[Gameplay Mechanic] Player-Side Knock Resist Retooling

bluhman · February 2020

Instead of players building up Knock Resist stacks to three, they build up Unsteadiness, or Knock Vulnerability (KV):

A character, before any knocks have come in, has an inherent resistance to knock. This is sourced from stats like STR, temporary buffs, blocking, etc.
Each time a knock is attempted against them, if their knock-resistance is high enough, they will always resist the knock. However, this adds Knock Vulnerability to the player, which reduces their KR.
KV will diminish over time, though it gets refreshed if the user receives and resists another knock (as well as stacking higher). If the target blocks, they will not receive any KV.
Perhaps when KV is beginning to get too high, knockback attacks can start repelling, but not knocking down - the player retains control of their character, but fighting back starts to get difficult.
As soon as a player is knocked down, they lose their stacks of KV, essentially resetting their Knock Resistance to full.
Certain enemy attacks (such as Cosmic charges) can have enough knock power to entirely overcome all knock resistance, which will immediately knock you down and erase KV stacks (not that in these cases they'd have much of an opportunity to build up anyways).

End result: Knock Resistance becomes a more visibly-useful stat to have. It'll give players more openings in large fights to counterattack without block-turtling, reduce playing around RNG risks, retain more control of their character in fights, and make the consequences of failing to resist a knock more clear.

Small suggestions for enemies:

Have a clearer distinction between what enemies should do large knockbacks, and smaller knockdowns. It seems currently that regardless of whether the attacker is a 18-ft tall four-armed monster or a guy with a shotgun, they still send you flying backwards about the same distance.
Enemies could possibly benefit from using this mechanic as well, and produce a new knock-based control meta centered around performing enough knock attempts on enemies to eventually interrupt them. It'd be slower, but much more reliable.

Huge Preface/explanation of logic behind suggestion:

I got a bigger thread on knock mechanics all-up, but this is worth calling out due to the repeated imbalances that just inherently exist with how knock resist stacks work, especially when comparing them between NPCs and Players:

Knocks that enemies resist will build a stack of knock resistance, while holds you resist, either through blocking or passively through chance, don't.

The extremely unintuitive delay on when knock and hold resistance kicks in for blocks.

Knock stacks are going to build faster for enemies by nature because players can use knocking abilities much more frequently.

Not all attacks enemies use that knock, generate knock resistance. Like VIPER power armor rockets (that are generated randomly and instantly)

ENEMIES TAKE WAY LESS FALL DAMAGE THAN PLAYERS.

That's just what I could quote from the original points I raised about KR imbalance. Let's add in also:

There's going to be much more damage incoming over the period of a fight for players than for enemies. That's just because of the number of targets that are hitting them at once, whereas for most mobs, that's going to be 5 targets at most. The exception to that is Cosmics, but isn't that why they resist Crowd Control and Knocks inherently, without stacks, in the first place anyways?
Enemies will inherently be able to survive a knock. Not everything takes fall damage for example, and again with the number of incoming damage sources, also the fact that not all damage dealt by players has the range to reach a target that's being knocked back (just to tie it back as to why knocks all-up need some adjustments). Inversely, all enemy mobs have a ranged attack. This makes them managing to knock you an unequivocal benefit to them, whereas for players it's a hindrance.
Inverse to a point quoted above, players almost never reach full knock resist stacks - because it's suicide to even attempt trying to leverage the mechanic. By the time you've been successfully knocked back 3 times against NPCs, you've probably taken more than enough damage to be killed, also compounded with the fact that that's also three different solitary lapses of time where you're also entirely incapable of: blocking, self-healing, attacking, moving... You get the picture?
Lastly are points about chance: concerning passive KR coming from stats like STR or effects like Reckless - this is always a chance-based resistance, and it's usually binary in terms of result. You either fully-resist a knock, or are sent careening away for a solid 3 seconds. Granted there's also sometimes a chance to instead be repelled, but that's secondary to the main issue this poses: that it's still risking an extended period of loss-of-control that you cannot escape. As a result, passive knock boosts are pointless, and frankly incredibly risky to try and leverage precisely due to the consequences tied to being knocked, so you're just best off BLOCKING. Always.
On the flipside is when player knocks (and holds) fail - when we leverage these abilities we're counting on them or using them to try and perform a strategic interruption of our target. Pair that also that the failed knock is still going to grant the target KR, so that's going to basically be both a failed knock, and then one less chance to attempt a knock within a 15-second window.

