Whirlwind changed in last patch?
By
Aaron123,
Posted on: 2006-01-23 08:57 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion
Someone took whirlwind?
*weird*
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Whirlwind has always done knock up, now it is doing knockback. I did not see any patch notes on this change. I do recall some discussion about the changes being made to the way knockdown works because of ragdoll physics but understand it was suppose to be reversed. Is this an unnoted patch change or a bug?
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I'd act as if it were a bug, because it is indeed not noted in the patch notes as far as I can see.
I can still knock... Oh, wait, Whirlwind? Weird. Might really be tied into the ragdoll change.
And for the record, the word was that the change would only be rolled back two builds down the line from when the statement was made. So, it's probably still the 'reduced' version on live right now.
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Can't think of any reason why Whirlwind would suddenly knock back instead of up. Levitate, Disembowel, and Jump Kick all knock up despite ragdoll physics being in place. Enemies don't quite go straight up and down, but it's close enough.
Considering the hideous endurance cost on Whirlwind, I can't imagine why they would feel changing it to knockback would be necessary from a balance perspective. Yes, it's some mad soft control, but not even a Regen scrapper is going to be able to keep that going for very long, much less attack while doing so.
Arc #41077 - The Men of State
Arc #48845 - Operation: Dirty Snowball
Jump Kick along with other powers do knockback occasionally. I have knocked enemies half way across the room with jump kick but not every time.
I've noticed this too on Whirlwind before this patch...some clarification would be great. I loved this power on my MA/SR.
If you have conserve energy, its a fun and handy power. Not rooted blasting, you have the ablity to take one participant out of a fight, (even some bosses)
And it makes a great costume change power 
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I've noticed this too on Whirlwind before this patch...some clarification would be great. I loved this power on my MA/SR.
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If thats the case, then it had to be fairly recently if not the last patch. Granted, Whirlwind isn't a very popular power but it is rather fun, and when I do use it I count on it I expect it to act a certain way. There is a very big difference between knockup to knockback that affects how a melee character uses it. What I want to know is when did this undocumented change happen and why? Its things like this that can make it hard to seperate game bugs from designer changes.
It may be ragdoll. My mind controller uses Levitate and though it still does KU there is a horizontal component--they go straight up and then fall down further away than they started. Not a big deal w/just the one attack but if WW is applying the same effect over and over the mobs will quickly get knocked out of the WW effect.
Are they getting knocked far back or just a 10 feet or so? I'm thinking Levitate only knocks them back one or two body lengths.
Or are they not going up at all and just going straight away from you?
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Your knockup throws the enemy 10 feet away? What powers are you using? My Dominator uses Levitate religiously, but I've never known it to move the enemy much farther from where he was standing. More like his up and down flight arc curves a little bit based on which direction his limbs are flailing in.
Giving it some thought, it has to be a bug. It's okay for a Defender to be shoving people around with Hurricane, but put a similar tool in the hands of a Tanker, and I'm seeing some abuse.
Arc #41077 - The Men of State
Arc #48845 - Operation: Dirty Snowball
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Whirlwind has always done knock up, now it is doing knockback. I did not see any patch notes on this change. I do recall some discussion about the changes being made to the way knockdown works because of ragdoll physics but understand it was suppose to be reversed. Is this an unnoted patch change or a bug?
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Yes, the change was done purposefully. No, a patch note was not generated -- my fault, sorry! I simply forgot to note the change down.
Why? There was a PVE exploit involved with it, and this fix takes care of 90% of the issue.
Buh? After I took whirlwind, I thought it was fun and it helped keep me alive. Now it sends everyone flying away from my scrapper and is annoying. It still helps keep me alive, but pisses everyone on my team off. Arrrgh. I learned how to use hurricane, and I have already started using corners and such to help with whirlwind. Maybe I can adapt to this change, but it is a sad change that I do not like. It may be easier for me to adapt than others, as I always had some knockback issues. It seems that when I used whirlwind my knockdown attacks (Soaring Dragon and Golden Dragonfly) always did knockback instead (stacking mag maybe?).
