When you think someone is playing their AT "wrong" ...

[PaxArcana]

58 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:

Interesting points of view here.  I'm curious about the suggestions that those with KB should adjust their style of play to fit everyone else, but everyone else should not adjust?

I would not say that, myself.  I think BOTH parties should adjust.

 

KB players should try to knock things around, without scattering them or pushing the fight further and further away from the melee guys.  Aim for a wall.  Circle around to throw single targets TOWARDS the melee / INTO the placed-AoE debuffs and DoTs.

Melee guys should try to position themselves, so that the KB player has a convenient wall to throw the enemy against.  And, accept that occasionally having to move back into range is just going to happen.  And, here's a god one: make sure the enemy doesn't have a drop-off at their backs, or you're going to have to jump down after them.  Inevitably.

AoE guys should also try and accept that _some_ scattering will happen.  Maybe discuss with the KB player things like, "when the mobs first clump up, give me a couple seconds to fire off my big AoE before you risk any scatter", or, "when I've got a bunch of guys in my area DoT / Slow-patch, try not to know them all OUT of it".

On a team, you have to learn how to adapt to your team-mates' powers and tactics.  Everyone on that team needs to do this.

That's why, when I join a TF, I tend to look at my new team-mate's archetypes and powersets ... so I have some idea what they're likely to be doing, and can adapt my own approach to take that into account.

Edited September 4, 2019 by PaxArcana

[PaxArcana]

18 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:

And those people can't adapt?  Just wait a second or two for whatever survived the initial KB assault to get back up.

Except, and here's the thing ... they may already have been queueing up that power.  Scatter happens, THEN their AoE power goes off, and instead of catching six or eight guys, they get two.

 

And it happens again, and again, and again.  Their only choices are "suck it up" or "don't use that (possibly very important) part of your attack chain anymore".

 

If you don't understand why that might be annoying ... then you shouldn't be playing with heavy KB, on a team, with people you don't already know.

[justicebeliever]

10 minutes ago, Obitus said:

As always in these sorts of threads, I believe we're largely talking past each other.  Personally, I've never been bothered by single-target knockback in almost any form.  I've rarely been bothered by AoE knockback either.  As I say, most people in game are pretty laid back and polite.

 

But it seems like one camp in this thread reads any call for KB toons not to be wantonly disruptive as an assault on their sacred playstyle.  And it seems like the other camp reads any pro-KB posts as a defense of actively trolling all teammates.  We're down to the willful distortion phase of the debate.

QFT!

 

As with all things there is a balance...there is a time for serious DPS ("Master of" anyone?), and there is a time to be silly and just watch 'em fly.  KB's can adapt, as can Herder's, Trollers and Alpha Strikers...most of the time, teams are just fine with KB, most of the time, the KB'er is playing considerately...There are exceptions, and sadly, it is the human condition to remember a few bad times and extrapolate that to being "all the time"...

[ShardWarrior]

11 minutes ago, justicebeliever said:

QFT!

 

As with all things there is a balance...there is a time for serious DPS ("Master of" anyone?), and there is a time to be silly and just watch 'em fly.  KB's can adapt, as can Herder's, Trollers and Alpha Strikers...most of the time, teams are just fine with KB, most of the time, the KB'er is playing considerately...There are exceptions, and sadly, it is the human condition to remember a few bad times and extrapolate that to being "all the time"...

Well put.  It's sort of ironic that in a thread discussing how people should not be telling others how to play, there is a clear and distinct effort to do precisely that. 

[MunkiLord]

1 hour ago, Obitus said:

.Munkilord told a fun story about a heavy KB toon, and that's great.  But I think most people would say that a heavy KB player shouldn't assume that every team he joins is looking for that sort of experience.  Take it slow, feel out your teammates.  If someone on the team has an AoE immobilize that cancels KB, then you might coordinate.  (Munkilord might've felt differently if he were playing Mind, Grav or Electric Control.) 

The situation plays a factor. If we were trying to do some Master TF, then I wouldn't have been on board with random KB. Now debt doesn't bother me, so this isn't a complaint, but the story I told directly led to me face planting a few times. Instead of leading off with my AoE hold or fear, I would start with the immobilize to beat the Blaster, and a couple times I paid for it. Got a debt badge out of though! If you ain't dyin, you aint' tryin.

 

edit: That was on the Freakshow farm mission(though we weren't farming it), so spacing allowed such a playstyle. But I'm not sure how much anybody else enjoyed it, as the leader either DC'd or quit and losing the Ice/Fire Blaster slowed things down. And the team constantly split up. It was general chaos. Worked for me and what I was looking for, but nobody else was really talking, so I couldn't come to any conclusions on their opinions. Team broke up after that mission, but I don't know if that was because the leader was no longer there or because it was too chaotic for them.

