Request/Suggest about KB switch

By contrast, I'm a big proponent of legislating for health and safety reasons. Taking this back into the CoX context, are you saying that it's OK for the Scrapper in this context to not get to use their powers because the Blaster could kill them?

So if the DM is the team leader and kicks the Blaster immediately after this spawn dies, because as you say the Blaster makes him superfluous (thus eliminating his fun), you would have no quarrel with that?

I don't think wallflowers avoid teaming. They avoid LEADING. On Justice, I have a lot of fun when I make teams. I put on my cheesy salesman shtick and basically spam the global channels until people join. It's the EvilGeko's form of terrorism!

But I always wind up with a team. So I don't think this discourages teaming at all. At least no more than the flags you can already set on TFs.

Not at all. The PvP flag is there to MANDATE that players play a certain way. In this case, that they not be allowed to use their travel powers. This meets the EXACT condition that Arcanaville says the devs should not allow. It allows the organizer to unilaterally decide what powers your character is ALLOWED to use. And the person can have whatever reasons he or she chooses for using that flag.

As I've said, what's really at issue is that people feel that the use of such a "anti-KB" flag is illegitimate, but then it can't be in a game which allows PvP organizer to shut off powers and allows team leaders to debuff players and shut off enhancements.

Again, as I've said, I have no quarrel with such a flag. I stand here prepared to allow team leaders a great deal of control over their teams. My suspicion is that team leaders would exercise a great deal of restraint in the general case, although the anti-KB flag might be the most popular of them all.

Ban it for the whole game? Hell no? Allow a team leader to ban immobilize (hell all control effects if he or she wants)? Sure. I'll get behind that. It's just a play option. No one would be forced to play in such a team.

The leader also gets to invite whomever they choose, whatever ATs, dictate the speed and choose their own missions for their merits.

That's enough.

You seem to be suggesting that the rights of the team leader to control their team members supercedes the rights of the players not to be controlled, and the player's sole right is to leave the team.

Are you actually suggesting that as a general principle, leaving a discriminatory situation is a legitimate option to consider when deciding if the discriminatory situation is allowable?

This is america, if you dont like it, geeeeeet out!

gotta go feed my pet raccoons.

Do you honestly think that asking someone to play intelligently by waiting a whole extra second before using Soul Drain is somehow subjugating their fun? Maybe if their idea of fun is just constantly mashing random power icons until enemies die, I guess.

The DM character could also easily reverse the situation and ask the KBer to wait for them to use Soul Drain before AoEing. Either way, nobody's fun is spoiled, unless one of them gets a chip on their shoulder over having to wait one second, during which time they could use any other power at their disposal.

Honestly, implying that a failed Soul Drain impedes the player's enjoyment of the game means we're in serious trouble. After all, Soul Drain can miss, enemies can run out of its range of their own accord, you could be knocked back and waste it, you could be killed before it goes off...I'm amazed anybody plays Dark Melee at all considering how potentially disappointing it could be.

Either way, the KB argument is so passe. I think I'll make a thread to suggest that team leaders can turn off AoEs altogether. I'm tired of the Blaster pulling with Fireball. Maybe there could be an enhancement that turns AoEs into single target attacks?

(Remember folks! IanTheM1 brand snark is part of a carefully balanced forum breakfast!)

Yes because I am constantly timing out how long it is until the brute's SD is back up. And yes all players play on the highest graphics levels and never miss out on another toons animations because no one is ever busy doing their own thing. We should all know exactly what power each teammate is about to activate and any other way is noobery.

This is how you should play the game and if you dont play that way you are wrong.

And here I thought all I was getting at was that teamwork and communication are useful. How that spins out to "keep track of every variable and power cooldown imaginable" I'm not sure.

It's not that difficult to follow - if you notice that your Soul Drain keeps getting foiled by knockback every single mob, you'll grasp the pattern rather quickly. If the Brute politely asks you to hold off on the knockback until he gets his Soul Drain, you know to look out for that power. If you make a mistake...well, mistakes happen.

