Musing about Knockback (Or: If You Could Change One Thing)

Hey hey. Those of you who troll the Suggestion boards might recognize me from my usual deluge of threads about how to (hopefully reasonably) fix whatever irks me this week. This however is slightly different.

See, this is unrealistic to change. Hell, it'd be unrealistic to even put in in the first place. But a guy can dream...

See, I'd like to, back then, change how Knockback works in this game. Make it less binary.

Like what? Well, for example, change the ways knockback resistances work. Separate them. Nimble-type characters like Super Reflexes or those with Acrobatics would get knocked back, but in all but the strongest cases, would get to their feet much faster -- landing on their feet, so to speak. Tough-type characters like Invuln would still be not very much pushed, but strong enough knockback could 'stagger' them briefly (force into a short recoil animation), or even push them across the ground -- again, shorter in duration than the knockback we're used to.

So. If reality and causality weren't inhibiting you, what's one change you would have made?

Give players a choice between knock down and knock back.

I like your first suggestion about how nimble characters should land on their feet. It would be like, awesome if my characters with SR didn't fall to the ground.

I would love to change the environment to be more destructable/changable. Blowing holes in walls if you miss or KBing mobs through walls even better (yeah, I know there is "nothing" on the other side). See those Crey lab doors, don't open them, rip them off!

Or other things like using fire powers that actually burn the environment inside a mission. Outside could heal or be fixed over time by some mobs like the cleaners in Praet.

That would be my wish.

Hmmm...

I would settle for cosmetic enviromental effects...

A big fire power putting fire on things around the point of effect. Let it burn a while.
We could expand it for a few elements... Fire, Ice, electric, even dark could play some part...
Not every power needs to do that... only large AoE effects...

Divorce knockback and knockdown, ie treat KD as downwards KU/KB. What does this do ?

It means when you raise a huge mallet and pound it down on a mob's head, it will only knock them down, never back.

You can give a power mag lots knockdown. Currently, if a power has knockdown, any KB prot will void it. If you are able to give the power mag 7.5 KD, something with mag 4 KB prot will still get knocked down. Currently, if you want something with mag 7.5 knockback, you'd be doing knockback up to mag 6 protection and knockdown to mag 7 protection only.

Here's an example of it starting at 1:50.

If I could change only one thing about the game, I would make it so controllers didn't get defender primaries for their secondaries. I'm thinking elemental melee attacks sets would have been fun as hell.

edit: yeah, kinda like Doms.

One of my greatest memories in this game was when I was in a team in Sharkhead and we were doing the Barracuda and Metal Shift mission. In the very first mission spawn with Barracuda there were 2 Freakshow Tanks. We started the fight and I was getting low on health so I go around the corner into the little hallway at the entrance and started to rest. Next thing I see after my character kneels and one of the stalkers is knocked straight into the wall and dies. It looked like it was straight from the comic books since I couldn't see any of the enemies and only saw him flying and it looked like the violent crash into the wall did him in.

Some of my characters

One thing I think they did backwards was give KB resistance to Defense-based sets like Super Reflexes, but not Resistance-based sets like Fire and Dark Armor. It should actually be the other way around. Resist-based sets should have better status resistance because they get hit a lot more than a Defense-based set.

Defender versions of powers would have higher knockback chance, not bigger knockback mag.

Knockback would be stackable. If you hit something and it doesn't fall, the kb effect would stay on them anyway for the duration of the kb animation. Casting the same power over and over would not count; you would be rewarded for having multiple powers that kb. The effect remains even if the enemy is eventually flung, allowing you to eventually corner an protected enemy with kb the way you can a boss by stacking holds.

Force Bolt and Power Push would grant -KB Resistance for 5 seconds. Hitting something several times in succession would fling it further each time (in that situation it somehow stayed in range for the first few shots) or help you overcome an enemy with large resistance.

Force Bolt (and Sonic Siphon, and Wormhole) would have -Intangible, allowing you to force enemies out of Intangibility, whether it was you who put them there or they who tried to hide. This would require streamlining of Intang and Untouchable and so on into one firm and established category. Powers that would be affected are the enemy version of Personal Force Field, Carnie Illusionist Phasing, Dimension Shift, Black Hole, Sonic Cage, Detention Field, Phase Shift.

Knockback or Repel used on an illusionary creature would have a chance to reveal it for what it is and dismiss it. This advantage would only apply to player character versions of powers.

Suffering a kb while a power is animating prevents you from using that power again for the a duration equal to one half the kb mag you suffered, even if it is recharged.

1. With regard to knockback. I'd make it so that slotting knockback enhancers increased the length of time an enemy stayed down. Make knockback a much better soft control effect. This is especially in relation to energy blast. Either that or make the effect much more likely to occur so you can plan for it in combat and use it to move an enemy out of the way while you deal with others.

2. Someone mentioned doors. I'd to see us starting missions by blasting our way in, instead of going through an always open front door. It's one of the lamest things about doing a door mission. No one locks the doors to their ultra secret hideouts?

What always got me was the Lift power being so LAME. I want to fling my opponent into the air, hold him there for a second, and utterly destroy him with the ground. I'd also like the option of instead of slamming him into the ground, shooting him far off into the distance, perhaps off of a ledge (giving me full credit for the fall damage) or into a pole (ditto).

I'd also like the option (particularly for SS characters) to lift a dead enemy and throw it into another enemy/a group of enemies. And while we're at it, have Hurl be a two-part attack, one that readies the boulder and one that throws it. That way you can prep a boulder for an opportune throw. Which in turn knocks the enemy back into a wall and crushes him!

Pipe dreams.

I'd like to be thrown back into a wall, crash through it or at least put a dent in it, and feel like I got clobbered. I'd also love to do worse to the bad guys.

In terms of powersets, I would love a Telekinetic set, maybe having it be control. I'm adding that here, since Psychic Blast and Mind Control already have some of the TK type powers in there, so I'll never see a straight Telekinetic powerset. Makes me a sad panda. I would also love a Magnetic Control (no, not Gravity. Leave me alone.)

I think it would also be nice if we could add an effect to our travel powers, like leaving a trail of flame behind us with superspeed or a dark portal for Recall Friend and the like. Would be kickass...

P.S. I've ALWAYS wanted the Teleport power pool be able to open a portal to another zone or to the mission for his team to use. Pipedreams...