So, this is two changes now that have been undocumented. How about we go back and see if there is anything else we should know?
Why Blasters? Empathy Sucks.
So, you want to be Mental?
What the hell? Let's buff defenders.
Tactics are for those who do not have a big enough hammer. Wisdom is knowing how big your hammer is.
Man...I loved whirlwind on my MA/SR...knockback ain't gonna do much except in a team situation...
Might be time to use a respec.
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Whirlwind has always done knock up, now it is doing knockback. I did not see any patch notes on this change. I do recall some discussion about the changes being made to the way knockdown works because of ragdoll physics but understand it was suppose to be reversed. Is this an unnoted patch change or a bug?
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Yes, the change was done purposefully. No, a patch note was not generated -- my fault, sorry! I simply forgot to note the change down.
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You guys seriously need to harden the policies on your CVS or whatever other tool you're using for version management. This happens way too often.
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Whirlwind has always done knock up, now it is doing knockback. I did not see any patch notes on this change. I do recall some discussion about the changes being made to the way knockdown works because of ragdoll physics but understand it was suppose to be reversed. Is this an unnoted patch change or a bug?
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Yes, the change was done purposefully. No, a patch note was not generated -- my fault, sorry! I simply forgot to note the change down.
Why? There was a PVE exploit involved with it, and this fix takes care of 90% of the issue.
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Can anyone comment on if Whirlwind functionality has changed in PvP?
Assuming the other 10% of the exploit is covered by a different set of circumstances, what was the exploit involving Whirlwind? (provided that answering doesn't let the cat out of the bag on the other 10%)
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No, a patch note was not generated -- my fault, sorry! I simply forgot to note the change down.
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You know, this is the only problem I'm having with the game...
For the last several months *every* patch has had missing notes that the players have had to find out about and determine if there was a bug or an intentional change.
Statesman even said in Ask Statesman that this was inexcusable and needs to change... And sure enough, the next three patches all had faulty notes.
This is just getting under my skin. This and between-issue-blues.
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No, a patch note was not generated -- my fault, sorry! I simply forgot to note the change down.
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You know, this is the only problem I'm having with the game...
For the last several months *every* patch has had missing notes that the players have had to find out about and determine if there was a bug or an intentional change.
Statesman even said in Ask Statesman that this was inexcusable and needs to change... And sure enough, the next three patches all had faulty notes.
This is just getting under my skin. This and between-issue-blues.
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Seconded.
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Can't think of any reason why Whirlwind would suddenly knock back instead of up. Levitate, Disembowel, and Jump Kick all knock up despite ragdoll physics being in place. Enemies don't quite go straight up and down, but it's close enough.
Considering the hideous endurance cost on Whirlwind, I can't imagine why they would feel changing it to knockback would be necessary from a balance perspective. Yes, it's some mad soft control, but not even a Regen scrapper is going to be able to keep that going for very long, much less attack while doing so.
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On my empath, I used to use it after RA to keep an entire group of mobs disabled. I guess this is the exploit? I thought I was using the power as it was intended to be used.
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Whirlwind has always done knock up, now it is doing knockback. I did not see any patch notes on this change. I do recall some discussion about the changes being made to the way knockdown works because of ragdoll physics but understand it was suppose to be reversed. Is this an unnoted patch change or a bug?
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Yes, the change was done purposefully. No, a patch note was not generated -- my fault, sorry! I simply forgot to note the change down.
Why? There was a PVE exploit involved with it, and this fix takes care of 90% of the issue.
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For those of you complaining about the seriousness of this crime you really need to take a chill pill and relax. I'm sure every instance of missed patch notes has been an oversight that the Devs regret. I'm sure none of you have forgotten anything at work ESPECIALLY when it involved the work of several people culminating results. The effort these guys go to making patch notes available has been very impressive to me (much better than some other unmentioned MMORPGs). I applaud them. I REALLY applaud the fact they fess up to their mistakes and apologize; they're almost human o.O
No power is intended to be effective. If a power does what it appears to do by the description, then it is malfunctioning and needs to be brought in line with the rest of the powers.