I should clarify that the extra damage being done would be relatively minor, perhaps something like how DOT from fire attacks is. For example, a hypothetical Energy Blast does 50 damage. With normal damage slots it does 100 damage. With knockback slots it does 90 damage. The knockback might do an extra 10 points of damage (if it activates). Note that these numbers are just for illustration.
In this sense, I don't see it being much different from putting regular damage slotting in.

I'm not sure why it doesn't seem flexible to you. Perhaps I should be more clear?

As an example, suppose we take an Energy Blast. It does knockback now, so it gets changed to do knockdown. With normal damage enhancers, you blast a foe and it knocks him down. With one knockback enhancer, that knockdown becomes knockback (smallish amount). The more enhancers you add, the more knockback you get (as usual).

You could have two builds or not. If you used a build slotted for knockback on a team, it would be much as it is now. The idea is to make it your choice whether you do knockback.

It's not that simple though. A Dark Melee/Dark Armor Brute, Scrapper, or Tanker has 3 powers that are PBAoE, that will be wasted by poorly timed knockback. Is the Blaster/Corruptor supposed to be able to anticipate when they will use any of these three powers?

Let's say you see the Scrapper/Brute/Tanker get into the low yellow or red on their health after jumping into a spawn, you think "I'll save you!" and use Energy Torrent (or a similar power) to knock the bad guys away from them. Now, the Scrapper/Tanker/Brute isn't an idiot-- they knew they were low in health, and triggered Dark Regen right at the time they needed it. But, you activated Energy Torrent a fraction of a second earlier and just KBed all their targets away, they waste the Dark Regen, and the mobs are out of Aura of Fear or Oppressive Gloom. You just made the situation more dangerous for that character.

Sure, maybe you two work it out, but not only does that character have 2 other powers like that to deal with, but there are more people on the team than just him or her. So you have to worry about Jim's Sleet, and Suzie's Cinders, and Jack's Foot Stomp/RttC or Invincibility, etc. Eventually, you may come to the realization that in most cases, it's just not worth using Energy Torrent most of the time, in most teams.

That's why my Energy Blaster no longer has Energy Torrent: it's the most fun to use against large groups of foes, which most often is on a team, during which time it is most often not a good time to be using Energy Torrent. I took Bone Smasher instead, and found it to be a much better investment. Meanwhile, my Fire Blaster and Corruptor use Fire Breath, my AR Blaster and Corruptor use Flamethrower, my Crab Spiders use Suppression, my Wolf Spider uses Heavy Burst, my Peacebringer uses both Scatters, my Sonic Blaster uses Howl, and my Psi Dom uses Psychic Scream, all without their secondary effects disrupting any of my teammates' powers. I've also got a Tanker that will be using Energy Torrent without disrupting their powers either, in about 7 levels.

The problem isn't actually the KB, though. It's all the other AoE powers. But I think it's too late to make this game not be AoE centric. I hope they address this if/when they make CoH2.

If you knocked back all of their targets (and it would have to be 100% of them, since even a single target would give plenty of health), then I'm not seeing the issue. While they aren't potentially as safe as if they had gotten Dark Regen off, enemies on their butts means that the DA character gets some breathing room to either retreat or use some inspirations.

I disagree very strongly that the KB is close to being as beneficial as getting Dark Regen off.

First, KB doesn't cancel powers. When the enemies get back up, they're still going to attack, just 2 seconds later, and outside of the DA's toggle stun or debuff.

Second, we have limited inspiration space. It will likely take 2 inspirations to restore the same amount of health as Dark Regen. So, not only have you rendered a power useless (something people don't like), you've made them use inspirations they otherwise wouldn't have used, and there's no guarantee that those exact inspirations will be replenished by the time they otherwise would have needed them.

Third, that's just one situation. You also have the other characters and their issues to worry about, and Soul Drain and Dark Consumption being in the same situation.