All in all, knock resist only protects enemies. Its existence on players is an afterthought.

Let's consider how mechanics like this work in different games:

Punch-Out and Stunning Mechanics: This is probably more concerning Super-Punch-Out more than the rest of the series, but most of your opponents have an invisible meter that basically builds up as you punch them more and more. If you manage to land enough hits in a short enough amount of time, they enter a vulnerable, dazed state where they can be taken down instantly.
Dark Souls and Poise: Concerning more the first two games rather than the third (where it only activates when actively charging or using an attack), poise is a stat that exists on basically everything, and also has an inherent threshold it defines for basically how much damage a target can take before being interrupted or stunned. There's some enemies even in DS3 that lean heavily into this mechanic, such as crystal dragons and giant crabs: they seem extremely sturdy and difficult at first, but wailing into them for long enough, and vigorously enough, will stun them and then allow you to perform a critical hit on them. If you know about this mechanic, you can reliably take advantage of it. And inversely, if you're playing a high-poise character, it's a mechanic, if you know about it, you can reliably utilize to land your attacks on fast-hitting enemies.

Seems like there's kind of a theme of reliability going on here. Isn't that kind of why CO did away with Accuracy as a stat versus CoX? Or why Oblivion did away with "attack" versus "flail at an enemy for 60 minutes with no stamina and miss everything" Morrowind? CO is halfway to being a proper action-based RPG, so why is something like knock mechanics still leveraging what's essentially a dice roll?

So this is what gets to the heart of the suggestion I'm making: knock mechanic becomes not a random-chance. It's not something that all characters are vulnerable to at all times. It's a mechanic that can be used strategically, by specific characters. They can decide which attacks to take or which ones to block, and this will grant players who use those mechanics tangible benefits and openings over those that do not. There's still an element of chance and unreliability - because often, with many enemy targets, that's going to be potentially a lot of opportunities to break through that limit in a short amount of time, and some enemies like cosmics might opt to ignore the mechanic altogether. With it in place, though, it's going to make the game feel much more balanced, and much more consistent.

bluhman · February 2020

Should also say, the glut of "challenge" in this game from large mobs is also balanced precisely around the current implementation of this mechanic, instead of enemies actually doing interesting things in battle. The higher level the mob, the more knocks and holds the faction freely throws around - consider, for example, how New Purple Gang (5-15) fights compared to Manimals or Kakaradons (30-40) and how often the latter uses nets, knock-to harpoons, and DoT versus the former. When it comes to actually fighting back though both mobs still basically boil down to "block their attacks, then attack them until dead". No priority of which targets to take out first or focus, because half of the fight is just spent in locked-down defense mode - the only changing factor between mobs is how long that phase is.

This'd be impetus to also rebalance more of the factions around performing actually interesting battle mechanics. It'd make many of the current mobs more compelling to fight straight-up, as now their knock mechanics are inherently controllable and predictable about when and how they will stack up on your character, potentially providing more windows between a series of charged knocks (that you normally would be forced to block because it'd be the only way you would be able to guarantee you'd have a chance to get any attacks in edgewise) to instead take more calculated risks with the player's own interrupting mechanics.

spinnytop · February 2020

This sounds neat, and makes sense. It wouldn't change much in regard to skillful play: skillful players would still rarely get knocked, while careless players would continue to get bounced all over the place. It would however soften things just slightly for the careless players. The risk is that it would actually reinforce their carelessness since it wouldn't teach them as quickly that certain attacks will send them flying, but I think that's fine.

I'm also curious to hear your thoughts on what the 'interesting things' that NPCs could do are.

bluhman · February 2020

spinnytop wrote: »

I'm also curious to hear your thoughts on what the 'interesting things' that NPCs could do are.

