A possible solution to knockback complaints

Don't know if this has been suggested before. I tried a search, but I wasn't sure what exactly to search for. Anyway...

Problem: Knockback causes annoyance for people in teams who don't want to chase after mobs who've just been kicked across the room.
Complication: some people (like me) really enjoy having knockback powers and don't want them to be changed to fix the above.

Solution:

A new inherent power: call it Pull Punches/Low Impact/Soften Blows/something like that
Available to all characters levels 2+
Toggle
Endurance Cost: 0
Recharge: a few seconds, in case it's abuseable somehow

Effect:
-90% debuff to all knockback effects on self

This effect should reduce the KB magnitude of almost all powers used by the character to less than 0.75, which, if I understand the mechanics correctly, is the threshold between knockdown and knockback. In other words, it should turn all knockback powers into knockdown powers as long as the toggle is active.

So, if you're in a team and your teammates want you to stop hurling people out of their reach, switch the toggle on and there's no more problem.

Thoughts?

It's been a slow year for the "how to fix knockback by killing its effects" posts, so this counts for this month's quota.

Congratulations!

Not in favor of this because I feel KB is taken into account for the powers. Changing them to KB/U would be unbalancing.

Overall IMO, KB/U can lock mobs down while you just stand in the same spot safely beating them down. With KB, the mob moves and you have to move if you want to use melee attacks. This will take them out of range for AOEs or you out of range of various powers. I have a few toons with KB and using this toggle would let me KD a mob over and over in safety.

This would also not teach players how to use KB correctly. They would just turn on the toggle and forget about it.

And I use my KB powers for support. I don't want to be told to "turn on your toggle". And what would this do to my powers specifically slotted for KB?

Well, as stated, I like knockback, so I'm happy enough without this sort of change. I just thought the option to temporarily turn off knockback was a better compromise than all the suggestions to take it away permanently. :P

Scatch this didn't see the last bit of his post :P but yes. Just give the control to the leader. Makes all the fighting go bye bye. If you don't want to be on that team then there will probably be one with knockback enabled

Do troller Immo effect have a -Kb or something. Because sometimes it seems to stop it

I know where you're coming from with this, but I'm not sure we want to do down that road.

Knockback is intrinsic to the superhero genre, as well as the action movie genre. When heroes get socked by villains they go flying across the room. When Steven Seagal blows people away with a sawed-off shotgun or a .45 they go airborne. Getting rid of knockback just seems wrong.

And not all melee characters shun knockback. Some of the worst offenders in my experience are Martial Artists: they have to suffer their own knockback, and somehow live with it.

Your suggestion is a lot like the Swap Ammo power in Dual Pistols: with a toggle, you can change your secondary effect from knockback to Cold/Fire/Toxic. So this option is already here for one power set.

In tabletop RPGs (where most of the mechanics from online RPGs come from), pulling your punch doesn't reduce knockback, it reduces damage, or converts it from lethal to a chance of knockout or stun, or converts it from lethal to "endurance" damage. So I'm not sure you'd want to call this toggle "pulling your punch."

Logically, this toggle would be like the opposite of Power Boost or Power Build Up (or doing Benumb on yourself). Logically, it would reduce all your secondary effects (and damage, potentially), and not be restricted to knockback. Is there any utility in reducing other secondary effects?

The game is full of inherent conflicts between different ATs, play styles and powers. Tankers complain about controllers using Immobilizes and holds that prevent them from herding. Brutes need to be attacked in order to build Fury, but dominators prevent that when they use their holds. Mastermind pets get in the way of everyone in tight corridors.

So I'm not sure why everyone singles out knockback as the big villain, when it all really boils down to players doing dumb things that impede other players.

I'm sure there's a scrapper out there who complained about a Fire blaster killing all the mobs before they can run across the room to kill them, and a WP tanker who complained that he died because the Inferno killed all the minions around him and the boss killed him for lack of regen. Should we nerf Fire blasters because they do too much damage?

It makes more sense to address a problem power set directly (say, Energy Blast). Change one or two of the blasts to do knockdown instead of knockback, or give it some other secondary effect. All the other power sets that have knockback also have other powers that don't have knockback. Giving the player an option to use a non-knockback blast would be useful (blasters can have a melee secondary without knockback, but defenders with Energy Blast don't have that option).

I always thought the solution to knockback complaints was "learn to play, n00b" for the complainer or the guy doing the knockback.

I have characters with knockback, and I regularly run with characters with knockback. The only time knockback is a "problem" is when we're kicking so much *** that the enemies didn't actually stand a threat already. Usually, the guys with KB are KBing to help with herding, and the melee guys have the mobility to handle a bit of KB.

And if the tanker goes in first and then everyone gets knocked back, they run right back to the tanker.

That being said, I think the best knockback "problem" solution is put in Ancillary Powers for Tanks, Scrappers, and Brutes that give adjacent foes enough knockback resistance to reduce all KB to KD. Let them take it if they're that worried about KB.

I'm never going to get behind this idea for one simple fact - certain tools NEED to be a possible liability in order for them to work as they should. If we try to make every possible effect and action safe, then we're going to have a control panel to make a superjumbo turn green with envy. Powers are tools, and some tools are inherently dangerous. After a certain point, you have to stop adding safety features that more and more hamper work and just train the person not to try to hug the saw disk while it's spinning.

Knockback is just one such effect. In capable hands, it's a useful tool, and in incapable hands it's a chainsaw on legs in a room full of little kids. The solution is to really just encourage people to learn how to use it effectively, rather than just looking to "save them from themselves" by giving them an "off" toggle.

My reason for not wanting this is simple - it's not just knockback. For instance, immobilizing a large group of enemies will make them immune to things like Earth Quake and Ice Slick, thereby screwing over certain controllers, not to mention taking away the ability to use knockback as mitigation. Large-scale, high damaging AoEs have the tendency to pull enemies onto trigger-happy Blasters, this making a Tanker's job all the more difficult. Immobilization and holds can really screw up pulls and herds. And even just having one player go down the wrong hallway, aggro something nasty, panic and run back to his team can he incredibly dangerous.

Basically, a LOT of the powers we have at our disposal can be potentially disruptive and dangerous. We can't "fix" them all, no matter what we do. Sooner or later, we're going to have to just trust people to learn when and how to use their powers.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.