Edited September 4, 2019 by MunkiLord

[jubakumbi]

Wow.

I read many posts in this thread, and all I really see is, "Join a team and get Drama Drama Drama..."

 

Am I really the only person that just plays this game to laugh and destroy some pixels, without all the posturing and attempts to change other humans?

I just Play.

I see pixel-based bad-guys and make them explode in bigger pixels.

Some characters make them go flying around, others hold em down while we beat on them, some punch everything in the face that they can...

That's it for me, just playing a game.

 

All the 'elementary school playground' Drama just makes me wonder about the real age of the player-base sometimes. 😉

I thought we were older Adults...

[MunkiLord]

On the forums people are primarily venting, I rarely see any of these open conflicts when playing the game.

[subbacultchas]

This is my suspicion as well, coupled with the fact I have used it like that with my spiney friend. Sometimes you vent in other places, so you don't have to on the spot.

 

[modest]

In my opinion, every player with powers that are slotted for knockback instead of knockdown should be branded with a scarlet K. Let their sin be on display for all to see.

 

This is a joke.

[Bossk_Hogg]

7 hours ago, ShardWarrior said:

Interesting points of view here.  I'm curious about the suggestions that those with KB should adjust their style of play to fit everyone else, but everyone else should not adjust?  Personally, if I'm tanking or scrapping and NPCs get knocked away, it doesn't bother me.  I know they'll be back for more.

Because that one person is crapping on the rest of the team. If you were trapped in a room with seven other people and one of them decided it would be a good time to microwave some week old fish, I think we all know who the a-hole is. Knockback is microwaved leftover fish. There's a small chance it's fine. There's a huge chance it isn't. 

 

Knockback is USUALLY disruptive. It slows down combat by reducing the effectiveness of AE's and debuffs. It knocks things out of the tank's auras, potentially getting squishies aggro.. It blows stuff over rails, maybe adding another group if they carried a debuff toggle. All this for something of negligible benefit even when it works correctly. 

 

It's why we should just get a null the gull setting or a toggle for EB and peacebringers (who are supposedly a team friendly AT). 

Edited September 4, 2019 by Bossk_Hogg

[TheOtherTed]

8 minutes ago, Bossk_Hogg said:

Knockback is microwaved leftover fish.

To you, maybe.  To me it's popcorn.

[Bossk_Hogg]

11 minutes ago, TheOtherTed said:

To you, maybe.  To me it's popcorn.

People typically hate burned popcorn too. Fortunately, no one cares what you do solo. 
 

[ShardWarrior]

13 hours ago, Bossk_Hogg said:

Because that one person is crapping on the rest of the team. If you were trapped in a room with seven other people and one of them decided it would be a good time to microwave some week old fish, I think we all know who the a-hole is. Knockback is microwaved leftover fish. There's a small chance it's fine. There's a huge chance it isn't. 

 

Knockback is USUALLY disruptive. It slows down combat by reducing the effectiveness of AE's and debuffs. It knocks things out of the tank's auras, potentially getting squishies aggro.. It blows stuff over rails, maybe adding another group if they carried a debuff toggle. All this for something of negligible benefit even when it works correctly. 

 

It's why we should just get a null the gull setting or a toggle for EB and peacebringers (who are supposedly a team friendly AT). 

So.... tell the player how to play?  Got it.  Kind of exactly what I said about irony.

[Twisted Toon]

13 hours ago, Bossk_Hogg said:

Knockback is USUALLY disruptive. It slows down combat by reducing the effectiveness of AE's and debuffs. It knocks things out of the tank's auras, potentially getting squishies aggro.. It blows stuff over rails, maybe adding another group if they carried a debuff toggle. All this for something of negligible benefit even when it works correctly. 

 

It's why we should just get a null the gull setting or a toggle for EB and peacebringers (who are supposedly a team friendly AT). 

Only for teams where the tank is stupid about herding into open areas. A minuscule amount of forethought concerning the tanks herding location will alleviate 95% of the downsides of KB.

 

[DSorrow]

17 hours ago, jubakumbi said:

Am I really the only person that just plays this game to laugh and destroy some pixels, without all the posturing and attempts to change other humans?

I just Play.

I prefer "just playing" and a vast majority of the time I get just that in CoX, but sometimes there's a teammate who prevents that, and a vast majority of the time that happens via unmitigated KB. If they're knocking spawns constantly out of the reach of my AoEs / melee attacks, I might as well not use half my powers, at which point I might as well be doing something else completely because having half my powers rendered very ineffective is not fun. 

 

I'm not a player who seeks conflict so I usually ask them if it's possible to at least direct the KB in a less disruptive way, and if that's impossible I'll kick them or leave the team depending on if it's my team or someone else's. CoX supports a very wide range of gameplay from crawling through missions to being a nuclear powered steamroller and while I don't require my teams to be at the latter extreme, I much prefer the latter end of the spectrum, especially because its not mutually exclusive with fun. 

