NPC Push
 

Hi! In a patch dated September 29th, 2019, Haynar writes: NPC's will be less susceptible to interrupt by combat/spell push (Credit work by Torven).

But, as you are probably aware, NPC aren't just "less susceptible" to interrupt by combat/spell push, but, for all practical intents and purposes, completely immune. To the point where even the Chetari Wardstaff's Knockback effect doesn't interrupt spells.


Is this something that you plan to correct in the future? I understand that push probably was "overpowered" in how reliable it was to move mobs a little bit in order to interrupt them (to the point where a single monk could interrupt a mob), but, as it stands, you can push a mob halfway across a room and it will not be interrupted except, maybe, by the slight chance that every melee hit has to interrupt a spell-cast.

Shameless bump almost 3 months later. Any word from the devs? We've all kind of come to accept this as the status quo, but, I'm wondering if it was intended to make it impossible to interrupt an NPC no matter how far you push it.

I'm no dev, but from old in era log files knockback effects from spells and even out of era monk knockback disc knocking mobs across the room did not interrupt casting.

I think this is more about generic push than "knockback effects from spells and even out of era monk knockback disc knocking mobs across the room".

30+ players can push a mob via melee alone all the way across the Kael arena and it will channel a 10 sec CH.

However - bash and slam if they land seem to be very high % to interrupt.

What was described as "less susceptible" is actually complete immunity to push. The server(s) now rely entirely on either "burn during cast" or "enc drain".

Sorry bruh but this is completely wrong. Having played an epic monk in era up through prophecy of ro just our epic fist spam push was good enough to interrupt a fair amount of the time. The knockback disc improved that by a great amount. Push as it exists right now on p99 is nowhere near classic.

yea, that's my main point. It seems like the change to push was in response to epic'd monks being able to solo chain-interrupt a mob indefinitely. If that was the reason, and the change wasn't intended to remove the push-to-interrupt-NPCs mechanic altogether, they overtuned it and made it 100% impossible to interrupt by push. On the flip side, a non-caster player gets hit once by a mob and can't channel item clickies. lol

Bash and slam have 0chance to interrupt cast on stun immune mob, despite what the patch text said, you can have 20 people bash and it just channel through fine, just like the push. Bash only interrupt mob you can stun in practice

In era a single player with haste could potentially interrupt a mob. Maybe not reliably but it happened. If the mob was stun immune it was less likely (as now all stubs are irrelevant).


Now however a “decrease in chance” has become “no chance”. 30 hasted players can push a mob as far as possible and it will channel. The only method to prevent ch and gate is kill speed, or drain on a mob who is immune to stun/mezz.


This implies that no amount of directional push should ever stop a mobs cast. Is this correct? It seems like it should of been decreased, not removed entirely.


A good example is arena or pohate 2.0. Disciples in hate can be hit with stunning blow and enchanter stuns multiple times (no resist message or immune message) and still CH. so they are immune, and no amount of raw hits/push can stop them. Interestingly slam/bash sometimes causes an immediate interrupt.


Pushing a mob with a few hasted players a reasonable distance should have an chance for interrupt.

Unfortunately for everyone on the server a situation of "People didn't regularly do this in era even though it was possible" has become synonymous with "We don't want people doing this because it's our opinion regardless of whether it's classic or not" to the devs. They will change anything they want without any conversation or evidence at all but if the player base thinks something isn't classic and want's it changed you better have in era proof, blood samples, and a couple sworn affidavits from former eq devs. Then maybe they'll think about it.

Yea I think it was said somewhere, at some point, by Rog/Bog that they are recreating the "Classic experience" and not necessarily the game exactly as it was on classic. Even if that means removing or hampering features or mechanics or tactics that existed in classic, but weren't widely known or used.

You have to expect, though, that with 20 years of knowledge under our belts, we aren't going to play this game exactly as it was played in the year 1999. . . expecting that we will, or changing the game mechanics to force that, seems pretty silly, imo. But, hey, it's not my experiment.