New efforts!

[Luna Eclypse]

This is my sporadic check-in on this thread to see if any progress has been made and I can see... nope! We're still being left in the dark. I hadn't really thought longingly of CoX for a very long time until a few days ago when I was so bored that I downloaded DCUO just to having something online to fiddle with involving superheroes. Between that and that short stint I had on CO several years ago, I'm once again revisiting thoughts of being so dumbfounded over how no other game got the dang formula right after CoX.

But I also set up the Paragon Chat thing last night and logged in to see what's what. Even in a lifeless iteration of the game world, I still started to remember the motions I used to go through when logging in. Kind of a bittersweet feeling. In the final days of the real game, I was so very burned out on it regardless of the shutdown. I had reached that point of just logging in out of habit and investment obligation, not because I genuinely wanted to play. Now having it gone for this long, I miss it truly.

[Sinistar]

What's funny is today at work I got a service call from someone with the last name of Reichsman.

Talk about jolting the old CoH memories.

After the call I went on break, sat in my car and spoke aloud the old costume-transform phrase I had setup for my favorite CoH character from one of my accounts. 

[Tubbius]

Reichsman?

Hmmm.

At least it wasn't someone named Cole wanting to become an emperor.

[Twisted Toon]

What's funny is today at work I got a service call from someone with the last name of Reichsman.

Talk about jolting the old CoH memories.

After the call I went on break, sat in my car and spoke aloud the old costume-transform phrase I had setup for my favorite CoH character from one of my accounts.

Does that mean that we're on the wrong Earth?

[Sinistar]

Does that mean that we're on the wrong Earth?

Any Earth that doesn't have CoH is the wrong Earth ;)

[hejtmane]

I tried to get a set of buffs for Martial Arts for six years.  I was still working on two of them when the game shutdown.

I was begging for years about giving Dark Armor and Fire Armor for Tanks, Scrappers and Brutes at least a 4KB resistance. I mean it kind of sucked to be melee and have depend on a pool power (which got nerfed) or IO's to prevent KB for melee . I mean the excuse at one time was that they had damaging auras blah blah then Electric Armor came out and Bio Armor was coming out they had KB protection. Yea lets say that was kind of aggravating.

Yes I got 2 DA to 50 on scrapper prior to IO's DM/DA and Spines/DA  oh and I started the DM/DA in I2 then benched him (non stacking armor omg did that suck)

[LateNights]

Does that mean that we're on the wrong Earth?

Possibly the Praetorian version of that Earth?

Because clock maker Nemesis...

[JoshexProxy]

What is a medicine banana?

Smokers are jeeeeeerrks! (When they're smoking - I'm (sort of) sure they're perfectly nice otherwise)

lol "medicine, bananas" as part of a list. forgot the comma.

not that I hate smokers, they are victims of the addictive agents in the cigarettes. it just hurts me lol, even while in Edinburgh, 1 accidental breath when turning a corner or not seeing the smoker could leave me coughing up green stuff for 3 weeks and having a swollen throat. Then there was the swollen eyelid I got there because cigarette ash got in my eye.  some of their smoke stops.. er I mean bus stops look like war zones, all those bullet shells, er I mean cigarette butts.

it's worse here in china though, china may as well have no ability to enforce public law the majority of the time. people smoke right next to no smoking signs right next to cops, in elevators, in the windowless stairwells of buildings, in the bathrooms, on trains, while waiting for elevators, on escalators, inside mall hallways, inside restaurants.

the only time I've seen them do anything was once on a train. they pulled the guy off at the next stop who was shouting about how he had to get to somewhere but was going to smoke because he needed it and they couldn't stop him. but they stopped him.

in hongkong it's no where near as bad, it's relatively under control.

in the mainland it's like no one has ever been taught about public etiquette, that and even though there are videos attempting to teach public etiquette (like the one showing what not to do on the subway, or the one on the bus) you can see people doing what they shouldn't be doing anyways and no one stops them. I should write up a post on what is normal in china, you'd be surprised. I should take a picture of the 6 to 9 signs they have in the subway; no this, no that, no smoking, some of it is pretty funny to us because we'd think it'd be obvious, but not so.

