Request/Suggest about KB switch

Maybe learning to speak the English you sometime before posting the time after the next.

Agreed Bill, but then you're wrong (as I must disagree somewhere with you in every post ) because I already said that I don't think the OP's idea is a good one. I tend not to repeat points in these threads unless necessary (like now).

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

"Falcon...THRUST!"

Eeechyaaagh....pass me the Mind Bleach >_<

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

So much THIS! We're all frickin' Superheroes(Villains)! Flying bodies goes with the genre. I agree that all hits that do a certain amount of damage should cause some KB. I also think that the ability of Players ATs to avoid KB from foes should be nerfed. Every Melee Toon in the game is Juggernaut (unmoveable). Boring... Supes, Hulk, Thor... These guys slam their foes into building and mountains (and get slammed back quite often as well).

Put some dynamic action in the game. I played in a PuG recently. Almost didn't get invited because I was playing a PB. "Can you control your KB??" was the question before invite. In the missions. team leader: "Herding to here!" *resists urge to barf.

I think it'd be a lot of fun!! I suppose, to throw a banana to those who'd hate the loss the seeming loss of efficiency, all KB'd foes should receive a bit of extra damage.

After having played a number of melee archetypes, this repeated call to 'nerf Melee KB res' will always get a resounding
HELL NO!
from me. Simply because it is so NOT fun to have to deal with never being able to lay a punch/kick/cut because you spend so much time on your backside.

Try doing Mako's arc, where you end up in the Leviathan caverns filled, and I mean FILLED with tornadoes. Right? Now try that on a Crab Spider with no -KB slotted.
I think I broke the expletive barrier for the week in that play session.

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

I have a few toons without inate KB protection, and I also I have a lvl 50 Tanker, a lvl 50 Brute, and a lvl 50 Scrapper....and I still say HELL YES! to global KB for everyone, friends and foes. Yeah, we'd spend more time on our backsides, but so would the enemies. It'd be a lot more dynamic, and IMO a lot more fun...

But don't you worry none, now - most seem to have your view, meaning we'll end up keeping our little Clumps of Herded Cows for the Slaughtering

*Now I want to go to a Chick-Fil-A's... *

I"m opposed to adding more kb and reducing what's there. KB is fine as is.

I'm VEHEMENTLY opposed to letting other players decide the effects of my powers

^ This

If it's not broken;

For the love of PETE don't mess around with it!

That is all.

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

You guys can be vehemently opposed and think 'that is all' all you want.

Ever heard of the phrase 'Where there's smoke there's fire?'

I'm of the opinion that when the same subject keeps coming over, and over, and over... by many different people, then there's likely a problem that *should* be looked at.

So many threads and posts about KB... Why? You'd think that something that works 'just fine' wouldn't get so much discussion time. I think it's indicative of a real issue, but I guess I'm just a whiner like the rest

I'd still prefer global KB, but knowing that's about as likely as my female toons being able to run around nude, I'm for alternatives: I believe there should be a toggle that an AT could use that would turn its (and only its) KB to KD (by lowering the mag, whatever...). Then you could have your KB when you wanted it, and turn it off if needed (or requested by team leaders). Win/Win. If any KB lovers have a problem with that, you're just being argumentative.

When I'm sololing my PB, I really do like my KB, but I'd sure like to be able to turn it off when teaming.

Now, that is all

At least you discovered the real issue.

True, true...and you guys helping me realize I'm the *only* one not satisfied with KB as it is was very beneficial in my self-discovery

Yes, there is a problem.

And it is that people don't take the time/aren't bothered about using KB in a way that is also useful in teams.
There is also the problem of people repeatedly banging on about how 'KB got them killed' or, more likely 'It makes it slower'.

So, it's a min/max issue, really.
Why should someone have to turn off KB 'because it's slower'?
Sure it can get very annoying with powers like Hurricane, or Tornado. And if you ask the person to please turn it off (emphasis on please) then, usually, they will turn it off.

If they refuse, thats not an issue with the power, and its an issue that no ammount of patching can fix.
It's the fact that people can be problematic.
And that ain't ever gonna get fixed. Sadly.

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

Oh come Techbot Alpha. Didn't you read the post from the future thread in City Life forum? It's fixed in I138.

There are a couple reasons:

1. KB is the most obvious secondary effect in this game. If someone is using their KB poorly it's far more noticable than a -acc or -def from dark blast and rad blast respectively.

2. It's the only secondary effect that makes the "Herd to here, let loose AoEs, repeat" crowd have to rethink their strategy.

3. Because people complain about anything.


Lastly, the only reason this gets brought up again and again is because people refuse to let other players enjoy the game the way their powers were designed or the way they find most fun. If you have a problem with a player using KB then offer some support or ask them to control their powers a bit better. If you (general you) are too arrogant to be bothered, then kick them from your team and be done with it already.

....
Cerebral core...reversing...into itself...
*BOOM*

Too...much...to take!

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

There are untold numbers of people unsatisfied with any subject you can conceive of. It doesn't mean they're right. It also doesn't necessarily mean they're wrong but subscribing to the notion of "squeaky wheel gets the oil" demeans the argument further.

But when people keep bringing up the same tired complaint over and over despite being given the same counterarguments each and every time, refusing to see that no, they haven't come up with the suggestion of the century, you're bound to start getting more and more flippant responses.

