[VSH] Increase CBS Knockback Immunity?

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Narcifiend
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[VSH] Increase CBS Knockback Immunity?

Post by Narcifiend »

I'm going to start off by saying that previously, all 4 hales on the VSH server used to take less knockback, with Saxton Hale having pretty good knockback resistance. At some point, the knockback resistance on all the hales were nerfed and get knocked around more easily. I'll make a summary of my opinion of the knockback on the 4 bosses. Admittedly, I was annoyed earlier today over knockback when I was playing CBS, but I'm doing my best not to let my annoyance over that skew my viewpoint:

Saxton Hale: knockback, while greater now, still isn't too bad. You won't get knocked around a ridiculous amount and even if there's multiple sentries and other sources piling knockback on him, his rage can break out of that okay provided he can get close enough to the sentry nest etc. So I believe this is alright.

Vagineer: He used to take moderate knockback in the first place. Now he takes a lot. Easier to get juggled around and can get irritating, making it harder to land hits on some classes you're pursuing as you're getting juggled, and harder to approach nests. Since his rage is a stun (shorter AOE than Saxton, but larger than CBS) and he gets uber however, his rage kinda mitigates that, not to mention if a pyro is nearby airblasting, that both feeds rage and extends his current rage, making them less of a problem, so overall I think this is passable, just not good for no rage runs, although only the minority do no rage runs.

HHHJ: Also used to take a fair bit of knockback, and now the knockback is pretty noticeable. However the knockback is not as strong as Vagineer/CBS I believe, and his rage has a decent sized stun area and can teleport, so even if he is getting knocked about by sentries etc. he can teleport to the nest and rage or if possible just walk up to it and rage the nest, so this is alright. While also not great for no rage runs (also because of being a teleport boss, not a super jump boss, to be fair), again only the minority do them including myself. I must consider the majority.

CBS: This is the one I have a problem with. Used to take moderate knockback, now takes a ton of knockback like Vagineer. Very easy to get juggled around and makes it difficult to land melee hits when attacking groups of people if knockback is shoving you around a lot. I believe CBS also has the shortest melee range of the 4 hales, so you need to get a bit closer to someone to land a melee hit. What makes CBS' knockback a problem and Vagineer's not in my opinion, is that CBS' rage is only a short range stun in which the amount of people who can get stunned is also limited to a low number from what I know (need elaboration on this), and while he does get arrows and some knockback resistance, the knockback is still moderate, and when he's getting juggled in a tight/crowded space with a lot of players around, his rage is bad at breaking crowd control, and the knockback he takes in that situation can also make it difficult to make accurate shots with the huntsman, which is only mitigated by the amount of shots he gets when there's a lot of players alive, and if he can get out of there without taking too much damage and start shooting his arrows from a distance.

What I'm suggesting is for CBS to have some more knockback immunity. Not a ridiculous buff, and maybe not even buffed to Saxton Hale's current knockback immunity, but just enough of a buff so he doesn't get juggled around too much and can more reliably land hits without being shoved around too much, more so when it comes to smaller maps or maps with a lot of tight spaces, or up against certain classes and loadouts that can abuse the high knockback CBS takes.

And yes, if you're good enough at hale in general, you can overcome even absurd knockback to a reasonable extent, but playing a hale with a ton of knockback and a rage that isn't too effective at dealing with that isn't too good in my view, and I believe for the majority of players who play hale, the knockback that CBS takes is a bit too much and needs to be toned down a little.

I don't usually make suggestions and this is my first time making one in a long while, so sorry if this suggestion ain't too great and/or is poorly structured. And as a reminder, all of this is simply my view in the end. I want to see if people agree or disagree with this (or somewhere in-between) and discuss it more. Maybe the other bosses should also get more knockback immunity? Maybe it's fine as it is and nothing needs to be changed? Wanna hear from you guys. I'm a bit sleep deprived right now too so I probably didn't explain it all the best way lol.
Last edited by Narcifiend on Sat Jan 28, 2017 8:51 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Odie
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Re: [VSH] Increase CBS Knockback Immunity?

Post by Odie »

Really great suggestions. Very reasonable ones too.
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Idjit
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Re: [VSH] Increase CBS Knockback Immunity?

Post by Idjit »

I think that at most, CBS should get reduced knockback while under his rage effect. The knockback he experiences is a part of the balancing, as without much knockback it would be very easy to consistently land all of his Arrows. On rage, he gets an arrow for every living player +1 (If I recall correctly), meaning that you can dispatch a good number of people while missing some. nests are supposed to be taken out at a range, and if they're in a tight corridor they should be raged. There will never be a situation where a sentry is too far away for the rage to take affect, yet the arrows will be useless. Sometimes his knockback can be a little absurd, but it's a part of the boss, and for good reason.

