Remove Boulder Drilling [984]

Boulders are actually amazing as catapult ammo though. If fired at a solid stone wall, they can penetrate four layers, where a normal stone volley would be lucky to break one.

This means that boulders are more than 4x as effective as the 10 stone volleys, actually making it more reliable/cost effective.

On hollow structures, with less than 4 thick outer walls? Boulders devastate. Seriously, go into sandbox and pop one into a cata.

Boulders also have the advantage of not losing any of their power at range, like normal volleys do.

None of your solutions are ideal, @Duplolas. The best i can think of is "give boulders less thrown momentum, require them to be dropped from a high place or shot to deal damage"

 

Edited list of choices @Trumbles

 

Make sure you include the option of; Leave Boulders the way they are, make no changes whatsoever.

Otherwise this is just going to be a one sided thing in favor of the nerfers.

 

There we go @Darksteel

@Galen

I think this should be fine. I know I didn't make this thread, but I think it is safe to say adding a poll with the question and answers that are listed above should be fine.

 

Ask me properly and I might do it.

 

Tbh, when I employ this strategy, it is rare for complaints to arise in-game...

I wonder why that is?

 

People likely either don't notice or understand. Most people don't talk ingame period.

 

It costs less than any other destruction method, it does many times more damage (at least to doors), is relatively uncounterable building-wise, unless you make your buildings less effective for your own team, and it takes away from it's considerably effective use as catapult ammunition.

It's honestly just a cheap trick that results in games that end almost instantly. It's not fun. It's not "skillful". It's cheap, easy, and contributes to plenty a ragequit.

Fact of the matter is, there isn't enough risk for the reward it has the potential to generate. If someone stops you while boulder drilling, 99% of the time the boulder will be broken too. There's no risk of it being used against you, unlike catapults, kegs, ballistae, drills, etc.

And if it gets broken, oh well. Go back to base. Make 2 more, you've still only spent as much as a single drill.

Boulders should be geared to be used as ammunition/defensive weapons. When thrown by a player, they should be plopped straight down, and given no forward momentum whatsoever. You could still use them defensively by actually pushing them off of a tower, like how boulders should work.

The above solution would still make boulder kills/drills possible, but extremely situational. You would be able to build structures that are resistant to it without putting your team through a giant maze.

 

What do you even mean by that question..? I don't see how boulders and bombs are at all alike.

This still doesn't solve the problem of them being literally 5x more effective than drills, in situations where drills should shine.

Anyways, a little side testing.. A normal catapult volley on a thick stone wall will only break 1 block, and damage 3 others at close range.

A boulder from any range, is capable of breaking up to 9 stone blocks in a single shot from a catapult. It took me 3 boulders to take down a 9 thick wall of stone.

This is literally 9x more effective than a cata volley, and for building destruction purposes, much more cost effective than regular stone volleys. Boulders are incredibly viable ammunition.

With this kind of power, i don't see why "boulder drilling" needs to be a thing.

 

@Galen

Sorry, forgot my manners. Could you please add the poll and make any changes you see fit?

 

Alright, added the poll.

 

Yep...Do nothing to boulders at all.

 

I would be more willing to spend stone on boulders for catapult ammo if the catapult was less buggy. Half the time it releases early for seemingly no reason. Archer's bows are the same way.

 

If you'd hold down your LMB then they wouldn't release (well the bow); catapults shoot automatically if the max charge is reached.

 

@datooie Do you just.. have a broken mouse or something? I don't really have those problems.

But anyway, you'd actually be saving stone by shooting boulders, as a single one can do more damage than the 80(?) stone that a cata comes with. (I wish you could unload stone out of catapults, though.)

 

if you're cata is shooting early and there's no problem with your mouse, you're probably just lagging. Was a huge problem in alpha, wouldn't be surprised if it was still present in beta as well.

been way too busy irl to add to the discussion, so thank you trumbles for defending the anti boulder drill standpoint.

I still maintain that boulder drilling is horribly unfair, and I really don't understand where the people who think it's ok are coming from.

Spoiler: More anti boulder drilling ranting

I mean, it's one thing if you dig up some stone and build a boulder after every death, rush into battle with it and have it destroyed in the fray of slashes as both your teams' knights clash in the middle of the map, so that the OP-ness is at least somewhat deserved when you finally manage to make it to your opponent's front door. but this situation isn't the only one that's liable to occur:

if their knights mess up just one time, or your wave just happens to actually rush together once, and you end up wiping their team just a single time, then they automatically lose their entire base. How is that fair? Just because we beat you one time, we get to take a boulder and instantly get past all of your defenses? No. That's not legitimate, that's bullshit. They probably team wiped you and got to your front door a couple of times before that, but didn't abuse boulder drilling to get in.

If you're locked in a stalemate, there are better, and more fair alternatives to boulder drilling. Advance your tower, build some late game tech shops, use the games intended end game stalemate breaking weapons, not some cheap trick.

And of course, you're forgetting the option of bombjumping with the boulder or having an archer grapple with it, ending up at your enemies base in a matter of seconds, and destroying all of their doors before they even have the chance to react. That is not a fair fight, it doesn't take skill, it's nothing but a broken mechanic that needs to be fixed.

Honestly, I'm having trouble understanding why anyone would think that boulder drilling is not over powered. Please, explain it to me, without using invalid arguments such as "boulders would be useless otherwise" (having a mechanic be useless is no reason to make it op), or "how is that different from bombs?" (bombs don't insta destroy doors, in fact, they do practically no damage to them what so ever).

 

Weird, I thought everyone experienced this. I understand how they're supposed to work, but I get a bug all the time where arrows/catapults release early while I'm still holding LMB. It's super annoying with bomb arrows. I think it might be lag, or maybe it's because I use the Mac version?