 

When it comes to KB specifically, most of the time it's not a problem, but in my opinion it just happens to be the CC with the most disruption potential. Personally, I find KB fun and Screech with a full set of Stupefy (very close to 90% proc chance for KB) is one of my favorite powers on my /Sonic Defender. At the same time, I have Shockwave slotted with the Sudden Acceleration KB->KD because I realize scattering mobs is often counterproductive and especially in open maps it's difficult to position yourself to avoid being disruptive. Same deal with my WS, the single target blasts can cause KB because one enemy flying off every now and then is funny and means nothing in terms of efficiency, but I have my Dark Nova Detonation slotted with Sudden Acceleration to avoid scattering whole spawns.

 

41 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:

So.... tell the player how to play?

Honestly, I don't think there's anything inherently bad about telling someone how to play. The context and how you say it is what matters. Nobody would blink an eye if a leecher was told to participate because sitting at the door is disruptive and slows the team down. Why should bad use of a character's abilities with the same result be treated differently?

 

I think the thread can be summed pretty effectively as: don't be an ass. If someone's playstyle is bothering you, it's usually more productive to have a polite discussion about it rather than attack them. Conversely, if your playstyle has been bothering someone, it's also better to politely discuss what could be done so that both of you could have fun. 

[ShardWarrior]

Leeching is an entirely different subject. 

 

On whether or not it is ok to tell others how you think they should play, on this we can agree to disagree here.  To me, context is irrelevant - it is simply a matter of personal preference.  I'll let others play as they like so long as they are not willfully and deliberately trying to grief me or everyone else. 

 

I can adapt and let people enjoy playing the game the way they want to because that is the purpose - for everyone to have fun.

 

KB does not bother me in the least.  If I'm on my tank and someone knocks a mob away with KB, I do my job and move to re-acquire aggro or wait for them to come back to me for more.  It keeps me on my toes.  If I'm scrapping, I'll switch to another target or chase one down and pummel it until dead and then move on to the next victim.  If I'm on my blaster, I'll just choose different targets until the ones knocked away come back into range.  Same goes for my controllers, defenders, corruptors or whatever other AT I may be playing.  I'll adapt to the flow of what the team is doing. 

 

At least to me, if someone is playing a way you don't care for, then find a different team or solo.  Change yourself instead of trying to change others.

 

 

[Snakebit]

21 hours ago, PaxArcana said:

I would not say that, myself.  I think BOTH parties should adjust.

 

KB players should try to knock things around, without scattering them or pushing the fight further and further away from the melee guys.  Aim for a wall.  Circle around to throw single targets TOWARDS the melee / INTO the placed-AoE debuffs and DoTs.

Melee guys should try to position themselves, so that the KB player has a convenient wall to throw the enemy against.  And, accept that occasionally having to move back into range is just going to happen.  And, here's a god one: make sure the enemy doesn't have a drop-off at their backs, or you're going to have to jump down after them.  Inevitably.

AoE guys should also try and accept that _some_ scattering will happen.  Maybe discuss with the KB player things like, "when the mobs first clump up, give me a couple seconds to fire off my big AoE before you risk any scatter", or, "when I've got a bunch of guys in my area DoT / Slow-patch, try not to know them all OUT of it".

On a team, you have to learn how to adapt to your team-mates' powers and tactics.  Everyone on that team needs to do this.

That's why, when I join a TF, I tend to look at my new team-mate's archetypes and powersets ... so I have some idea what they're likely to be doing, and can adapt my own approach to take that into account.

I played with kb blaster the other day. He was a magician with the kb. He was consistently pinning jobs against pipes, tables, vending machines...he used the geometry perfectly. It was a sight to see. He was able to almost instantly recover his own scatter on yhe few occasions it happened.

[DSorrow]

7 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:

Leeching is an entirely different subject. 

Why? Because it's more socially acceptable to call out a lack of participation that slows a team down as opposed to active participation with the same result? 

3 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:

I can adapt and let people enjoy playing the game the way they want to because that is the purpose - for everyone to have fun.

 

3 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:

At least to me, if someone is playing a way you don't care for, then find a different team or solo.  Change yourself instead of trying to change others.

Like I said, I'm not a person who looks for conflict and most of the time whatever my teammates are doing doesn't bother me. However, if a teammate is doing something that is anti-fun for me, I'll leave unless it's my team in which case I'll replace them with someone who doesn't diminish my fun. The change yourself instead of trying to change others should also apply to people whose actions are disruptive, even more so if they're disrupting a full team: why should 7 other players be expected to adapt to one player and not the other way around?