In my experience, if you use anything but AoE KB, everyone would be better off in most situations. Especially if you had KD instead of KB, because you'd still provide mitigation without disrupting their powers.

I didn't say it was. Obviously healing is usually more preferable. But sometimes you have to make the most out of a bad situation.

This doesn't make any sense. 1) How did the DA lose all that health if the bulk of the enemies are stunned/feared/whatever? (If it was from a previous fight, then there was plenty of time to prepare.) 2) What is preventing the DA from chasing the enemies and keeping them in his auras? And 3) Dark Regen doesn't cancel powers either.

If anything, knocking them back actually increased mitigation (excluding the disrupted Dark Regen, anyway) since the DA auras don't affect higher ranked enemies.

The option to retreat isn't limited by inventory space. It's less reliable, but what are you going to do. I also find it laughable that you would count inspiration consumption as a significant negative effect. That's precisely what they're there for.

Dark Consumption has a very fast activation time, which would reduce the chance of it being affected. Admittedly, Soul Drain, and to a lesser extent Dark Regen, are worse off in that regard.

In my experience, well-placed knockback is far more effective than straight knockdown, if slightly more unpredictable. Ragdoll > stock get-up animation.

The strategy that has long served me well on teams with copious amounts of knockback is to save my PBAoEs until I'm absolutely sure nothing will get knocked back...such as when the enemies are already knocked back. But I guess I'm the kind of weirdo who's willing to let their fun be subjugated by those dastardly KBers. *shakes fist*

Cool. Really, this is the only thing you had to say here, because I think I now understand your position, which basically seems to be "Yeah, it's not better in that situation, but I don't think it's that big of a deal, just roll with it and make the most of it".

Unfortunately, I feel the need to respond to the rest anyway, because I want to answer your questions and clarify some issues.

Well, the bulk aren't stunned-- it only works on minions. They probably aren't feared either (I don't know many DAs that don't use Death Shroud), just acc debuffed. Yeah, it often is from the previous fight, but most people think "I'll get my health back from Dark Regen in the next fight", because they want to keep moving. I don't think it's reasonable to expect people to always do whatever it takes to cap health off before each spawn.

Energy Torrent tends to spread them out unless you happen to be standing in a corner. Obviously some will shortly be affected by the auras, but some won't.

Unless he decides to retreat, which was your other suggestion.

I didn't explain this well, and for that I apologize. The Tanker (or whoever) is going to hit the red after a volley of attacks. If the Blaster (or whoever) then KBs them, those attacks are likely recharging. The KB doesn't provide *any* mitigation against recharging attacks, just ones that are ready to be used (or close to ready).

I'm not excluding Dark Regen, though, I'm mentioning everything in combination. It's all being used. No, the KB doesn't cancel it all, but it only replaces some of a larger amount of mitigation that DA provides.

I don't want you to think I skipped this-- I appreciate this attitude. I wish more people had it.

I keep inspirations for dealing with tough encounters, myself, not for making up for teammates that cancel out my defensive powers. Sure, it happens, and I'll use them for that. But if you've had a tough mission, and the DA Tanker uses their last two heal insps because the Blaster negated their Dark Regen, and they don't have those heal insps for the next fight when there's one more Boss than they can otherwise handle, yeah, that's a significant negative effect. I don't see how it's laughable.


True, but some people like to make use of power queuing, and expect at least most of the foes near them to still be there when it goes off.

On it's own, I agree. I just think the predictability of KD outweighs the increased mitigation of ragdoll in most situations.

An example of a situation where it does not-- last night I was playing a Fire Blaster with a Sonic Blaster teammate that had Shockwave, and it saved our bacon a ton. I have no doubt that KD wouldn't have. However, neither of us had any powers that were significantly disrupted by the KB, as we were both Blasters. These situations don't occur very often for me.

