that basically grants enemies KB protection, (sort of like how some immobilize powers do)?  Then, you could choose to apply this power to enemies you're fighting, to prevent them from being knocked.

That protection could be seen as griefing. Particularly if it's enough to reduce the KB to 0 and results in an Energy Blaster using a Nova in the middle of a spawn that doesn't budge and then kills said Blaster in the following 1.22 seconds.

 

(That would never happen to a PB, their Damres is too stronk!)

[biostem]

7 minutes ago, Steampunkette said:

That protection could be seen as griefing. Particularly if it's enough to reduce the KB to 0 and results in an Energy Blaster using a Nova in the middle of a spawn that doesn't budge and then kills said Blaster in the following 1.22 seconds.

 

(That would never happen to a PB, their Damres is too stronk!)

Yeah, that was kind of my concern.  Is there a way to flag a power so it only works on indoor/instanced missions, instead of out in the main zones, then?  I'm just trying to think of what ways would be easier to implement this...

[Steampunkette]

5 minutes ago, biostem said:

Yeah, that was kind of my concern.  Is there a way to flag a power so it only works on indoor/instanced missions, instead of out in the main zones, then?  I'm just trying to think of what ways would be easier to implement this...

As far as the game is concerned a map is a map is a map. Any instanced map is just another map instance to the server. Just like AP2, 3, and 5.

 

You just don't have clearance to access that map unless you've got the mission flag that unlocks the door.

 

The knocback mez-grant power is probably the easiest way to implement it, but it puts the choice of whether anyone's powers knockback their enemies into the hands of whoever purchases the power. Even on an instanced map that could mean one person being in control of 7 other people's powers.

 

There's literally no good way to handle Knockback except to simply accept that it's a thing. If you don't like it in your powers, slot the KD IOs even though it'll cost you in other ways, and be ready for other people who are going to knockback. Some people are going to do it wisely. Others will do it foolishly.

 

The only other alternative is to just remove all KB from the game. And that would be a -miserable- shame. KB creates one of the few senses of real 'Power' in a game that is otherwise just a few people swinging or throwing things at each other 'til someone drops. 

[PaxArcana]

25 minutes ago, Steampunkette said:

The only other alternative is to just remove all KB from the game. And that would be a -miserable- shame. KB creates one of the few senses of real 'Power' in a game that is otherwise just a few people swinging or throwing things at each other 'til someone drops. 

It would also utterly break some powers.

Force Bolt, for example.  My Robo/FF Mastermind absolutely relies on it as "soft control" for occasions when my pets can't quite grab and hold aggro from an entire spawn, and something insists on getting personal with my MM.  I just keep knocking them off their feet, and fifteen-plus feet away from me, in order to limit their threat to my personal health and safety, until the minions can get involved.