Suggestion Removal/Nerf to KB

[Melon]

That is your opinion, but it is not one we share. Getting more people able to play Conquest and giving players some options to not be guaranteed quickdrops (which is not a fun experience for newer players or ones who are not highly-skilled pvp players).

There are a variety of places on Loka where the skill gap is narrow or wide for good reasons, and the gap should probably be the narrowest for Conquest considering the point is objective play more than big 1v1 battlefield. There are plenty of other places to 1v1 against players in more controlled conditions.

There is a reason, btw, that we continuously bring up the Webbed Bola. It is literally designed to help you get a kill against a player who would otherwise KB/Pearl to get away. Because you do not find it satisfactory doesn't mean it's useless, it's just a counter that you have access to you that you choose not to employ.

I agree with you in that lowering the skill requirement in order to play conquest is beneficial to the server, and that the skill gap should be lowest in conquest. But, I believe that these things can be accomplished while still leaving some skill expression, outside of how many crits you can land in a fight. For a newer player there are many things that they can utilize to avoid qding, they can carry cobwebs, carry a punch bow, carry a shield, do better at playing around their team, or the classic of going to pg and practicing tanking damage in a corner to work on their refills.

The skill gap in conquest is already lowered as it is a massive team fight. There are fewer things that an individual can do to have an impact, other than deal damage more consistently. While dealing as much damage in possible is important, so are getting kills. Outside of players randomly qding in center, the best way to do this used to be to overextend for a kill. The counter to this would be playing around your teammates, and knowing it wasn’t possible for whoever chasing you to continue to follow. But, if you were able to stick them well enough through their team you could sometimes come up with a kill. If the player is drained, it shouldn’t matter if I am chasing SmiGuy or Pudmuffers, I should have the chance to get a kill. KB completely removes this aspect of conquest, the person I’m chasing or their team can just hit me once and the kill is lost (reason why webbed bolas are not the perfect fix). If I was chasing a person alone on the edge of battle zone then the webbed bola would work really well, but if they are playing around their team as they should in conquest it’s only benefit is stopping their pearl.

I am just trying to say that there are ways for newer players to avoid qding, and that the skill requirement being lowered does not have to be at the expense of the actual skill cap, as well as the fact that the difference between these is already quite low in conquest.

 

[Cryptite]

it’s only benefit is stopping their pearl

It doesn't only block pearling, it blocks their KB working too.

 

[Melon]

It doesn't only block pearling, it blocks their KB working too.

I meant in as their teammates can also KB me when the player is playing around them, so that aspect isn’t as useful when chasing a kill in center.

 

[Lampp_]

when knocking a charge you end up kbing all the people who are stacking on the person taking the charge. and also when you are helping a person take charges you need to kb the defenders away so the person charged gets it off.

Therefore your solution does not work.

Make a 15 block range around tgen where kb is usable disable everywhere else

 

[mads64]

remove objective from conquest

 

[doota]

why is it melon all of a sudden

 

[glory]

Make a 15 block range around tgen where kb is usable disable everywhere else

I like this idea alot, seems like the only reasonable way to get rid of it in pvp without causing issues to objective play.

 

[PETI]

add kb3 kb2 is not enough #freeolpx

 

[capybara]

Fax

 

[mimo4]

if you hit somebody with a kb 2 you should instantly lose 3 hearts

 

[Gragra]

bro 4 pages of essays PLS

 

[Melon]

bump

 

[Windows10Laptop]

I have just recently started playing the server again (outside of duels) and have had the opportunity to experience first hand how unfair and stupidly broken KB swords still are on Loka. I had honestly thought that this would have been resolved a long time ago, as it had already seemed to be a pretty big problem on the server. I am creating this post in order to make a case for the removal of KB swords on Loka, or severely limiting them in some way, but also for those who see this issue differently than me to express their opinions and give alternate arguments or solutions.

From my point of view, there are only 2 reasonable arguments for keeping KB. These are knocking charges and (maybe) chasing kills. Requiring KB for knocking charges is understandable, as it would be extremely difficult to knock charges using only a standard sword or a bow. The other argument that I have sometimes seen given is that KB is very useful for chasing. I can understand this, as it doesn't seem fair that one person should be able to kite away from 10 with no way to catch them. Back in the day bow boosting was the simple solution to this problem, as whoever was better at it would either get away or catch the other. Before my ban I began to see the transition into KB swords being used to chase others, and I'm assuming this is how the entire "KB meta" developed in the first place. Someone realized that they could just KB people off of them whenever they needed space to pot or to refill, and there was never a reason not to. Anyways, it seems somewhat fair to have this mechanic in place now so you can't easily outrun a bunch of people. But, while KB is the solution to these issues, it also creates separate problems of its own.