Henchmen that provide buffs. I don't mean heals, I mean specific buffs that, unless they're taken out (or even knocked for that matter), the fights they're part of become much more difficult to win. That can make a mob faction feel powerful and challenging, perhaps unbeatable, but discover their secret, low-HP henchman weakpoint and now the battle turns in your favor.
Debuffs that can be blocked. This goes against the logic of how most of the rest of the game works in the case of knock/hold, and then you get to a brickbuster who can use their single-target charge to destroy your defenses through your defenses. This is kind of an interesting mechanic otherwise, but it shouldn't be on a target that's already difficult to kill or interrupt (see the first point).
Working in balance with the second point: More mobs that can punish excessive blocking, but it needs to be made clearer when this is the case. The brickbuster cannon pattern could work, if there was anything that intuitively separated how it looks or feels compared to any other charged-attack. It'd also potentially work better for them if they were reliably interruptable, but the 3-stack knock/hold resist buildup currently makes that iffy. The PSI Agent PBAoE is another good example, perhaps even better, because while it's not blockable, it does have limited range and roots the user, meaning the best way to work around that is to just move.
Abilities used by enemies that have chiefly-key effects on the battle should go on cooldown if you interrupt/knock/hold them while they're charging. I hate it when I finally manage to stop a key charge-attack after three consecutive Inexorable Tides attempts, only for them immediately after to just charge the same thing up again and apply it to me anyways.
Blocking mobs that actually can have an effect with that action. Less VIPER power armors, more Baron Cimetieres, but there's probably more nuanced ways that mechanic can be applied than just "you hit me, I kill you automatically". Radial heals? Damage debuff? Repel? Who knows.
Charged, interruptable buffs that actually make a difference. That VIPER megaphone would be more threatening if it actually noticeably did anything other than make people turn green.
Probably the most generalized way to put it, things that encourage players to do offense-oriented reactive actions on mobs rather than the current structure, which strongly emphasizes defensive reactions - mainly just blocking.

Key is to also balance this against proportions of how much the mobs can deny your ability to react. This is the chief issue with things like Elder Worms, because some of their more nuanced mechanics of debuff and heals aren't exactly things you can play around or against, in the face of them still having access to a steady stream of knocks on top of that. In fact, it's even worse there because now there's possibly enemy summons or heals you might notice are happening, but you can't react to them because of the risk that exists of losing control to a knock or hold and then dying. That's still an issue on teams fighting against worms even, because most of those knocks are also massive cone AoEs!

Lastly, I think even more important than that is trying to figure out how to exactly set a baseline for how long all mobs should just be able to last against players. Non-tough things right now are basically guaranteed to get vaporized by even the weakest AoEs so unless both the DPS and Survivability of mobs gets equalized against whatever the standard is for player characters, having mob composures that have more variety in their attacks than just knock/hold would be pointless. It's probably so commonplace right now because, for the devs, it's currently the only way to guarantee their mobs last longer than a second in a fight. There's some interesting game mechanics squirreled away in many mob varieties too, but many are just so undertuned that they don't make a difference even when the foe successfully leverages them and otherwise just doesn't get a chance to use it. That's why so many mob types are just so unmemorable really.

spinnytop · February 2020

Over half your list is stuff that happens in the QWZ... Especially the statement "things that encourage players to do offense-oriented reactive actions on mobs rather than the current structure, which strongly emphasizes defensive reactions - mainly just blocking." is basically the foundation that all my QWZ-soloing builds are based on, stopping the enemies offense with attacks, rather than just blocking.

Those are also all very realistic suggestions since they don't require the implementation of any new systems or big coding work. So basically, QWZ-style but lean into it harder and give them more stuff that they do to encourage a broader range of reactions from the player and more versatile builds. I mean, I'm sure a lot of people here would hate that, but I'd sure love it!

bluhman · February 2020

Over half your list is stuff that happens in the QWZ... looks like you agree that that kind of content is the direction they should go harder in! Especially the statement "things that encourage players to do offense-oriented reactive actions on mobs rather than the current structure, which strongly emphasizes defensive reactions - mainly just blocking." is basically the foundation that all my QWZ-soloing builds are based on, stopping the enemies offense with attacks, rather than just blocking.

