Request/Suggest about KB switch

At least once a month.

Hover changes knock back to knock down.

This!

I...

I really LIKE this idea.

I think the whole "search a maze-like area for things to kill" is an unnecessary carry-over from dungeon-crawl-based games. That metaphor is much less applicable to the genre. It can still represent a minority of mission content, but I think in the future mission content should focus on the other 90% of encounters within the genre. Many other kinds of encounters favor having more crowd control and less concentrated damage, like ambush-style encounters, or just meeting-engagement encounters. I find it interesting that one of the more useful powers in the respec trial is Repel.

In fact I have always considered it to be a small genre flaw that the superheroes almost always have the initiative on every single fight in CoH. Superheroes usually tend to be reactive, not proactive (there are exceptions of course). I actually think that genre error on City of Heroes gave nowhere for City of Villains to go.

Hmmm, I got this, for the above post:
Request/Suggest about... 11-09-2009 08:48 PM This is rude and not helpful. It is clearly in violation of forum policy and common decency.

While the assessment might be true, it seems that someone is taking forum posts a bit too seriously... and apparently hasn't read too many of them. Comparatively speaking, I can't say I would have given mine a second look... much less passed out a measly 4 pts. of negative rep about it.

If you mean the one about adding damage to kb, I think most people think that's a good idea in principle, although it might be difficult to do in terms of the details (i.e. should a KB power do extra damage to a target that is immune from knockback).

If you mean the one about changing all KB to KD and requiring people to slot KB enhancers to regain the KB effect, but add extra damage to the KB slotting, I think it could be made workable for single target attacks, but not in general for AoEs (while I think KB would be a good compensating control for AoEs, allowing KB to increase AoE damage would in general be dangerous for game balance).

You shouldn't assume.


And other MMOs I can think of offer much more freedom to allow players to use their AoE in efficient ways. I don't play Champions so I don't have any experience there, but from what I've heard and read, I wouldn't consider anything in that game as persuasive authority.


Well, people have "Kick" which works pretty well right now. What people are arguing is that they would like to have a less drastic means. I don't necessarily think it's needed, but that doesn't make the argument unreasonable.

And no, you don't have to justify anything. Still doesn't change my point. Even the OP's idea, as flawed as it was, wouldn't harm anyone. If you don't want to play in a team where the team leader has set such a flag, then you can quit and play with people who enjoy KB. That you see it as "policing" demonstrates what I'm saying. That you don't want people to enjoy their game if it hurts or changes the way that YOU enjoy the game. It's the same argument, on in reverse.


You're probably the only one who will answer me so let me ask you this. Why couldn't all KB powers have two effects:

1) .67 KB not modifiable by buffs or enhancements
2) Whatever other KB mag they have now

Then you create a "Anti-KB" IO that multiplies the KB value by 0. The KB gets eliminated, leaving only the .67 KD effect.

Would that not work? (That is an actual question, not a rhetorical device)

Agreed.

Agreed.


Maybe it wouldn't. I'll invest in your game (seriously), it would be worth seeing what you come up with.

I think your suggestion has been suggested many times in various forms in the suggestion forum. And most of the time, the threads deteriorated pretty quickly.

My opinion about this suggestion (and also something like -kb enh) is that it is not flexible enough. The current implementation of kb is that you don't have a choice between kb and kd, but you can control the kb distance through enh. With the suggestion, it is an improvement that you can choose between kb and kd when you do the slotting, and then control the kb distance by slotting more.

I think the best example is energy blast. If you solo, you might want kb. But in teams, you probably want kd most of the time and kb occassionally. With your suggestion, I think the only way out is to have 2 builds, one for solo and the other one for team. But still, that doesn't allow the flexibility that you may want to do some kb in teams when it's appropriate to do so. In fact, I think this is the main issue of the suggestions that based on enh.

The nature of kb is that it should be used appropriately, not throwing them out all the time. Currently, we are forced to kb all the time (as in energy blast). But your suggestion is like going to the other extreme, i.e. you can't kb even if you want to till you change build. Either way is not the best solution.