KB has gone from just being used to knock charges, to being used to chase kills, to now being one of the most overly used items on Loka. Whenever someone is put in disadvantage during a fight, there is really no reason to not use KB. They have no incentive to tank the chain and try to find a way out of it (except in certain situations). This means that putting pressure on someone to get a kill is much more difficult, as all they have to do is look up once and spam click you off of them, sending you flying 10 blocks away. Once this happens all kill pressure is lost, as they can refill, reshulker, or pearl away. This issue also becomes exacerbated when fighting on any type of terrain, as once you are hit down a hill or mountain it takes even longer to get back up, and if you try to pearl they could also, immediately putting you a pearl behind. It becomes almost impossible to get or chase down kills alone, as they will only die if they qd, are at 0 pots, or they are actually so slow at refilling they can't look up to hit once. The main issue is that applying the kill pressure that would lead to them qding or not being able to refill in time is also no longer possible, as they can generate space extremely easily whenever they need to. This is the entire basis of potion pvp, and having an item counter so that it can only be accomplished sometimes isn't a viable solution in my opinion.

Both main arguments for keeping KB seem to have fairly straightforward solutions, although I don't have much of an idea how complicated it would be to actually implement them. For charges, only allowing KB around the tgen would seem to be a fair, as elytras are already disabled in certain zones (this also involves the elytras being put in a state of 0 dura so idrk if it even would work), or only allowing KB to only be used on people who are charged. The same could also be done for chasing, by only allowing KB to be used on teammates. I also have no idea if these solutions could actually be implemented, I'm just thinking of any potential way that might work.

Again, this thread is more an attempt to raise this issue for discussion, and try to gather more perspectives and arguments on this issue, especially those in support of keeping KB for generic use and why. I do not know the best way to solve this issue, I only know what I believe. KB seems to be broken, and I think it should be fixed. I look forward to seeing and debating your perspectives.

-Melon

As a (longtime?) 2-year player of Loka, who is still shit at pvp, despite having played for a while, KB is really the only thing that allows me to survive against kill-hungry pvp goblins.
IMO, Knockback is, in a way, a double-edged sword. While you may knock away opponents to avoid dying, main-handing a KB sword doesn’t exactly help you get any kills, as, well, you’re actively knocking the opponent away. Furthermore, I fail to see in what way KB usage has now become meta, especially in diamond pot? The only times I see someone main KB is if they are being chased by a dozen rabid pvpers in conquest or by recruits in their first ever loka fight…
And there are plenty of ways to counter someone knocking you away too, you could use webbed bolas to prevent them from pearling away, or even use debuffs to slow your opponent down, judging from the little amount of people that bring dbr in combat.

Of course someone pushing you away is frustrating, especially that someone is a player you consider an « easy kill », but from another perspective, imagine how frustrating it is for less experienced players to warp to a fight of epic proportions just to die within the first warp because they got instantly targeted by a sweat with 24h of playtime in ranked duels…
My final point is regarding your comparison to the Loka of a few years ago. Since then, Loka has gained a LOT more high level players, and is now known as one of the most challenging servers to play on when it comes to pvp. Of course the meta will change as more and more experienced players join, and I believe it is up to the long time players to keep up with whatever combat methods are working the best.

 

[Melon]

KB is really the only thing that allows me to survive against kill-hungry pvp goblins.

For a newer player there are many things that they can utilize to avoid qding, they can carry cobwebs, carry a punch bow, carry a shield, do better at playing around their team, or the classic of going to pg and practicing tanking damage in a corner to work on their refills.

Furthermore, I fail to see in what way KB usage has now become meta, especially in diamond pot? The only times I see someone main KB is if they are being chased by a dozen rabid pvpers in conquest or by recruits in their first ever loka fight

Whenever someone is put in disadvantage during a fight, there is really no reason to not use KB. They have no incentive to tank the chain and try to find a way out of it (except in certain situations). This means that putting pressure on someone to get a kill is much more difficult, as all they have to do is look up once and spam click you off of them, sending you flying 10 blocks away. Once this happens all kill pressure is lost, as they can refill, reshulker, or pearl away.

The main issue is that applying the kill pressure that would lead to them qding or not being able to refill in time is also no longer possible, as they can generate space extremely easily whenever they need to. This is the entire basis of potion pvp, and having an item counter so that it can only be accomplished sometimes isn't a viable solution in my opinion.