I'm curious as to how Whirlwind stacks up against Repel now, since they're similar powers. Is whirlwind substantially more expensive?
Just did a Rugged Crey mission with my MA/SR. Mostly against minions; some Lts. Whirlwind still does pretty well, it's just a bit of an added hassle trying to catch up with the guy after you knock them back, but I just used Sprint to catch up. Once the KB fix comes in, it should gain some value back. At the end of the mission, when I was about to die, I turned on Conserve Energy, Elude, and Whirlwind. Since I could still perform attacks while in Whirlwind, and the fact that this was the Rikti monkey mission, I was like a twirling torrent of pwnage. 
Don't think I'll be respeccing out of it. It's just too much fun.
As for PvP, to be honest before Whirlwind was changed to KB it never affected too many enemies in the first place (with all the mez protection). If anything, this should be a boost in PvP because there are many instances where KB is a whole lot more useful in PvP than knockup.
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Whirlwind has always done knock up, now it is doing knockback. I did not see any patch notes on this change. I do recall some discussion about the changes being made to the way knockdown works because of ragdoll physics but understand it was suppose to be reversed. Is this an unnoted patch change or a bug?
[/ QUOTE ]
Yes, the change was done purposefully. No, a patch note was not generated -- my fault, sorry! I simply forgot to note the change down.
Why? There was a PVE exploit involved with it, and this fix takes care of 90% of the issue.
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What exactly was the PVE exploit if we can ask? If as mentioned it was the RA combo with this, that's not an exploit. That simply combining two powers to maximum effect based on what each is allowed to do individually. It's no more an exploit than a tank taking on much bigger groups than he should be able to whilst backed up by a dedicated empath.
Just curious, on this one, since I'd never actually heard of exploit before this. I hardly ever even saw people use this except for style or a rare "Oh crap!" moment.
for those that have little experience in MMO from the player POV and the dev POV the reason that they do not put in notes that state what exploits are fixed is that when it becomes known what the cheats are it becomes easier for larger numbers of players to find and use exploits before the dev team can fix them.
i would be VERY shocked if they ever started telling us the details of what is fixed or about to be fixed in any detail when they are plugging holes in the code. folks just need to chill and play the game.
it is no secret a lot of the skills are waaaay over powered. for example the -acc of hurricane is such taht get 3 of those together and whatever enemy is fighting you they stand little to no chance of hitting back no matter what the enemy does whether it is pvp or pve. things like that will get changed.
my hope is that the devs dont do a flat out nerf but instead pick more player friendly means of doing like hard capping de-buffs and such.
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No, a patch note was not generated -- my fault, sorry! I simply forgot to note the change down.
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You know, this is the only problem I'm having with the game...
For the last several months *every* patch has had missing notes that the players have had to find out about and determine if there was a bug or an intentional change.
Statesman even said in Ask Statesman that this was inexcusable and needs to change... And sure enough, the next three patches all had faulty notes.
This is just getting under my skin. This and between-issue-blues.
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Recently took Whirlwind on a villain as a "theme" power, the knockback didn't even register. Its been a *long* time since I'd had a character with Whirlwind, and even then it was on Test for just long enuf to realize it wasn't too great of a choice 
Don't team regularly with anyone else who has it. I remember it being Knock Up now that its mentioned, guess I should be annoyed? Eh, personally the knock up effect looked goofy to me, I like the scattering effect moreso.
Still, missing patch notes is a Bad Thing and once again looks like an attempt at sneaking a nerf by everyone. This is not acceptable, devs. Get your change tracking processes down to a fine science before something really big comes along and bites you.
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Whirlwind has always done knock up, now it is doing knockback. I did not see any patch notes on this change. I do recall some discussion about the changes being made to the way knockdown works because of ragdoll physics but understand it was suppose to be reversed. Is this an unnoted patch change or a bug?