All I have to say is, at least it's not Venice. roughest 3 days I spent anywhere, I mean they easily have the most narrow walkways in the world, now imagine the casual walk'n stoker (walking smoker) there. that and the rialto market wasn't even open because of a holiday so I had to buy frozen seafood to go with my pasta. But other than that it was fun. hailing from newyork though I must say, their Italian food isn't very fresh at the restaurants unless you go to like the grand canal and pay through the nose. the ice cream is good though.

checks wall o text... ok I rambled.. a lot. *removes stuff..*

[Arcana]

I was begging for years about giving Dark Armor and Fire Armor for Tanks, Scrappers and Brutes at least a 4KB resistance. I mean it kind of sucked to be melee and have depend on a pool power (which got nerfed) or IO's to prevent KB for melee . I mean the excuse at one time was that they had damaging auras blah blah then Electric Armor came out and Bio Armor was coming out they had KB protection. Yea lets say that was kind of aggravating.

Yes I got 2 DA to 50 on scrapper prior to IO's DM/DA and Spines/DA  oh and I started the DM/DA in I2 then benched him (non stacking armor omg did that suck)

KB is ... complicated.  Complicated in every possible way anything in a game can be complicated.  The code to implement it is complicated.  The mechanics are among the most complicated.  Explaining KB is complicated.  The way KB was distributed into the powersets is complicated.  The design rules for KB are complicated.  The balance concepts for KB are complicated.  The arguments for and against protection are complicated.  I'd be willing to bet no two developers associated with powers or critters data would actually agree on the purpose and proper balance of KB.  Players tend to think everything is simpler than it actually is, but any conversation that starts with "why can't we" and has the word knockback anywhere in it doesn't even have a well-defined terminus.  It can take thousands of words of discussion before it becomes obvious that no one participating in the conversation is even talking about the same thing.

Having said all of that, I think if CoH was still running today, DA would have KB protection in it.  Not a lot, and probably with some caveats, but it would be there.

If I was designing the powers system for CoH today, all scrappers would get some base amount of KB magnitude protection but no KB resistance.  Tanks would get little or no mag protection but huge KB resistance.  Its complicated, but the net result is that scrappers would be protected from KB up to a certain mag, and then get knocked.  Tanks would also get protected from KB up to a certain mag, then above that they would only get knocked down, and only above an even higher threshold would they get knocked.  Above those base levels different powersets might offer enhanced protection (I'd put some additional protection in unyielding, for example, to realize some of its original design intent).

Its a little tricky to see what dividing up mag and res for KB does, but it allows for some interesting protection effects.  Scrappers could get the "protection to a point then break" protection while tankers could get the "protection to a point then bend but don't break and then finally break" stronger version.  This also addresses the issue of players complaining that KB prevents tankers from doing their aggro control job by displacing them.  I don't buy that argument 100% (you could argue that damage prevents blasters from doing their job by killing them), but I buy it enough to consider giving tankers as an archetype a less binary form of KB protection that makes them less vulnerable to being thrown appreciable distance.

[JoshexProxy]

KB is ... complicated.  Complicated in every possible way anything in a game can be complicated.  The code to implement it is complicated.  The mechanics are among the most complicated.  Explaining KB is complicated.  The way KB was distributed into the powersets is complicated.  The design rules for KB are complicated.  The balance concepts for KB are complicated.  The arguments for and against protection are complicated.  I'd be willing to bet no two developers associated with powers or critters data would actually agree on the purpose and proper balance of KB.  Players tend to think everything is simpler than it actually is, but any conversation that starts with "why can't we" and has the word knockback anywhere in it doesn't even have a well-defined terminus.  It can take thousands of words of discussion before it becomes obvious that no one participating in the conversation is even talking about the same thing.

Having said all of that, I think if CoH was still running today, DA would have KB protection in it.  Not a lot, and probably with some caveats, but it would be there.