Of course someone pushing you away is frustrating, especially that someone is a player you consider an « easy kill », but from another perspective, imagine how frustrating it is for less experienced players to warp to a fight of epic proportions just to die within the first warp because they got instantly targeted by a sweat with 24h of playtime in ranked duels…

I agree that kb is a useful tool for newer players who aren't as experienced at potting, but in my opinion this is far outweighed by the advantage that is given to any player, especially more experienced ones, who become practically unkillable while utilizing kb. It takes away from every aspect of pot pvp, and just reduces conquest to mindless critting. Making it easier for recruits and newer players to have an enjoyable experience playing conquest is important, but the same item that is used to accomplish this shouldn't be able to be abused by higher level players, completely breaking the fundamentals of a combat system.

 

[Windows10Laptop]

I agree that kb is a useful tool for newer players who aren't as experienced at potting, but in my opinion this is far outweighed by the advantage that is given to any player, especially more experienced ones, who become practically unkillable while utilizing kb. It takes away from every aspect of pot pvp, and just reduces conquest to mindless critting. Making it easier for recruits and newer players to have an enjoyable experience playing conquest is important, but the same item that is used to accomplish this shouldn't be able to be abused by higher level players, completely breaking the fundamentals of a combat system.

The problem is going into a corner and practicing refills is far from fun for anyone, and if being good at potting is an absolute requirement for anyone to play loka conquest, I believe far less players would actually pick up an interest in the server. Furthermore, apart from rivina fights, conquest has already been reduced to mindless critting from my perspective, as everyone is racing for the incredibly coveted top place of the eldritchbot leaderboard. Removing KB would inherently make the strong players stronger, all the while removing a survival tool for the less experienced players. Now regarding the higher level players, I guess that’s purely on them, if their ego just cannot take the thought of losing a fight (very frightening I know), to the point where they resort to the usage of the same tactics as a recruit, then that just shows how much they care about a KDA ratio on an online block game server.

Overall, from my experience, the supposed « abuse » of KB is mainly noticed within the circles of experienced/established players, who know their way around combat on Loka. Alliances with an abundance of recruits still would get, and do get overwhelmed by the stronger players even if their recruits had nothing but KB and pots (Example: RK vs SF).
The current system of cove having no KB swords, and conquest having it enabled is a good compromise in my opinion. On one hand, you have cove, where you lose your items upon death, thus requiring a certain skill level and/or server establishment (ie spare sets, weapons, etc) to actually enjoy. On the other, you have conquest, which is more of an « anything goes » gamemode, where players can all join in, regardless of skill or amount of spare gear. I do agree in KB usage requiring significantly less skill than normal pot pvp, which is why separating both « playstyles » into two different environments is the best « fair » solution Loka has to offer right now.

The only solution I could think of to good players spamming kb in a pinch, would be to swallow your ego and do the same, or just call them out, which I admit is quite frustrating and doesn’t necessarily bring any long term change…

 

[mimo4]

As a (longtime?) 2-year player of Loka, who is still shit at pvp, despite having played for a while, KB is really the only thing that allows me to survive against kill-hungry pvp goblins.
IMO, Knockback is, in a way, a double-edged sword. While you may knock away opponents to avoid dying, main-handing a KB sword doesn’t exactly help you get any kills, as, well, you’re actively knocking the opponent away. Furthermore, I fail to see in what way KB usage has now become meta, especially in diamond pot? The only times I see someone main KB is if they are being chased by a dozen rabid pvpers in conquest or by recruits in their first ever loka fight…
And there are plenty of ways to counter someone knocking you away too, you could use webbed bolas to prevent them from pearling away, or even use debuffs to slow your opponent down, judging from the little amount of people that bring dbr in combat.

Of course someone pushing you away is frustrating, especially that someone is a player you consider an « easy kill », but from another perspective, imagine how frustrating it is for less experienced players to warp to a fight of epic proportions just to die within the first warp because they got instantly targeted by a sweat with 24h of playtime in ranked duels…
My final point is regarding your comparison to the Loka of a few years ago. Since then, Loka has gained a LOT more high level players, and is now known as one of the most challenging servers to play on when it comes to pvp. Of course the meta will change as more and more experienced players join, and I believe it is up to the long time players to keep up with whatever combat methods are working the best.

this is so dumb so the argument is that we need to keep kb swords because people are bad and would die without them. incredible

 

[Wagle11]

i think kb being removed would be a good thing as recruits would learn how to pot way faster as they wont just be able to spam click around them in order to not be hit anymore aswell as trapping being bassicly impossible so that new players dont just lose all their stuff and quit because they dont know /kill exists yet

 

[Windows10Laptop]

this is so dumb so the argument is that we need to keep kb swords because people are bad and would die without them. incredible

Yes literally not everyone is as good and pro and the best on loka like you mimo 4 ughhhh

 

[Melon]

Removing KB would inherently make the strong players stronger, all the while removing a survival tool for the less experienced players.