In case you think I'm railing against dastardly KBers, I want to let you know that's not the case. I want to use Energy Torrent, Explosive Blast, Shockwave (the Claws one), and Wormhole without upsetting my teammates. These are some of my favorite powers. I've (sadly) respecced out of the first 3, and I just don't play my Grav controller anymore, because I care more about teaming with my friends and making sure they have fun, than making sure I can use the powers I want to use whenever I want to.

It's great that you have the attitude that you don't mind other people disrupting your powers. It's too bad that everyone doesn't feel that way, but I don't think they're being unreasonable, either.

Because getting more inspirations is rarely an issue, especially at the level range we're talking about, where inspiration space is plentiful and Tier 2s regularly drop. I definitely understand where you're coming from, but it doesn't seem realistic to me that this Tanker or whatever couldn't ask for more greens or convert spares into them if necessary.

On the contrary, I do mind when people disrupt my powers. But I make sure not to get into situations where that happens in the first place.

Pretty much my bottom line with knockback is that using it improperly is no different than using any other kind of power improperly (like my aforementioned "Pulling with Fireball" bit). And getting unlucky with certain positional powers isn't so different either - if the Blaster nukes the mob before I can use Dark Regen, I'm still out of the heal, just less likely to die. *shrug*

If there's really something that bugs me, it's AoE immobilizes causing -KB. Means lots of trouble for all of my characters that take advantage of knockdown.

Fair enough. I do not believe I agree with that position, I'd rather people learn how to play the game as is, instead of changing the game to suit a small subset of anti-KB players (and I am not talking about people with KB learning how to use it, but instead players on teams that have KB learning how to use it). I also lean towards as little control being taken away from individual players as possible; being a team leader should not be a position of command, in almost all circumstances.

If it happened every time, probably? IME, it happens a low percentage of the time, but when it happens it is, naturally, noticeable. It is still my opinion that this issue falls down to some people being afraid of movement keys and worrying that other people seem to be more cool than them. Frankly, its not that hard to learn to work with KB, even if the KB user on your team is "bad" at it.

If the scrapper needs to be doing all the killing, that is their prerogative. I imagine they might not be on teams very long if they have to be the center of all action every spawn. Luckily scrappers solo pretty well. If someone wants to be the main/only killer, why would they invite a blaster in the first place?

That depends on your difficulty settings. If getting more of the right kind of inspirations isn't an issue, then yeah, AoE KB technically isn't going to be a problem for that DA Tanker/Scrapper/Brute. It will only bother them if they just don't like having a teammate make DA miss regardless of the end result, or if it annoys them to have to ask for inspirations because of the actions of a teammate.

Yeah, I know people like that. And they're cool people, they just might have a different idea of what is fun or annoying than you.

So, out of curiosity, what do you do to deal with those mentioned AoE Immobs that have -KB?

Sure, using powers improperly is using powers improperly. But some powers are considered "used impropely" in more situations than others. I can use Fire Breath, Frost Breath, Fistful of Arrows, and Psychic Shockwave *whenever I want to* and nobody complains as long as I don't draw more aggro than necessary. This is very much not the case with Energy Torrent.

I want to make it clear that I was talking about Energy Torrent, and not Nova. Yeah, nuking the spawn is something I've never heard a complaint about unless the Blaster was so much lower than the mobs that it didn't do any damage (which isn't an issue anymore with Super Sidekicking!).

Not necessarily. The scrapper is almost assuredly in less danger, as most of those guys sent flying are probably thinking about a different target. Also, it is very possible that many of the KBd enemies are dead or will be in mere seconds.

Brutes and especially tankers may very well be in trouble, since they hold aggro. Of course, managing aggro is a big job for those ATs. Managing aggro does not mean holding all hate on oneself at all times. It involves knowing when and how to control who the enemy hates. It involves knowing how to position the enemy on a variety of teams (if you have KB users on the team, stop standing in the middle of open areas, if you are on an outdoor map, be prepared to move a lot, the wasd keys do not bite ). It involves knowing when something bad has happened and you need to pull out and let the rest of those wingnuts on your team deal for a few seconds (believe it or not, they probably can handle it without you for a bit).