It's kind of like the "Merge the servers!" threads getting repeated on a predictable cycle (anti-KB is roughly 1 thread/month, sometimes more, sometimes less) and Memphis_Bill taking the time to build a summary canned response for them.

KB looks way cool, but it causes grief too often. I'll bring up this particular 'tired complaint' over and over on threads like this because this is one of those complaints that happens to be true. And maybe, just maybe, someone with the power to do so might do something about it, and hopefully they'll do it in such a way that Those-who-love-KB-as-is can keep it.

The 'Tired Complaint' once more:
I play a heavy KB toon (a Peacebringer) regularly. Yes, when on teams, I have learned how to control my KB via maneuvering, using walls, etc, so as not to be disruptive.

Nevertheless, maneuvering takes some time (small, but enough that I don't get off an AoE attack or two just about every spawn), and I also find myself not using Solar Flare (a very damaging power) and Luminous Detonation fairly often because I'm unable to position properly (open maps, not enough spawns out on the edges to 'knockback' towards the melee types).

I can successfully control my KB, but it just gets danged annoying that I have to so much. A PB (a Team AT) not being able to use half its AoE powers because they annoy the team *rolls eyes*

I want to Blast the Bejeezus out of Stuff, but no, I have to flit and flutter around finding the least likely scatter-spot, make sure I'm facing a wall and play mob-handball.

Team with more tolerant players, perhaps? I play randomly and at odd hours, thus I PuG alot. I don't always have time to find tolerant players - and frankly, it's annoying and patronizing that I should even have to.

But whatever, I'm playing my SS Brute lately, so everybody's happy...

Depends on intent, like the example of TP Friend. If it's meant to be griefing, then that's what it is. Using your hurricane example here, if the player using it just doesn't understand that turning on hurricane and auto-following the tank is something the majority of players would frown upon, then they are simply ignorant and using their powers unwisely. If they're doing it because they know it will annoy the tank, then it's griefing.

I would never remove KB protection from the game. I would, however, modify the KB mechanics to make a distinction between "knocked back" and "knocked over." Right now, its impossible to knock a melee (or any other) character back without also knocking over, so to prevent knock over (which is a form of incapacity) you have to be absolutely immune from KB.

This would allow the game designers to make, say, an AV that is capable of knocking the tank back five feet without the tank being incapacitated for the 3 seconds it takes to get back up. It also would allow certain powers (like say, hover) to provide knock over protection separate from knock back protection, which would give squishies a way to buy some protection from knock effects without having to sell immunity from knock effects.

Ah, now, see that I can get behind. Its the knock-DOWN that annoys the hell outta me. 'Push-Back' isn't that much of a problem.

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

Why is that, anyway?

I could play my Grav again if it was in the Immob, because my teammates would stop complaining about Wormhole if I used the Immob first. Putting it in the hold makes it useless.

I meant its not a strong enough precident to offer any guidence, which I'm assuming you were implying it was.


Perhaps, but I'm well aware of that. In this case, if such rules were put in at the beginning of time, there would be nothing to compare to for the great many people to complain about. The notion that players have a right to demand clustered critters they can incinerate simultaneously with area of effect powers because its fun appears to be something fairly unique to CoH. To a large degree Cryptic seems to have learned their lesson in Champions Online, as AoEs tend to often have much stronger limits than in CoX. My guess is that if Castle could go back in time and change the AoE rules for City of Heroes, he would not allow high-order AoE without some compensating control. Knock is (in my opinion; I don't know Castle's opinion on this specific matter) a reasonable compensating control.


My argument has been the same one for five years now. And that is the people advocating removal or control of KB are the first movers here. I'm under no obligation to justify anything. Its the people that want to suppress KB that have the obligation to attempt to show that their gameplay desires supercede all other players. And they don't. If the game was constructed without KB, I would not argue that I had the right to impose KB on the entire playerbase just because I think it would be fun. But so long as it exists I will treat all requests to neutralize it as a form of playstyle policing, no different than players that demand all defenders take heals.


Unfortunately in the current game there's no way to do that.** And if we were making CoH back in 2003 from scratch there would be no need for that if KB was designed correctly in the first place. Or rather if the AI was designed correctly in the first place, because the reason KB is useful to most comic book heroes is because its involuntary movement: you're moving your foe in a way and to a location other than where they generally want to go. But in CoH, critters don't make intelligent movement decisions and thus there is often little or no advantage to moving them from the spot they are already on. If critters took cover, separated in the face of AoEs, and tried to flank players then knockback would make more sense.

Also, high-order AoE mez can override the benefits of knockback. But high-order AoE mez is just as unbalancing in CoH as high-order AoE damage. Ironically, its AoE effects that make it too dangerous to allow players to fight many things at once: if AoE effects were moderated or neutralized, it would have been much less necessary to impose aggro limits, and players that wanted to "feel super" by engaging many targets at once would have greater options than they do now.

Its all about making the right tradeoffs, and every game decision implements a tradeoff somewhere. These are all interconnected design decisions, and I don't agree that my version of them would make a "less fun" game overall, just because they pay closer attention up-front to what those interconnected tradeoffs actually are.


** At least, no way I know of that doesn't involve sufficiently weird circumstances that it wouldn't require very careful testing to ensure the game engine did what we think it should do under those conditions.