This is the main part of your reply that I want to focus on. While you are correct in saying that removing KB will make the stronger players stronger, you also have to take into consideration the effect KB has in their hands. You are saying that if KB is removed, people will just only start targeting worse players, but that is precisely the effect the existence of KB currently has. There's no reason to ever target a more experienced player, they are not going to die. Your only chance of a kill is going after some random quickdrop who will still die while using KB. I elaborate on this further in a previous reply:

Well yeah, my argument is just that the skill requirement is lowered to a point where you no longer need to know how to pot to play conquest, taking away from the main feature of the server. And the argument that KB allows worse players to stay alive longer is true, but at the same time it makes better players invincible. This makes it so that in conquest, the majority of people who die in the beginning are just newer players who can't even survive with kb. There is no way to target and take out better players, you won't be able to kill them. This leads to the side with more qds just getting overwhelmed with nothing they can do about it. In an even fight the side with more newer players is basically guaranteed to lose, no matter how good their carries are. You are trying to say that taking away from the actual skill required to play the game is a good thing, which maybe I would agree with if it didn't effect the actual skill cap. But making it so that worse players have an easier time at the expense of the rest of the server isn't a good thing in my opinion.

The current system of cove having no KB swords, and conquest having it enabled is a good compromise in my opinion. On one hand, you have cove, where you lose your items upon death, thus requiring a certain skill level and/or server establishment (ie spare sets, weapons, etc) to actually enjoy. On the other, you have conquest, which is more of an « anything goes » gamemode, where players can all join in, regardless of skill or amount of spare gear. I do agree in KB usage requiring significantly less skill than normal pot pvp, which is why separating both « playstyles » into two different environments is the best « fair » solution Loka has to offer right now.

I do agree that its removal from cove was a good thing, but I don't really like to call it a compromise. Realistically, the only thing that matters on Loka currently is conquest. Sets and shulkers are not worth enough to mean anything while ganking, the primary driver of this is that people enjoy pvping and want a more meaningful way to outside of conquest. layer with a horde of people. I encourage those who disagree to explain why, and what the actual benefit is of keeping KB in its current state.

I would type more but I've already typed it 8 times so nvm.

KB = easier for recruits but good players invincible, lower skill requirement but severely damages skill ceiling

Just learn to play around your team and if you are dying, your alliance needs better coordination, like what conquest actually used to be. Not just run to center and crit until you win.

 

[Windows10Laptop]

This is the main part of your reply that I want to focus on. While you are correct in saying that removing KB will make the stronger players stronger, you also have to take into consideration the effect KB has in their hands. You are saying that if KB is removed, people will just only start targeting worse players, but that is precisely the effect the existence of KB currently has. There's no reason to ever target a more experienced player, they are not going to die. Your only chance of a kill is going after some random quickdrop who will still die while using KB. I elaborate on this further in a previous reply:





I would type more but I've already typed it 8 times so nvm.

KB = easier for recruits but good players invincible, lower skill requirement but severely damages skill ceiling

Just learn to play around your team and if you are dying, your alliance needs better coordination, like what conquest actually used to be. Not just run to center and crit until you win.

We clearly have 2 different POVs on this, you being the higher level player, and me being the lower level one.
I’ve said that before, but I honestly think that if you are part of the « good players » then you almost definitely have enough game knowledge to figure out a workaround to your opponents spamming KB, whereas newer players don't have enough experience for that. Plenty of people still get kills/win fights even against the top players using kb, so I don’t see how the skill ceiling gets extremely damaged from such a feature? Also you talk about playing around your team, but we still see how recruits die despite fighting an isolated opponent in a 4v1… If they don’t know how to play well on loka yet, they obviously need something to help them survive a bit while they learn the ropes. In any case, you won’t get kills by mainhanding KB. You’ll probably even get targeted for playing like that, so imo players will eventually stray away from using a KB sword as their main weapon and transition to a more traditional potpvp playstyle, so as to get the coveted loka kill ego boost. Once again, KB abuse is only noticeable and ultimately « unbearable » in higher level circles, of which only a few members wish to remove the KB enchantment, judging from the reactions to your post.