It is getting annoyingly repetitious to see this type of example brought up as if its a binary state in missions. "Teams without KB allow me to use SD to full effect all the time. Teams with KB mean I never get SD off except on one or two guys." That is flat out ridiculous and I believe most people know that. Are we really asking for a change because a few times a mission someone else looks cooler than me?

You all should understand that I play melee-centric characters more often than not. My location is what it is for a reason. I sympathize with having FSC or SC or Invincibility or RI "ruined" by KB. My occasional twitch when it happens, does not allow me to fail to realize that whole bunches of baddies likely just got controlled in a way I now have to deal with, but could be beneficial (even though they would all be dead if you just would have let my damn FSC hit them all ).

That is too bad. When Cinders takes precedence over a blaster using their AoEs, I believe priorites are badly off. The Fire controller needs to feel cool, so the blaster can't scatter corpses? The tanker needs to keep Invincibility saturated or else he will be in more danger? Is that because he has to kill all the bad guys, so we have to wait the 20 seconds it takes instead of letting the blaster wipe the enemy in 8 seconds?

The problem is that people feel KB users have to learn how to (or not to) use their powers instead of realizing that people have to learn how to use the KB. Train not the KB user, but yourself. (It certainly helps when the KB user spends some effort as well, but only one of those events is in your control, so I'd concentrate on the events in your control).

Dropping Energy Torrent is certainly an option in your control, but it vastly weakens Energy blast and your team, IME.

It's only happened a few times, but I ask them to hold off on it. If they don't, then it depends on my mood and which character I'm on what I do next.

It was a big problem when a Fire Controller spamming Fire Cages completely screwed up my Ice/Ice Tank's survivability, but then I was fighting purples on a team pushing the limits on double XP weekend, so I left.

Other times people simply learned by example that nullifying my Controller's Earthquake was bad for the team.

And that's always going to be the case, for better or for worse. There's really nothing more I can say to that, other than that situational powers exist, and that we'll have to agree to disagree on how disruptive Energy Torrent can be.

Perhaps it was a bad example. My point was that there are plenty of other ways Dark Regen could be disrupted that have nothing to do with knockback, and I run into them far more often.

FYI, I brought up a single example of a second situation that can pop up as well as the SD issue, and then mentioned some more powers. I'm not sure where you got "Teams with KB mean I never get SD off except on one or two guys." from. But it wasn't me.

My point is, it's not just one power, or one player. AoE KB can disrupt multiple peoples powers, multiple times in a single mission. Expecting the AoE KBer to anticipate every situation where that might happen is unrealistic. I am going to have times where Explosive Blast knocks guys out of an area before some AoE is executed, because I'm not psychic.

No. Again, I just want to use powers I love without getting complaints even though I know what I'm doing and am not endangering the group.

Also, I'd like to play a superhero game where Knockback is not so reviled, because it's a staple of the genre, and I love it, but I think that would take an overhaul to this game that the devs would not want to do.

I want to point out that you're basically implying that one guy's powers take precedence over two. This is why I dropped Energy Torrent. My fun doesn't take precedence over the rest of the team. I'm just one person, there will usually be 2-4 people on the team who have AoE effects that I'll disrupt enough to annoy them.

This is the third time I've seen it implied that the spawn will be annihilated in such a short time, and therefore KB isn't a problem. I don't get complaints about KB if spawns go down that fast.

Sorry, I disagree. I think the game is not designed to allow mob scatter to be beneficial. And I think it should have been designed so that it was (but it's too late now).

Interesting.

I'm not sure we actually disagree on how disruptive it can be, I think we disagree on whether the ragdoll mitigation makes up for it. But regardless, I'll agree to disagree if you want to end the discussion.