You've said this before. I don't believe it's right at all.
What mob in QWZ provides a buff instead of healing? Not the Elder Worm Initiates, that's a heal. The Destroid Leader Drones technically count with their powerful attack buff, but because they barely fight back and self-destruct halfway through you killing them anyways, most people actually don't even notice this effect. It also isn't unique to QWZ.
You can't block Elder Worm defense debuffs when they use powers that apply them.
The Elder Worms liberally use powers that apply those debuffs as well so there's too many sources that apply it to really be reliably counteracted (pair that also with a glut of their knockbacks. To put it extremely plainly, it isn't fair.)
To my knowledge no mob deliberately has abilities that go on cooldown if you perform a key knock/stun, unless you're doing it on the exact frame (through internet latency) that the attack would go off. Not in QWZ, let alone the entire game.
Nothing in QWZ blocks.
The only buffs involved in QWZ I can think of are all auras or passives.
And really the ideology of builds that can leverage offensive action to take control of a battle - that's not exactly something that would be unique to just fighting things in QWZ, you can do that with basically any other mob in any other part of the game and it still works. There's a threshold to how well a build or powerset can perform in this category, and it's not always something that's balanced with the other aspects of power sets - that's why Unarmed is so potent, because it has access to full-radial knocks/stuns that stop enemies and don't displace them 50 feet away like havoc stomp does, or has some cooldown like thunderclap or TK maelstrom. Then there's 90% of the other sets where CC is a single-target-charged afterthought. To even hope of fighting QWZ enemies, you have to basically exploit the knock or hold mechanics of specific sets or otherwise figure out some other way of dealing damage through blocks from sigils/shields because otherwise you're going to just get blown away. Then it's just letting reactive effects or temporary summons play the game for you, and I guess that's some people's idea of fun. That's the exact threshold of expectations that QWZ mob mechanics sets, and that's, in my humble opinion that I hope you can understand, is way too high.

Literally the only thing I can think of that actually is kind of interesting as a mechanic in QWZ is the energy-drain destroids, but that's a mechanic reused from Empyrian golems and in practice it doesn't work that well since for some reason it flags your block itself to toggle off half the time, so you end up doing the right thing but thanks to jankiness of the engine you just end up going on to your EB while your entire energy bar is drained and you're murdered.

All of what the QWZ mobs do could be better if, again, there was some way to reliably resist their ability to prevent you from doing any actions for a solid second or more with one knock, because that's then just a lose-lose situation, where you either gamble getting knocked and killed by excessive incoming damage, or resist the knock but then let the enemy mob that's performing a debuff on you or a buff on their allies or whatever pull the move off and now the fight's just harder anyways.

Maybe the change to KR posed here might make those situations feel a bit fairer, where Knock-Vulnerability stacking can be leveraged for exactly those moments when you absolutely need to stop some mob from doing something, and otherwise most block-patterns are just as normal. But I want to set down the line that I do not believe the QWZ mobs are well-balanced in any propensity and are an example of how to horrifically overtune mobs. That's why the zone is so scarce now, especially in the face of it not offering much reward for doing it versus organizing a TA or Cosmic.

spinnytop · February 2020

The imp matrons ( or whatever they're called ) in QWZ buff another NPC and drastically increase their damage output.

I don't block the elder worm debuffs, I use holds, knocks, or movement to prevent them from applying them.

As far as I'm aware all cooldown abilities go on cooldown if you interrupt them with the right timing. For example, the Substantiator's worm summon will go on cooldown if you interrupt it at the right moment, which is a core strategy I use for dealing with them. So, that's just something that's in the game by default.

Yes, making my kinds of builds does work well in nearly all parts of the game, which is why I've used these types of builds for years, even before the QWZ existed. Only place that aspect of those builds is meaningless is things like Cosmics and big event bosses.

Not sure why you're re-justifying your initial suggestion regarding knocks when I already said I approve of it - I don't need any more convincing on that. I was discussing the list of interesting things that NPCs could do that you gave, which I also said I like, and pointed out that a lot of it already happens in QWZ ( technically it happens in the whole game, but in most places it's so weak that it might as well not exist ). Did you take my response as a claim that QWZ is perfect and couldn't see any improvement? I'm pretty sure I said the opposite.