If I was designing the powers system for CoH today, all scrappers would get some base amount of KB magnitude protection but no KB resistance.  Tanks would get little or no mag protection but huge KB resistance.  Its complicated, but the net result is that scrappers would be protected from KB up to a certain mag, and then get knocked.  Tanks would also get protected from KB up to a certain mag, then above that they would only get knocked down, and only above an even higher threshold would they get knocked.  Above those base levels different powersets might offer enhanced protection (I'd put some additional protection in unyielding, for example, to realize some of its original design intent).

Its a little tricky to see what dividing up mag and res for KB does, but it allows for some interesting protection effects.  Scrappers could get the "protection to a point then break" protection while tankers could get the "protection to a point then bend but don't break and then finally break" stronger version.  This also addresses the issue of players complaining that KB prevents tankers from doing their aggro control job by displacing them.  I don't buy that argument 100% (you could argue that damage prevents blasters from doing their job by killing them), but I buy it enough to consider giving tankers as an archetype a less binary form of KB protection that makes them less vulnerable to being thrown appreciable distance.

Kb was never complicated to me, mostly because I saw it operating in it's own class.

KB is not a simple numeric change, KB is not a simple effect that can be broken with a breakfree. It in effect is a hold that once it gets through you can't undo it you just have to wait till the animations stop and your character gets back up to perform any actions.

it's a completely different system, and the quicker players realized that the quicker they learned how to use it to their advantage. it's a great tool for dealing with enemy hordes that you normally can't statistically tank (KU is the best because it yields the most attack prohibition time). a few carefully timed Knock Ups are all it takes to turn the tables of a fight that you normally couldn't withstand.

KB arguments: knock back on it's own is what is complained about, and the clear reasons for this exist in tanker weaknesses and some other instances.

Weakness to ranged: the most common is the weakness to range, sometimes coupled with a weakness to stun effects which can be fatal. these tanks normally have to prepare themselves to enter such enemy groups having ranged attacks with stuns because there will be an initial time when the group is in ranged AI mode before quieting down to melee AI mode. the tanker may be counting on this switch during a certain time period in order to stay standing, so when a player comes and blows all the enemies off the tank, they will go into ranged AI mode and the tank will have only a second or so to prepare for it, which may not be enough.

Counting on kills: a lot of tanks are counting on doing so many kills in a certain amount of time to reduce the overall damage being dealt to them so they can remain standing. again, blowing the enemies off with an attack causes this pattern to be broken when the tanker does not expect it causing them to miss dealing damage and subsequently take more damage than normal.

Auto Follow: because enemies like to move around and proximity means everything to a tank. it means the difference between your target taking damage and receiving the message "target is out of range" then having to rapid tab select to find a closer enemy or try to hop over closer enemies to get in your kill on a target you had almost defeated. KB in this instance is bad for everyone. well Gee whi? because you will most likely blow the tank's current target back and the tank will follow. the pack will be broken now so now the tank is only dealing damage to a few enemies instead of the entire pack (more often than not it happens just as a powerful AoE attack is being cast instead of hitting 15 enemies, it now hits 1 out of 3 and then there's a 15 minute recharge before it can be used again), if they were counting on kills they are going to have an upset to their expectations and it could be fatal. not to mention, if the tank runs away from the majority of the mob, they wont auto-follow, in-fact many will unaggro from the tank (depending on AI settings) and go after whoever is left.

Time constraints: whether it's a masters run or weather the tank has things to do that day and only has so long to play and so much they want to accomplish, they may be kill counting for speed rather than survival. KB here is most likely to cause player aggravation, especially if they are doing auto follow to close gaps. for the reasons above, the tank now needs to recover from chasing an enemy and re-herd the group for maximum damage output on all targets.

these are just a few instances I can note where KB is complained about by tankers.

[Arcana]

Kb was never complicated to me, mostly because I saw it operating in it's own class.

KB is not a simple numeric change, KB is not a simple effect that can be broken with a breakfree. It in effect is a hold that once it gets through you can't undo it you just have to wait till the animations stop and your character gets back up to perform any actions.

