On the other hand, it would practically protect players from being pushed by small creatures like goblins (as long as the character invests in athletics / acrobatics), which is perhaps the biggest complaint about shove.
Of course, it also has some drawbacks (or advantages depending on how you look).
The complaint is not that it is by goblin.
The complaint is that it happen too often.
It would be the same / even worse if goblins in the goblins camp were humans.
If you are often thrown from a height, it means that the player is not positioning correctly. Otherwise, it has practically no effect.
I remember there were complaints about martial classes not being able to use attacks of opportunity meaningfully due to shove. However, in the case of standard enemies in EA, they have a very low chance of pushing a properly built warrior away.
Virtually the only classes that suffer from shove are magic classes that should be physically weak.