Thank you for listing off a bunch of the strategies I use in QWZ. I'm not sure what you mean by saying that "threshold of expectations is too high" in regards to those. Is using the mechanics in the game somehow expecting too much of players? If not those mechanics, then which mechanics fulfill the lowered expectations? I mean, if someone wants less expected of them they can just go in with a tank and then they don't have to do any of that, just self heal and mitigate.

bluhman · February 2020

I'm not sure what you mean by saying that "threshold of expectations is too high" in regards to those. Is using the mechanics in the game somehow expecting too much of players? If not those mechanics, then which mechanics fulfill the lowered expectations? I mean, if someone wants less expected of them they can just go in with a tank and then they don't have to do any of that, just self heal and mitigate.

In the current state of affairs, yes, it is too much to ask, because specific builds (and also specific ATs) cannot execute holds/knocks/movement to stop debuff applications or other effects - let alone the base survivability or defenses to withstand incoming QWZ damage.

Most of the effects you listed up there aren't even close to the worst things about those mobs. Buffing a henchmen so that they either do more damage or become two henchmen is nothing in the face of the constant DOT and Knock the other mobs of the group are putting out (it's an issue with most of the QWZ mobs, but it's by far the worst with Horrors).

The window of putting an enemy charge attack on cooldown is extremely narrow and has only three opportunities to be applied.

Not sure why you think I'm saying that QWZ mobs are fair. They're not. I don't even have to prove that, the number of people who regularly visit QWZ (that being you and an indeterminate, but very small, number of other players) attests to this sentiment.

Both this suggestion, and the bottom line of what I'm looking for from enemy mechanics, is organized and tuned performance, between enemy ability-use patterns, and damage output. This is not what the QWZ mobs are. The average player has no hope of taking on these mobs on their own with a normal build and you know it - that's exactly why you're linking a set of specialized builds that can solo these mobs in your signature.

I implore the developers to implement enemies that, yes, have mechanics that I described above, with interruptable effects that can make these mobs dangerous. QWZ mobs are not this, they are already dangerous even before they use buffs because of their basic traits of damage output and knockback. That's why the builds you have need to resort to using interruption or blocking to fight them. It's also why tanking isn't always a solution - because not all tank passive types are effective against QWZ damage and how it's distributed.

Please stop putting words in my mouth, I don't appreciate it.

spinnytop · February 2020

"QWZ excpectations of builds are too high"
QWZ is clearly labeled as group content, so the fact that any given individual build can't do this or that is irrelevant. If someone made their build unable to do X, it is because they wanted it to do Y instead. If that configuration leaves it with large holes in certain areas that make it difficult to solo the warzone, then what they have done is made a build that excels in a team. Their build brings Y, someone else brings X, and the result is that they very efficiently stomp the warzone dailies.

Not every build excels in every situation, and we will never have a game where every build excels equally or can do what every other build can do in every situation. If a player's build or AT cannot do something, that is a result of the player choosing for it not to be able to do that, or choosing an AT that can't, and instead be able to do something else. Part of excelling in this game is being aware of what your build's capabilities are and how that transfers into which situations it will excel in.

"The window to put a power on cooldown via interruption is extremely narrow"
The window of opportunity for putting enemy attacks on cooldown via a stun is large enough that many people do it consistently every day on Kiga's dogs. It's large enough that Substantiators getting their worms out is a rare event for me. It is not "extremely narrow", because it is not too narrow to be exploited consistently. This has been proven in practice for years, daily.

"QWZ is unfair and people rarely visiting it attests to this"
The number of people who visit a piece of content is influenced by many more factors than something like "fairness". That aside, fairness in a game means "can be completed successfully in the intended way". QWZ is completely fair, because it's not particularly difficult once you have 2 people in a team working through it, which is the intended way. Would you say that Cosmics are unfair because 1 person can't solo them? Of course not, because that's not the intended way to approach them. QWZ missions are clearly labeled as suggesting 2 people, and can be completed in a reasonable time with that many people, so by an objective measure the zone and its missions are fair. On top of that, you can actually solo QWZ dailies with a variety of builds. I have 18 characters that do it, and I see other people there soloing as well and it's unlikely they have exactly the same builds as I do.

