When ya knock somebody back...

...how far do they go? Is every mag of knockback a certain distance for each class of enemy? And how fast to they fly?

Just curious. If I can calculate how far they fly before their evil butts hit the ground, I can add the time it takes for them to get to said butt-rest to the time it takes them to get back up and run back into melee range, and have a good idea how much a given power with knockback is helping me.

If I was at home, I'd likely just log into the game and find out, but I thought I'd ask here first.

Thanks!

I'm fairly sure it depends on the usual factors: differences in level, whether the mob has KB protection / KB resist, and the difference between the mob's KB protection and the magnitude of the KB.

Some mobs have enough KB protection/resist that they can turn a knockback effect into a knockdown effect, since knockdown is basically knockback with a magnitude less than one.

But there's gotta be a base unit of distance in the equation, right? Before all those other factors are taken into account.

That's what I'm after.

I have long puzzled over this question.

I can tell you that knockdown of the sort that appears in powers like Ice Slick appears to simply play an animation named SWEEP_LOW. In demorecord files, it appears to function completely differently from knockback. It just functions like a Hold that lasts perhaps 1 or 2 seconds and happens to have an animation of the character falling.

[Weirdly, if you go into the AE, switch on Invisible mode, and drop an Ice Slick, SWEEP_LOW alternates with SWEEP_HIGH, which is the animation where enemies flip once in the air before crashing to the floor. I have no idea why it functions this way.]

Demorecord files where the enemy gets knocked back are very difficult for me to interpret. I haven't been able to find a name for the animation that plays when you get knocked back, or an indicator of how the game client knows that's what's happening.

What I can say is that, ancedotally, the distance between a mag 1 knockback and mag 6 or so is not very big. To me it feels like there is base distance of about 10-15 feet that any knockback always starts at. Each mag of knockback beyond that extends this distance minimally. I have a FF Defender with Force Bolt slotted for knockback, with a total mag of 58 or so. I was expecting enemies to fly a long distance. I actually can barely tell the difference between slotted and unslotted. I need to test it more closely to see if it changes anything at all.

FYI be careful testing knockback with Repel and Repulsion Field. Both powers have constant knockback mags that never change. I have only known this for a short time, so I haven't done a lot of testing with them. I'm not actually sure if knockback enhancements do anything for these powers. Nor am I sure whether Knockback protection/resistance applies to these powers at all. It seems like--but I'm not 100% sure--I have been able to knockback enemies even after freezing them in place with powers that do -kb.

In terms of measuring distance, again anecdotally, Mag 6 knockback feels to me like it throws enemies approximately 20-25ft. I'm guessing this based on noticing enemies seem to land right about on the edge of Dispersion Bubble, which has a 25ft radius.

you can resist repel with kb protection (or at least i have in pvp), but I don't know how much you need

Just double checked it. I am indeed able to use Repulsion Field to KB an enemy I just Freeze Ray'ed. Freeze Ray has mag 100 KB Protection and -10000% KB Resistance for 10 seconds.

However, if I stack Freeze Ray on itself, it seems like enemies don't get KBed for a little while. Looking into it further on RedTomax, the -kb in Freeze Ray is labeled with an extra tag that says "if enemy is held." Does this mean you only get -kb if you Freeze someone who is already held...? It is very weird and not like comparable powers in the Controller sets.

Anyway here's a grainy screenshot of the kb action.

I believe from discussion of the subject that the magnitude is in feet. However, as Tex said, this may be an addition to the base knockback. So if it is indeed 10 feet, then most powers being about mag 1-6 aren't going to make must difference in the proportion of distance knocked back. At most, around 50% more distance than the base.

This is interesting, because knockback under 1.0 is knockdown. So 0.67 isn't knocked back at all, but 1.0 is knocked back 11 feet. That would certainly suggest that if you have knockback when you are expecting knockdown, (such as if the foe has negative resistance to knockback) it will be a frustratingly long distance for you.

So, I got curious and decided to do some testing.

Knockdown getting turned into knockback is a known menace for my Electric controller. I tend to solo on -1 to make things easier for my relatively-anemic-even-with-procs damage, and make regular use of Jolting Chain. If I level up in a mission, green minions can start appearing, which tends to make things more dangerous as enemies will get knocked out of my controls.

I experimented with enemies of different levels, and looked at how far they landed outside of Conductive Aura (which has radius 20). My Elec controller is level 26. The weakest thing I was capable of hitting with both an immobilize and Jolting Chain without KOing it was a level 6 LT, which I would say landed about 5 feet outside of CA. A level 24 minion (the highest level where KD will turn into KB, barring a specific vulnerability) landed about 2 feet outside. In both cases I was standing as close as possible to the enemy before firing Jolting Chain. These are, of course, rather eyeballed measurements, judged relative to the effect of Conductive Aura itself. (Which has a radius of 20.) While I'm not confident of the exact numbers, I am pretty sure of the relative distance I had to move to bring the enemy back in range of CA, and that the difference between the two is pretty small compared to the overall distance travelled.

If this works like I was under the impression it does (effective magnitude increases based on level difference), then it suggests that the function relating magnitude to distance is something non-linear. Whatever it is, it seems like any time knockdown is turned into knockback, the distance will be much further than one probably desires.

Actually, I wonder if it might be possible for it to work as intended if they added a slight delay before the KB protection is applied? (Change it to "Mag XXX KB protection after 0.1 seconds") Do effects that are delayed like that still check on activation?

EDIT: What would definitely work would be having a pseudopet summoned after a short delay that granted the "KB protection if not held" effect... I know pseudopet based effects count as separate from the power that spawns the pet and don't check anything until the pet applies them. But that would be a lot of trouble for a rather minor effect of one power...

My Peacebringer sense is tingling, Joe...

Is this related to your hard numbers project?