KB is a non-boolean boolean non-mez mez-like effect with a single tick stacking window and no duration but presumptive rooted animations linked to the physics engine.  If it wasn't complicated to you its probably because you didn't know how it worked. 

I actually had a blind-spot for how complicated KB was because I had no idea for a very long time that most people were unaware of the hover exemption and of the people who were aware of it virtually none of them knew why it worked.  Almost all of them believed hover somehow had invisible KB protection, which it did not have.  What it had was a bug, and that bug was nowhere in the power's intrinsic design.  It wasn't until the bug was fixed and players started to complain that I realized no one even knew the behavior was actually a bug.  It was a rare moment when I was totally disconnected from what the playerbase was generally aware of.

[JoshexProxy]

KB is a non-boolean boolean non-mez mez-like effect with a single tick stacking window and no duration but presumptive rooted animations linked to the physics engine.  If it wasn't complicated to you its probably because you didn't know how it worked. 

I actually had a blind-spot for how complicated KB was because I had no idea for a very long time that most people were unaware of the hover exemption and of the people who were aware of it virtually none of them knew why it worked.  Almost all of them believed hover somehow had invisible KB protection, which it did not have.  What it had was a bug, and that bug was nowhere in the power's intrinsic design.  It wasn't until the bug was fixed and players started to complain that I realized no one even knew the behavior was actually a bug.  It was a rare moment when I was totally disconnected from what the playerbase was generally aware of.

I was merely saying it functions as a hold because the target can't do anything till it recovers. I'm aware it was a physics engine motion.

[LateNights]

KB is a non-boolean boolean non-mez mez-like effect with a single tick stacking window and no duration but presumptive rooted animations linked to the physics engine.

By the time I wake up tomorrow I'm pretty sure I'll have gone through the sevens stages of grief from having read this...

O_o

[Vee]

There are seven now? Don't tell me we're going to have to update the mnemonic.

[LateNights]

There are seven now? Don't tell me we're going to have to update the mnemonic.

From what I can tell, five stages was the initial model put forward and that was then expanded to the working seven I see most commonly used...

Mostly I dunno, so maybe?

[ivanhedgehog]

2 men walk into a bar, one mans says "I think ill have some h2o". the second man says "I think ill have some H2O too". the second man died

[Vee]

ugh, the seven switches the order too. i'm going to stick with 5 since Drink Alcohol Before Doing Anal is a lot more elegant than whatever we might come up with for the 7.

[Felderburg]

ugh, the seven switches the order too. i'm going to stick with 5 since Drink Alcohol Before Doing Anal is a lot more elegant than whatever we might come up with for the 7.

The order is not necessarily important:

Before actually describing these stages, I would like to emphasize that we are not talking here about a fixed sequence of events, such as, for instance, the several stages of launching a rocket into space. You would be misunderstanding this page if you saw in it a roadmap in which Point A is always followed by Point B, and so on.

Via: http://activepause.com/stress/grief-stages.htm


Edit: Still Drink Alcohol Before Going (and) Doing Anything still works, right?.

[Vee]

ah, so in the grand tradition we have something researched and formalized to attempt to explain something in a structural way adjusted and re-researched to the point where it no longer does any of that, yet because of the familiarity of the original model continues to be brought up with adjustments and an attendant text wall of caveats despite its now being more obfuscatory than explanatory. Academia!  :D

[Arcana]

I was merely saying it functions as a hold because the target can't do anything till it recovers. I'm aware it was a physics engine motion.

The KB effect itself doesn't function as a hold.  KB doesn't actually prevent you from acting.  Its actually something totally different that prevents you from acting, and its something hover didn't have.  That's why hover granted something that looked like KB immunity, when it actually granted freedom to act while being knocked.  None of this has anything to do with the physics engine, which handled a completely different aspect of the side effects of knock.

And yes, I'm being deliberately vague because even now I'm wondering if anyone (besides Codewalker of course) knows what this was.  It was really obscure unless you were into the technical minutia of the game mechanics.