"The average player has no hope of taking on these mobs on their own with a normal build"
This claim is directly disproven by videos of me soloing the warzone on multiple builds which are quite normal. Granted, wtf is a "normal build"? Well, my builds are dps builds that will put out high amounts of damage, and that's fairly normal for a dps build. They don't use any exploits, and to top it off they easily fit a character theme. Claiming my builds are "not normal" is a strange claim to make given that we have no information on what a "normal build" would be. Also, again with the mythical "average player" that nobody has ever been able to find.

"That's why builds you have need to resort to using interruption or blocking to fight them"
Strange thing to point out when one of your suggestions is "Probably the most generalized way to put it, things that encourage players to do offense-oriented reactive actions on mobs rather than the current structure, which strongly emphasizes defensive reactions - mainly just blocking.". Interrupting NPC actions using knocks and holds is an offensive-oriented reactive action - in fact often times it isn't even reactive, it's a side effect of using those things entirely offensively.

Also strange to say "resort to blocking", as if it's unusual that someone uses a core mechanic in a game they're playing.

"Please stop putting words in my mouth."

That's not the same as me pointing out that what you're suggesting is already happening in parts of the game. Okay, I apologize for saying "looks like you agree that that kind of content is the direction they should go harder in" since that seems to have bothered you. I'll go back and edit it out.

spinnytop · February 2020

Back on the initial suggestion regarding knocks.

I like the idea of Recklessness's effect basically becoming "removes 1 stack of Knock Vulnerability" rather than the current increase to knock resist. Might need an internal cooldown, but I like the idea of using powers like that to avoid being knocked.

bluhman · February 2020

QWZ is clearly labeled as group content, so the fact that any given individual build can't do this or that is irrelevant. If someone made their build unable to do X, it is because they wanted it to do Y instead. If that configuration leaves it with large holes in certain areas that make it difficult to solo the warzone, then what they have done is made a build that excels in a team. Their build brings Y, someone else brings X, and the result is that they very efficiently stomp the warzone dailies.

And Alerts are also labeled as group content, owing to the fact that they force you to access it to queue up with a team of 3+ other people, or Rampages where it's about 10 people. Meanwhile there's plenty of other missions in the game that have 'recommended team sizes' that can be soloed easily. In fact, for a variety of these missions that exist in Canada and Millennium City, these exist and then are still easily soloable because of the inconsistent expectations placed on players between different parts of the game. You say it's "clearly" group content when it's neither something that a player has to queue up to even attempt, nor do a majority of prior missions that display the exact same disclaimer about team-size indicate that this suddenly, for some reason, would be significantly harder.
This isn't even counting, even in the context of being team-based content, the fact that the damage output of the mobs are so bloated. Consider that a build that theoretically can survive damage from an Alert mob, solo, will crumble underneath the effects of a QWZ mob (i.e. this is a direct reflection of my personal experience with Alerts versus QWZ).

The window of opportunity for putting enemy attacks on cooldown via a stun is large enough that many people do it consistently every day on Kiga's dogs. It's large enough that Substantiators getting their worms out is a rare event for me. It is not "extremely narrow", because it is not too narrow to be exploited consistently. This has been proven in practice for years, daily.
This is precisely the reason why I can't tank dogs by the way. How many is "many" people? I don't feel like it's as large as you think it is. I've attempted doing this before and feel like I'm always going to miss it by a fraction of a second. If it really was as consistent as you think it was, then we'd probably be seeing a lot less Kiga runs where dogs regularly are reaching 5+ stacks of enrage from howl.

The number of people who visit a piece of content is influenced by many more factors than something like "fairness".
Completely true, I don't go to QWZ anymore because it doesn't have anything even left to offer me in terms of unlocks, rate of income, or even interesting things to actually explore there. The fact that it's significantly more challenging than the rest of the game is a factor on top of that, and in a way that I don't feel like I have a wide enough window of control over to make it feel worthwhile to visit. For the rest of the paragraph just refer to my first point about how irrelevant an indicator about recommended team size is.

This claim is directly disproven by videos of me soloing the warzone on multiple builds which are quite normal. Granted, wtf is a "normal build"? Well, my builds are dps builds that will put out high amounts of damage, and that's fairly normal for a dps build. They don't use any exploits, and to top it off they easily fit a character theme. Claiming my builds are "not normal" is a strange claim to make given that we have no information on what a "normal build" would be. Also, again with the mythical "average player" that nobody has ever been able to find.