I guess I posted my own suggestion like a zillion times (and make people mad a zillion times as well). I think a better solution would be a real time control on kb and kd. The idea is to implement a system which you can click a power to kd, but shift-click if you want to kb. The keystroke should be customizable, and you can bind in whatever way you like to suit your playstyle.

It would probably work in the sense of converting that power into having the same effect that powers we normally call "KD" powers have. Keeping in mind that there is no such thing as "KD" - KD is really just low magnitude KB - so anything with knockback protection can convert "KD" into having no effect. That would have to be explained carefully to players who are presented with the choice to slot such an enhancement.

(Its rare, but there are critters with KB protection but not KB immunity. "KD" simply doesn't work on them. My guess is that such critters are going to become more common over time, not less).

I'm also not willing to state with certainty that it will work, because I believe this is relatively untested ground: the game engine has sometimes surprised us by doing something other than what it should do based on the rules as we understand them (Oil Slick Arrow is the canonical example here). This was actually one of two possibilities I was thinking of when I wrote "no way I know of that doesn't involve sufficiently weird circumstances that it wouldn't require very careful testing."


The other one was you might be able to make an IO that applied -0.98 KB strength to the power, and not have to split up the effects. That would reduce any KB power less than mag 37.5 down below 0.75, converting it to KD. But that has a different issue worth testing carefully: I'm not sure what happens if you apply a really tiny KB to something; would the game even *notice* a 0.03 mag KB, for example.


Regardless of how you do it, I think you'd be in uncharted territory that required a lot of testing to confirm the correct behavior, which makes this not a simple addition to the game, even if it was desirable.

I don't consider it the same argument, because there's a huge difference between tolerating another player's behavior, and controlling it. If someone were to advocate adding a "set EvilGeko's health to zero" power to the game, and someone else were to advocate not adding such a power, those two positions are not equal and neutral. And the claim that anyone that doesn't like the effects of that power can simply choose not to play with anyone who uses it so there's no possible harm involved is also equally unlikely to be a valid game design point.

The question is one of whether the designers want to promote tolerance for gameplay options or not. Adding features that allow some players to control the gameplay of others may be a "less drastic" option than kicking them, but it also lowers the barrier to exercising control, and implicitly acknowledges it as acceptable. Obviously the devs believe its perfectly fine for me to decide how other players behave on my team, beacuse they are giving me tools to do so.

If I were a game designer, that's a line I would not ordinarily cross. It would not be the kind of game I would want to make, unless the surrounding social elements of the game were consistent with that sort of decision (I could conceive of a game designed around organized warfare where a core gameplay element was organizing around pseudo-military command structures similar to but more rigorous than the corporations of Eve. Under those circumstances, providing players with tools to control subordinates might be consistent with the intended social feel of the game).

Well, that's what I thought. Thanks.

I thought that too. I'm not sure if it's worth it or not, but I sure would like to see it.

Well, you're correct, but I don't think that analogy is apt. Setting my HP to zero has several problems that the "Anti-KB" flag does not. First, it's not clear who, other than you or Memphis Bill would find such a flag fun. Second, this wouldn't simply eliminate one effect from my powers, this would shut off the game for me. So yes, they aren't equal positions. The person arguing against that position is arguing not to eliminate a customer where the pro argument is arguing for a change that has no definable benefit to them.

As I was thinking through this, can't team leaders set some really draconian options on Task Forces? I seem to remember there being a flag where you can debuff the team. It seems to me that such a flag does something very similar to the "Anti-KB" flag. And it put's a great amount of power in the hands of the team leader.

If such a flag can be defended on the basis of "Well if you don't want to play the TF under that debuff you can quit," then I don't see this as that far away from that. It appears that the difference is one of motive. The motive of the Anti-KB team leader is seen as illegitimate and thus rejected. But in both cases, it's a question of wanting to have a certain experience in game.

But this doesn't cross that line. You aren't ever going to be required to play a certain way. Just like with super-sidekicking, I'm not required to play in a team that lowers my level 50 to level 7. Or in an Arena match, where my travel powers are shut off. Or, as stated, on a TF where my temp powers are shut off.

Giving this CHOICE doesn't FORCE anyone to play on a team where the choice has been exercised.

