Seer Council Knockback

[Lt. Ekul]

Hey all, I had a question about the Seer Council leap knockback. I was playing a game as Ravener Alpha a day or two ago, and he was equipped with the Reinforced Chitin, which grants him immunity to weapon knockback. However he was able to be knocked back by the Seer Council when they leaped at him. I was just wondering what kind of knockback the Seer Council leap does, because I've never seen it knockback Terminators and such.

[appiah4]

Seeing as it can knock terminators, that's probably Ability Knockback, whcih IMO is ridiculous.

[David-CZ]

AFAIK they can't knockback Terminators. Also IIRC ability knockback affects retreating units, which isn't the case here. However there is the domino effect which may be causing some of this strage behaviour. But that wouldn't explain what happedend with RA. So I think this maight be a bug.

[Myrdal]

They do light_weapon_knockback, same as knob shotgun on hit passive and DA/lictor leap. It's pretty rare and probably why it hasn't been fixed yet. It most likely will be in the next patch though, either by switching to weapon_knockback as is commonly used or by adding knockback_chance_light_weapon_modifier to various wargears/abilities.

[Lt. Ekul]

They definitely can't knock back Terminators, or units in retreat. Thanks for the info, Hakon. I didn't know there were other variances of weapon knockback.

[Asmon]

Also IIRC ability knockback affects retreating units, which isn't the case here.

Ability kb does not necessarily affect retreat. Every ability can or cannot affect retreating units. You can make them check for retreat.

[Codex]

Ability kb does not necessarily affect retreat. Every ability can or cannot affect retreating units. You can make them check for retreat

It's worth noting that Ability knockback/weapon knockback are really just terms for ease of understanding/ used as a game design concept. It isn't hard coded and as such many exceptions can be found to the basic ability/weapon knockback distinction.

[Atlas]

Do you think standardizing the knockbacks would be a good thing or too much needless work?

[Lulgrim]

It's worth noting that Ability knockback/weapon knockback are really just terms for ease of understanding/ used as a game design concept. It isn't hard coded and as such many exceptions can be found to the basic ability/weapon knockback distinction.

Wat no, weapon/ability knockback are specific properties used in the RBFs. There's nothing figurative or ambivalent about them.

[Codex]

Oh dear. My bad. Lulgrim is go to on this kind of knowledge for sure.

Disseminating false information, Codex, srsly.

[Myrdal]

Although the kb type values are explicitly listed in certain rbf files they could only be considered "hard coded" to a unit's default state as whether a unit gets kb'd varies based on a number of things as we know (many beyond control via the rbf library afaik).

So I think Codex is right in that a knockback isn't entirely decided based on these values. Ultimately it's decided by the algorithms at play that are sadly beyond our reach (at least without some serious code analysis effort).