I don't call "electric shield with electric vengeance" normal because that's the only block in the game that reflects damage in a major propensity, I don't call "stacking two storm sigil variants on top of eachother" normal because that's almost skirting on exploiting the fact that they made a reskinned version of a power that does a slightly different damage type, I don't call "howl to flamethrower for stun" normal, because those aren't even two contiguously consistent concepts for a power unless you're some kind of Werewolf Bounty Hunter Edgelord.
The fact that different approaches can be taken to solve the issue is fine and good, but it's not done in ways that any player would reasonably expect. Intuitively you'd probably want to be able to pull off stuns or interruptions of some kind without leaving their own set. Melee almost gets there with its single-target stun clicks, but then some other sets just have better alternatives to that, and they haven't even made an illusion of pretending to care about balancing this capability between different ranged sets.
The fact is that there's no consistent expectation for any of the sets to actually take charge of how a fight's going. That's part of the reason why MA is so good, because it has two PBAoEs that allow this to be done quickly, and then why something like Ice needs to struggle to find some kind of interruption ability from another powerset, which is probably why that build list there doesn't have an Ice build yet. Or an Archery build, or a Bestial build...

Strange thing to point out when one of your suggestions is "Probably the most generalized way to put it, things that encourage players to do offense-oriented reactive actions on mobs rather than the current structure, which strongly emphasizes defensive reactions - mainly just blocking.". Interrupting NPC actions using knocks and holds is an offensive-oriented reactive action - in fact often times it isn't even reactive, it's a side effect of using those things entirely offensively.

Also strange to say "resort to blocking", as if it's unusual that someone uses a core mechanic in a game they're playing.

And this is the most insidious thing: This has nothing to do with the necessity of having to interrupt or block to win. We completely agree on that. This is what's really setting me off, though: at no point in this post do you bring up any statement about the amount of damage enemy mobs put out. That's despite the fact that me discussing this exact distinction was the entirety of the later half of that post. In length.

Requiring an interrupt to win is good, if it's inherently reliable to do. Knocks don't always work. Putting an ability on cooldown is not something all players can accomplish, even if they have the stun ability to attempt it.
Requiring blocks to survive is good, if there's a defined time in which to counterattack. When a mob is tuned to put out extreme damage, there's no capability for most builds to get a hit in edgewise. That's why the builds you've made for the area focus so heavily on stun, kiting, or sniping, and that's not a setup that any kind of AT has, nor an approach most players would consider if FF.

Sorry if you didn't pick up on it, but it's kind of central to the point I'm trying to make. And in bold. I almost feel, (and sorry if it seems accusatory), you're willfully choosing to just ignore parts of the argument that would put the issue to rest, because it's fun for you to derail me?

spinnytop · February 2020

So I was thinking about this being used with NPCs and changing the way they get knocked. While the proposed system sounds great for players I don't think it's right for NPCs, but at the same time having a more reliable system for NPCs would be great, for the same reason I don't think this system would work for them. Specifically it has to do with the fact that when players use a power that does something, they expect that thing to happen, and it severely diminishes the usefulness of these powers if you have to spam them just to get any effect at all.

So instead, for NPCs I would say implement a sort of threshold system. The same way you need a certain amount of Strength in order to pick up certain items, you would now need a certain amount of Strength to Knock certain NPCs. Generally the larger they are, the more Strength it requires to quickly knock NPCs. If you meet the Knock Threshold, then your attacks knock them on the first hit. If you meet the Secondary Knock Threshold, then you only knock once you've applied a stack of KV. Then a Tertiary Threshold requires 2 stacks of KV. Everyone below the Tertiary Threshold requires 3 stacks of KV.

Now, with the current meta of "stack one att" most people would be above the Knock Threshold or below the Tertiary, but there might still be some people who adjust their atts just a bit so they can knock more quickly. It would cement the idea that Strength = good reliable knocks, while Dex builds have a harder time knocking unless they shift some stats into Strength.

[Gameplay Mechanic] Player-Side Knock Resist Retooling

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