It does seem to me that the real concern is the popularity such a flag might hold. Now, I don't have any way to measure that, and I could agree that if such a flag were so popular that people who loved KB couldn't find teams that would tolerate it that might be a bad thing. But then, that would give you an opportunity to argue for the KB that you think the game should have and we do love when the Queen O' Maths gets all designery on us!

Hmm, I'm very curious because the effect you just described has actually happened to my /WP Brute several times in game.

Statesman did it to me on the RSF, he punched me and I slid back at least 10 feet or so, but I didn't actually get knocked over.

I've also experienced a similar effect in the mission leading up to the cape mission redside, you have to travel to a warehouse full of longbow agents and destroy 3 contraband crates.

When the crates are destroyed they explode and pushed both my /WP Brute and my /SD brute back around 3 or 4 feet. It didn't happen every time, but it happened fairly often (I had to run the mission back to back for a friend and myself recently, which is why it sticks in my head).

Is that similar to the effect you'd like to see implemented?

Client-side animation glitch. You're still knocked over, lag or whatever didn't get the message to your machine to animate the "fall over and get up" motion. Next time it happens, try to notice that you're still unable to use your abilities.

That's actually Repel, which is a different effect. That said, it could possibly be used to do what Arcana is suggesting.

I'm not sure about the specifics of the mechanics of the situations you list, but I do know that the Rikti UXB bombs induce very high order knockback that nevertheless doesn't seem to knock you over. I believe this is due to the explosion initiating some form of FX on the target (you) that plays an uninterruptible animation which the knockback effect itself cannot override. So instead of playing the knockdown/over animation, you simply get pushed back.

However, that animation is rooted, which means not that you can't move, but that you cannot act: you can't activate powers or use movement controls (you can still slide, fall, glide, or decelerate). I would separate being knocked back from being rooted, so those two separate effects would have to be specified directly. That way you could be knocked back but still be able to act in some cases (but perhaps not all).

Those effects affect every player on the team in a very indiscriminate way. While you can argue that a no-KB flag affects everyone in the same way, I don't buy it. I could argue under the same logic that a flag that removed the damage from defender secondary attacks also affects everyone, its just that not everyone actually possesses those attacks. And if the motivation turned out to be that I thought defenders should buff/debuff more, defenders using ranged attacks annoyed me, that would turn the flag from highly suspect to highly offensive.

The issue is not a question of "wanting a certain experience in the game." Its a question of whether the game should give you the ability to achieve that at the expense of *removing* capabilities from other players. The boundary is not arbitrary. The principle is a non-subjective principle that each player controls their own characters, and that right is absolute until it directly affects someone else's control over their characters. My scattering targets does not affect your control over your character. Therefore your only recourse is to ask me to change my behavior voluntarily. You have no right - and as a developer I would give you no capability - to override my absolute final authority over the control over my character. The teleport flag is an example where someone's control over their character intersects with someone else's control over their character.

If you want to play socratic games with this, then the most interesting playground would be this: rather than making a KB team switch, suppose Castle were to make an ally debuffing power that reduced KB strength to zero (-100%). Would you consider such a power a griefing power if it was used without permission, or a player's prerogative to "buff" any ally in any way they wanted to, barring being kicked from the team? The game currently does not consider drive-by speed boost buffing to be "griefing" even if the player didn't ask for the buff, so technically speaking there can't be a prohibition on "buffing" a player's KB strength to zero.

But if that's the case, what's to stop Castle from making a "buff" heal strength to zero power, a buff movement speed to zero power, or a buff recovery to zero power? Where precisely do you draw the line on which of these powers is obviously a griefing power when used without permission, and which are not? And by "griefing" in this context I mean sufficiently abhorrent so as to make the power itself something to specifically remove from the game.

I believe someone that thinks its perfectly acceptable to allow one player to disable someone else's KB should have an answer to this question. My own answer to this thought experiment is that, although its not perfectly ideal, the only rule that doesn't leave such matters to mob rule is to presume objectively that powers which increase strength are presumed to be allowed, while those that decrease strength generally are not, except when that decrease is a compensating control for another buff (i.e. increase density). Under this rule, the mob doesn't get to decide by majority rule that the numerical sense for KB "buffing" should be reversed, because the game design itself is predicated on the assumption that buffs increase KB strength.

