Poll: Keeping knockback on player spells.

[tigersfan]

Misery has suggested that we get rid of knockback in player spells, so that when you hit an enemy, they won't get thrown around. I won't try to recap his argument here, but I'll link you to what he said: http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=10604 .

I'm going to withhold my feelings on this issue for now, but, we wanted to know what others thought of this.

Thanks!

[madcow]

I've not really cared about knock back myself, it's never really been something I've noticed, so I don't really care either way. I'm assuming of course that this is not referring to the slight ministun that happens on enemy hit, which normally lets you rapid fire guys down without counterattacks.

Thinking down the line, it would be cool if any new Mage classes released in the future has spells with mega knockback, but that's not really relevant to this.

[wyvern83]

I think it would be great if knockback were changed a little to knock away enemies that are right on top of you as well as maybe what it does already. As it is now your only option in that situation is to jump around and hope to shake it off so you can hit it. 

[Mick]

It seems like this is an appropriate thing to use to differentiate different mage classes.

At the end of the day though, if it can't be made non-glitchy, it should simply be gone.

[Oralordos]

I would say that most enemies don't need to be knocked back. The smaller flying enemies in particular do almost need some sort of knockback. (thinking of bats here)

[x4000]

It's already non-glitchy.  Has anyone seen a glitch with this in recent memory aside from the melee range?

[@B0FH]

The knockback is sometimes annoying, but it's part of the combat strategy as to how to use/avoid that I would've thought?

[x4000]

Generally speaking I tend to agree.  It's possible we should be taking this off of some specific spells that might have it -- fusillade, does it have knockback? Can't recall.  But in general one of the functions of knockback is making it so that you can't just spam a dozen shots into a single enemy all at once.  It also does make the game feel more tactile than it otherwise might.

[Pepisolo]

I voted other as it could offer tactical decisions to the player, but maybe there should be an extra focus on balancing it just right for the various spells, though.

[Gemzo]

I think knockback and knockback resistance values for each spell/enemy just need fine tuning. It's obvious the mechanic shouldn't go away entirely; it just needs more thought put into it. On the other hand, with so many enemies with projectiles, knockback is usually working against you. Generally in games it's best for pushing enemies into hazards or keeping melee enemies at bay, but most melee enemies in Valley 1 have excessive knockback resistance. I dunno if Valley 2's new enemies are the same deal since I haven't played in a while (I'll come back eventually, promise), but I thought it'd be worth throwing out there anyway.

[x4000]

Melee enemies without knockback resistance tend to be pretty pointless as they never reach you to hurt you!

[Misery]

I should point out here, some of my issues with it are just how fiddly the system can be. 

For example, issues with knockback becoming knock-FORWARD..... the idea of just taking it out occurred to me after about the 5th death in a row due to this happening, and it also occurred to me that I tend to automatically avoid using any spells that do knockback at all, since they just dont seem to help ever, but tend to just make things more annoying.   Even just something like, say, a bat taking longer to get rid of because it hits my line of shots and is knocked under the platform I'm on or knocked just into somewhere where I basically have to wait for it to slide back out of that spot to hit it again.... annoying, and that sort of thing seems to happen quite often, where it just makes a particular enemy take longer to kill, without at all making it HARDER to kill.     Granted, I'm not exactly the patient sort, but still.  It often seems to me like something that isnt really serving much of any purpose.


Not exactly a game-breaking issue, but I figured the suggestion couldnt hurt.

[x4000]

Well, in Valley 1 the knockback was vital to the game feeling like there was any tactile nature to it at all.  Here there is the "freeze and shake" mechanic instead which serves that same role often.

Still... one thing I might be able to do to stop the knock-forward is to change how it calculates the knockback and base that on the movement of the spell instead.  Any spells that aren't moving wouldn't be able to have knockback under such a system, but that would be okay, I think.

[Misery]

One other thing that does occur to me with the knockback:   It often feels kinda inconsistent.

Early on, when there werent that many different enemy types, I remember I would often have it occur with the balloon things that shoot the spiked balls, yet most other things.... like the swamp guys or whatever.... dont get any knockback, so at the time I actually had thought it was some property of the balloon guys, like they were backing up defensively when hit or something.   Obviously that's not the case, but that sense of inconsistency is still definitely there with that system.

[x4000]

It's inconsistent in one sense, yes -- enemies have a knockback resistance property that varies.  And the knockback power of your spells varies, too, which also makes that inconsistent.

It may be that knockback just needs to be completely stripped down so that the knockback resistance goes away, and the knockback property that most spells has goes away, and then certain spells get it back.  That would be the defining feature of the spells in question, to some extent.  That might work well on, for instance, tridents.  And possibly on the Mass spells that are paired with Burst variants.  Maybe a few others, too, like the reckless spells.  Obviously splashback and the others that are already defined by this.  But not much else.