Yeah, I reread that and I think I misunderstood you. I guess I think the difference is that people have someone other than themselves to blame if it's caused by knockback.

Understood. The prevelance of PBAoE powers does not preclude my belief that KB does not interfere with them as much as people fear. Disruption of other peoples powers happens all the time, and KB is not the most common cause, IME. Defeat is the most likely culprit. I bet I have ruined more Fulcrum Shifts and Soul Drains and Footstomps on my Fire/Fire/Flame blaster than the 30 most prolific Energy blasters combined (due to KB, they will have a fair amount of defeats themselves). AoE Immobs are likely more egregious at disrupting other peoples powers than KB. Two tankers (or a tanker and controller) trying to manage aggro are often at odds.

I propose that KBing people out of other peoples AoEs happens less often than people complain and even when it does happen, is almost never problematic, merely ego busting. When you use Breath + Ball, then the tanker Footstomps, his Footstomp doesn't hit much, but you rarely hear complaints. When you use Torrent + EB, then the tanker Footstomps, its a disaster and you have ruined his fun! I take exception to that attitude and I do not believe the solution is to avoid KB so as not to hurt feelings. 19 times out of 20 the Footstomp hits a bunch of people, 1 time out of 20 those people are on their backs 20 feet away and near dead. In a few seconds Energy Torrent will be back and can finish off most of them (in the meantime, the tanker can wasd over to the area and punch stuff while the blaster single targets stuff, all of which assumes no on else on the team is AoEing the baddies while they are down or before they were sent flying (as corpses in that case, most likely)).

People complain. Its what they do. I have indeed had countless complaints that someone can't get FS off because the spawns are dead too fast. Obviously, if the spawns are dying that fast, FS is not needed, but people, rightfully, want to use their powers. It is up to them to find the way, although I will try to encourage them sometimes or guide them to find the way.

There is no implication that one guys powers take precedence every spawn over others on my part, only your argument supposes that someone must be subjugated. No one has the right to complain because occasionally they lose out, but someone else (on the same team with the same goals usually) gains.

You have chosen to totally sacrifice so that others can enjoy. That is, IMO, aberrant behavior, just as egregious as if you asked others to totally sacrifice so that you could enjoy. Just as you can share, others should be able to share with you. Some spawns, your KB will not be useful because your (and your teams) attacks will be killing them. Sometimes a wall will be there to use (or impede, depending on the goal). In some spawns, the KB will send the enemies flying before the rest of the team even gets a chance to engage. Sometimes Torrent will hit just before Fire Sword Circle acquires its targets. Othertimes, it hits just after, the baddies go flying and then burn to death as they land.

The amount of times the timing is bad is minor, but painful, like missing 5 times in a row can be. Skill can minimize those times even further, and, again, I am not just talking about skill on the part of the person using KB powers.

Then why do you get complaints? I can barely understand if we are talking defender level damage, it gets a bit tough to defend rampant KB for little effect (lower or just plain low/no damage KB does require more judicious application on the part of the user, IMO). Blaster level ET and EB are never unwanted, IMO.

Most KB does not scatter much. Occasionally, scatter can be beneficial. It is up to the team to make those statements true, not the KB user alone (although the KB user can often compensate on his own for a teams lack of ability or a situational impediment by taking an extra second of movement).

That I'm not entirely sure of, since I think it's disruptive about 1% of the time, and how disruptive it actually is heavily depends on what's at stake - Soul Drain isn't nearly as important as Dark Regen, after all.

Well, speaking in strictly terms of "getting to use my powers," a Blaster nuking the group (with Thunderous Blast, let's say, since that has the biggest "out of nowhere" effect) would disrupt Dark Regen. And while it's unlikely to be lethal most of the time, if he didn't actually kill everything, and you still had all the aggro...

Really, my point is that there are still edge cases out there where things done by other players, outside of knockback, can get you killed due to interfering with DR.

I haven't chosen to totally sacrifice. Bone Smasher is a great power.