I wouldn't argue that, because you're right it's a very discriminating debuff. However, KB effects themselves don't affect all allies equally. Take two Scrappers, one DM, one BS. The Broadsword Scrapper hits BU. Get his or her buff and is good. The DM clusters up a nice group of mobs for Soul Drain and then right before hitting the button, the Energy Blaster scatters them to the four winds. DM wastes both an AoE attack and gets no buff.


Well, that would seem a bit more offensive on its face, but you know what, to hell with it, I'll argue for it. Why? Because the defender can still hit "Quit Team" and play with someone else.

But, this doesn't do that. You always, always have the ability to quit a team and play with people who agree with your playstyle. Teams are social constructs, and I can see much merit in allowing a team leader a great amount of control of team dynamics. Why?

Well, forming teams in my MMO experience is not something that many people want to do. I know from experience that if I want a particular TF done, I often have to build it myself. So I think that giving team leaders a greater control of their experience could be a fair tradeoff.

I'll give you a better example. In teams I run, you do not get to refuse buffs unless you can prove you don't need them to survive. My Cold Defender gets tons of request not to buff them and I try to work it out with the player, but bottom line I want the team to succeed and they can play elsewhere if they don't appreciate a buff.

So long as its a team based power, giving the player the ability to cancel the "buff" by quitting. No I don't have a problem with it.

Can't you already set that flag in PvP matches?

I draw no line in the group context. I'm perfectly willing to see a group power that says "Disable all powers other than Brawl" so long as people can quit to avoid it. Now such a power probably wouldn't be very popular so it's probably not a good idea, but a "Anti-KB" flag would probably be quite popular and so it's at least defensible.

Well, from an efficiency standpoint (as you eloquently pointed out) KD is superior to KB. So this meets your requirement no?

It doesn't seem fair to say the DM loses out while the BS does not, since the BS now misses out on using Whirling Sword on the whole spawn while BU is active. It also seems odd to be sad the DM misses out on hitting with SD because a blaster pummeled a spawn with ET or EB (or both) (I guess if a defender did it, it might be less stellar).

Either way, the anti-KB argument usually comes down to this: Someone else on the team is doing stuff and making me feel less needed/awesome/cool.

IME, KB rarely causes issues and the claim that it drops kill speed measurably is dubious.


I am going to re-phrase what you said, just so you can re-evaluate your own bias (a bias I share).

I like (or am often forced) to lead teams and frequently am a team leader. I wish team leaders had more control over the actions and powers of the teammates they are leading.

I'm forced to question how often this even happens. While yes, I have had enemies knocked out of my own PBAoE effects in the past, that actually affecting the power's function is relatively uncommon due to how power activation works.

Of course, I'd also probably take the far more pragmatic approach and wait to use Soul Drain because I knew the AoE knockback was coming. Especially since if the knockback is used even half-intelligently, the mobs might very well clump better.

I'm not a big fan of legislating stupidity, which is what you're advocating here. And KB is not the problem in your hyperbolic hypothetical, a stupid player is. Assuming said player didn't outright kill the targets. Otherwise, the Scrappers are a waste of space if the Blaster can do it without them so easily.

There are far more wallflowers than there are leaders, this has always been the case. You don't really need to give the wallflowers more incentive to avoid teaming by giving arbitrary controls to some star that can change possession instantly.

Entirely different reason for it.

You're still legislating stupidity. It's a slippery slope argument but such a thing would lead to anti-immobilize flag demands. I know I would head such a cause because bad Controllers are significantly more annoying than bad sources of KB...because they at least actually kill their targets.

Continuing the tumble downhill...let's ban immobilize in general, it's less efficient than any other mez and it's much more capable of being abused and annoying in general!

Interestingly, when you phrase it like that, I'm even more convinced it's just. Team leaders do a somewhat thankless job, especially when recruiting for TFs that take a goodly amount of time.

Giving that person some ability to control the experience of the team in a way superior to the other players just doesn't seem unfair.

But then, doesn't that ask another player to subjugate their fun (using Soul Drain) to another player (the KB player)? And doesn't that undercut the argument that KB isn't at least mildly deleterious to other players?