 

Fortunately, this is mostly a theoretical discussion for me at least because I pretty much never run into actually disruptive or annoying people in-game. In 4 months I've had to kick one player from a team and my ignore list has accumulated a total of 3 people of which two weren't even in my team but just spamming childish nonsense on one of the global channels.

[ShardWarrior]

2 minutes ago, DSorrow said:

Why? Because it's more socially acceptable to call out a lack of participation that slows a team down as opposed to active participation with the same result? 

Because standing there doing nothing is not playing or participating.  That should be self evident.

[DSorrow]

1 minute ago, ShardWarrior said:

Because standing there doing nothing is not playing or participating.  That should be self evident.

Well it's not self evident to me why it should be treated any different if the result is the same: slowing the team down and making your teammates do more work. 

[Zepp]

Someone who is doing something poorly may be on their learning curve. Someone who is doing nothing is just stealing credit for stuff they didn't do.

[ShardWarrior]

8 minutes ago, DSorrow said:

Well it's not self evident to me why it should be treated any different if the result is the same: slowing the team down and making your teammates do more work. 

One is actively participating and contributing to the team and one is not.  Not at all difficult to comprehend the distinction.

[PaxArcana]

15 minutes ago, DSorrow said:

32 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:

Leeching is an entirely different subject. 

Why? Because it's more socially acceptable to call out a lack of participation that slows a team down as opposed to active participation with the same result? 

Because I bloody well say so, that's why.

This thread is about calling people out for their choice of powers within their Archetype, and how they use those powers during play.  It's about saying "that's not how _____ are supposed to be played".

 

It is not about general misbehavior that is not specific to an archetype, a powerset, or even the use of a single power.  It's not about leeching, griefing, harrassment, trash-talk, or any of the myriad other misbehaviors out there.

Only builds, only decisions about which powers to take or not take, which powers to emphasize the use of during play.

 

Kindly stay on-topic, thank you very much.

 

18 minutes ago, DSorrow said:

I'm not a person who looks for conflict
[...]
In 4 months I've had to kick one player from a team and my ignore list has accumulated a total of 3 people

... whereas, as fractious as I can be on the forums, my in-game ignore list stands at 0 people; on the forums, my ignore list stands at 2 people.

 

So, I look at those two snippets of your post, and all I can think is "One of these things is not like the other ..."

 

[jubakumbi]

TBH, as soon as someone uses the word 'leech' or 'leeching', I tend to stop listening...they are already far too judgmental for me.

 

It's a game.

 

This entire 'leeching' idea comes from the progression raiders worried over not getting world firsts.

 

Turning entertainment time into work is just ... wrong, IMO.

 

I have voted to kick about 3 people on decades of online gaming, starting with MUDs.

Unless the player is verabally abusing or is in some way preventing the group from progressing mechanically, there is no reason in my book.

 

I am here to play games and laugh, not dicktate.

 

Again, there sure are a lot of judgemental players in CoH it seems...

[justicebeliever]

8 minutes ago, jubakumbi said:

TBH, as soon as someone uses the word 'leech' or 'leeching', I tend to stop listening...they are already far too judgmental for me.

 

It's a game.

 

This entire 'leeching' idea comes from the progression raiders worried over not getting world firsts.

 

Turning entertainment time into work is just ... wrong, IMO.

 

I have voted to kick about 3 people on decades of online gaming, starting with MUDs.

Unless the player is verabally abusing or is in some way preventing the group from progressing mechanically, there is no reason in my book.

 

I am here to play games and laugh, not dicktate.

 

Again, there sure are a lot of judgemental players in CoH it seems...

For a guy who doesn't play in PUG's on this game, you are awfully judgmental about how other people lead their teams...

 

It's a game yes, but it's an MMORPG, and there are going to be a wide swath of definitions of "fun".  For some people, myself included, challenge is the fun...I don't mind parts of the game feeling like "work" to me, if I find the end goal worthwhile...I also enjoy RP'ing alot, and engaging (at least mentally) with the actual content and storyline...But that's me...For other people fun might be how much Influence they can get, or having the best build, or steamrolling a map in the fewest minutes possible...I'm OK with all of these...this isn't boardgame night at my house, it's an open to the world game...

 

So, would I kick someone for using KB, even spraying enemies all over the map...I can't see me doing that, I love it too much.  Would I kick someone for door sitting?  Or just taking a dirt nap the whole time to earn XP?  Absolutely...because for me, the fun in having a team is the interaction...and if someone is just camping, then they can be replaced by someone who will participate, and increase MY funs/second...

 

So I know that you hate people being judgmental (sincerely, I know this about you), but if you are going to have the motto of "Let people play how they want to play", then let them do so as Team Leaders as well...because otherwise, if you remove their agency as team leader, they won't want be having fun anymore, and the game just lost a player who wasn't contributing negatively at all...