I'd also like to point out that balancing for newer or otherwise worse players is never a good idea. It may give the inexperienced players a hand, but when it does the experienced players gain an even greater advantage. If experienced players can make the boss work very well, it's on the newer players to practice, get better, and reach that level. Changing something as simple as knockback can be a huge game changer, tilting things heavily in the Hale's favor.
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Narcifiend
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Re: [VSH] Increase CBS Knockback Immunity?

Post by Narcifiend »

Idjit wrote:I think that at most, CBS should get reduced knockback while under his rage effect. The knockback he experiences is a part of the balancing, as without much knockback it would be very easy to consistently land all of his Arrows. On rage, he gets an arrow for every living player +1 (If I recall correctly), meaning that you can dispatch a good number of people while missing some. nests are supposed to be taken out at a range, and if they're in a tight corridor they should be raged. There will never be a situation where a sentry is too far away for the rage to take affect, yet the arrows will be useless. Sometimes his knockback can be a little absurd, but it's a part of the boss, and for good reason.

I'd also like to point out that balancing for newer or otherwise worse players is never a good idea. It may give the inexperienced players a hand, but when it does the experienced players gain an even greater advantage. If experienced players can make the boss work very well, it's on the newer players to practice, get better, and reach that level. Changing something as simple as knockback can be a huge game changer, tilting things heavily in the Hale's favor.
I do agree that if he didn't take so much knockback outside of rage then it would be easier for him to land shots with his arrows and that would be bad considering how many he can get, I'll get back to this. As for taking out nests with range, I think it depends mainly on if the engineer is good. A good engineer will use his buildings for cover against arrows and I believe arrows cannot 1 shot a level 2/3 sentry, so by the time CBS launches a 2nd arrow, the engineer can repair his sentry to full health by then, assuming he has a good amount of metal left on him and in his dispenser, or has the rescue ranger. CBS could shoot the dispenser first since I believe you can 1 shot those (not sure, I forgot), but it will still take a good few arrows before the engineer is out of metal and the sentry is down, and this is all assuming there is only 1 engineer set up and not 2-3 engineers all with dispensers and sentries, potentially with rescue ranger. As for approaching nests and raging, I think there are probably 1-2 sentry spots that are impossible to get close enough to if 2+ engineers set up in them, however I can't recall the specific spots exactly, so I could be wrong.

However, taking it all into account, there is also always the simple strategy of shutting down the engineers before they set up. Back to the amount of arrows he gets, I believe it's limited to 9 arrows at most? Regardless it's a lot, and if what you stated, and what I'm stating is correct, he can get max arrows with 8 people left. In my opinion you get rage pretty often also with the bosses on VSH. As for making things easier for more experienced players being a bad idea, I actually agree completely. I just wasn't sure on people's general stance of where the standard should be for hales. I have only one small issue, and I'll mention that last.

As it stands, I do agree that CBS having reduced knockback outside of rage may make things unbalanced, with how CBS' rage is right now, and that we must make it so experienced players don't win too easily. As of this moment, I'm suggesting one of two things:

1) We go with what you said at the beginning, and only reduce the knockback CBS takes during rage at most. This means that when he must rage, he can more reliably land shots when in a tight situation or more easily escape a very unfavourable position to then attack from range shortly after, or go for other players that are easier to pick off. He will still be a "pinball" when outside of rage but it's to counteract him landing shots more accurately when he has raged and has a lot of arrows in supply.
2) I mostly stick to my original suggestion of reducing the knockback CBS takes overall. However, we reduce the amount of arrows he gets on rage. This would mean that even if he can then land shots more reliably both outside and during rage, he also has less shots, so he has to make them count. This would mean however that using the 'attack sentries from range' tactic would be (in my eyes) even less effective against good engineers, and must rely on killing the engineers first or approaching the nest and raging.

Lastly, the only issue I have with the current balancing against experienced players, in this case, is merely down to a personal preference: some experienced players like to do no rage runs, me included (usually excluding spam airblasting pyros). When playing as both CBS and Vagineer, their extreme knockback can make no rage runs a lot of hassle and very difficult to get certain classes without rage if they're good. But as I said, it's only a personal preference, and is most likely a bad idea to try and account for "no rage runners" as well when balancing hales.

Edit: sorry for the long posts, they always turn out longer than I imagine lol.
Last edited by Narcifiend on Wed Feb 01, 2017 11:56 am, edited 2 times in total.
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